Mid-January Snow Storm

As I'm sure most of the Midwest knows this by now, but a considerable snow storm ripped through Southeast Missouri last night leaving thousands without power - including us. Thank God that it's back on today, but it has flashed off a couple times leaving me with lingering anxiety that it's going to go off again. There are still people close to us that have no power, so we're one of the lucky ones, which I'm undeniably thankful for. 

I documented most of the snowfall on my phone, which I'll share Friday, but I did take my camera and wide-angle Tokina lens to the front door to try and capture a better photo of just how much snow was hanging on the trees. It was a very dense, heavy snow which is why there were so many power outages last night. I'm just thankful ours is back on and pray to God that it stays that way.

Here are some pics of the heavy snowfall on the trees:

See how immensely heavy the snow was on the trees?

The snow covered weeping willow looks haunting.

Not gonna lie, all of the trees look kind of spooky covered in snow.

Last snow covered tree photo. I'm in love with how well the Tokina does in low lighting.

Beck's Tree Farm 2015

I don't know why, but there were NO trees at the grocery store today. They used to get trees in the day after Thanksgiving, now it's well over a week after Thanksgiving before they get them. Annoying! Luckily we found a tree farm just outside of Farmington. Since my aunt and uncle have a truck, they were able to haul it for us.

We found the farm in no time, despite the terrible driving conditions -- it was so cold and rainy today! Thankfully we found a tree within 5 minutes of arriving. AND it was only the second tree we looked at! Winning!

We shopped around in their little store for a few minutes, admiring some of their overpriced items, some underpriced, but not many. We departed shortly after and rushed home to decorate the tree.

Our red and green theme turned out AWESOME! Unfortunately we're short a couple strands of garland -- our tree ended up being quite a bit bigger than we anticipated. So now we have to go to the store tomorrow and get more. We need some green garland as well, so it's a much needed trip. We're finishing the tree tomorrow and decorating the rest of the house. Fun fun!

Speaking of Walmart, we went back yesterday after the majority of the Black Friday crowd left and were able to find loads of movies and a couple games. We also found a gorgeous scarf for me and some gloves for LaVaughn . Totally worth the drive. Anyways, I guess that all for now. LOADS of pics of the tree farm and gorgeous tree below!

Love & Peace

-Megan

Our drive to the tree farm:

Say cheese!

Or not...

Fluffing our tree.

It's so gorgeous!

My favorite picture of the day.

Inside Beck's tree farm:

They had a nice little set-up of decorations.

They also had loads of homemade jams.

And butters.

Another nice setup.

Setting up and decorating the tree:

The most gorgeous Christmas tree ever!

Our red and green lights.

With the assortment of red and green balls.

The star and most of the garland.

LOVE it!

Our beautiful wreath.

Loads of tree pics:

Oh what a week it's been!

This has been one of those "I want to hurl myself off of a cliff" type weeks. Everything was all good Monday and up into Tuesday. I knew Tuesday was going to be weird when I called home on my break. LaVaughn was in a weird mood and we just weren't having a civil conversation at all! So naturally, we both got pissed at each other and basically just sat on the phones, slowly breathing into one another's ear.

I tried to liven the mood by saying, "At least we don't have anything else to do the rest of the week!". That's when she broke the news that we had to take my aunt to her doctors appointment Thursday. This is nothing new, I drive her to Cape all the time, what was depressing was the time we had to be there... 10:30 in the morning!

Let me start by saying that I ADORE my aunt and would do anything for her, including taking her to her AM appointments, which I do and which I did.

For those that don't know, I suffer from severe anxiety when it comes to my sleeping patterns. I know, I'm weird. I like to keep a schedule when I go to sleep, which is 4:30ish in the morning. If I have to stay up past like 5:30 AM or go to bed before 3:30 AM, I have an anxiety attack. I can't explain it, but I guess that's how anxiety works. I've been this way since my grandma passed away in 2009.

Wednesday was all a blur. I was anxious all day, worrying about being able to fall asleep so that I could get up Thursday morning and drive her to Cape. I tried to keep my mind as far from the thought of that as possible, so I kept busy by completely re-organizing the cabinets/pantries. It was a tedious job, but everything looks so much better now! After that I made 4 batches of HPW.

I tried to go to bed at like midnight and ended up tossing and turning for over an hour before finally passing out. I refuse to look at clocks when I'm trying to sleep, so I honestly don't know what time I feel asleep, I just know it was before 2:30. I ended up waking up minutes before 5 AM and went to the bedroom to try and sleep for another couple hours -- I was sleeping in the living room to avoid being woken up by the gliders -- but that failed miserably. I did pass out for about 15 minutes, then I just got up at 6 and got ready.

I'm going to fast-forward through Thursday. Everything went fine at the doctors and we ended up making it home around 3. We did have a hellish drive up there, though. We ran into well over 6 road crews working on the road, it was horrible.

I made it all the way until 3:30 AM before I called it a night. Of course, I passed out off and on throughout the night, but that's okay with me.

I haven't done much today, I'm actually in the process of playing the Sims. I took joey pictures as soon as I got up and have been taking it easy the rest of the day. I'm also eBay shopping, which is never good. I've already put a bid in on a Juicy Couture purse and Batman Arkham Night! It's a terrible and expensive habit. In my defense I am trying to sell a couple games that I despise -- minus the previously mentioned Tomb Raider, that one I'm keeping.

So, that's my week. I'm actually looking forward to work tomorrow. Until next time...

Love & Peace

-Megan

Pictures from Wednesday:

The disarray that was our pantry. 

After.

Everything is all neat and organized.

Here's what 4 batches of HPW looks like.

Pictures from Thursday (morning):

It was really pretty out.

This was before 8 AM. O.o

Car musings from Thursday:

And lastly, joey pictures from Friday (today):

Pietro

Wanda

Jeremy

Elena