An ice-bound day

The arctic blast has truly come to North Texas, with ice everywhere. I could no more navigate my front porch than I could fly. I even slipped a little just reaching around the corner to get the mail. My car might as well be a million miles away. There's no let-up in sight--10 degrees tonight, not much better tomorrow, highs in the twenties. By Friday it should get to the mid-thirties. Whoopee! My dog has been inside since about 1:30 and shows no inclination to go outside when I invite him, even when I offer supper. He just lies on his bed and looks at me. I predict  an emergency "Go outside" call at about midnight, but we'll see. I may force the issue before I go to bed and then welcome him with treats.
It's even cold in Houston, far south of us. This shows my Houston grandkids, Kegan and Morgan, huddled up with their mom, Lisa--all in snuggies. They sent me one, and I am enjoying it a lot.

Jamie has confessed that  he was the one who set my thermostat at 69 Saturday night, but he blames it on his sister for leaving Jacob with us while she partied. Jacob would not go to sleep and kept wanting to get into bed with Jamie and look at his iPad. In his frustration, Jamie got overheated, turned down the thermostat, and forgot to turn it up. I was a little cool today but didn't really notice it until I napped. When I got up it seemed really cold. I've lit the fireplace and turned up the heat and, with my snuggie, am fairly cozy.

This is what I spent most of my day doing. It's pull-apart bread, stuffed with mozzarella and seasoned with bacon, sliced scallions, parmesan, chili powder, and garlic powder. It's supposed to have Kalamata olives but I don't like them and, being the cook, I exercised the privilege of choice. When it came out of the oven, it smelled heavenly, and when it came out of the pan a few bits were left behind. Naturally I had to taste them--wonderful. Oh, I forgot to add it also has almost two sticks of butter.The downside: when I finished, every bowl in my kitchen was dirty, and it literally took me from ten this morning until three this afternoon. Granted, some of that time was for letting it rise--it's obviously a yeast bread--but it was a time-consuming project. You have to roll small bits of dough around small bits of mozzarella, then dip them in butter and next the parmesan seasoned with chili and garlic powders. Much as I hate to do this to fresh bread, it went into the freezer for a supper party Saturday night, assuming I can get to a grocery store between now and then. I got this recipe from my longtime friend Sally Jackson, and I'm quite sure she wouldn't mind if I shared it, but you'll have to email me. It's too long to type here.
This morning, regular programming went out the window for constant coverage of the ice-covered roadways, and there were some spectacular scenes--like three FedEx trucks stuck next to each other on an access overpass and motorists turning to go the wrong way down the access to get out of there. My neighbor saw someone on our street, a sheet of ice, gunning his pickup with his back wheels spinning--she said if he ever got traction, he'd go flying into someone's front yard. Little bits of sunshine were small encouragement in light of the forecast. When it's like this I have a tendency to think I can never walk across my front porch again, but of course I know that's not true. Before I know it, I'll be buying plants for the front porch and planning porch parties. But for now, this may get old by tomorrow and surely will by Thursday. Enough of my own company.