Lucky

Let's rewind to last Friday around 3:30pm.  My husband's phone pocket dials me and I hear all sorts of commotion going on and then phrases like "dude, I wouldn't tell her," "leave it at my place, we'll fix it," and "you know I'm not going to hear the end of it because we have the baby on the way."  These are never good things to overhear when your husband is on a trip up north snowmobiling.  

I held off on posting anything about this because as you can imagine, I have mixed emotions on the subject.  First and foremost I was worried about him.  Obviously some form of accident had occurred and from the pocket dial I wasn't sure if he was even injured. I was also disappointed for him because he was so excited to be heading north for the first time with his sled and now his weekend was ruined.  Lastly, I was angry.  I was angry at the direction the conversation I overheard was taking and I was angry because we'd recently put +$400 into the sled and it was becoming apparent our bank accounts were going to suffer some more.  You may recall my eluding to his sled having work done in my Manic Monday post.  At any rate, it's just money, but certainly not something else we needed to encumber at this point in time. 

It's beginning to look a lot like...

A blizzard outside!  Our county was slated for 17-24" of snow and for once the weatherman actually got it right.  We easily have 18-20" in our yard right now after yesterday's storm.  After two dud years for owning a snowmobile it looks like this year will be a good one (and of course I cannot ride).  Justin had a blast last night riding with a few of his buddies while I stayed home cuddled on the couch in my Ski-Doo jersey playing XBOX360.  In a week's time I guarantee the jersey will no longer fit.

Snowmobiling...finally

The winter in Upstate New York has been weird to say the least, at least this year.  Any other year we are bombarded with snow from November through March.  Maybe it's because Justin and I invested in a snowmobile, a snowmobile trailer, and gear that we've had nothing but green lawns up until recently.  What a bummer to have all that fun equipment hanging around with nothing to do...  until a friend ours came up with the great idea to go north to Caroga Lake.

SNOW!

Ah, the joys of living in Upstate New York.  It wasn't even Halloween yet and already we had a few inches of snow come down.  In a way it's depressing that I already have my heat turned on at home.  And, of course I wasn't ready for any of that white stuff to be flying around.  I had to have my snow tires put on this weekend.  And do you remember that tree we had taken down only a few weeks ago?  Yeah, that puppy still needed to be split into firewood sized pieces and stacked.  For those of you who don't know me, manual labor is probably my least favorite part of home-ownership.  Yeah, I'm a whiny baby  and I'm okay with it.  My arms (mostly in the forearm area) and my lower back are still protesting today from the splitting and stacking that needed to occur before the snow fell.  Not to mention I hadn't yet swapped out my summer clothes for my winter clothes so this was a must seeing as how I only had a few sweatshirts in my drawers.  Side note: for those of you who do not have to swap clothing out by season, let me explain. We own a 1950's Cape Cod so our closet sizes  unfortunately make this a necessary chore. 

Aside from the nuances of getting ready for winter, I can say that I enjoy the snow moreso now that we have a snowmobile.  The last two winters have resulted in a decent amount of snow and we've made the most of vacation days and weekends to get out and about in it.  Last year we went as far as Utica, which is quite a ways from us by car so you can imagine how long of a day it was via snowmobile.  The great thing about getting out and snowmobiling are all the little bar/pubs along the trails.  There are some real gems that we look forward to stopping at along the way.  The Pleasant Brook Hotel, for instance, has the best honey-mustard wings.  The Red Barn in Summit has awesome texas style bbq, and Jack's has a humongous burger and sweet potato fries.  All relatively cheap, but equally delicious.  The only downside is snowmobile season does not open until December.  So you can imagine my dismay with snow in October and November.

Do you partake in any seasonal sports?  Do you snowmobile?  Any little places you recommend?

Ketchup

Today's title is a bit of a play on phonetics charades style.  One word, sounds like... you guessed it:  Catch Up.  Get it?  Ketchup = Catch up...

Anywho, this weekend was jam packed full of good things: friends, food, shoes and snowmobiles.  Not necessarily in that order but it sounded better that way.  Friday night the hubby and I had an excellent dinner out at the Reel Seafood Company.  We'd never been before and even without a reservation we had  absolutely no wait.  Unheard of in Albany, NY!  We should have bought a lotto ticket.  We enjoyed some fresh bread, adult beverages, fried calamari, stuffed shrimp and Alaskan Chicken (crab meat in a cheesy white garlic sauce over chicken). Delicious.  A little pricey though, so this will have to be something we do sparingly.

Saturday was the Big East Powersports Show in Syracuse, NY.  We went with friends of ours who share our affinity for snowmobiling.  This event features vendors from across the US who bring a butt-load of product with them at deeply discounted prices.  Deeply discounted must mean "jam packed convention center" in another language so I had to pretend not to be claustrophobic long enough to buy stuff.  I'm a bargain shopper and let me tell you...I was successful.  I got an entire outfit (Jacket and bibs) for $179.  Jackets alone normally retail over $300.  I also found Itasca snowmobile boots for $49.  At one point, though, I was trying on a modular helmet (since my current helmet is a hand-me-down that fogs up terrible) and was bumped from behind causing the face shield to slam down on the bridge of my nose.  I could have cried but I reminded myself this would all be worth it since we were going to Delmonico's for dinner afterward.  Delmonico's features their very own "Delmonico's Steak" which is a 24 ounce center cut seasoned angus rib-eye steak. This of course was the entree I ordered and subsequently ate the other half of for lunch today.

Sunday was a day of shoe shopping with my mom and sisters.  We have an upcoming wedding to look spiffy for, so we headed out to one of the malls closest to my house.  A new store had opened called Shoe Dept. Encore.  This store is like heaven for shoe addicts.  An entire room dedicated to clearance.  A tv and chairs over by the kid section.  Rows and rows of beautifully organized name-brand shoes with bargain prices.  Plenty of space so that you didn't feel overcrowded by other shoppers.  Plus the store was cooler on the temperature side of things, so that made it all that much better to shop there.  I despise shopping in a hot over-crowded store.  It makes me grumpy.  At the Shoe Dept Encore, I was far from grumpy.  I had more shoe selection than I could have asked for.  I probably tried on ten or so shoes that all could have been contenders for my dress.  I ended up with the black shoe pictured.

What did you do this weekend?  How do you feel about crowds?