Hot fun

Aaaaand I made it! Made it to what you ask? Oh, just-

***February vacation!!!***

Awww yeahhh, it's that time where I get to reap the rewards of working in a school- no more hospital hours for me! I get random weeks off now! Work has been going pretty well (surprisingly? Finally?) but I've noticed that as these mandatory vacations approach, everyone falls into this mindset of just squeaking by until our week off (the "__ sleeps until vacation" countdown on the message board in the teacher's lounge doesn't help), that's all everyone talks about starting about 2 weeks out. 

But hey, I have a whole glorious week to just chill so I'm not complaining. I was hoping to be able to travel to visit family but of course that's not the wisest choice right now, even though the vaccinations are finally rolling out (I'll get mine soon!).

I'm not sure why I'm so relieved to be honest because this is New England and we're deep into the sad grey winter which means...

***Snow Days!!!***

Yup, yet another perk of working in school and more unscheduled mini breaks. We've had a few already so I should be well rested and not jonesin' for a whole vacation so much. Like I mentioned before, I used to have to drive into work no matter what but now, at the first sign of flurries, I'm pacing around the house with my phone waiting to get the word that school is cancelled.

Recently we got hit with a nor'easter which dumped over a foot of snow on us pretty quickly, getting me out of a day and a half of work. If you live somewhere that doesn't get much snow, enjoy the following pictures. If you do, cringe with me at all the shoveling I had to do (this is obviously a pretty big downside of a snow day but some forced exercise is probably a good thing considering the rest of the day I'm lounging on a couch).

The sad little trench M dug to get out to his car (poor guy braved this mess to go to work). I later had to expand it but that's what you get for being the asshole who gets to stay home.

Yup, that's my car buried somewhere in there. We had a plow come through of course but that really only piled up more snow around my car.

Can you guess where my car was? This was taken after I broke free of my snow drift after considerable effort. At least that massive pile of snow made it easy to brush the snow from the top of my car.

After a couple hours (!) of shoveling (I suggest getting over-ear wireless headphones for listening to music or a podcast while you do this- it makes the chore slightly more enjoyable and doubles as ear warmers. This revelation has really revolutionized my shoveling game), there's nothing like a big mug of hot chocolate and crackers with fancy cheese (caramelized onion cheddar from Trader Joe's, my ultimate favorite).

And yes, I may have indulged in a good beer at the end of the day. And why not? I'd recently picked up this stout from Left Hand Brewing Co. out of Colorado. I love a good stout but fruity ones? Not usually my thing. I was feeling a little adventurous I guess and their regular milk stout is one of the finest so I figured it was worth a shot. And it was! The raspberry flavor comes out strong but still finds a way to blend nicely with the milk stout base. 4.4/5, would drink again.

The excitement from my recent crafty gift wore off a little as all this of snow and bad weather set in my annual bout of what I call The Winter Blues. I don't need any help getting into a depressive funk but every year around this time I'm hit with The Blues pretty bad and I suddenly can't build up any excitement whatsoever to do anything, I can't even veg on the couch because I don't feel like watching anything particular on TV.  

I'm always surprised at how much this barrage of grey days affects me- it doesn't help that taking head-clearing walks is hindered by snow and ice congested sidewalks. I've started taking some vitamin D to combat this and am slowly coming out of my funk a bit just in time for vacation.

I managed to start a couple sewing projects as promised though, and they've been getting me through even though the going has been pretty slow. I feel better at least looking busy. I'm not finished but I'm close enough that I don't want to share progress, I'd rather just wait and reveal it once complete so for now, enjoy my awesome color palettes. 

The first one is space-themed and uses a pattern from one of my new magazines. Not my usual colors for sure (I don't hate pink, especially darker pinks, but I naturally gravitate more towards blues and greens) but between that and the interesting style of the piece, it felt good to mix it up a bit.

The second pattern I bought from Etsy and used colors close to what was listed but using thread I already had. I like all the jewel tones here. Can anyone guess the theme based on the snippet of pattern shown below?

This pattern is a sampler so it's easier and more pleasant to stitch. Samplers are generally made up of basic shapes and solid chunks of color so it's easier to turn your brain off a bit while sewing, which suited my level of energy.

As always, I have even more projects in the works, including a Vonnegut piece I mentioned I might want to do. I'm slowly but surely getting my brain back on track, or at least as much as it was on track before (I have a dubious amount of track on the best of days).

Right now though, I'm engaged in one of my weird new relaxing activities which is to watch M play Zelda: Breath of the Wild and yes, I'm celebrating the arrival of my week of freedom with a fine beer. I went a little local this time and got something from Smuttynose's Smuttlab, their experimental side of things. Magic Beans, a coffee porter, is pretty smooth (especially for a porter) and the coffee flavor subtle. Its definitely a solid choice, I'd give it a 3.75/5. 

M and I have been to Smuttynose in person pre-covid and if you're ever in the area, I highly recommend a trip. The food was pretty good and the atmosphere fantastic. It's right near Hampton Beach so if you want to wrap up your beach day with something other than the ubiquitous fried seafood feast, it's the perfect choice.

This weekend another small storm is forecasted so I'm going to let myself take it easy but I do want to come up with a semblance of a plan for my days off, or at least put together a list of things I'd like to accomplish to give myself options. On Monday I'm doing some shopping with my good friend and premier shopping buddy which is exciting but the rest of the week I'm free. I'm just sure that, even though I don't expect to do anything exceptionally exciting, I don't want to look back on this coming week and feel as if it was wasted. 

No pressure, right?

On that note, I'm gonna log off for the night. For those of you that, like me, long to feel the caress of that warm summer sun once again (and forgot how much you complain about the heat when its here), I'll just drop this song before I go. Enjoy!

(Despite having heard it a million times, I didn't realize how much of a random mish mash the lyrics are to this song until posting it here but having a random stream-of-consciousness litany of vaguely summer themed words and phrases still seems pretty fitting.)