Winterthing

All the weather stations are saying that we're about to get dumped on. Downwood doesn't know if he'll be physically able to get to work tomorrow and I don't know if I'm going to be mentally willing to do anything other than hibernate for a month or so. My lightbox is seriously helping with this year's SAD, as is shaping up my diet and regularly going to the gym. I'm in a better mental place than I could be, which is good considering that I have Too Much To Do on my Hogswatch gifts.

Maybe I'm being overly ambitious. This is not an unlikely possibility. I have a couple of sewing projects to work on, as well as a glue/paint/paper project that I've only barely started. I'm at 22% completion on my annual cookie binge and I think I can get another batch completely done and two doughs in the "chill overnight" stage tonight. I'm not as far behind as I could be, but the overachiever voice in my brain says that I should be panicking more.

Feh.

My new car continues to be made of win. I drove out to Des Moines on Friday to visit my sister and to go to the Nada Silent Night show. It was truly rocking, we had seats dead center in the second row, and did our part to jack up the prices in the silent auction. It was a sold out show with the entrance price being a ticket and a toy for Toys for Tots. All the proceeds from the auction went to Habitat for Humanity, too. We had an absolute blast!

Also, I brought home a bottle of Templeton Rye. You should all be jealous. Smoothest whiskey ever. If you go to the Media tab, you can listen to the song that the Nadas wrote about this amazing, wonderful beverage and its history.

Okay. Enough procrastinating. I'm going to finish my tea and find something to keep me busy until I can leave to go to the gym. Goal for tonight - week 3 day 1 of the Couch to 5k program. I don't know whether my legs will want to fall off or my lungs try to stage a break for it. Either way, I'm pretty sure I can handle it.

Do you SEE what it's doing outside?!

I made it to the gym tonight and made it all the way through the run without wheezing or wanting to keel over! Woot! My legs, however, are complaining that not only are they not totally on board with this "fitness" thing, but also they would like to lodge a complaint against cold weather in general. Unfortunately for me, their idea of complaining is to cramp as soon as I step outside. Ungrateful bastards.

I should try to dismantle a pomegranate for tomorrow, but I'm low on cooking energy. I reheated Leftover Soup and then started on cookies. One batch of biscotti done, two other doughs put together to chill in the fridge overnight. Downwood initially requested that I not bake the biscotti dough, as that would take too long before he could eat it.

He also expressed his concern about the sounds and burning odors coming from my beleaguered hand mixer. Admittedly, I was probably asking for a little much from that machine, but my Kitchenaid parts were all getting washed at the time. Also, the bowl for the Kitchenaid is not microwave-safe, which would have put a major cramp in my style. I think the rest of the cookies can be made in the big mixer, but since I have three more brand new recipes, I don't know for sure.

Now to put the biscotti in some sort of container, make some tea, and beg a shoulder rub from Downwood. I might have to trade a biscotti for it, but it'd be worth it. I should also go switch the second load of laundry from the washer to dryer. And drink some tea. Yus.