Ice, ice baby

We've been stuck in the midst of a wintry blast here for the past few days...ummm, I thought we were supposed to have patio weather in Dallas in December!  Isn't that one of the perks of suffering through the ridiculously hot summers?  Oh well, I guess we'll take a little actual cold; it makes it feel more holiday-ish, anyway.  I actually escaped from the ice (well, the start of the ice - still had to face the aftermath) by driving down to Austin Thursday night to go to tax school on Friday.  And since Dallas got covered in a thick sheet of ice Thursday night and Friday morning, I really didn't mind being in Austin where there was no ice in sight.  Especially since my office decided to say, "hey, you guys go ahead and brave the ice and come on in today!  If you can't make it, you'll probably just need to take some time off, ok, cool?"  Not cool, actually, especially when sanity says to stay off the crazy ice slick roads and you have a twenty-something mile drive that takes 45 minutes on a good day.  Anyway...happy to be in Austin so I didn't even have to deal with that.

No one wants to hear about tax school, so I'll just share my version of highlights, which you know includes food.

I picked up dinner Thursday night from Hyde Park Bar & Grill, which has one of my favorite restaurant landmarks - a big ol' giant fork outside.  It's awesome, and so is the food. 

I was originally planning to drive back Friday after the conference, but decided to stay an extra night, knock out some Christmas shopping, and face the icy disaster on Saturday instead.  Which meant one more delicious Austin dinner!  So I went to Maudie's and indulged in Tex-Mex deliciousness.  And yes, the margarita is virgin - no tequila for baby, I promise.

I waved at the Capitol on my way out of town.

The drive back on Saturday actually wasn't quite as horrendous as I thought it might be; the ice and mess really only added about 45 minutes to the drive and didn't get too dicey.  Although coming into south Dallas, the first bridge I went over had two smashed-up cars and flashy lights on the scene...oh boy.  Fortunately, sand had been laid out in force and most people were actually driving with caution instead of stupidity.  The worst part of the drive was our neighborhood, which with minimal traffic was still basically a ginormous sheet of thick ice.  I slowly pulled into the driveway...and slid right back down.  Oops.  Street parking it is.  But then Craig the Brave went out and made it up the driveway and into the garage - I just didn't watch it happen.

Our poor, sad tree-bush-thing in the backyard has quite a few broken branches.  Wah wah.  Hopefully it's salvageable and not a total goner.

Total ice slick out there!  And temporary street parking since the driveway got the best of me.

Brrrrrrrr.  So we've kept it pretty low key and have mostly stayed holed up at home with the fire going.  I've actually been semi-productive and knocked out Christmas cards last night and this morning, woot woot!  Now it's time to get my baking on.  And maybe I'll do the boring stuff, too, like laundry and a touch o' cleaning.  Stay warm, y'all!

Piles o' Christmas card goodness make me happy