I used to love cold weather. Like, really love it. In fact, that's why Joe and I are getting married in February - because it's the only month of the year that I can guarantee with almost 100 percent certainty will be cold. And possibly snowy, which I find lovely and romantic.

But damn.

It's freaking COLD.

This morning I woke with the skin on the right side of my face peeling off in sheets. Guzzling water and moisturizing three times a day doesn't seem to be doing the trick, so I resorted to more drastic measures and slathered on some generic Aquaphor to see if I could get rid of some of the flaking. It's disgusting. And it hurts. Fix it! Fix it! Fix it!

Saturday night, it snowed and it was so pretty and I was all happy and whatnot. My mom hosted a dinner to celebrate Joe's birthday (which was on Friday) and Mark's birthday (which was on Saturday). She made this kick-ass anti-pasti platter that had everything you could imagine on it (including a big ball of fresh mozzarella stuffed with soft cream cheese - yum! We arrived at the Italian theme because I'd been dying to make the bolognese sauce recipe that appeared in O Magazine last February. Only, the recipe turned out to be not so great. I don't know if I just had skewed ideas about a traditional bolognese sauce, but this was bland and lacked any kind of tomato-y impact. With an hour left to go on the cooking, I made some major adjustments to the recipe (which I will post tomorrow) and it turned out fantastic. We served it on top of bucati, which are like straws of pasta that are hollow insiide (perfect to soak up sauce) and with homemade garlic bread that I also made. For dessert, Mom made mini bundt cakes using this amazing Earl Grey chocolate pound cake recipe, and Joe and I made tiramisu from scratch. Only, I used the traditional Bel Gioso recipe, which fails to specify clearly that you should layer the mascarpone mixture with the ladyfingers dipped in espresso, so instead of three layers of cookies/cheese mixture, I had a thick layer of cookie topped by huge blobs of creamy stuff. Not my finest hour. I so understand why Rachael Ray hates baking. Cooking is so easy to fix and mess around with. Baking is science. I am not a science person. I am a tinkering person. Hence, cooking is better.

Other than taking time out to celebrate birthdays and enjoy a bit of snow, I've been working round-the-clock on a freelance project that initially seemed like a breeze but turned out to be hellish. I've logged like 50 hours on it so far, and I'm still not done. By the time this puppy is finished, I will have made maybe $6/hour from it. SO NOT WORTH MY TIME/EFFORT. Not to mention the sacrifice of sleep. Only three hours last night, and I've still got a ways to go before I can crash.

No rest for the weary.

In more uplifting news: in about 30 minutes I get to leave to go meet lizgallagher for breakfast. She was in town for a wedding and is flying back to Seattle today, so unfortunately we only get about an hour or so of catch-up time. Still, seeing even a little bit of Liz is better than no Liz at all, so I'm excited.

Woot!

1. I am very, very, very, very, very happy with this year's winner of TOP CHEF.

2. Which reminds me, the other night for dinner I attempted to recreate Lisa's infamous peanut butter mashed potatoes (and no, that's not a spoiler, just go watch). What I did: peeled and boiled maybe six or seven regular baking potatoes (medium sized). Drained and put them back in the pan. Added 2 T butter and about a quarter cup of regular Skippy (I did not do precise measurements, as you can see). Added coconut milk and mashed them with a hand masher. I think we added more peanut butter and more coconut milk - it ended up being half a can and I froze the rest for later. I had boiled the potatoes in salted water but added a bit more salt to the final product. OH MY GOD. So good. Went perfectly with a top round London Broil and petite green beans. [Note: obviously this is not a low-fat side dish, and not something I would make weekly, but it was a fun, yummy experiment and I highly recommend trying it out at least once.]

3. Yesterday, my new pedal extenders came in the mail. Huh? you say. See, here's the deal - I'm short. REALLY short. Like barely 5'2". What's worse is that I have supershort legs. (FACT: in middle school, Cindy Joseph and I were the same height, and her legs were three inches longer. I'm not even exaggerating.) So, even in my cute little Saturn, I always am sitting right on top of the steering wheel - just so my feet can reach the pedals. And I tend to wear out the rubber on my brake pedal, so it gets slippery, and then I have to sit even closer. Well, obviously this is not good, and Joe and I started doing research and found out that they make pedal extenders that bolt onto your pedals (approved by traffic officials and everything) and it lengthens your pedal by 2 to 4 inches, which means you can sit the regulated 18" away from the steering wheel. Squee! Apparently there are a lot of cars made in this decade that have automatically extending power pedals, but the Saturn is from 1998 and I don't see me getting a fancy pants new car any time soon. So, extenders it is. I haven't tried them out yet but definitely will this weekend.

4. We no longer have an AQUA TEEN lawn. In the front, anyway. The back yard ... well, let's just say I'm glad it's in the back.

5. Today I made a mental list of all of my good friends that I haven't talked to in a while and I needed two hands. I have no idea WHY I've been out of touch, or why they've been out of touch, but as soon as I finish going over the copyedits on STELLA I plan to rectify the situation.