snow – Creative Content

Snowed In

It’s Sunday here. Our plans were to go check out the local ski resort. There’s downhill skiing there and a large indoor waterpark as well as cross country trails and snowshoe hikes. We didn’t get there though. It snowed another 2 inches overnight so we stayed here.

We played in the snow some, checked deer cams, and made Christmas cookies. Here is a pretty decent new recipe I tried for peanut butter cookies. They are pretty soft and yummy.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 pkg yellow cake mix

1/3 cup water

1 cup creamy peanut butter

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients together. Chill dough 1/2 hour. Drop dough by rounded tbsp onto a cookie sheet parchment paper. Roll dough balls in sugar, then flatten each in crisscross pattern with a fork (or put an unwrapped hershey kiss in the center of the cookie). Bake 10 or 12 minutes. Cool 1 minute and move parchment paper with baked cookies to cooling rack.

Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Got my Alabama tshirt on for the SEC Champions…

Took down the deer stand and cams for the winter…

Shovels in Persimmons

My neighbor said he cut three persimmon seeds open and all three revealed a snow shovel meaning that this will be a cold snowy winter. Also some bow hunter friends have said the deer are well-fed this year indicating we will have much snow.

The persimmons and the size of deer are old folk beliefs in this Midwest region of the country for predicting the weather and often times, they are quite accurate.

Here are some other Midwest folklore regarding the approaching winter season:

• For every day of fog in August, expect a day of snowfall in winter.
• Lots of nuts on the ground equal a hard winter.
• If there are an unusual amount of spiders in your house, there will be a harsh winter.
• Hornets’ nests predict snow depth. They build above where the snow will be.
• Squirrels also build their nests lower to ground level in trees before a harsh winter.

Cold Days in November

I’m pretty busy this time of year. Work really picks up at the photography frame shop before Christmas. The majority of our sales are made in these two months. In addition, we’ve had some really cold and blustery snowy days lately and unfortunately, a pipe busted at the house so we are working on plumbing too. We just finished painting the last room in our home right before the plumbing concern happened. The painted room is a warm cappuccino brown color and really lovely. But between the plumbing and the painting…..I’ve got lots of work to do to get the house back in order. We had to shut off the water till the plumber arrives, so the dishes and laundry are starting to pile up high. He’ll be here tomorrow and I’ll be so grateful to see him.

I wanted to take some time to just check up on my blogger friends and see how you all are doing. I hope all is going well for you too, my writer friends, and best of luck with the writing!

I don’t really have any events planned for winter with the book Searching for Fire. But I have registered the book for consideration for a few award contests: American Book Fest Best Book Award 2019, Bram Stoker Award 2019, and Indie Diamond Book Award 2019.

I’ve also been working on a poetry collection and submitted it for the Lexi Rudnitsky First Poetry Book contest. I sent another poetry collection to the 29th Annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. And I met a very nice woman who said she’d help me with editing a manuscript I wrote for a science fiction story.

Hope you all are having a good evening too and, if you are experiencing this cold snow as well, I hope you are warm and cozy inside your home. Feel free to drop me a comment or two about how things are going for you. Thanks!