Snow, Fog, Freezing Rain.....

...we've got it all. Including another day off of school. I don't know whether to consider this a snow day or a fog day. It was the fog that was bad this morning - lots of snow on the ground, a little rain and freezing rain and warmer temps caused dense fog. However, we also have snow coming down pretty good right now and there is another Heavy Snow Warning in effect with a possible 4-8 inches coming. So, I prefer to think of it as a snow day, not a fog day because a fog day would be silly. We actually did have a day off of school last year due soley to fog. Insert smiley face with rolling eyes here.

Here it is not even officially winter and folks in the area are already sick of snow. The weather station said we've already had 15 inches of snow this year - maybe adding another 4-8 today - and we're usually still waiting for our first meager snow. The average yearly snowfall for this area is 30 inches - by the end of the day today, we should be over halfway there. And they had predicted a warmer, milder winter.......hmmm.....

In any case, I will once again be making very good use of my day off. If you have to have a day off (that you will be required to make up in the summer), this is definitely the time of year where it comes in most handy. Today I'll be baking, wrapping, visiting the post office, cleaning and various other tasks. Perhaps a visit to the YMCA as well - especially if the boys continue what they started this moring by being grumpy and fighting.

Last night was a rather frustrating night of baking. I won't go into the boring details, but things ended up turning out okay in the end. We made little pretzel candies (so easy and usually quite the hit) and Peanut Butter Cup Cookies. These were all made for a school Christmas party today that ended up being postponed until next week because of our FOG closing. I'll likely just throw everything in the freezer until next week - at least I'm ready now. The candies are a terrific project to do with kids - they can do the entire thing (except for removing from the oven) by themselves.

I may have more cookies to post later if I do indeed have time for more baking (but other holiday preparations need to take precedent at this point), so stay tuned......

Sweet and Salty Pretzel Candies

Here's a picture from Party Works that gives you an idea of what these candies look like with pecans. They also give a step-by-step photo tutorial. Whatever you do, don't increase the oven temperature - I found that out the hard way - the candies actually get hard and crumbly at higher temps. Sometimes less really is more.

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies