Baby, it's cold outside

Winter has hit with a vengeance. We've had significant snowfall several times already accompanied by plummeting temperatures all making for quite the winter wonderland.

Which makes Max think about going outside even though he is properly outfitted

but when you gotta go, you gotta go

and go

and go

until I pull him back in because I'm freezing out here. Luckily these days we are able to work remotely, so on Friday morning when we woke up and looked outside at the several inches which had already accumulated

as it continued to come down steadily covering everything in sight

we thought it best to stay indoors and work from home sweet home.

This turned out to be a bit of a day off to some extent, for me anyway. Frank is a programmer, he has his computer with him all the time and all his "stuff" that he needs to work with is in it. I on the other hand am an office administrator which translates into running around the office administrating. Yes, there's a lot of things I can do on my computer from home but not a lot. So while I sit there monitoring my emails and taking random calls from others who are working remotely and are equally almost taking a day off I do other things. Like what you ask. Well for one, I redesigned my blog, because as cute as the little paw print background was I felt it was time we showed a little more grownup sophistication and a little less clutter. So back and forth I go trying this trying that trying the other thing, changing Max's picture, the background, the font, the background again, the layout, the width, the layout again, the background; and on and on until I've run out of ideas...and I think I'm satisfied. Opinions please? Unless they're negative, then keep them to yourselves thank you. Then 3:00 PM comes around which means time to sign off, I'm officially done for the day. Hmmm, think I'll take down the Christmas tree because even though I always like to leave it up until epiphany on January 6th this year it falls on a Monday which means a whole other week before I can take it down and frankly, it is starting to wilt and I need to get all this stuff out of here and put away. So I very methodically remove all the ornaments, beads, lights and put them in their little boxes, Frank comes down and hauls the thing out the front door while trying not to kill himself on the slippery snow covered porch and steps. We sweep up the tons of pine needles which I'm sure I'll be finding until June and it's time for dinner.

Short Ribs stew, adapted by me.

Take about 8 short ribs, season with salt, pepper and some Herb's de Provence

brown an all sides in some olive oil. While the meat is browning chop up an onion, mince some garlic and cut a couple of carrots into chunks. Remove the meat as it browns onto a plate. Saute the onion, garlic and carrots in the same pot adding more olive oil if needed. Once the vegetables have softened a bit add a tablespoon of tomato paste, stir into the vegetables and return the meat to the pot. Pour enough beef broth to cover the meat and bring it to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook for a couple of hours until the beef is tender and falling off the bone and the sauce has thickened

 
Make some polenta

Serve stew over polenta

and get ready for wild card weekend.

Colts 45, Chiefs 44! Yes!