The great blizzard of ‘07

This winter was almost perfect. We have had, at most, 2” of snow in any one storm. Our weather has been warm for most of the winter, too, so there wasn’t anything left on the ground. The sleds and skates and skis were sitting, alone and unused, next to the shovels. Our crocuses were even starting to peak out of the ground. All was ready for springtime!!

Until today. When you live in Minnesota, nothing weather-related is ever a sure thing. Today we’re getting, as the song says, “sno-o-o-o-w o-o-o-n snow.” (In the Bleak Midwinter – look it up)

Apparently when the weather turns frightful I turn domestic. I don’t mean the normal, time-to-dust domestic, either. I, apparently, lose my mind. Early this afternoon we AGAIN cleaned the younger son’s bedroom. It was much easier this time, since we spent an entire day doing the same thing not three months ago. Today we mostly just tidied things up and moved furniture around. It only took 2 ½ hours, and it looks pretty nice, so I guess it was a good idea.

When that was done, as I walked downstairs, I thought, “DONUTS!” For some reason I decided that THAT was the moment I’d been waiting for to make donuts. You need to know that I’ve never made donuts before, and that the last time I even ate homemade donuts I was probably pre-teen. Still, something somewhere inside said “donuts” so donuts it was. I found my grandmother’s recipe in our family cookbook. I found a pan that was deep enough. I found the oil and the candy thermometer. I started to look for the donut cutter (you know, the one with the hole in the middle so they look like donuts) and found, instead, a donut press! I didn’t know we HAD a donut press! Apparently I’m not the only one who thought, in a moment of madness, that donuts sounded like a good idea. The donut press was still in its original box and still sealed – never used (I guess the person who bought it had second thoughts). Price: $1.66 (current price on E-bay is $10) – does that give you any idea how long ago somebody else thought it might be fun to make donuts? I guess they decided not to make them after all… but it was nice of them to have the one thing we needed so I could make them and we could eat them on a snowy day.

Sometimes winter is really fun!