Ava Has Arrived

That beautiful baby girl is my granddaughter, Ava.

She was born on St. Patrick's Day (March 17) at 7:34 pm.

She weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz. and is 19 inches long.

She's a good, strong, healthy baby girl. She has bright blue eyes and will grip your finger and smile, and look at you. She sometimes has a serious look, which to me, means she's going to be a thinker, and observer and will be trying to figure you out. She pays attention.

This little blessing came straight from Heaven and yes, Momma is doing just fine and the puppies are adjusting to her quite well. Brody (the Yorkie), is very protective. Tank (the Husky with one blue and one brown eye), is afraid of her. Both of them are right there when she makes the slightest noise.

This week has been one of great joy and great sadness.

While Ava was making her entrance into this world, my brother's wife, Lisa, miscarried last weekend.
I ask that everyone please pray for them during their grieving process.

The doctors are confident she will be okay to get pregnant again once she recovers from this, and they didn't really have an explanation as to why it happened, at least medically speaking.

I'm a writer, and while I work with words every day, I don't have words to convey to them. I did call them this week and let them know that we love them and hope they can find the strength to get through this.

In the meantime, this is the first weekend of Spring, officially, and I am happy it's here. Most of the snow is gone, and we had rain on Friday. Today was really nice and we sat out on the deck and "sunbathed" while we drank our morning coffee. Then we went to visit Ava and her parents. :)

I hope you all had a great weekend, and have a great week!

Snow, AGAIN! GRRRR!!!

It's January again.

Ok, it's March, but it FEELS like January. Snow piled up again, with below zero temperatures. But the weather people are telling us that by the weekend it will be 4o degrees ABOVE ZERO. I have a hard time believing people who get paid to guess for a living.

Sigh. I have cabin fever. I have spring fever. I want to be outside walking and getting my flower garden ready. I long to hear the frogs singing in the evening. I want to be out writing in my gazebo or "relaxing" in my patio chairs with Cannon, sipping iced tea.

The bugs can stay gone, especially the mosquitoes. Bumble bees and butterflies are welcome anytime.

I'm trying to keep positive and counting the days to vacation. We leave for Florida on April 15 and come home on April 27. With this year starting out so crappy, a little fun and sun in Florida is something we both need. We have friends in Naples that we are so looking forward to seeing and spending time with, no agenda, no itinerary. We just go where we want, and hang out and people watch at the beach. Anything else we do will be a bonus.

Last weekend we went to Iowa to see QH's son Andy. He left yesterday for California with his roommate, Mitch. They are driving to Long Beach to catch the cruise ship for the Mexican Riviera for a two week vacation. We wanted to see them before they left.

We left Friday and four hours later we were in 65 degree weather! Man, what a boost to my attitude! Unfortunately, it rained Saturday and Sunday and when we were on our way home, we hit snow and rain mixed, but just being able to get out of town for a little while was a much needed break.

Now, I just have about 30 days before we can get to Florida, and counting.

In the meantime, I have a great project I'm working on that will help keep me busy until we leave. And I hope make the time fly by.

Watch for an upcoming announcement. It's going to be a lot of work, but it's also going to be challenging and I hope, a lot of fun! And I hope to do a lot of good at the same time.

I'll keep you posted. :)