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West Virginia
When I started my retirement travels in 2009, I wanted a way to share it with family and friends as it was happening. Hence, "My Travel Journal". However I realized I wouldn't always be on a trip and wondered what to do with the blog in between times. My daughter pointed out, wisely, that travels can also include trips to the kitchen to try a new recipe, trips to visit family, trips to my neighborhood Starbucks, or a fun day trip with a friend. You're welcome to join me on any of these journeys! I've set up individual pages for each of my major trips (see tabs above).

Also, I have an Etsy shop where my current needlework resides. The last pieces I posted here were in 2013! So if you'd like to see what I have accomplished recently, go to (and I apologize for having to copy and paste):

www.etsy.com/shop/thedollhouseneedle

I recently added an "Italian Word a Day" thingie which shows up at the bottom of every page. You see the word and can click to hear it pronounced. I've been enjoying it and I think my accent is improving as time goes by.

December 05, 2010

Real Snow!

It started snowing this morning kind of half-heartedly and by lunch time it had decided to just go ahead and do it and it snowed heavily until at least dark.  As I look out my windows now (late!), I can still see snow drifting past the streetlights but not as heavy at all as it was earlier.  It was a wet snow so all the trees and bushes looked very Christmas-y and since I was driving out to the mall to do a couple of final Christmas things, I enjoyed it.  By the time I was driving back, it was dark and the roads were actually beginning to feel a little iffy.  I did get one picture while I was at a stoplight...


And then this one was from my living room window trying to show how thick it was snowing but it doesn't look real thick...



And I got my vodka pasta sauce made and took a picture of the very initial start of the cooking and didn't take anymore!  I ended up not eating it the night I made it (even though it smelled very good!) and thought I'd take a picture of the finished product when I ate it, but I came home from my mall trip and got it all heated up and the last-minute things added and ate it all up without even thinking about a picture.  But it was good and I've posted the recipe here.  It's called Penne Pasta with Vodka Sauce but I didn't use penne pasta - I used a linguine noodle.  It would be good with penne though because it's quite thick and is meant to be rather than the "mop-up with a piece of bread" type sauce.

And, as long as I'm here, I might as well post a few pictures I took during Huntington's annual Christmas parade.  The newspaper said it was a success...maybe it's because I was freezing to death but to me it seemed inordinately long.  And I think there was one band in the whole parade (and that was after I had given up waiting for Santa and come back inside).  There were some "floats" but it seemed to be a lot of vehicles followed by people walking followed by more vehicles, etc., and everyone throwing out handfuls of candy to the kids along the way.  So, probably for the kids, it was a success. :)  I tried, really I did, to wait for the end which is when Santa appears but I couldn't make it.  And I watched the rest from my windows and I think he did appear at the end but instead of being on a float of any type, I think he was in the horse-drawn carriage that takes people for rides in the summer.  I think he deserved something a little more eye-catching.  At one point, while watching from my windows, I saw a big flat-bed truck (I think that's what it was) and I mean big, and I thought "oh, okay - Santa will be on the end of it" but he wasn't.  But, it was a parade, and lots of people lined the streets watching so good for Huntington I say.  Just maybe try more bands and fewer random vehicles and people next time?  Here are several pictures - I took lots but of course all the floats were moving as I shot, so most of them were not very good.

I'm not real sure what this was supposed to be - I mean, I know it's a red castle, but why?  But it's very easy to see whose float it is!

And this one was a bit of a mystery - it's a delightful little church - someone did a very nice job on that.  But why are there life-sized cartoon characters sitting outside of it?

And of all the random vehicles, this was the best one cause it's so classic and had a really ear-splitting siren.

And, what else - Saturday evening I was coming in from a nice cup of tea at Starbucks and ran into neighbors of mine.  Asked them what they were up to and they said going to dinner, did I want to come along?  I politely demurred, but they said, no, really and they were going to Huntington Prime so I said shoot, yes!  I do like that restaurant but don't go very often cause to me it's sort of a "splurge" place.  But having just finished off two cookies (Healthy Choice brand, mind you) I wasn't real hungry and so just ordered a delicious glass of house red and their appetizer of seared scallops in a red onion sauce?  jelly?  can't remember what term they used, but it was delicious!  So that was very nice and unexpected.

Then, today it was, of course tea and crossword puzzle at Starbucks in the morning and had a nice visit with a friend who I used to see quite often there but who has not been a frequent visitor lately.  Then in the afternoon I joined the group of ladies I did that steamboat ride with this past summer and we did the Huntington Candlelight House Tour - 7 homes with beautiful Christmas decorations (and beautiful homes even if they hadn't had Christmas decorations), then back to one of their homes for a little wine and sustenance.  So it's been a real nice few days and I'm feeling very content and fortunate to have such nice friends, such lovely snowy weather while decorating for Christmas, good food to eat, and a blog to blab on.

And, now back to the DVD I've been watching last night and tonight "People Like Us" which is a typically bizarre British TV series - very tee-hee-ish, so tee hee.

5 comments:

Christopher said...

Sounds like a wonderful weekend, what with parades, house tours, delicious scallops...
Fr-ee-ee-z-ing here, but no snow (yet...)

Sandra said...

Mary Lynne, here I have just been blogging about swimming at the beach and the wonderful summer weather we have had the last couple of days and you are talking about snow LOL! I just love the internet- its a wonderful thing, enabling us to talk about our lives even though distance and seasons seperate us! Hope you enjoy your snow as much as we enjoyed our week at the beach vbg. Hugs
Sandra (Snippets from my Studio)

Mary Lynne said...

Hi Sandra - I know! I saw your post on PP about your beach vacation and, as always, when I read something about weather in Australia, am stunned that people can be enjoying summer (or suffering winter) when I'm freezing or baking. :) I can accept night here, day somewhere else, but the seasons being reversed is pretty fantastical. We had 21F degrees yesterday with strong winds making it much colder but with Christmas coming, I enjoy it - better than the 60 and 70 we lots of times have around Christmas!

January said...

What a fun post! That sounds like a really nice weekend of puttering and cooking and what-not. I might have to try the vodka sauce recipe sometime - Maggie really likes vodka sauce.
I wish we would get a little snow to Christmas it up around here (I said a LITTLE snow, weather, remember that)!

Mary Lynne said...

Yeah, for right now, I'm loving the snow. Cause it's not really seeming to accumulate much (don't know why - it's too cold for it to melt) so it's sort of like being in a snow globe - it just swirls around. It was doing that all morning and then late this afternoon it started looking like a real snow sky again and sure enough, when I came out of the garage here, it was snowing to beat the band - so pretty!

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