Baby, it's cold outside...

..Well, I guess it could be worse in the temperature department... or at least, it certainly has been at times over the past month. I'm more of a wimp each year it seems. But thankfully, I have someone else to prod me into enjoying the Maine outdoors this winter...

 so graceful ;)

 way off shore.. Dave's first time on a (frozen) lake!

I love...

...you!

We spent about 20 minutes out there sliding around and seeing who could throw rocks the farthest. The ice was about 5 inches thick or so.. and today I saw about 10 people down the lake a ways out ice fishing. Dave and I were heading into town to find some thrift store ice skates- mission accomplished, by the way. $7-a-pair. You do understand that this is going to be at LEAST moderately disastrous, don't you? I can't remember the last time I donned a pair of ice skates. We used to live near a pond and even though I would play on the ice all throughout the winter in those days, I more often than not preferred to stumble my way around in boots during our hockey games. But! If nothing else, these skates will provide another means for winter exercise. I see a family of 3 or 4 skating past the house every day, close in to shore, almost like they're doing laps around the lake (doubtful).
I was also hunting around the thrift stores we visited for an old or vintage-looking, unique wooden frame. I want to do something like this:

.. and I didn't find exactly what i was looking for. It's worth the wait to find the right one. I'll be making mine primarily for earrings, but I was also considering making a jewelry holder out of three smaller frames put together in a triangle-ish fashion (so that looking down on the contraption, the three frames would make a triangle). One side for earrings, one for rings, one for bracelets/necklaces. Maybe attach it to a lazy susan sort of rig. We'll see what I'm able to find going forward.

Tonight we had sloppy joes bundled in crescent roll dough (two tubes of the dough left over from Christmas... and it's the buttery kind, so I cant make any sort of pastry out of it; figured it would be worth a try in this capacity).

(pre-baking stage)

Pretty good. The sloppy joe mixture actually "melted" the dough as you may be able to see in the bottom righthand bundle (for instance). It held together through baking but was thin. And what would sloppy joes be like without...

..homemade sangria? :)

Actually, I think it would be delicious to lay out sangria-soaked orange slices at a party. That has been my favorite part of this current batch. Anyhow, we're having some fun in the kitchen these days.

One more thing for today, and then I'm heading to do my devotional for the day. Check this out:

I might just be in the dark here, but until very recently I was unaware that you can grow your own green onions "just like that"! Just over 24 hours ago, I chopped off the ends of a bundle of green onions and set it in a tall shot glass with a bit of water in it. The growth between then and now is already noticeable- you can see the shoots continuing to grow past where I made the chop (where the outside layer of the onion is at- everything inside/above those lines is new!!)... this is amazing and fascinating to me. So quick! I've since added a line in dry erase marker to show where they were at as of 24 hours after the initial cut. I'm very excited to watch these babies develop.

Goodnight friends!