Winter 'Whites'

Today I am grateful for heaters. Plain and simple. Texas just wasn't made for this kind of cold and we don't come prepared for it! Though my heart goes out to those up North who are battling piles of snow and frozen pipes on the regular. Not my cup of tea.

I got a nice package delivered today from Homemade by Holman! A regular follower of her food and recipe blog, I was the giveaway winner for this box of Panko lemon pepper bread crumbs and the new Michael Chiarello's Bottega cookbook! Thank you Ms. Holman! I can't wait to get comfy in my recliner and thumb through the pages for inspiration and new ideas.

I've been inside all day except for one venture out to grab a couple things for dinner with the brother-in-law and his girlfriend tomorrow. I'm making pork chops and steak, salad, baked potatoes and corn on the cob, then we're going to watch Red afterward (I'm the only one who's seen it). I'm thrilled about drinking some red wine with a good movie and staying warm indoors!

But I needed a little something nice to look at so I grabbed these flowers today and arranged them in a clear glass vase I brought home from Scotland. I love having fresh flowers indoors, but my cats usually try to jump up on the counter or table and eat them. Which they then throw up about an hour later and I may or may not find it when I get up for water at three in the morning. Ah, the joys of pet ownership. But aren't these petals pretty?

I also grabbed a few bundles of firewood to stay warm over the weekend, starting with tonight! I always feel a little bit silly buying firewood... I mean, here I am paying several bucks for pieces of chopped log that I feel like I should be able to get somewhere myself. But then you think about it and realize there aren't exactly any forests nearby and with the price of gas you'd pay to find one and then haul out an axe and chop some up... well, I just end up paying my dues. Then I grumble all the way home until I light the fire place and relish in its heat and thank the Lord for the grocery stores that stock firewood in Texas in the winter.

A few minutes ago, I took a break from all my writing, researching and typing to spray paint a couple things some winter "white" as I'll call it, seeing as we're a bit icy and cold at the moment.

Most everything started off brown...

...and it all ended up a nice, crisp white!

The garage reeks of chemicals but I was so happy to finally paint a few items that I've long been waiting to do! It's all stuff for my office, the color scheme in there is so drastically different from the rest of the house and I love it. :) And yes, I realize there's a can of chalkboard spray paint in that photo and if my little test run worked out, I'll be sure to post the results!

Well, the dogs have been brought back indoors and just finished eating the rawhides I gave them and are now threatening to coat my laptop's keyboard with saliva and wet noses so it's back to the grind I go... TGIF tomorrow!