Waiting On Snow

Another snowless week has inched its way by. I'm getting kind of bummed now. I had this vision of having a beautiful, white winter and it is not happening. Does Anchorage even get snow? I'm starting to doubt it. We have plenty of ice and dead leaves, though. Our yard is so frozen that when I tried to pull the shovel out of the dirt to pick up Remy doo-doos yesterday, I felt like I was on set for Sword in the Stone. I definitely broke a sweat. At least Remy isn't digging anymore! 

Things have been pretty laid back here lately. Garrett and I have both been working normal hours and spending our evenings together. We finished the fourth season of The Walking Dead on Netflix and were having withdrawals so we purchased a pass on the Xbox to be able to watch the new season as it airs. But now we have to wait a week to see new episodes - ah! It's going to be a long winter.

Luck was on our side this week and we were able to secure ourselves a dining room table! A woman I work with is remodeling her kitchen and randomly asked me if I needed a table. I had to control my excitement because upon being asked, I wanted to jump out of my chair and embrace her while screaming OH MY GOSH YES but instead I just smiled and said "if you truly don't mind!" It's a really nice oak table that I'm sure has been in her family for a while. We were almost desperate enough to go buy a card table from Target and some folding metal chairs just because we were so tired of eating every meal on the couch! Actually, the only places in our house to sit were on the couch, on two stools we're borrowing from Mammaw, on the stairs, on the floor, or on our bed. Now we have FOUR more chairs! Such an improvement.

Because it gets dark here pretty early and because we don't have any friends yet that are willing to entertain us every night of every weekend, Garrett and I hung low these past few days. We crafted again and created some side tables for the couch, I made some slightly disappointing chocolate chip cookies (I blame the oven), took a long walk in the sunshine on the path by our house, tried to go ice skating or bowling yesterday at the Dimond Center but some selfish child was having a birthday party or something so it was closed to the general public (rude), and Remy had a playdate with Thor for six hours yesterday. 

To give a glimpse of what my surroundings look like every day of the week, I took a picture of the cute part of my desk:

My whiteboard that I have way too much fun decorating:

And the view from the tax side of the office:

We will be heading up to Mammaw & Bill's for Thanksgiving on Thursday this week and are excited to spend some time with family. I'm planning on making my grandma's "famous" potato salad to bring because to me, Thanksgiving just isn't Thanksgiving without a giant bowl full of that delicious stuff. Every person I've told that to says "but potato salad is for BBQs, not Thanksgiving!" and I don't know whether to laugh or cry. They just haven't seen the light!

We haven't decorated for Christmas yet because Garrett refuses to until after Thanksgiving. I tell him that's fine but I've secretly began worming things into our lives that are Christmas-oriented, hoping to subliminally convince him to accept that Christmas is upon us. For instance, I bought a balsam and spruce scented Yankee Candle yesterday and have been burning it non-stop since, I "accidentally" had the radio station in our car set to the 24/7 Christmas station, and I hum holiday jingles randomly when they pop into my head. Part of it is on purpose, part of it is because ONLY 32 MORE SLEEPS UNTIL CHRISTMAS and I just can't help it.