Today, it snowed. I drove, I shopped, I prepped. And I knit not one single stitch.
I had the extremely good fortune to spend the weekend at my honey’s house, which is about 400 miles away from mine. My son and I loaded up the car on Friday morning and drove for 6.5 hours. We had a truly wonderful weekend, mostly taking it easy. We did all venture out for Valentine’s morning and lunch. I wanted to go to this adorable little yarn shop near Kevin’s house. As the Yarn Harlot says, I fell down and fell down hard. I managed to come away with some beautiful things, which I’ll share soon. Kevin even spoiled me with a lovely little something. After yarn, we went out for sushi. By going out for sushi, I mean that everyone had hibachi chicken while I ordered more rolls than one person really needs. Kevin helped me out on the Alaskan roll front, he’s a real trooper.
Other than that, the weekend was a lot of lazing about the house, knitting, and watching The Office. I finished one sock and really put a dent in my Treat Yo’Self scarf. Oh and I finished the things! More on that soon…
Today, we loaded up once more and drove the 6.5 hours back home. Except somehow, it turned into about 7.5 hours as we drove through winter storm Octavia for the better part of 200 miles. I had promised myself that I would go grocery shopping and prep food for the week today, and so our first stop was Trader Joe’s. Now, I don’t know about your friendly neighborhood Trader Joe’s, but ours is always packed. There have been fist fights over parking spaces. Honestly. And so of course, with ALL THE SNOW coming, it was more packed than usual. We somehow managed to make it out of there unscathed, with morale still high.
We trekked back home, unloaded the car and put the groceries away, got back in the car and headed to Costco. I am currently unsure what the logic in going to Costco at 4:30 pm on President’s day in the snow was, but go to Costco we did. We managed to get the farthest possible parking spot, and made our way in. We made our purchases: paper products, protein, and batteries, if you are curious. Checkout went quite smoothly and after a wee bit of yelling (polite yelling, with pleases and everything), got out the door and to the car. When we got home and it was pouring the snow, around 12 degrees F, and we had a lot to carry in. Morale was considerably lower at this point, as hunger had started to set in.
After all of that I set in to food prep. This was my week to start food prepping at the beginning of the week, and start I did. I portioned out salmon and made this amazing recipe for supper, before I started yelling again did another stinking thing.
I also baked chicken, cut many many snack veggies, and made salad dressing. I made vegetable stock, which a friend recommended I do. It’s truly the easiest thing. I’ve been keeping a bag of vegetable waste in my freezer for about a week, mostly peel from onions and carrots, celery ends, mushroom stems, things of that nature. Internet wisdom will caution you to keep cruciferous vegetables out, as they make the stock very strong and possibly sour. Once you have a gallon-ish of trimmings, you dump that into a pot, cover it with water, and boil for about 10 minutes. And voila! gorgeous, homemade vegetable stock. I’m going to freeze mine in 1 cup portions, I think.
Lastly, I made salad in a jar for each lunch this week. This is honestly the best idea that’s ever been all over Pinterest. With that, I have a good hold on the meal prep and snacks for my week.
It’s really rather snowy and yucky here in Maryland, so I am glad to have done all of that and have it behind me. Now I shall bask in my preparedness and take some extra knitting time tomorrow.
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