Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

With the temperature barely getting into the 50s now, “hot chocolate season” is upon us. Just thought I’d share our favorite recipe:

1 packet hot chocolate mix
3/4 cup warm milk
2 cap-fulls Peppermint Schnapps
Marshmallows

If you’re concerned about the alcohol content, get the 60-proof version instead of the 100-proof. You’re not adding much of it anyway, but really, you’re after the lovely (and ultra smooth) peppermint taste, not a buzz. Yes, you could use peppermint flavoring, but it just doesn’t taste as good as the Schnapps does — the flavoring tends to have a bit of a bite to it, and most flavorings do have alcohol in them anyway (although it’s a pretty insignificant amount).

As I’m typing this, I’ve got some chocolate walnut cookies in the oven and John is heating up the fireplace. I really love fall and winter!

The Howling

“And I can hear the wild wind howling
And I can feel it in my bones
And I know that the howling will take me home”
– Rich Mullins

We live in a house built into the side of a hill, facing the mountains to the west. As a result of this orientation, we get some really wild winds here. Once it starts howling, it just keeps getting louder and louder until you would swear that the whole house is going to blow away. The near-constant howling of the fall and winter seasons reminds me of this song by Rich Mullins.

We just marked our first year in this “new to us” home, and the howling started almost as if on queue this past weekend. The winds were so strong that they nearly knocked me off of my feet when I went outside to get the mail. The previous-previous owners of the house installed the storm doors backwards to prevent them from being ripped off of their hinges.

The winds here are typically out of the north, but every now and then they will shift. On the rare occasions that the winds come from the south, we know we’re in for some seriously foul weather. When the shift happens, we have to keep the storm doors locked (say it with me now) to prevent them from being ripped off of their hinges. The howling is heard on a daily basis from October to March, and typically from about 11am through to the early hours of morning. We like to crack the bedroom window and listen to it as we drift off to sleep.