I like #187

 Well it's been a very strange week.  I have a huge work deadline looming, and then to top it all off we had the biggest ice storm since 2007 here this week.  Growing up in the dry moutains of Southern New Mexico we had snow and summer thunderstorms but I'd never even heard of an ice storm until moving to Oklahoma.  

It's been pouring rain since Monday morning, and for Monday and Tuesday, temperatures hovered right below freezing.  This is really bad timing because since all the trees still have leaves, the trees get covered with massive quantities of ice, and they all break.  It's just awful to see so many beautiful trees ruined.  More practically, the break onto power lines, so as of Tuesday morning there were ~230,000 people in the OKC metro without power.  And because it's not just a central place where power is down, it can take many many days to get it restored everywhere.  Most people around here have gas furnaces, but they all have electric blowers, so it means no heat either.  Yet in the midst of it; I am definitely grateful for many many things.

The first is that I didn't lose power; my neighborhood has buried power lines so I was blessedly able to stay warm and keep working from home.  I'm also grateful that my friends who have lost power have family to stay with or are healthy enough to hunker in place with blankets.  I'm grateful that it's warming up so hopefully the cold won't be as dire for folks who remain without power.

Sunday I cut all the last of the good dahlias (since we saw the weather forecast)

The cold and ice came on so fast the flowers didn't even have time to wilt.  It's strangely beautiful preserved (temporarily) in a casing of ice.

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I had a good time making Halloween cookies over the weekend!  I haven't made sugar cookies in a couple of years, but I love this recipe.  When I started all I had in terms of food coloring was green, yellow, and blue so I didn't have anything to make orange.  I started with yellow thinking that might be ok, but it was really yellow.  And then I don't know why I thought adding green might make it browner but of course then I got lime.  I decided lime was ok for the ghosts (who-you-gonna-call!) but not the pumpkins.  When I ran out of powdered sugar and had to make a grocery store run anyway, I picked up some more food coloring.  Red added to lime gives that sort of brownish orange-  not quite as bright as I'd have liked but better than wasting icing.  And super tasty!

I got a kick out of the Halloween outhouse in my neighborhood!

And the Halloween decorations the med students put up.

Hope everyone is staying safe!!  Click over to Lee Anna's for more things to like!