Black Belt Scrapping

Blame It On The Rain

A little Milli Vanilli to start your morning.  You know the tune, admit it.  Everybody sing it with me.....

Gotta blame it on something
Gotta blame it on something

Blame it on the rain (rain) that is fallin fallin
Blame it on the stars (stars) that shine at night
Whatever you do don't put the blame on you
Blame it on the rain yeah yeah
You can blame it on the rain
Get
Ooh, ooh (ooh)
I can't, I can't. I can't, can't stand the rain
I can't, I can't. I can't, can't stand the rain
Yeah, yeah

We've had about four inches of nonstop rain in the last 24 hours and I've been fighting a losing battle to keep the massive lake in my back yard from invading my basement.  I'm losing this fight, but I can't give up, so I'll be spending another long day in the rain and muck today trying to bail, syphon, and pump as much out as possible because we're supposed to get up to another three inches.  So it's going to be a short post today.  I'll try to post some pics later if I get the chance to take some.  All I can say is that I am so glad we had our roof, gutters, downspouts and french drains fixed last fall, or we'd be in a world of hurt inside as well as out. 

I normally hate April because taxes, termites and torrential rains just freak me out.  So far in March, we've been faced with IRS issues, a blizzard, and now this flash flood.  Combine these things with spiraling gas prices, a stock market that is in the crapper, and other financial issues and it's certainly enough to keep this chronic worry wart from sleeping at night.  Thank goodness that it's too early for termites because March hasn't been too great.

I think I need to order these today. 

Time to go pump, bail, and syphon.....back later! 

Recipe Tuesday - Cherry Almond Cobbler

Last week I realized that I had posted something like four chicken recipes in a row.  Can you tell we eat a lot of chicken?  Anyhow, I took requests for this week and it looks like a lot of people were interested in some dessert.  That works for me.  I'm not a big dessert fan myself, and I like fruity desserts much more than chocolate, so today I'm going to post my Cherry Almond Cobbler recipe.  I actually won a blue ribbon in a bake off with the higher fat version of this dessert many years ago.  Over the years, I've modified it to really cut the sugar and the fat, so go ahead and indulge!  I don't have a picture of my cherry cobbler, so I stole one off of the web!

Cherry Almond Cobbler

Filling
1 1/2 pounds sweet cherries (5 cups), pitted (see Tip)
1 cup raspberries
1/3 cup Splenda granulated (or sugar if you wish)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Topping
2/3 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats (not instant)
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar (or substitute, but I like the taste of real brown sugar)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces
1 tablespoon cooking oil
3 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate
1 tablespoon chopped slivered almonds or walnuts
1 1/2 cups reduced-fat vanilla ice cream or nonfat vanilla frozen yogurt (optional)

Preheat oven to 375°F. Coat an 8-by-8-inch baking dish (or similar 1 1/2- to 2-quart dish) with cooking spray. Combine cherries, raspberries, Splenda, cornstarch and lemon juice in a large bowl. Toss to coat. Place the filling in the prepared baking dish. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes.  Meanwhile, make the topping: Mix flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl with a fork. Add butter and blend with a pastry blender or your fingertips. Add oil and stir to coat. Add orange juice concentrate and blend with your fingers until dry ingredients are moistened.  When the filling has baked for 20 minutes, stir it and sprinkle the topping evenly over the surface. Sprinkle with almonds (or walnuts). Bake, uncovered, until fruit is bubbly and tender and topping is lightly browned, 20 to 25 minutes more. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature with ice cream (or frozen yogurt), if desired.

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Last week, one of my readers requested more Weight Watchers recipes.  I'd like to clarify that I really try to post recipes that are made with fresh ingredients and modified from their originals to still be tasty, but be lower in fat, lower in calories, higher in fiber, and lower in sugar/carbohydrates than their originals.  Here in our family, we eat more low carb rather than low calorie, which is why my recipes do use staples like olive oil. I am a lifetime member from Weight Watchers and I have attended meetings at many different times in my life, so I know the program and it's principles pretty well and it is a great way to lose weight.  With that said, at this time in my life, I feel that the South Beach Diet way of eating, which is a bit higher in protein and much lower in carbs just suits our family better, so the recipes that I post here tend to lean towards the low carb way as opposed to the Weight Watchers way.  Just sayin'......

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Yesterday I headed over to a lively local Irish Pub for lunch, where two of my friends are the kitchen manager and one of the bartenders.  I'm not into beer, so I didn't drink, but I did manage to indulge in a bowl of delicious Irish Stew and mingle with the crowd.  It was a lot of fun.  I also took my camera and got some GREAT photos, so as soon as I get a handle on those, I'll post some of them here, probably tomorrow.   Here is a sneak peek.......  who doesn't love a kilt and black hiking boots?

Saol Fada Chugat ~ Long Life To You

Saol Fada Chugat ~ Long Life to You in Gaelic ~ sounds like a good way to start the week, especially on St. Patrick's Day! As I'm typing this, I just heard on the radio that the Pope officially moved St. Patrick's Day to this past Saturday, March 15, to keep all the partying out of Holy Week (which started yesterday), but I hadn't heard about that!

If you're not familiar with St. Patrick's Day, you can read more about the history and traditions, both in Ireland and around the world HERE.

Oh well, my name is Hogan, and I'm part Irish, so the corned beef brisket and cabbage is being served tonight.  Yummy!  Believe it or not, that's a pretty low fat, low calorie meal.  Now the amount of mashed potatoes that you serve with it could really change that..... Anyhow, it's an easy meal.  Put the meat, the cabbage and the spices in a big pot and boil it for an hour or so.  That's it!  It's delicious and cheap too!  You can get fancier if you want, but I don't see any reason to do so.

I had to look up some Irish Blessings/Phrases/Drinking toasts the other day when putting together my email newsletter for work that will go out this morning.  I thought I'd share some that I thought were great, and there were a bunch. Some of them are sweet, and some of them are pretty funny!

May you always have walls for the winds,
a roof for the rain, tea beside the fire,
laughter to cheer you, those you love near you,
and all your heart might desire.

May the sun shine, all day long,
everything go right, and nothing wrong.
May those you love bring love back to you,
and may all the wishes you wish come true!

May God grant you many years to live,
For sure he must be knowing.
The earth has angels all too few.
And heaven is overflowing.

May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.

May the saint protect ye-
An' sorrow neglect ye,
An' bad luck to the one
That doesn't respect ye
t' all that belong to ye,
An long life t' yer honor-
That's the end of my song t' ye!

May your neighbors respect you, Trouble neglect you, The angels protect you, And heaven accept you.

May you die in bed at ninety-five years, shot by a jealous husband(or wife).

May your doctor never earn a dollar out of you and may your heart never give out. May the ten toes of your feet steer you clear of all misfortune, and before you're much older, may you hear much better toasts than this.

May you have the hindsight to know where you've been, the foresight to know where you're going and the insight to know when you're going too far.

May the frost never afflict your spuds. May the outside leaves of your cabbage always be free from worms. May the crow never pick your haystack, and may your donkey always be in foal.

Here's to you and yours, and to mine and ours.
And if mine and ours ever come across to you and yours,
I hope you and yours will do as much for mine and ours,
As mine and ours have done for you and yours!

When we drink, we get drunk.
When we get drunk, we fall asleep.
When we fall asleep, we commit no sin.
When we commit no sin, we go to heaven.
So, let's all get drunk, and go to heaven!

Here's to our wives and girlfriends:
May they never meet!

And finally, I found some really funny Irish songs on You Tube, many too profanity-filled for me to post here, but I did find one that was pretty good.  There are a few colorful words in it, so you've been warned.  Listen to the lyrics, however, they're pretty funny.
 

Now go forth and may the luck of the Irish be with ye today!

Where Did the Week Go?

Wow, it's Saturday already!  Where does the time go?  It's going to be Christmas again before you blink.

I started this post yesterday before I left for the office but just couldn't get it finished and now it's Saturday, so my Friday comments are pretty much irrelevant.  However, I'm going to post my rambling thoughts anyways, because I can still use some creative inspiration! My Friday comments are highlighted.

Not much time this morning....I'm off to the office.  I have to think up a new contest for April.  Every month it's my job to run a fun contest to keep people coming in the door.  We've got a March Madness basketball pool going right now.  In fact, I have to create the "draw sheets" while in the office this morning. I'm hoping to be able to do those on Word because I really don't like the idea of hand drawing them on poster board this weekend. My weekend is already completely swamped and I just don't feel like having to squeeze that in.  Anyhow, if you have any contest ideas, I'm all ears!  I try to steer clear of holiday related themes because we have some patients who have religious objections to holidays, and of course, you can't take the chance of offending anybody these days with sight of a heart or a shamrock.

Holy Week kicks off with Palm Sunday this weekend, which means for all of us that it's all choir, all of the time.  We sing on Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Easter Vigil (Saturday Night), and Easter Sunday with rehearsals squeezed in between.  We've got some challenging pieces this year, including the Hallelujah Chorus from The Messiah by Handel.  Unfortunately, woke up this morning with a sore throat and a stuffy head.  This is SO not a good time to be coming down with a cold. 

I also have taekwondo rank testing in two weeks. I haven't decided if I'm going to be testing or not but if I decide to go for it, I have to get crackin' on that. I feel rusty and out of shape. My knee hurts. I probably shouldn't test, and I really can't afford the testing fees, so maybe I should just go ahead and think about May instead..... as you can tell, I really can't decide.  Update on this decision....I'm not testing after all, I'll wait until May.  Pressure off! 

I need to get over to my photo blog today.  It's been two days and I haven't updated.  I swore that I would NOT slack off and here I am slacking off.  This week is certainly going to be a challenge.  I'm also working on a new site to showcase my photography to kick off my portraiture business.  And speaking of pics, I heard back from the law firm this week and they loved my shots...I don't expect a thank you note for paid work, but it sure is nice to hear that your clients think you went above and beyond their expectations!

The non-baker here is baking another cake from scratch today. We're celebrating my mother-in-law's birthday tomorrow and since we're not going out for dinner, I'm cooking instead (how does that always happen?).  I honestly don't know what kind of cake she likes or doesn't like, so Shannon and I are making a "pistachio cake" which is an OLD, OLD, OLD family recipe.  I still have the recipe written down on a piece of looseleaf paper from when I went away to college.  The recipe itself is brittle and stained and I love it!  The cake itself is yummy (and green, which is great for St. Patrick's Day).

Finally, I thought I'd go ahead and close the door on something that I opened a while ago and never followed up on.  I've been hinting around about a creative scrapbooking opportunity that I had been presented with.  Well, I had been named a creative partner by a popular digital scrapbooking designer. I was all excited and had designed a few pieces to sell in the store. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control (it had nothing to do with me or my work), it didn't work out and the opportunity has now basically gone away, which is why I haven't mentioned it.  I'm kind of bummed about that, and I'm also bummed because I was let go from AH! Designs because of this opportunity, and now I don't have either one.  Oh well, that's life in the digital scrapbooking world.  Just like the weather in Cincinnati, wait five minutes and things will change. And speaking of rejection, I recently was given a magazine assignment to use text as a design element and I did this layout.  It was supposed to be edgy, so this is what I gave them and then it was totally and completely rejected.  Evidently it was TOO edgy and non-traditional. I had to do a totally different layout for them.  I still love this one, however. 

Eye Key Aaahhhhhhh!

Well yesterday was a HUGE day in the greater Cincinnati area.  Huge as in over 350,000 square feet of huge. It was the long awaited Grand Opening day of IKEA.  I am telling you, this is not just a furniture store, it was an EVENT. 

Here is a billboard that is up near my house and they're all around town.  Unless you live under a rock, you had to know that the big blue and yellow day was coming.....

You'd think that the Beatles, George included, were reuniting.  People have been camping out in the IKEA parking lot for literally DAYS to be one of the first in the store.  The media has been there in full force.  I heard that there were over 12,000 people going through the doors before 3pm yesterday afternoon.  Holy smokes.  I don't like crowds much, so there was NO WAY I was going to that grand opening.  I mean come on, it's a store.  It'll be around tomorrow, and maybe even the day after!

Mom and I will probably go see in when the hype dies down in a few weeks.  Given that I'm not spending any money anyways, I'm in no hurry.

I have mixed feelings about all of the hype.  I've been to IKEA three times in the past.  I've been to the Chicago store twice and once to the one outside of New York City.  I didn't buy anything in Chicago either time, but I bought two lamps in New York (or was it New Jersey?  I can't remember, but it was in the 'burbs).  I'm just not into it.  The housewares are really cool, but my kitchen doesn't need stocking.  The furniture is fine for people with a different style, but it really doesn't work in my very traditional, colonial style house.  I do appreciate the convenience and ease of the Scandi style furniture as well as the price, but it's just not my thing.

On the flip side, a trip to IKEA, if you don't have one near you that you can visit regularly, it a bizarre shopping experience. To me, it's like shopping on a different planet.  Cool stores, but not so great if you're a bit claustrophobic.  Like a Vegas casino, time seems to stand still in there.  You don't know where you are, you don't know what time it is, and you can't find your way out easily!  That's cool, but it you're just running in to buy a garlic press, it's not very convienient.  I guess they hope that you'll go in for that garlic press and come out with an additional kitchen table and eight chairs!  Smart people, those Swedes!

For a bit of IKEA fun, here is a television commercial for IKEA that isn't shown on American television.  I thought it was hilarious!

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In other news, Jan had me over for lunch yesterday and we had such a fun time.  She made THIS and it was just incredibly great.  Yum!  I highly recommend it!  I made a new feathered friend too.  Peeper evidently likes the tone of my voice, so we had a good time.  Peeper is hilarous and yes, he talks!  I never knew birds had so much personality!  I got a few shots of the handsome fellow.  He's not pink, he's actually white with aqua and pretty blue markings, but this is just how my shots turned out.  I could have color corrected them, but I thought they looked cool! 

Oh, and how about Idol last night..I was kinda shocked!

Thrify, Penny Pinching, and Cheap

Yesterday I said I wanted to talk about being thrify today. 

Funny, after I wrote that and left the house to run my errands yesterday, I saw that gas spiked here to $3.45. For once, I had decided to fill up on Monday afternoon and paid $3.12.  There's a jump for you.  I'm SO glad that I got rid of my gas sucking Jeep last fall!

Needless to say, with tax season pushing down on us and some other unexpected circumstances around here, money has been really tight on top of rising prices. I've never been good at being thrify, cheap or a penny pincher, but I'm trying these days!  I'll be honest, I'm kind of scared when I hear about how oil prices are rising through the ceiling and how the political candidates are proposing rolling back tax cuts and raising our taxes even higher than they already are.  I swear, if all Americans had to pay quarterly taxes and actually write those checks to the IRS out of their savings every three months, there would be a revolt in this country.  But I won't go there.

I'm just looking to find ways to keep more in my bank account so that when I have to write those checks for fun things like taxes, insurance and utility bills, I can still do it. 

Motivated a bit by Chris and her blog about not buying unnessary stuff for a year, I've really started to think about shopping.  I just don't go out and do it. It's that simple.  Not going saves gas, not to mention not shopping.  Instead of being at Target once/week, I'm there about once every six weeks if that.  That's got to help. I never go to the mall, but I really never did.

On the flip side of shopping, I'm trying to get organized to have a big garage sale this spring, furniture and all. I just want to get rid of the stuff that I don't love and try to make a few pennies while I'm at it.  Initially I was looking at this Friday and Saturday, but thanks to a snowstorm last week, that's not going to happen.  April sounds good!   I've done two garage sales in the past and made about $800 at each.  If I could make that again, I won't feel guilty about enrolling Shannon in two weeks of summer camp again this summer.

I look a mess.  I'm pretty low maintenance, but I like to get my nails done because it keeps my cuticles from splitting cracking and hurting. I get really bad hangnails when I don't get my nails done and I haven't been to the nail salon since Christmas.  My hands are a mess but I've saved some money there.  I'm also WAY overdue for a haircut.  Way, way, way......I might end up at Great Clips today but I'm kind of afraid to go there.  I love the guy who cuts my  hair and I've been going to him for years.  I can't decide. I need some new mascara, but I won't buy it.  I keep thinking that I'll hold out for one more week.  Kind of like fixing the roots on the top of my head.  That's reaching a critical point, however.  I might end up doing that myself too. 

We don't eat out much, but I've been making some compromises in our healthy eating, unfortunately.  Eating the South Beach way is great for your body but bad for your budget.  So we're back to adding in a bit more rice, bread and potatoes and cheaper cuts of meat.  I dug a really cheap hunk of beef out of the freezer the other day and made beef stew and it was fantastic, and cheap!  I am no longer at the grocery store every day for this, that, and the other.  I also do a lot of "cook ahead" cooking and stock the freezer.  I buy in bulk, especially things like coffee, cheese, meat, and fish.  A nice sized freezer really comes in handy!

I don't clip coupons...I would, but I never see coupons for any of the products that I'm interested in buying. I do buy brands on special at the store.  And speaking of grocery shopping, I used to go to a variety of stores to bargain shop, but now that we have a rewards program at my closest supermarket, where money goes back to our church, I tend to shop there exclusively.  Besides, all of the other supermarkets and places like Aldi are all ten miles away, so that's a $3.45 round trip just to shop there. Sam's Club is right near my office, so we're there a lot.  I wish I had a closer Costco, but the closest one is about 17 miles away.

Things that I really can't cut out because they are things that I don't do.....eat out, convienience food, movies (theatre or rentals), Starbucks, etc.  I've really tried to consolidate car trips as much as possible and that helps.  I clean with a lot of baking soda and vinegar.  I let the dog clean the dishes instead of running the dishwasher (just kidding!).

A round trip to the taekwodo school is 15 miles and in the past it wouldn't be that odd for me to make three round trips there in one day.  I don't do that anymore.  If it means going three or four days/week instead of five, that's fine. 

I hate being cold, but I have dialed down the thermostat.  It's 65 in here during the day and 61 at night.  Brrrrr! 

Other things I do.....I pay bills online to save time, gas, and stamps.  I figure that just paying my bills online saves me around $10/month.  That's not much, but it's still $120/year, and that's kind of nice!

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of right now.  What do you do to be thrifty? 

And speaking of spending money unnecessarily, today IKEA comes to Cincinnati with a LOT of fanfare.  I'll be talking about that hoopla tomorrow!  Have you been to IKEA?

...finally, on a totally unrelated note.....did you see American Idol last night?  I taped it, but my DVR went wonky on me in the second hour, so I didn't get to see the last six performers.  Crap!  I have to give some props to Chekezie, however.  He was awesome!  I guess I'll have to catch the last six on YouTube today! And it's official, I have a new favorite.  I love DAVID.  David Cook that is!

Recipe Tuesday - Chicken Under A Brick

Okay, I try to do different things every week and I just realized that I did chicken last week...and the week before!  Oh well, last Tuesday seems like literally a lifetime ago. It really does.  I promise a chicken-free week next week.  How about some dessert for a nice change?

Several years ago I was very blessed to have the opportunity to travel to Italy. I was so inspired by everything Italian....from the fashion, to the architecture, from the beautiful scenery, to the food.  I remember eating "chicken under a brick" at this little hole-in-the-wall in Venice and it was just sublime.  I vowed to learn how to make it. 

Really, basic Tuscan cooking is all about simplicity and good ingredients like good olive oil and fresh herbs.  Here is my Chicken Under a Brick.  I use my trusty cast iron skillet, a large landscape rock (that I set aside and cleaned well for cooking), and fresh rosemary (which I grow all year-round).

Chicken Under a Brick

Ingredients:
1 whole (3- to 4-pound) chicken
(trimmed of excess fat, then rinsed and patted dry with paper towels)
1 Tablespoon minced fresh rosemary leaves or
1 teaspoon dried rosemary, plus 2 sprigs fresh rosemary (optional)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 Tablespoon coarsely chopped garlic
2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 lemon, quartered

Remove the backbone and split the chicken. Mix together the rosemary leaves, salt, garlic, and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and rub this all over the chicken. Tuck some of it under the skin as well. Allow to marinate, if time permits, for up to a day, refrigerated.

When you are ready to cook, preheat the oven to 450°F. Preheat a large skillet over medium-high heat for about 3 minutes. Press the rosemary sprigs if you are using them under the skin of the chicken. Put the remaining olive oil in the pan and wait a minute for it to heat up. Place the chicken in the pan, skin side down, along with any pieces of rosemary and garlic. Weight the chicken with another skillet or use a flat pot cover and a couple of bricks or rocks. The basic idea is to flatten the chicken by applying a fair amount of weight evenly over its surface.

Cook over medium-high to high heat for 10 minutes; transfer, still weighted, to the oven. Roast for 15 minutes more. Take the chicken from the oven and remove the weightn (be careful, it's HEAVY!); turn the chicken over (it will now be skin side up) and roast 10 minutes more. To check for doneness, insert an instant-read thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh; it should read 160°F to 165°F (but I usually don't bother to check!). Serve hot or at room temperature (refrigerate it if you will not be serving it within the hour), with lemon wedges.
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I saw a discussion on line yesterday about saving money in these days when gas prices and food prices keep going up.  I'm making a real effort to be more thrifty lately, are you?  Tomorrow I'll talk about what I'm trying to do to pinch pennies and you can tell me what you're doing. I have been notoriously BAD about being thrifty in my life, so I can use any advice that you can give me.  But that's tomorrow's discussion.

As for next week, what kind of healthy recipe would you like me to post?  What am I missing?

Have a great day!

Back To Normal

Yesterday it was nearly 50 degrees at my house, so a lot of that record snow is melting away almost as fast as it came!  It's going to be REALLY wet around here in the next few days.  I truly hope we're done with snow now, enough is enough.  I do admit that when you're literally snowed in ~ as in it's illegal to be driving on the roads ~ that's kind of fun.  We all had a really fun weekend and I can't believe that all the drama and fun is over now.  I think Shannon was figuring that with so much snow, there was a chance that there wouldn't be any school today, but with yesterday's warm temps, another day off wasn't looking good. 

I did a few layouts this weekend, all snow related:

Journaling reads: "I am a labrador retriever. I am not a Husky, I am not a Malamute. I do not live in Alaska. I am not bred to deal with eighteen inches of snow in one day. I don't like going outside to do my business and finding the snow up to my tail.  I am not amused."

That's about it for today, got to get ready to go to the office!  I bet it'll be crazy today, with all of our people who canceled their appointments on Friday coming in this morning.  Not like it affects my job, but it's fun when the office is busy!

A Fresh Outlook

I'd like to take a time out from the neverending snow story to give a nod to my friend Kate Teague, who just released a great kit at Songbird Avenue.  Kate is a great scrapper, both paper and digital with mad skills.  She's also a Garden Girl at Two Peas in a Bucket.

Kate's kit, Fresh Outlook, is a benefit kit with 100% of the proceeds going the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, from which both Kate and several of my friends suffer from.  This is what Kate has to say about designing this kit:

"For me, this is a very personal cause. If you have read my blog, you'll know that I have MS. I haven't had a relapse in 3 1/2 years now (knock on wood). It's been almost 10 years now that I have had MS although the diagnosis only came with the last relapse. This kit was a passionate kit for me to design. It came easily to me. First, I began with a Spring-like color palette as I wanted something that felt fresh and vital. I am constantly fighting a battle against fatigue as my number one symptom and I find that keeping a positive outlook on it all has really helped me. This palette just made me happy.  I always figure there are two roads to go down when you have a lifetime diagnosis and there was no way I wanted to go down the road of darkness and despair. Yes, I felt that way initially as part of the acceptance process but once I emerged, I knew that the path to well-being would have to be down the road of positivity. I have written about this as well in my little quote journal that was recently published in Sharon Soneff's Art Journals and Creative Healing book. That book is truly amazing. It is full of so much creative inspiration.  I have also done pages about my battles with  Post-partum and MS. I have found that turning to the creative side in me has always been a fantastic solution. It lets me get out my frustrations and make something beautiful in the process. This kit was just that."

Well said, Kate! Make sure you get over to the Avenue and check out Kate's kit.  I don't know about you, but I could really use a nice, Fresh Outlook and a little Spring today!

Blizzard Update...UPDATED @ 5pm!

I took these pics right when I got up this morning....about 7:30am.  The sun wasn't totally up yet, so there was this really cool blue light going on.  Right now, we've got about a foot of snow here at my place and it's actually snowing much harder now than it was earlier.

Don't forget....today is SPRING FORWARD (ha!), so set your clocks ahead!

Updated with 3pm pics.  Notice how the light has REALLY changed.....