In the Cold, Cold Winter

Brrrrr! I awoke to a sunny but frosty morning. Yesterday's snow was still on the ground and on untreated roadways...but thankfully, most of the roads seemed to have had a jet-load of salt dumped on them overnight, especially in Oaklyn. Between that and sleeping in, I had no problems riding to the Haddon Township Library late this morning.

The library was very busy for such a cold day! Many people were returning items after yesterday's holiday. There were tons and tons of DVDs to sort through and shelve. I especially saw a lot of non-fiction DVDs. I guess people wanted kids to learn something over the holiday. I managed to find a place for most of the kids' DVDs - they're still having problems with overflow there.

I ended up taking out the Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids Valentine's Day Episode Happy Heartwood Day, along with War Horse, the recent version of The Three Musketeers (another one that I took out last year but never got around to watching), and Scooby Doo and the Alien Invaders. I couldn't find any books in the adult section that interested me; ultimately just took out the non-fiction book on journal-writing and the most recent American Girl Rebecca mystery, The Crystal Ball.

It was too cold to do a lot of running around. I made a very quick stop at Dollar Tree for sponges and orange marmalade, then went to Friendly's for lunch. Salads were today's lunch special. I tried their Apple Harvest Chicken Salad. It was a huge platter of greens, grilled chicken, huge apple chunks, crumbled blue cheese, and walnuts. I had Ginger Sesame dressing on the side.

Needless to say, I wasn't hanging around in cold weather. I went straight home after lunch and went nowhere else today. I did a little research online into more writing possibilities, then baked a variation on the fold-over pie I made in the fall. I had two pears and an apple that were getting old, along with the few strawberries remaining from this week's sale at the Acme. I tossed them all together and called it a Winter Fruit Foldover Pie.

Had a simple meal of Merlin's Magic (Baked) Chicken Legs and peas for dinner while watching Scooby Doo and the Alien Invaders. In this early direct-to-home-media film, the gang stumble upon a desert town purely by accident when the Mystery Machine starts giving them trouble. While Fred and the girls learn about the possibility of an alien invasion from spooked locals, Shaggy falls hard for Crystal, a pretty nature photographer, while Scooby goes for her equally pretty dog. Turns out that the so-called "aliens" aren't what they seem to be...and neither are Crystal and her dog, much to the chagrin of their sweethearts.

An unusual and very sweet Scooby story, with one of the more elaborate hoaxes of the entire direct-to-DVD movie series. It's also one of the few times in the entire franchise that the "monsters" turn out to be real, though in this case they're not as menacing as everyone thinks they are. Fun for fans and pre-teens who won't be bothered by the mushy stuff.

Oh, and the pie didn't come out quite as well as last time - it's more like a round cobbler - but it's still very tasty.