Snow and Cooking

Wow....a whirlwind of a weekend.

I made a trip Friday for work to beautiful Northumberland County, Virginia. I had a blast visiting with the ITRT there. We went to lunch at The County Seat at the The Tavern. I'd provide a link, but there is none. It's interesting, the 11 years I've been at CIS, this restaurant has burned to the ground 3 times. It has reopened, and hopefully for the last time, it will go through such trauma. This is a very historic building in Heathsville, Virginia and has quite a bit of history. Their food is good, so if you ever head in that direction, make sure to stop in. You can read about the history here.

It was cleaning weekend....yippee....and came home Friday to change sheets on the beds, and vacuumed the three bedrooms, and dusted. Thankfully, the hubs played with Matthew outside so I could get this done fairly quickly and easily.

Saturday morning, the downstairs was cleaned, and I avoided exercise like the plague. I don't know if it was due to working out so hard on Friday morning, but I was whipped. I calculated my Weight Watcher points, and it seems that cleaning adds quite a few to the mix, so I used those as my activity points for the day. Plus, pushing a four-year-old in a grocery cart for an hour...that's bound to add to the exercise "mix".

Matthew and I headed off to Kroger hell. I have no problem admitting, I love to grocery shop. I coupon clip, I use my digital coupons, and I make lists for new recipes that I want to try. (And Kroger--I heart you for your fuel points and monthly coupons!!). I can't wait to sit down mid-week and start making my grocery list. Nuts eh? I think what adds to the fun is Matthew loves to go with me. He drives his little "car" grocery cart, and is a good boy. I am blessed with that fact. He does get his choice of a 99-cent Hot Wheel car when we leave the store, so I know that is a good motivator/incentive. I called Saturday grocery hell because we were due to get snow on Sunday...and the weather cooperated. Richmonders tend to get a little insane when the "s" word is announced....and I'm one of them...Four Wheel Drive or not. The store wasn't too crowded, and we were out within an hour.

We visited with Maw Maw and Pop briefly for Matthew's weekly McDonald's fix. (We do drive-thru and visit my parents after grocery shopping). We headed home for I had clothes on the line and needed to get them in before the rain/snow started. Groceries were put away, and I told the hubs that if he didn't get Matthew out of my hair for at least an hour, I was going to need a bottle of wine. While they were outside playing, I baked apples, and made zucchini casserole. Yummy!!! With the current economic crisis, I'm trying to cook more. This from a woman who used to believe a daily visit to Ukrop's was the only source for cooking.

Sunday morning, I made pumpkin cupcakes. They are awesome!!! I then made beef stir fry for dinner (4 Weight Watcher points). I really did put on the chef's hat this weekend.

We then took Matthew out in the snow for a while. We put him on his sled, he lasted maybe two minutes on that, and then tried to drive his Jeep in the snow, which lasted more like one minute before he freaked out from getting stuck. Last night was beautiful, and we enjoyed watching the snow fall. We did however, have a few limbs fall onto our house later that evening, and freaked me out. I finally fell into an Ambien coma and went to sleep rather quickly, only to be awakened to find out we had lost power. Ugh. Our house got cold quickly.

Power is back and I'm looking forward to being home, going for a run, and spending time with my two guys.

I hope all of you have a wonderfully blessed week!