snow days!

there are two feet of snow on the ground already here in dc, and its sounding like we're getting another foot or two tonight. the federal government has been closed since noon last Friday, and i'm guessing it'll be closed again tomorrow.
yay snow days!

what do you do when you're trapped inside for 4 days?
drink hot chocolate!
knit hats
read books you've been meaning to read
and dog sit!
... well ok the last one is not usually what you do when it snows, but this weekend i happened to be dogsitting for a friend that is out of town so i get to go on lots of snowy walks with Laika.


Laika!


hot chocolate
so instead of just making hot chocolate, i made spicy hot chocolate AND made cookies to go with them. there is a great recipe in vegan cookies invade your cookie jar for "mexican hot chocolate snickerdoodles." super yum, and perfect for these cold snowy days.



i think spicy chocolate got popular after the film chocolat because the woman who owned the chocolate shop specialized in hot chocolate with a bit of chili pepper in it (see clip, fwd to 6 mins).



don't watch this movie on an empty stomach.


knitting
after making hot chocolate, i started knitting. i have to go to a baby shower later this month so i decided to knit two baby hats as a present.



the hats are surprisingly easy and pretty quick since they are so small. there were almost too many patterns available online, so i ended up just making it up since i couldn't pick one of the fancier ones. its hard to know if its going to be the right size though, so i tried it on anything baby shaped i could find in my house (like a grapefruit, haha, thats baby head sized right?).


books
the book i'm reading right now is "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver.



its all about gardening and its getting me excited for the spring and planting seeds again. i still have quite a few weeks left before i can start my indoor seeds, and then a few more weeks after that before they can get in the garden. this is what my garden currently looks like:


compared to early summer last year:





ok time to walk Laika again!


see you at the next snow ball fight