Knock Knock…

Posted on January 14, 2014 by The Sugarlump

During the ice age we experienced recently, there was a woodpecker that kept trying to peck through the exterior wall of my office. I don’t really blame him except for the fact that he made it very hard for me and Gus and Scarlett to concentrate. Me on my work and Gus and Scarlett on their naps.

Barney Fife and Andy Griffith had narrowed in on this situation, springing into action from their deep slumber on the sofa in a matter of seconds.

Scarlett tried to stare a hole through the wall. Gus got distracted by a woman walking her dog.

Scarlett assumed the position as the suspect’s knocking intensified.

Scarlett decided she needed a better angle.

Although this looks like a tender moment, Gus was not pleased that Scarlett infringed on his personal space.

Gus shared his feelings and Scarlett quickly made him regret it.

“Are you calling me fat???!!”

Tensions subsided as the two were quickly reminded of the task at hand. Mr. Pecker had resumed his knocking.

All in a day’s work.

Y’all come back,

Sugarlump

Apocalypse Averted

Posted on January 11, 2014 by The Sugarlump

I went outside the other day. It was terrible. I don’t think I’ll do it again for a while. Not that I’m having much better luck indoors. A delightful side effect of these frigid temperatures: reduced amperage to my cable box. Or something like that. Translation: my connection freezes every 45 seconds, making it extremely irritating to try to watch TV as I only get about 1/17th of every story on the news.

So I had nothing left to do except hunker down and make food like the end of the world was imminent. I made LOTS of tomato soup, which Eugene and I feasted on for several meals, and homemade meat sauce. I froze most of it so now I have a very full freezer and I’m tomatoed out.

Tomato soup with grilled cheese…

Tomato soup with garlic bread…

Naturally, I also had to make something sweet. I decided to make those peanut butter chocolate kiss cookies. My recipe made 20 cookies but I only had 17 kisses (don’t ask me how that happened) so I had to improvise a little. I adorned the 3 kiss-less cookies with a row of chocolate chips. Eugene said she actually preferred this set-up because the chocolate was more manageable and evenly distributed. I can see her point, but the cookies are totally not as cute without the kisses.

Scarlett thought these drastic times called for drastic measures and the relaxation of house rules like the one about her not being allowed on my coats or the table and especially not both at the same time.

She was wrong. Busted.

Gus is having a hard time coping.

Things were getting really rough. It was so cold that the water draining from Eugene’s car was frozen mid-air.

In fact, conditions were so bad that Eugene casually mentioned something about how she thinks ironing is “kind of therapeutic.” I think she kind of slipped on some ice and hit her head.

Thankfully, when the sun comes up tomorrow it will be over 50 degrees. Back to some sense of normalcy…or as close to normal as things get around here.

Y’all hurry back,

Sugarlump

No Mo’ Nemo

Posted on February 10, 2013 by The Sugarlump

Cabin fever has set in. We have watched far more of the weather news that I would recommend, cooked and baked (and consequently overindulged), played multiple games of scrabble, blogged, edited pictures, watched several basketball games and a movie in the past 24 hours. The travel ban is lifting in 4 minutes as I write this and I couldn’t be more excited about dining out this evening.

Since I was confined to the house, I thought I might as well track the progress of the storm. Here is my coverage of the storm (on a 24-48 hour delay):

Backyard around noon Friday.

Front yard around noon Friday.

Backyard about 2 hours later.

Front yard about 2 hours later.

The deck around 2PM Friday. Keep this image of the overturned table handy.

A backyard-deck combo around 2PM Friday. I was getting a little carried away. There was nothing else to do.

Front yard around 4PM Friday, just as the travel ban took effect. I don’t remember ever being under a travel ban before. It makes you really want to travel.

Backyard around 4PM Friday. The snow was beginning to bury things.

The kitchen island around 4PM Friday. Time for some wine and cheese.

I also made some German chocolate bourbon pecan pie bars. I’ll post about those later.

Back to the snow coverage (day 2):

Approximately 9AM Saturday morning. We had officially been snowed in. Travel ban still in effect as snow removal teams tried to clear roadways.

Front yard Saturday morning. There is an Adirondack chair under all of that snow somewhere. Anyone feel like a cup of coffee on the front patio?

Winter wonderland.

The deck was almost completely filled in.

The front walk/tunnel midday on Saturday as the snow tapered off.

No amount of snow will keep my family from grilling. The first thing my dad did outside was shovel a path on the deck in case we needed some steaks for dinner. Those are the table legs sticking out of the snow.

As I mentioned, the travel ban was lifted at 4PM on Saturday, so we ended up going out to dinner. The highways had been salted and were almost completely clear of snow. Some of the back roads and smaller roads in the city were still quite snowy, but that didn’t stop us. Here we are exiting the restaurant. The snow was up to the top of the parking meters. Karma for the cranky meter maids if you ask me.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

I found Nemo

Posted on February 8, 2013 by The Sugarlump

I made a somewhat last-minute decision to fly back to Boston for a long weekend. It figures that I picked the weekend an “epic” blizzard is due to hit New England. I think it’s karma for me calling Nashville silly for canceling school due to the threat of 3 snowflakes.

I’ll have you know that I left unseasonably nice weather in Nashville. I felt kind of ridiculous heading to the airport yesterday in my fur vest given that it was about 65 degrees.

I was supposed to fly out from Nashville this morning, but, given the rumblings of the impending storm, on Wednesday we scrambled to change my flight and I ended up flying into Providence last evening. Good thing, considering almost 4000 flights have been canceled because of this storm, including the one I was originally booked on, which would have been arriving about now in Boston. That would have been a dicey landing.

Thankfully, I was able to reschedule my plans for tomorrow to this morning. I headed out at 8:45 before the snow began and found it very challenging to obey the 55 mph speed limit coming from 70 mph speed limits in Nashville. All I’m going to say is that I kept it under 75 and I made it back in one piece.

Now I can enjoy a lazy couple of days by the fire. I don’t have a fireplace at my place in Nashville so I feel like I’m at a ski resort at the moment. Maybe I can talk my mom into making me some hot chocolate…this will be a good test of how diligent she is about reading my blog…

Although I love the weather in Nashville (minus the tornadoes at night), I hadn’t realized how much I missed a good snow. It’s really beautiful.

Hopefully there won’t be any major issues with this storm. Not only was school canceled, but many offices and businesses as well. Travel ban in effect as of 4PM. This is serious. Think positive thoughts.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

Cause for Alarm

Posted on February 1, 2013 by The Sugarlump

This week has been full of surprises. Tuesday evening, I went to ladies’ night at a shooting range and got second place in our bullseye competition. Everybody watch out.

Early the next morning, at approximately 3:00AM, I awoke to tornado sirens. This was the first time I had heard them in person since moving to Tennessee so it took me a minute to figure out what was going on. My weather channel alerts on my phone confirmed that we were under a tornado warning and needed to take cover immediately. I grabbed my phone, the cats, two cushions from the sofa, and my laptop and closed us in the bathroom as I set up a little fort with my cushions in the bathtub. I then decided I needed a flashlight and a bottle of water. Maybe I should have thought through my tornado plan a little bit more. In my defense, it was JANUARY(!) and tornado season doesn’t usually start until spring.

Anyway, as we waited out the very strong winds and tracked the radar on my laptop, the cats could not have been more confused/annoyed. They kept looking at me like I was crazy and tried to dig a hole under the door to get out of the bathroom. Apparently tornado safety does not apply to them.

Thankfully, other than some seriously violent winds, we were alright. There were, however, a few tornadoes within 50 miles of us that damaged several buildings and pulled roofs off of homes.

Less than 48 hours later, the temperature had dropped nearly sixty degrees from the low seventies into the teens and it was snowing.

It’s a beautiful, sunny day here as long as you’re indoors. It’s a whopping 17 degrees at the moment and with the wind chill, it feels like single digits.

There is still snow on most roofs and school was canceled, which I thought this was pretty silly, given that we got about 2 inches of snow. New Englanders wouldn’t bat an eye at that kind of snowfall. But then I discovered that there was still some dangerous ice lurking around as I tried to speed out of the gate at my apartment complex earlier this morning. I spun in place for about 10 seconds until my Jeep finally slid forward, narrowly avoiding the gates as they began to close.

Like the weather, my garbage disposal has been acting backwards this week. The other day, as I ran the water and turned on the disposal, instead of the water easing the food down the drain as the disposal ground it up, all of the food and water spun violently up and out of the drain and onto me and the counter. The maintenance man just found a metal spear approximately the size of a chopstick jammed in the pipes, courtesy of the previous tenant.

It’s been a strange couple of days.

In other (likely related) news, I’m back to drinking coffee, but just a small cup. Hopefully, things will now return to normal.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

What Next?

Posted on January 15, 2013 by The Sugarlump

This weekend, it was over 70 degrees on Saturday and part of Sunday. A cold front moved in and by Sunday afternoon we were under a tornado warning as it stormed violently. Yesterday, it was sort of snowing/sleeting with a winter weather advisory in effect. Today, we are under an ice storm warning. It wouldn’t surprise me if tomorrow brought a heat advisory or pollen alert. Hang tight.

It started to get icy in the afternoon. Schools closed early. I had the day off and have spent most of it under several blankets on the sofa, catching up on months’ worth of the food network. It was the laziest I’ve been in a while and it was great.

The cats are so confused that they have been snuggling with each other in the same cat bed even though there is one for each of them, SIDE BY SIDE. I’m not sure Gus is as pleased with situation as Scarlett is.

Oops, she heard me. Not pleased with my commentary.

I think I’ll go out for a Mexican dinner to spice things up a little bit. I lived in the Northeast nearly my whole life, so I’m not afraid of venturing out in the wintery weather. (I apologize to my grandmothers if you’re reading this. I promise I’ll be careful.)

Stay tuned for the next spell of bizarre weather. Get your bikinis ready.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

Summer in January

Posted on January 12, 2013 by The Sugarlump

The weather has been quite strange here in Nashville the past few days. We’ve had a lot of rain and temperatures hovering around 70 degrees. I’ve had my porch door open all today and yesterday. Just the week prior, I put a second duvet on my bed because it was so cold. Last night, I couldn’t even look at the duvet without breaking a sweat. I have no idea what is going on.

It rained off and on yesterday, leaving behind some interesting clouds as the sun set. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought it was July.

I think this is one of my favorite sunset pictures I have taken so far.

Every 5 minutes, the sky looked completely different.

This is the most color I’ve seen in the sunset in months. I also work in a windowless office and it is pitch black by the time I leave work at 6:00 so it could very well be that I’ve missed a lot of beautiful sunsets this winter.

I couldn’t get enough of this sunset. I hadn’t realized that I’d been in such sunset withdrawl.

Check out those hot pink clouds! They look like cotton candy in the sky, which reminds me of the fair, which reminds me of summer. I can’t wait for summer.

Y’all hurry back,

Sugarlump

Visiting Jack

Posted on January 4, 2013 by The Sugarlump

Cousin Lauren came down to visit me here in Nashville the other day. After some lunch and a trip to Comcast to switch out my cable box (I’m so much fun to visit), we headed to Lynchburg, Tennessee for a tour of Jack Daniel’s Distillery.

As we neared the distillery in the car, cousin Lauren remarked how another distillery she had driven by had these creepy old buildings. Moments after we stepped out of the car, we determined this place was creepy, too. Must be a distillery thing. And the fact that it was miserably cold, damp, and foggy. Other than that, it was a perfect day for a distillery tour.

I’m such a great host.

This was pretty nifty. There is a natural source of water under this here hunk of rock that is used in the production of Jack Daniel’s products. Apparently it’s some pretty pure stuff and makes Jack Daniel’s whiskey taste real good. How do people figure these things out is what I want to know.

This is not a black and white photo in case you were wondering.

After we went through the buildings where the whiskey is produced, we found ourselves by some very black trees. The trees turn black from a mold that grows on them as a byproduct of the distillery. Our tour guide assured us that the mold is not harmful to the trees or to people and is in fact a sign that the production of whiskey is going well. Looks can be deceiving!

In the next building, where the whiskey drips through 10 feet of hard sugar maple charcoal to be purified, our tour guide lifted the lids of the large containers so we could smell the whiskey. We got a huge whiff of the whiskey, which made me think of bourbon balls as the smell lingered in my nostrils.

Pleasant thought, no?

This prompted me to ask cousin Lauren about some candy my mom had brought down with her from her friend. I was under the impression that all chocolate specimens in the tin were bourbon balls. Here was our clarifying conversation:

Me: “Those bourbon balls didn’t really taste like bourbon at all. They actually tasted almost like coconut.”

Cousin Lauren, “Did the ones you ate have pecans on top of them?”

Me: “No.”

Cousin Lauren: “Then you were eating coconut balls. The ones with pecans on top are bourbon balls. The ones without pecans are coconut balls.”

Me: “Oh……No wonder they tasted like coconut. At least I have a good sense of taste and could identify the coconut.”

Cousin Lauren: “…and the lack of bourbon.”

I’m glad we got that cleared up. It was really troubling me.

Towards the end of the tour, I asked our tour guide where she was from because she clearly did not have a southern accent and had been asking people in the group where we were from. Coincidentally, she was from Massachusetts, where I lived for 13 years and moved here from in April. I asked her where in Massachusetts she was from and she told me Salem, a town famous for the witch trials that occurred centuries ago. These creepy trees would fit right in there.

All I have to say is, this world is tiny.

And I like bourbon balls.

And try to arrive at the distillery before 2:30PM if you would like a tasting tour.

We arrived at 2:40PM.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

Seasonal Sunsets

Posted on November 11, 2012 by The Sugarlump

It finally feels like fall here in Nashville. This weekend was beautiful and sunny. I haven’t had the air conditioning on in weeks and it hasn’t been cold enough to turn on the heat just yet either. The only difficult … Continue reading →