Payback is hell

Here in southern West Virginia we're experiencing a c-c-c-COLD snap, with freeze warnings and threats of snow. (I just read a friend's Facebook status announcing it was snowing hard in Morgantown, which is almost as far away from me as you can get and still be in West Virginia, but still. SNOWING.)

I shoveled snow exactly twice this past winter, and probably could have gotten away without doing it at all, since the sun managed to melt it all away within a day. We had one of the warmest winters on record and spring has been busting out all over for a month now. Everything bloomed early and I'll admit I was a little hasty in moving my herbs from their former location to the new herb bed. They look pitiful this morning. So pitiful I'm not even going to show you a picture.

Because it's TOO COLD TO GO OUT AND TAKE ONE! Heh.

As "they" say, paybacks are hell, and I'm afraid the fruit trees will be the ones paying this spring for our lack of winter when winter was supposed to have shown up.

To prepare for this cold snap I picked all the table-ready asparagus (it's amazing how quickly it grows, since I'd just picked all the table-ready asparagus for Sunday's Easter pizza) and threw it into a pie shell along with some sliced onions and mushrooms, shredded cheese, eggs and milk. Real men may not eat quiche, but we do, and it was delicious.

Yesterday afternoon I made a trip to the nearest Sam's Club (an hour's drive, one way, don't complain to me about traffic, I'd love to have to deal with traffic if it meant Sam's Club wasn't so freakin' far away!), an errand that always takes hours. I didn't do any intentional activity yesterday, but figured a couple hours upright in Sam's, wrestling 40-lb. bags of water softener salt and a 50-lb. bag of dog food counted for something.

Amazingly, today's scale reading was the same as yesterday's. Oh, happy day.

Thanks for yesterday's comments, and Denise, thanks for the meyouhealth.com suggestion. I've signed up. I haven't previously been successful with group challenges (the ones you sign up for where you're going to lose 12 pounds in 12 weeks, á la SparkPeople or FatSecret), but a daily nudge to so something healthful for myself is intriguing, and I'll give it a try. I think it will be interesting to see if I already do some of the  suggested activities. Today's, for instance, is to

Save money on your next supermarket shopping trip by including economical foods on your list.

Well, I do that every shopping trip. In fact yesterday at Sam's I was tempted to buy a box of prepared frozen chicken enchiladas because it would be oh-so-easy to pop them in the oven at the end of a work day. But even at Sam's they were expensive and, um, the ingredient list was long and much of it was unpronounceable. So I passed. This morning I pulled out a bag of frozen homemade vegetable soup to put in the crockpot. A grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of soup will make a satisfying dinner after working all day in the cold and rain and snow.

And I know where everything in that crockpot came from.

Have a great Wednesday. Looks like the 2012 campaign season begins today, with Santorum's departure from the GOP primaries. Bring it ON!