Cabin Fever.

I know it has been a couple of weeks since our crazy winter storm but I still feel the need to acknowledge it in the blog. The snow started on Saturday the 14th. It was just barely snowing throughout the day and didn't start sticking until later in the evening. Over the course of the week we received somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 inches of snow.

Monday I spent home alone. Steven had to go to work and it was a holiday so I didn't have school. I had planned to visit with Lena and spend the rest of the day with my mom and sister but, I decided it would be best if I didn't go out driving in the snow. I can't even really remember what I did but I know it was productive. It definitely involved laundry and cleaning and things like that. My school ended up being closed for the rest of the week so this was just the beginning of my many snow days at home.

On Tuesday morning I decided I wanted the house to be really warm and yummy smelling when Steven got home so I went to my computer and started looking up recipes. I decided on a recipe for sweet brown bread. For some reason I have a lot of molasses that needs to get used up and I've always wanted to know how to make brown bread like they serve at Tillicum Village. This recipe didn't look quite right but the reviews were good so I decided to try it. Um. Fail. Haha! It was a really funny fail but still... I don't often have issues like this in the kitchen so this was a bit of a surprise. It was supposed to be a loaf and I knew when I poured the dough into the pan that it didn't look like nearly enough to fill it. Then it didn't really rise and was just this flat, dense lump. However, it did accomplish my goal of making the house smell absolutely delicious! I believe we decided to have eggs for breakfast that morning. Or maybe I had chips and salsa... We spent the rest of the day snuggled up on the couch. Steven hadn't been feeling that well and we took advantage of the opportunity to just lay around and watch movies. We made chicken noodle soup for lunch and tried a new recipe for tomato tortellini soup for dinner. I even got to drive all the way to the grocery store that afternoon!

On Wednesday morning the power went out just as Steven and I were sitting down to breakfast. I got all antsy thinking about sitting in the freezing cold house alone all day long but, fortunately, I heard the heat kick back on only an hour later. Steven was at work and I was determined to have a successful baking experience. I spent a lot of the day on my computer taking care of things, sending e-mails, working on resumes and cover letters etc. but later in the day made my way in to the kitchen for a little baking adventure. Inspired by Jeremy and the impressive loaf of Challah he brought when we all met up at Chad and Whit's over the New Year weekend I decided I'd try it out myself.

Success!!! It was really quite good and mostly just super fun to make. I love the smell of yeast as the dough rises. It was fun figuring out how to braid the dough and then it just looked so incredible when it came out of the oven I couldn't help but be a little impressed with myself.

I also decided, for some crazy reason, that maybe this would be a good time for scrapbooking. I've been collecting things "for my scrapbook" for years and I took every single thing out on Wednesday night with the intention of starting to work on our honeymoon scrapbook. Yeah... nothing really happened with that. By the time I was done baking and had driven over to the station to share the bread with Steven and cleaned up the kitchen -- I was way too tired for scrapbooking! So this all sat out until just last night when I came home from work and did my best to clear it all up. It was making me crazy.

On Thursday, everyone woke up to a frozen world. It had been raining all night and everything was covered in a thick layer of ice. Those trees in the picture normally stand up quite straight and tall. The ice was absolutely disastrous. Even now, almost two weeks later, you can still see the damage everywhere you go. Huge branches have split and fallen off of trees bringing down power lines with them. Entire trees have been uprooted. There are broken branches hanging off of trees all over the place and large holes in the ground  where a tree tipped over and piles of "fire wood" line the roads where people have had to cut apart trees that lay strewn about their yards and across the roads.

I chose to take pictures of the pretty ice instead of all of the sad looking splintered branches.

Thursday morning Steven called to say that he would be late getting home from work as he was a couple of blocks away in a department truck "babysitting" a downed line. I planned to drive over there to take him a mug of tea and some breakfast but it took me almost 20 minutes to thaw out my car and by then, he was on his way back to the station. The ice on my car was so thick I didn't think I'd be able to pull the handle open to get inside. Steven said when he was warming up his car that day he had to enter from the passengers side and then roll the windows down so that he could just push the ice out with his hands. He came home not too much later than normal and we snuggled up on the couch to watch Cars 2. Twelve minutes into the movie, at about 11:45am, the power went out, then flickered back on for a second and went out again. We were so bummed! We had been looking forward to watching that movie all week! So we played board games until we were just too cold to be up and then bundled ourselves on the couch and laid there playing Sudoku on the nook and reading. We ate yogurt, cottage cheese, and crackers for lunch and then Steven asked what our options were for dinner. My response: yogurt, chips and salsa, or cheese and crackers. He was a little bummed. I don't think he had fully realized until then what it meant to not have electricity.

By Thursday afternoon I had singing muppet pirates banging around in my head:

I got cabin fever it's burning in my brain,

I got cabin fever it's driving me insane!

Things were getting a little out of control. We were bored bored bored and the house was getting colder by the minute. Steven and I have different thoughts on what exactly is the best way to keep warm during times such as these. His ideas tend to involve far less clothing than mine do... seems counter intuitive don't you think?

I finished reading Life of Pi and started reading Snow Falling on Cedars but at 5:15 when it became too dark to read, I ran out of ideas for entertainment. Following our dinner of chips and salsa we climbed into bed. It was only 6:15 but after sitting in the dark for an hour we couldn't really think of anything else to do other than go to sleep. The freezing rain continued all day and all night while up north in Woodinville and Kirkland, they were receiving many more inches of snow.

Friday morning Steven was off to work (where he got to take a hot shower!!!) and I was left on the couch by myself under a pile of blankets. I read by candle-light until it was light enough outside and then continued to read there on the couch. I passed 5 hours this way. It was only 48 degrees in the house and I could see my breath. I decided it was time to leave. I got dressed and drove up to my mom's house. I made it the entire 50 miles without any problems only to get stuck in the snow outside of my mom's driveway. I was so annoyed!! I had to get out of the car and dig myself out. Once I was safely in the driveway I ran straight up to her shower. Then Tara and I spent the rest of the day playing games, snacking, watching Jackie Chan movies and just enjoying the electricity in general. The power came back on at our house at about 8:30pm Friday night. I was SO glad to see lights when I turned onto our street after driving home from my mom's house. I turned on the lights, the heat, AND the TV. Just because I could. If I remember correctly I think I even warmed up the rice sock in the microwave. I promptly fell asleep, with the TV still on, feeling quite cozy.

Throughout the day on Friday the ice had begun to melt off of the trees and it continued to rain and rain and rain until everything was pretty much flooded. In fact, it hasn't really stopped raining since except for a beautifully sunny day last Friday, which did wonders to life my mood! So in the past two weeks we've had a snow storm, an ice storm, a never-ending rainstorm, and there was even a wind storm thrown in there as well. I'm over it. Everything is flooded now but at least our thermometers saw 50 degrees today. It was actually really nice to walk outside without freezing.

Steven and I just had an incredibly busy but super fun weekend. Hopefully I'll find time later this week to write a bit about it and share some photos with you!

Hope these winter days are treating you well and that spring comes quickly! I think I've had my fill of winter weather for this year.