Snow Days, Santa Plans & the December Crunch

The Iowa men’s basketball team lost to Michigan State 71-52, but won the 2nd game of this week against Maryland 83-64.

At work this week at Colonial Lanes, one of my regulars was bowling with his wife during league bowling and he fell and hit his head. It was gruesome and I had to clean up the blood on the floor. He refused to go to the hospital until he finished bowling his perfect game. He did not bowl a good score, but he thought he won! haha. These league bowlers are dedicated to the sport.. And the season's rewards of cash prizes! I checked in with him the next night at the bowling league and he is doing just fine.

We got more snow this week and it made it perfect to get more of our fun holiday DIY projects to do with my children. The DIY page is called “The Orbit Workshop”. The DIY project called DIY Sara Jane’s Absolutely Unhinged Popsicle Stick Snowflake Ornaments was posted last Sunday 12/7/25.

With all the cold weather we have been working to get our soup recipes to share with everybody for after our cold walks outside. Soon we will have our 1st recipe on our website. Stay curious. Stay crunchy. Stay cosmic. — Sara Jane Shelvock, CEO, Torus Coffee Company LLC ________________ THE ORBIT REPORT — Iowa Winter Chaos & Holiday Craft Edition Greetings from the land of snow boots, Crock-Pots, and people who believe that a “quick trip” to the store is anything under 45 minutes. This week’s Orbit Report is officially part of the Iowa Winter Chaos Holiday Craft Edition, which is simply what we call life now. Snowstorms, DIY disasters, soup experiments, and enough cosmic confusion to power an entire galaxy. It’s all here, wrapped up in the coziest Midwest chaos imaginable. Buckle up, cosmic travelers. Pour yourself something warm. Maybe caffeinate. Maybe hydrate. Maybe both. Because this week’s Orbit Report is a full emotional buffet straight from the heart of Iowa Winter Chaos. ________________ Iowa Basketball: The Emotional Journey of a Fan Who Just Wants a Nice Sit-Down Let’s start with the weekly tradition we all experience whether we want to or not: Hawkeye basketball heartbreak followed by Hawkeye basketball joy, wrapped together like the emotional tortilla of the Iowa Winter Chaos Holiday Craft Edition. Game 1: Michigan State 71 – Iowa 52 Pain. Absolute pain. Watching this game felt like watching my kids “clean their room,” which is really just shoving toys under the bed and hoping I don’t notice. The effort is technically there, but the result is spiritually confusing. Every few minutes I yelled helpful mom-isms at the TV like: “You need to rebound that!” “Why are we shooting that?” “Does anyone on this team hydrate?!” “Is it too late for me to sub in?” The cat was alarmed. My kids were traumatized. My husband told me yelling doesn’t change the score, which is something only a man who has never yelled at an appliance believes. BUT THEN — Game 2 redeemed everything. Iowa 83 – Maryland 64 Suddenly the team remembered what basketball was. Shots went in. Passes connected. My soul returned to my body. My watch thought I was doing interval training. My blood pressure said, “Are we running from wolves or what?” This win restored the delicate balance of the Iowa Winter Chaos universe — the one where we complain loudly but love even harder. ________________ Colonial Lanes Chronicles: Where League Bowlers Fear No Injury, No Pain, and No Authority Now let’s talk about work. Or, as I call it: Colonial Lanes: The Real Housewives of League Bowling Edition, sponsored unofficially by the Iowa Winter Chaos Holiday Craft Edition spirit of stubbornness. One of my regulars — we’ll call him “Ten-Pin Tim” — came in with his wife during league bowling. Lovely couple. Salt of the earth. The kind of people who’d stop traffic to let ducks cross the road but also drink seven beers before 7 PM. Midway through the night, Tim takes a tumble. Not a little slip. A full cinematic collapse. The kind where you hear the thud before you see the body. His head cracked the lane like it owed him money. There was blood. A concerning amount. Enough to summon my inner OSHA inspector. So there I am: Mopping blood like I’m auditioning for a medical drama, Trying to keep the league calm (“No, Janice, you CANNOT roll your ball around him”), And wondering if the Iowa Winter Chaos gods were testing me personally. And Tim — glorious, stubborn, impossible Tim — REFUSES TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL. Why? Because he wanted to finish bowling what he called his “perfect game.” My dude bowled a 140. Which is… Not perfect. Not close. Not even in the same universe. But he finished it like a champion. Raised his hands. Took a victory lap. Looked at his wife like, “You see that? Legendary.” I checked on him the next night. He was fine. Absolutely chipper. Retelling the story with increasing heroism. By next week he’ll say he bowled a 298 and rescued a small child from the ball return. ________________ Snowpocalypse 2025: The Snow Won’t Stop and Neither Will My Children Then came the snow. Again. Because in the Iowa Winter Chaos Holiday Craft Edition, snow is less of a weather event and more of a lifestyle. I looked outside and screamed internally like a Victorian governess seeing a ghost. With the roads buried and Iowa cosplaying as Antarctica, we stayed home and did what all Midwestern parents do when trapped with children: We turned to DIY crafts like our lives depended on it. Enter: The Orbit Workshop, our new DIY project page. This week’s feature: DIY Sara Jane’s Absolutely Unhinged Popsicle Stick Snowflake Ornaments And yes, the project was exactly the blend of chaos, glue, and personal despair the title promised. Picture this: Me, trying to glue popsicle sticks together with adult-level determination. My daughter sprinting away every time glue appeared, like she feared getting stuck in craft-based quicksand. My husband announcing he would “help” and immediately knocking over a jar of glitter so large it could be considered a controlled substance. Glitter floated through the air like the world’s least relaxing snow globe. I found glitter: In my socks In my shampoo On my couch Inside a sandwich I didn’t make On the ceiling fan In philosophical places inside my soul When I die, the coroner will find glitter in places not meant to contain glitter. But the ornaments? Adorable. Chaotic. Perfect for the Iowa Winter Chaos Holiday Craft Edition in both name and spirit. ________________ Soup Season: The Ultimate Iowa Winter Love Language After all this? We needed warmth. Real warmth. Thus: We entered Soup Season, Iowa’s unofficial emotional support system and the true culinary heart of the Iowa Winter Chaos Holiday Craft Edition. We’ve been testing broths, arguing with the Instant Pot, dropping carrots on the floor, and taste-testing like we’re auditioning for a cooking show filmed entirely inside a snowbank. Soon — very, very soon — we’ll share our first Torus Coffee Company soup recipe. It will be hearty. It will be cozy. It will thaw the frozen beef-jerky texture your face gets after a cold walk. ________________ Final Thoughts From the Center of the Storm This whole week has been the living embodiment of the Iowa Winter Chaos Holiday Craft Edition — the snow, the glitter, the sports heartbreak, the improvised crafts, the bowling injuries, the soups, the chaos, the comedy. And honestly? I wouldn’t trade it. Well. Maybe the glitter. And the driveway I have to shovel. And the person who left their bowling shoes on the bar. And whoever taught my daughter the phrase “You’re not the boss of me.” But still. You get it. Life is wild. Life is cosmic. Life is crunchy, like freeze-dried candy from a small Iowa business run by a woman who really needs a nap. And if you need a little extra crunch to survive your own Iowa Winter Chaos Holiday Craft Edition, you know where to find us. Our freeze-dried lineup is basically emotional support in snack form. Orbit Cream Crunch for the sports heartbreak. Solar Strawberries for glitter-related trauma. Cosmic Bananas for surviving family craft time without screaming into a pillow. Consider it cosmic self-care you can eat. Thanks for surviving another week in the galaxy with me. If you need reinforcements, the Torus Coffee Company snack portal awaits you. Stay curious. Stay crunchy. Stay cosmic. — Sara Jane Shelvock, CEO, Torus Coffee Company LLC Orbit Cream Crunch - Vanilla Ice-Cream Sandwiches Solar Strawberries