Spring Has Sprung

Yesterday I woke up from my "nap" at about 2:30 pm, and was amazed the sun was out and shining warmly out my windows. This last week, the weather has been gray, dark, dreary and soggy. We've had rain, rain, fog and more fog. I was beginning to wonder if my zip code had changed to somewhere in Washington state.

But no, the sun was out. It's out again today, and I can't tell you how much it has improved my mood and outlook. I know we need rain, but with the flooding problems around Minnesota and North Dakota, we need a few days to dry things out.

Yesterday, I got busy cleaning off my deck (proof is in the photo above). I swept all the leaves and pine needles and dirt off the outdoor carpeting. I got a bucket with some hot water and some Mr. Clean (Lemon Scented) and washed off the patio chairs, the patio tables and the railing. I looked in my flower bed and saw green things growing, but they are weeds, but I didn't have the heart to pull them out just yet. It's green and growing and until I get my plants all figured out for this year, they can stay for now.

About the time I finished, the Hubby came home and I moved my car and the green car out of the garage so we could take the '56 Chevy (the Pink Ride) out and fire it up. We turned the furnace down and opened the doors and windows up to air out the house, took the plastic off the door to the deck, and opened up the garage to dry out the garage floor which was damp. He swept out the garage floor and I was amazed that except for a couple of the bigger banks, most of the snow is gone. Last week I wasn't sure if the snow would ever melt. Now I'm wondering when I can sleep with the windows open!

It was a wonderful day, and I was glad I didn't sleep through the whole day. I'm going to have to rearrange my sleep schedule for the spring and summer so I don't miss wonderful days like yesterday and today. I was so excited I was tempted to put the gazebo up, but this time of year, we could still get a dumping of snow, and that would cause a collapse.

Once I have the gazebo up (above), I have my "writing room" back. I take my coffee, my notebook and go out on the patio to write to my little heart's content. I listen to the birds and the squirrels, and in the summer I love to watch the hummingbirds, the bumble bees and butterflies as they buzz and fly and feed around my feeders and flowers. Sometimes, I even nap out there.

But more than anything, this time of year signals that Alex will be home soon.

I know he's having the adventure of a lifetime, and I would love to see his ship come into San Diego, but it won't be possible for us with finances and my new job. But even if we can't see him in San Diego, I will be happy when he comes home.

Today, if you can, take your lunch outside, or go for a walk, or just spend some time outside in the warm sunshine today. It'll do your body and soul some good. It has for me. :)

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. :)

Slowly Getting Caught Up

It's been a challenging month to say the least.

February is usually bad for me. It's the shortest month of the year and it seems to bring a lot of difficulties that make it seem the longest month of the year.

Other than Valentine's Day, the month holds difficult memories for me. Today, for instance, is the anniversary of my mother's masectomy. She had her surgery in 2009, and has been cancer free since then, Thank God. But the melancholy also seems to be amplified with everyone being sick, including yours truly.

I was supposed to have some teeth pulled yesterday, not the funnest thing in the world, but I was prepared to have it done and get it over with. Well, that didn't work out either, because of my upper respiratory infection and my blood pressure being high. I took Thereflu the night before, which elevates your blood pressure, and had nothing but coffee and you mix that with the possibility of pain in the dentist chair, well, you get a high reading.

So, they cancelled that and I made an appointment to see a family physician and have my pressure checked, etc. He saw no reason for me to delay having the extractions, but said I should take antibiotics and let the sinus infection clear up before rescheduling with the dentist. Fine. So, I got my prescription and like a good girl, took my medicine.

The plan is for me to stay away from anything that will elevate my pressure and the doctor had my blood taken to check for cholesterol and stuff and see how that comes out. I also need to drop some weight, a lot of weight. But first thing's first, get rid of the infection. Then get my butt back into the gym.

As for everything else, I have had a hard time getting back into my groove. I'm almost back up to my 2,000 words a day in writing, but I have found that once you stop it's hard to build up the momentum again. I wish I wouldn't have slacked off the last couple of weeks, but my heart and my head were so turned around with everything and my emotions were all over the place, it was hard to just focus on getting out of bed and functioning without breaking down and crying.

It's taking time, but it's getting better and I'm slowly getting caught up.

In the meantime, I'm trying to stay strong and positive and to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I can't sit around and feel sorry for myself or crawl into a corner and cry all the time. George, if he were alive, would kick my ass for that, and so would his wife. She's been getting along fairly well, but I know it must be really hard when you lose someone you've lived with and were married to for over 60 years.

Sigh. Life goes on.

I'm looking forward to Spring, and March is coming. I will be planting my flowers again, with Cannon's help, and will be happy when the weather warms up and the snow is gone. It's been a long winter.

Jess and Patrice will also be welcoming their first baby in the early part of March, a baby girl. Then I can be "Grandma Laura" and QH can be "Poppa Dude". Babies have a way of making things all better.

April we will be going to Florida, for a much needed vacation and some time in the sun and on the beach.

But the best news is my brother called on Valentine's Day and he and his wife, Lisa, are expecting their first baby sometime in the fall, around September. I told him since Kelley and I had the boys, he was going to have the girls!

We'll have to wait and see.

Spring Is Here and...Happy Easter!

Spring arrived this week to the relief of the residents of Minnesota. We spent the first day of Spring in Duluth, driving all the way to Grand Marais, Minnesota, which was still covered in snow and Lake Superior still had ice and snow in some of the bays. But the snow and ice were melting, and with the warm temperatures (it was a balmy 30 degrees ABOVE zero), and the bright sunshine, it was the perfect time for QH and I to run away from home.

We left on Wednesday, and came home on Friday morning. Two days away up at the North Shore will renew your energy, recharge your batteries, and make it really hard to leave to go home. If you look at the picture above, you can see why. We daydream of when we will be able to retire and move up there. We scout out places to build a home or find homes for sale that we wouldn't mind moving into. Driving the Skyline Parkway which is way above the cliffs of Duluth at night, then watching the city and the harbor light up like Christmas is breathtaking, and not just because if your brakes fail on the car, you have a sheer drop to the bottom. Nothing like a little adrenaline to keep things exciting!

We stayed at the Black Bear Casino & Hotel in Cloquet, just a few miles outside of Duluth, which was a good thing since I had no idea the Women's Hockey NCAA Frozen Four Tournament was taking place this weekend! Thursday was the first set of games and Wisconsin beat Harvard (ranked #1), and the Bulldogs (University of Minnesota-Duluth), beat New Hampshire. I have no idea how the rest of the tournament is going, but I was happy to hear that much of it!

We aren't very good gamblers. I spent about $10 and QH spent about $4 on the slot machines. We got bored and went back to the room to watch TV. I found $50 lying on the ground in the entrance to the casino on Thursday night when we were returning from dinner, so we came out ahead anyway!

And of course, in true Minnesota fashion, we returned in the middle of a snow storm. I was wishing that I would have taken the day off when I came into work last night, and really wishing it when I left to go home and had to scrape the snow and ice off my car! Oh, well, Spring is here!

To everyone traveling (or not), I hope you have a safe and Happy Easter weekend. It snuck up on me this year, like the Daylight Savings Time, by coming early. I'm used to Easter being either on my Dad's birthday (April 12), or right around it, so for Easter to be in March really throws me off a bit. It also reminds me that time flys faster than we realize.

Everyone say a prayer for one of my dear loved ones. My great aunt, Aunt Mary Kerzmann, suffered a stroke earlier this week. Aunt Mary is the oldest sister of my grandmother, Ellen Crawford. They both live across the hall from each other in an apartment complex in Garrison, North Dakota.

Grandma was very upset when she called Wednesday morning before we left for Duluth, but the latest news is Mary still has her speech, some of her memory is still foggy, and she has been affected on her right side. Mary is 91 years young, but she is not completely out of the woods yet, so please, any prayers and blessings and good thoughts for her recovery will be greatly appreciated. I thank you all in advance.

For those of you who need a good laugh for Easter, stop on over at my friend, Sandy Lender's blog, Today the Dragon Wins and check out her Cadbury Creme Egg "Eggsperiement". It's a riot!

Have a great weekend!