BRRR....

(This will be my second attempt at this post as I lost power again when writing it the first time!)

Did you hear about our weather? I hear it made the national news. Not that I saw ANY news, national or local, on it.

Thursday night we had a pretty major wind storm come through the area. It raged all night long knocking over fences, trees, power lines, trampolines, and anything that wasn't nailed down. It was fierce and powerful. We had a tree come down a few blocks from our house knocking out our power about 5:30 Thursday evening. I had my first Enrichment class that night, so you can imagine how disappointing it was for me to come home to darkness. (We did the class anyway, just by candlelight and with only the bravest few.) We hoped power would be back up by morning, but that was not to be. We woke up to learn most of our area was in a blackout. More than a million people were without power. And it was COLD. Inside my house was about 55 degrees when we woke up, but it was easily 20 degrees colder outside.

My neighbor and I took our kids up to the mall where there was power, but nothing on our way up to the mall did. It was like that was the lone grid with power in a sea of darkness. Then my neighbor talked to her husband who is a lineman for Qwest. They were told not to expect power back to our area for 3-6 days! And then came the weather forecast that predicted snow!

But we were one of the lucky ones. My neighbor was able to tell the power company exactly where the tree hit that knocked out our particular area, and when we were coming home we saw two power trucks pull over right at that spot! About 2 hours later, my lights (and heat!) came on!! I can't tell you how excited we were. My kids were dancing around and cheering the lights, and I was saying a heartfelt prayer of thanks.

My power did flicker a couple of times, and even went off completely for about 5 seconds at one point (when I was attempting this blog the first time). But we've been fine ever since. And we are lucky. At church yesterday we learned that there are still many people in our ward without power, and the majority of the ward got their power back Sunday morning. So it has been a cold, long weekend for many. I am grateful we got our heat back so quickly. 24 hours without power was an adventure. Much more than that would have been pretty miserable.

But it's still COLD!

Easy as can be!

Thank you Jenn for giving me your incredibly easy and oh so yummy popcorn recipe!

I know it's not nearly as cute as yours, but for a first try I thought it turned out really well! I probably should have drizzled more chocolate, but I loved how it turned out! So thank you so much! I'm sure this will quickly become a favorite at my house!

Real beats fake any day!

After a decade with our fake tree, we decided it was just too sad to pull out yet again, so Friday night the family took a little outing to go pick out a live Christmas tree! There was a lot about 2 miles from the house, so we didn't even have to go far. Just walking onto the lot made me smile. I LOVE that smell! We spent about 20 minutes debating over size and shape and finally found one everybody was happy with. But when we got it home, we realized it was a little too big to fit exactly where we wanted it! It is quite a bit bigger than our little fake tree. Add to that the fact that my kids broke most of our ornaments last year, and our nice tree is looking a little sad. We are definitely in need of more ornaments. (Mom, is there any chance I'll ever get MY ornaments from when I was a kid? I'd love to have them if you're ever willing to part with them!) But you can't beat the smell. Every time I walk into my front room I smell it all over again. The smell does permeate all over the house, but obviously it's strongest in the room the tree is in. And it's wonderful. All the pine candles in the world can't duplicate this smell. I would much rather have a real tree with very few ornaments over a fake tree all decked out. The wonderful aroma makes it totally worth it! It is definitely my fizzy joy of the day!

Lazy?

I've noticed only Jenn has posted a blog since we got home from the cruise, and she's only posted one. What is up with us?? Are we just lazy about blogging? I know we're not lazy in our every day lives. I know we're all busy and getting back to real life has been difficult, at least for me, but we're better than this, aren't we? I want to know what's going on in your lives! Where are my sisters at? Where are Mom's deep thoughts? Where are the blogs???

I made divinity and Valerie's caramels last week. The divinity turned out perfectly and I did a much better job on the caramels this time, though this time they ended up a little bit hard instead of too soft. I'll be making both again next week along with all my other Christmas candy. The problem is I want to make it, but I don't want to eat it all! The calories are killing me, especially after the cruise. I wish you were all here to eat it for me!

Fizzy joys: divinity and caramel, having a kitchen-aid mixer, a brand new box of tissues, unexpected telephone calls from old friends, finding the perfect gift.