We arrived at OMF Wednesday evening. There was an accident on I-44 that delayed us a bit but all we had to do for dinner was heat up the leftover beer stew so it wasn’t too bad. But I had to work Thursday and Friday and we left Saturday afternoon to get home in time to eat and drive to Powell Hall for an evening with the St. Louis Symphony. It was a pretty nice afternoon for a walk but other than that I didn’t get a much done.
As planned, most all the Christmas decorations have been packed away. I’ve left the decorations on the mantels and the dining room centerpiece since I don’t really have anything to replace them with that’s more appropriate for the remainder of winter. But everything else is in the basement and things are back to normal. In a week I’ll put some Mardi Gras lights on the pole light so things will look a bit festive again until we get to March and by then there should be signs of spring beginning to appear.
I figured since “undecorating” isn’t my favorite weekend I’d make some comfort food to make up for it. Guinness Beef Stew is always one of my favorite wintertime foods and I added my attempts at an apple pie and mini baguettes. The stew was wonderful as usual and I was very happy with the apple crumb pie. The baguettes are going to need some more work. I’d give them a C+ for flavor but an F for appearance. But I figure it only costs about 75 cents to make a couple of them so I can try a bunch of times for cheap!
I did grab one picture at night before taking the lights down. Our little boxwoods are finally big enough to be a part of the Christmas display!
It took until mid-January to get snow that was more than a dusting. The heavy, wet snow tumbled down quickly but warm temperatures turned much of the volume that reached the ground into water. Total depth ended around 2″ even though much more fell. Maybe 4-5″ based on the buildup on top of our wind chimes. But this is the sort of snow that clings to everything it touches. Window screens, rooftops, bird feeders and particularly the trees were shrouded in crystalline white making it look like a wintery day indeed.
We kept a fire burning all day creating both warmth and ambiance on this last weekend of our Christmas decorations. The Martin Luther King holiday has been a long weekend for me since I started work at Anheuer-Busch 35 years ago and marks the unofficial finish of the Christmas season for us. Next week I’ll start taking everything down and while the snow frozen onto the lights will delay things a bit, by the end of next weekend most everything will be packed away.
The holidays are over and it’s back to another new normal. We’ve been told to work remotely 100% again because of the latest COVID surge. So I worked from the country Thursday and Friday and we left Saturday afternoon for a performance at the St. Louis Symphony. Next week ends with a 3 day weekend that should afford us a bit more time to relax and enjoy the holiday decorations before they come down the following week.
I did get to mount my sister’s Christmas present to me just to my right of where I keep this site up to date. A wonderful local artist, Mark Hurd, who painted a perfect picture for the Clydesdale Room.
We just took it easy on New Year’s Day. As predicted the rain started before dawn and the temperature began to fall and continued throughout the day. When we went to bed just after midnight it was in the mid 60s but when I started a fire at 9:00 it was in the low 40s. By evening it was below freezing but the rain stopped before then so we missed out on any significant snow again.
When I got up the next day to my surprise we got enough snow to dust the ground and is our first snowfall of the winter, as meager as it might be.
It was 14 when I went out for a walk. Roger was moving the cows into the winter pasture as I went by. They seemed very happy to race through the gate when it opened. I expect that all the trees in that area help block the wind and since it looks like winter is finally here I’m sure anything helps.
I made a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage and cinnamon rolls for us both and some mushrooms, tomatoes and black pudding for me. Not quite an English fry up but close enough to make it special. Looking forward to a relaxing day of watching The Waltons, one of the Christmas gifts we gave each other this year.