Like truckers lined up on diner stools…

It’s 3:40 pm EST with a side of Daylight Savings Time, as I tap out this post. It’s Sunny and 41 Faren, and Mama Weather has beat her personal best of 37 Faren for the day. I love when she does that. Go, Mama Weather!

Are your days, weeks, weekends beginning to feel like they’re operating over capacity? Mine are. It’s the joy and bane of December.

We did the whole family tree-trimming party this weekend. I made more man food for the menfolk. Spaghetti and meatballs. Heavy on the carbs. Heavy on the beef. Garlic bread. Heavy on the garlic. And then for those who weren’t too manly to eat a green, a humongous salad with greens, spinach, pecans, orange sections, some dried cranberry and shaved Parmesan. They ate like truckers lined up on diner stools. Smart truckers. Amen!

And since we hadn’t sinned enough for a decent confession, I served up Sandy Coughlin’s Dark Chocolate Flourless Cake. Get it here. Get it quick. I love everything about Sandy and her website — The Reluctant Entertainer, for I surely am one. While you are there, you should just add her to your RSS feed. You know you want to.

Gracie the G-Pup wasn’t left out of the festivities. She got a new bone to gnaw, which she did. Endlessly. Even into the wee hours, which deprived me of some much needed pre-Hello, Monday! sleep.

But her teeth sparkle. They twinkle like all those teeth on all those dental commercials on the boob toob. This has left me wondering why I’m spending $$$ going to the dentist each year, when a gnarly, frozen buffalo bone does such a stellar job on the G-Pup. Food for thought.

Today, as we head into the season — the season of joy and good eats and winter — I think it’s important to know the difference between Baklava and Balaclava.

Baklava — a classic Greek pastry made with nuts and sugar and spices and phyllo pastry. Gimme. Gimme.

Balaclava — warm, winter headgear that we find essential here in Northern Girl country.

I switch these words out all the time. Just sayin’.

It’s hard to be me.

Hello, Monday!

Rock your work week.

Mama W always did love you best…

It’s April. I’m a desperate woman, running out to my back Northern Girl garden with the digital camera every time Golden Pup has to squat. It’s not the squatting I’m interested in chronicling. It’s the sprouts.

I start this craziness in February, in between snow plops. But it really isn’t until maybe mid-March, beginning of April that I actually find any green sprouts.

What always surprises me is that the chives are as early as the crocus. I don’t expect that.

This is straight out of the camera this morning. Please excuse my scruffy soil. It’s still in shock over Mama Weather’s mood swings this winter. They were severe.

Again, SOC. Lookin’ out my back door. Thank you CCR. And just around the corner by the dreen tube, I mean drain pipe, my personal patch of sprouts. What keeps me going until the tulips and daffs and forsythia go crazy.

Mercy! I just love this shot. It’s soft and pretty. I just couldn’t touch it with an application. Some things are just better without primping. Au naturel. That’s what that is.

And now I’ve said just three times. Make that four. I blame it on Saturday.

Is there something sprouting in your garden? Hit me with it. But be kind, if you’re in the grip of a full-blown southern spring. Mama Weather always did love you best.

Elen

Wheeeeee!…

I popped open my e-mail last week and found this from a best friend forever living the Northern Girl life in another part of Canadaland. Just over the river and through the woods. Well… over the lake and through the snow would be more accurate.

Just down the road.

Look closer.

Closer still.

This icicle broke off her roof peak corner and slid down the internet cable.

Wheeeeee!

Go ahead. Read that again. I’ll wait.

The last line of her e-mail read: Beat this if you can!

I can’t.

Can you?

Go ahead then. Put a link in the comment section.

All icicles welcome.

Mama Weather is strutting her stuff.

Elen

Images used with permission.