SNOW DAY!!!!

On Thursday, the weather forecast started to call for a pretty nasty storm that was due to come through Friday afternoon.  Both of the kids' districts cancelled school for Friday the night before, but we had almost finished our normal bedtime routine by the time Grace and Juliet's school cancelled, so we didn't announce it, and instead just got a good nights' sleep.  = )

I woke before Billy's alarm, since mine usually goes off a few minutes before his, despite having turned off my alarms.

So, what did we do with the day?  Well, After pushing through the laundry, and unloading the dishwasher, and cleaning/polishing the bathroom sink countertop, and refilling the soap, and showering, and bringing up a new gallon of milk, and refilling the oxiclean container, and changing the handtowels, and cutting the basil plants to dry out the leaves, I decided to make kartoffelbrot!

First step was to peel the potatoes.  We had only used 7 of the potatoes in the 10lb bag that I bought, so it took me a while to peel the rest. 

Since my compost bag was full, I took it out, as well as the trash and recycling, and brought in the empty bin from the road.  Luckily, a lot of the snow we had fall the day before, had melted.

The recipe recommended using the water from the boiled potatoes, but was taking forever to cool, and I didn't want to kill of my yeast, so I let the snow help me drop the temperature quickly.

My first loaf didn't rise very well, and was a little overcooked. = ( So, after loading up my dehydrator to make another round of potato flour, I took the potatoes that didn't fit, and made another loaf of kartoffelbrot.

This time, I was very careful with the yeast, and made sure to do everything according to the directions*.  And, it turns out, kartoffelbrot just doesn't rise much!  Both loaves came out similar in outside doneness, but was quite soft and tasty inside!  So, now we have two loaves.  Emily is a fan. = )

The dishwasher has been running non-stop today.  4 loads of dishes through the machine, and at least as many handwashed loads (though, those were admittedly smaller.)

Grace spent part of her snow day sewing a happy mushroom family!

I emptied all the hampers today, finishing probably 5 or 6 loads of laundry.  One of those loads had Billy's repaired undershirt, which had a few new holes.  Some of which were torn along the patch of the other repair, where the fabric was too weak to support the repair.  So, I now have layered patches in places, as well as a few new patches, and a repair along the edge.  Billy wasn't bothered by the first round of repairs, but this will be even thicker, and I had to patch across seams.  So, it seems that this shirt may be headed to the pile to repair the next round of shirts.  We'll see how it wears for him!

He had a second under shirt with a few small holes that was a quick patch.  

And the snow?  Well, it didn't start until 2ish.  The roads didn't look all that bad at either school's pick-up time, but I certainly wasn't bothered by the snow day. = )

Grace wanted to cook dinner tonight, and picked hamburger helper.  She did most of the stirring, but I would consider myself and equal partner with prep work & measuring & clean up. = )

Billy's commute took an extra 10 minutes, since the roads started getting slick and slushy by 5.

I took pictures of our snow gauge in irregular intervals.  What can I say, I was busy!

2:50pm, 4:41pm, 5:26pm, 7:28pm

 

We are expecting more snow tonight, so we will have to shovel tomorrow.  I don't think we're really poised to lose power, but we filled the tub, just in case. Oh, and we have plenty of bread. ; )

Now my blog is up to date, and I finished the third and final book in my series.  So, I'm going to be feeling accomplished, but dreading the snow removal tomorrow.

later days

*The directions specifically say to put the seam side up, so that the loaf is not rounded, but I like a round loaf, so on the first round I cooked it round up.  The second round, I flipped it according to the recipe, and it came out just as done, but not rounded.