Lite and Heavy

First for the lite - I was about to dig into my dinner tonight when Hubby insisted it was so pretty I needed to take a photo if it first. I've actually thought about photographing my recent meals, just to prove that healthy eating doesn't mean boring eating. Tonight's dinner was just sort of thrown together at the last minute, as I was busy with shovels and candles for most of the evening. Hmmmm. Y'know, if you read a lot of murder mysteries (like I do), that last little bit might seem slightly suspicious. But no. I'll explain it all in a moment. Back to the meal -


Grilled portabella mushroom (with lecithin, no oil), steamed acorn squash, a scoop of Spanish Rice (it was a ready made packet I had in the pantry, but it was pretty healthy for already processed). Topped with slightly steamed white onion, fresh basil and salsa. It was delicious.

It might look like a small portion but actually, those plates (aren't they bee-yoo-tee-full?) are just really really large.

And now on to explain the heavy (and the shovels and candles) -

This photo is a big clue. And it takes a little explaining. You see those heavily snow laden branches that are hovering there about a foot above the ground? Well, those branches are usually about twelve feet above our heads!!! The whole tree was like that. I'd gone out to take the dog out and discovered it like this.

After I took the photo I went all around (it's a really really big widely spread tree) pulling the branches like a bell ringer, trying to knock some of the snow off. I was afraid the branches were going to break. Branches I couldn't reach, I tried to knock by swinging the shovel at them. Some of the larger middle branches I couldn't reach but I jumped up and down on the tree swing. Of course being underneath the branches I was hitting all the snow off...... I got very very snowy myself. (How many more times can I use the words "very very"?)

My neighbor came rolling slowly by in her SUV, rolled down her window, and asked "What the hell are you doing!?" I explained. "What the hell are YOU doing?" I rallied. "Driving out in this insane storm!?" Going for gas and Starbucks. Ooooh, I wanna come! So I jumped in the car and off we went.

Starbucks was still open, amazing. The town was mostly deserted. A lot of street lights were out. On the way back a half dozen cars were stopped in the middle of a main side street. Folks were dragging a broken tree out of the road. Everything was dark beyond there. Got home to no electricity to find William lighting candles all over the place.

There's probably a couple of feet out there already. The bottom six inches is total slush. Ugh. I've seen more snow before, but I've never seen such wet snow before. I'm betting tomorrow there will be a lot of broken and downed branches. For all my tree tugging and whacking, I couldn't get more than a fraction of the snow to fall out of my big tree. I hope it was enough to keep it intact. Knock on wood.