We had a bit of a seafood feast tonight, shrimp, oysters and crab cakes oh my!

Papa Jewell showing me how to open oysters, I'm better at it than he is.

A meal fit for a king!

Slurp!

Those pretty snow patterns I was talking about.

"Holy shit it's cold!"

Mook standing in just a couple hours worth of snow fall.


An imprint from a sparrow taking off.
In the time it took me to get to the end of my drive way to take this my fingers were almost completely numb.

Caitlin, make sure you pack wisely. This is one of the most brutal winters Wisconsin has seen in awhile. Heavy jacket, mittens, hat, scarf, boots, all your winter gear. Hoodies and sweaters, and if you have any pants that are a little baggier bring those and leggings to wear underneath them. You probably won't want to have just one layer on most of the time you're here.
When I walked to work tonight it was nine degrees and snowing, there was so much snow in the air I could barely see more than a block in front of me.
On my walk home, it was negative six, with a wind chill of negative twenty-five, with gusts of wind up to 30 miles per hour.


The snow that fell tonight was very dry and fine and so those gusts of wind blew it all over, creating beautiful ripples on the banks and tossing so much of it in the air it looked like television static.
Really beautiful, but very dangerous if you aren't prepared for it. I was only partially prepared. I wore two down jackets and stayed very comfortable from the hips up, but I only wore jeans instead of layering like I should have. On the left is my arm, which was protected by my coats, on the right, my leg, only covered by a single layer of denim. If I had stayed out any longer I could have sustained serious tissue damage.

I got a camera, it needs some repairs, but it's a start!

Kate and I bought some chairs...

and this is me today.

I'm such a mess.

I got to be such a mess working on this, it's one frame in an animation a girl and fellow soldier in the Army of Fun is doing. It's not finished, but what I've seen was amazing. I'll set you up with a link once it's done.
(Jen Lila drew, I painted in a similar style to the other frames.)

Kate gave me my Christmas present early! I was so happy I almost cried. Now if only it had come with some to use it on, I would have!

Here she is with a particularly adorable kitten named Misa.

Kittens are not phones.

Mook having fun in the snow. I tend to take him for walks late at night because it's just more fun that way. Last night we went to Jefferson and I let him run around without his leash and for the first time ever he stopped and picked up the handle of his leashed and carried it himself so it wasn't dragging.












The nice thing about when it snows is that usually means it's not going to be too cold. I've taken to wearing leggings under my pants, but last night I was getting ready for bed when I realized I hadn't taken Mook out, so I went in my leggings. I looked a little silly with my moon boots, but that's never stopped me before. My legs actually stayed quite comfortable until the very end of our walk when they started to get a bit wet from the huge snowflakes.








Here's the house I grew up in. That steam is from Mook, he ruins all winter photographs. My room was those two windows close together on the top floor, upper left hand side of the photo.








I painted my glasses black! Today I'm going to touch them up a bit and paint the insides white I think. I found that if I use acrylic paint it'll just peel/scratch off. I love acrylic paint for that quality.

One of my aunt's puppies, so cute!

Ed in my glasses

Ryan is a goon.

Forward!

Ryan at the UW Library.

Pig the dog!

Henry Vilas Zoo

Never let a man behind a camera, or all you will get are things like this.
Or pictures of bugs, he likes taking those too.

Plague Squirrel

Ella's Deli

My mom came to visit and brought Athena, she actually spoke to me for the first time and had fun with me, it was nice. She still prefers my mother and sister, but at least she doesn't cry when I come in the room anymore.
We went to this place called Ella's Deli, it's full of strange things and has a lovely carousel.