Snowzilla: Day 1

Today was my usual work-from-home day in the afternoon and evening. I spent the morning at the mall and then got home at lunchtime, just as the flakes started to fall.

It was 23 degrees when Fred and I took the dog out on my break:



It wasn't a very long walk, as the snow was really coming down hard:



As we were headed back to the house, we ran into Susan and Buster:



Before we knew it, there was a little impromptu dog party going on:



Before the sun even went down, the snow was starting to get thick:

Snowzilla Eve

I got into work with no trouble this morning. I sure felt sorry for the people stuck on the Beltway:



My friend Dave managed to score the last snow shovel at Rite Aid on his way into work:



Soup is another very important snow food:

Storm's a'comin'

We are a couple days out from what promises to be a truly epic snowstorm. We stopped by Wegmans on our way home from work to pick up necessities. I never knew cheese was such a necessity:



When we left the store, we walked out into a somewhat unexpected micro-storm:





Although this burst was very small, it well and truly gummed up the roads in the area:



There were plenty of people who wound up having commutes of up to 5 hours. We got home in the nick of time!

Read in 2015

Here are the books I managed to read this past year:



It came out to over 2 a month, but there were months where I read nothing and others where I really got into the groove. I'm hoping to have a lot more of the latter type of months in 2016!

Made in 2015

It's fun to look back at the end of the year and see what I accomplished.

My sister's Grumpy Cat hat:



Annabelle's Wonder Woman sweater:



Sarah's Christmas stocking:



A pair of FSU socks:



One of my most off-the-wall projects was a viking helmet with detachable beard for my friend Joanne's husband (the pic on the right is me showing it off at work before taking it to the post office):

Brunch and goodbye

This holiday weekend went by way too fast. We finished off this morning with brunch at Pinstripes in Georgetown, wandered around a little, and then put Mike and Sarah on their plane back to San Antonio.

Photo shoot

Well, for as warm as it has been lately, it sure was cold today when we met Marisa of White Sparks Photography for a photo shoot at the Air Force Memorial! I've been wanting to get a professional portrait of Mike in his uniform and some shots of Mike and Sarah together to go with my pic of Annabelle and Harvey. Here are a couple of my amateur shots, just clowning around:





See why I need a pro?

Here are the portraits of Mike in his uniform that inspired me to book this session in the first place. I'm getting the top on in an 8X10 and the bottom one in a big square to hang next to the Annabelle/Harveys pic:





Then there's this really nice shot of Mike and Sarah:



And some goofy ones too, but I'm ordering them because I think their personalities shine through:









I'm also going to order a couple more pictures from Annabelle's photo shoot last year. Here's one for the grandparents:



And Annabelle wants this one to give to Sam:



And I need this one because it's the most perfect picture ever taken of any cat:

Merry Christmas!

It's another shockingly warm day, but that's okay because it means Fred can wear his Hawaiian Christmas shirt without freezing:





Annabelle and I bought an elf suit at Target for Mike to wear, and he really took to it. He declared it the most comfortable thing ever and warned Sarah that he's likely to wear it throughout the year:









Even Ginger dressed up festively:

Christmas Eve 2015

I'm pretty sure it's Christmas Eve. Hard to know for sure though, because it is freakishly warm. I'm no fan of cold weather, but this is downright bizarre. This is how it was when we walked the dog this afternoon:



The stockings have been set out--if not hung by the chimney--with care:

Harvey and the tree

Harvey likes to hang out underneath the Christmas tree:

Make Christmas great again?

Annabelle and I made a limited edition, hilarious holiday card:

Crazy weather

It has been freakishly warm this month. This was a couple days ago:



And this was today:

Ginger says, "I was here first!"

The better to see you with, my pretties!

Guess who got new glasses today?

Morning commute:



Evening commute:

Another no-longer-invisible friend

I've written often here over the years about meeting my Internet message board friends. I finally got to meet another one! My friend Christine and her son Kevin were in town for a med school interview and stayed overnight with us. We went out to dinner:



Then Christine and I stayed up late chatting and goofing off. Here we are admiring my Instant Pot, which makes crazy-good yogurt:

Infinite Harveys

My friend Marisa is a fabulously talented artist. Last winter she took some really cool pictures of Annabelle and Harvey, worked her Photoshop magic, and came up with something really special. She just had it displayed in a show in DC, and Fred and I went into the city for the opening. Here she is with the piece:



Marisa wrote about creating this piece on her blog. You should go check it out, because she has a couple other beautiful pics of Harvey and Annabelle there.

I can't wait until I have this one hanging in my house!

Laughed, thought I'd die

Mike posted a picture from his 9th-grade cross-country team on Tumblr and invited the Internet to have fun with it. I'm getting this one printed up to keep at my desk at work:

Summer (and fall) of Stinky

I set Mr. Stinky outside on my porch at the beginning of the summer in hopes of getting him to bloom. He has tried before, but none of his blossoms have ever gotten big enough to open. We didn't get any blooms this year either, but he more than doubled in size and looks so much healthier!

Before:



After:



Next summer, Mr. Stinky!