You know you're in Wisconsin when (part 3)...

You're visiting family in Milwaukee, and your husband totally mucks up their tv in an attempt to turn it on.

The next morning when you wake up, the remotes look like this: 

Yes, all the "don't touch" buttons are covered in masking tape.  Yes, they apparently have one remote that's sole function is volume control. 

You know you're in Wisconsin when (part 2)...

Your momma makes dessert for you every single night.  I wish I had been taking more pictures.  The first night home, it was a chocolate torte.  This night was panna cotta.  Another night was bread pudding.  Another night was Christmas cookies (well, that was Christmas Eve). 

She's so good to me. Since none of my brothers are up north for Christmas, all our dinners have been awesome vegetarian things. One night was an eggplant arborio casserole, one night was a spinach chickpea curry (vegan!), one night was mushroom gratin over polenta, one night was Moroccan carrot soup (vegan!), one night was a spaghetti casserole, one night was curried tofu with peas (vegan!). 

The sad thing about the panna cotta dessert though was that we ate it all. That I guess is the downside to individual portions of dessert.   She made 4, we ate 4, no leftovers for lunch dessert the next day. Thankfully, there was still chocolate torte...

Hope you had a lovely Christmas (if you celebrate).  Happy, warm, full belly, healthy, heart full of love, surrounded by your favorites. 

This is why we wear pants

Even if you don't think there's a good reason to wear pants, it's very important. 

Even if you are just driving to the gym to run on a treadmill and then driving back home. 

Stuff like this can happen at any time, even when your momma just drove home on this exact same route less than an hour earlier and it was completely clear. 

We got out of the car and tried to move it.  No luck.  We got a few of the larger limbs off the road, but the main trunk was still completely across the road.  We tried to call my mom, but no cell service. 

So we pondered what we should do. Me in no pants, no gloves, no scarf, borrowing hubby's hat. Hubby in pants, gloves, another hat he had in his pocket, the works. 

Fortunately, within half an hour or so (we were actually weighing our options -- get out and walk home (less than a mile probably, but no pants for me), drive back to town and try to load a map on our phones with an alternate route, drive back to town and call the police), a car came from the other direction. He stopped and all three of us tried to move the trunk.

Honestly, I really do think the three of us were stronger than the average 3 people passing that point in the road on a given day, but no. It didn't move at all.

So the guy said he'd go home and get a chainsaw and come back. He was on his way to work. I'm guessing there was an alternate route he could have taken, but being a kind soul, he was true to his word and he was back in about 15 or so minutes.

 

So he chopped the trunk into about 8 sections that were huge and heavy, but small enough for my husband to lift, drag, push, or roll to the side of the road.

While I sat in the running car and learned a valuable lesson about why we wear pants.   

You know you're in Wisconsin when...

You're greeted with signs like this.

Gotta love it!