Ack!

After spending an hour battling the wet, heavy snow and sheet of ice that was the driveway and street yesterday, using up 25# of the 50# bag of salt I had on hand to keep my car on the driveway and help our 7-months-pregnant renter get into her house safely, I fired up the washer (sorry, no pictures of dirty, wet, or clean and dry laundry) and got to work making Chicken Zoodle Soup for lunches this week and next.  It's called "zoodle" soup because you use a spiralizer to make zucchini "noodles" to put in instead of adding regular noodles. (you could totally just cut julienne strips but the zoodles are cooler, IMHO)  I don't have to have noodles in my soup, I usually don't, and I usually add zucchini to my soup anyway so this meant I got to stop at Cook's Corner to buy an Oxo spiralizer.  Durwood was surprised because he's always been the gadget guy; I guess I've been infected by long association.  I used homemade chicken broth so it really smelled great and after it had cooled a bit, I divied it up into the bowls I use for soup lunches and tucked them into the fridge.

This morning I was in a bit of a hurry to get going because I needed to make a stop before work and really didn't pay too much attention to the containers when I tucked them into my knitting basket for the ride across town.  Imagine my surprise when I got here, took them out, and discovered that one of the lids wasn't quite on tight so most of the broth had leaked out--all over my knitting.  Now I keep my knitting in zipper plastic bags to deter moths and for ease of keeping a project's parts together, but I hadn't closed the hat bag so the beautiful white wool got busy soaking up the broth.  All of the other bags in the basket, the pair of fingerless mitts I keep in there, and the bottom of the basket got their fair share of the chicken-y goodness.  It smells great but... ack.

January 11--Marie Egner, Poppies in Blossom.  Jane watched the poppies nod to one another as the late spring wind set them swaying.  She loved the poppies with their jagged leaves and cup of soft petals around a powdery center.  She remembered picking the seed pods as a little girl in her grandmother's garden, then shaking the tiny black seeds into her hand.

I made myself a little late for work today but I called the only place in town I guessed might still have some ice melt salt, they had it, so I went this morning for 3-40# bags.  Hopefully that'll be enough for the rest of the winter.  Everything is so slick people are actually driving sensibly.  Imagine that.
--Barbara