3 Days in a Row!

*30 days in the hole*....Now I've got that song stuck in my head...well, it rhymed....

What a nice day for a canoe race. I went to the river park to watch the racers today. C-1, which is a one man(or woman) canoe. They start at 15 second intervals, already in their canoes in the river, and it's more of a best time, rather than who gets back first. The first paddlers made it in just over an hour, so I did get to see some of them return to the start/finish line.

It was fairly cool out this morning, but a couple of the local kids were swimming. Well, jumping in the river and running right back out. That is just nuts. I stuck my hand in the river and it is downright icy!

There's a pair of mallard ducks that have a nest near the park, they were in attendance today, too. They'll come right up on the lower part of the dock, hoping for handouts. The treat-de-jour was hot dog bun pieces. They won't come up and take it out of your hand, but will get fairly close. I can't wait to see the little ones with mama duck this summer.

It's going to be nice again tomorrow, so I'm going to hang my laundry outside. I just love the way clothes smell and feel when they've been hung out, all fresh and crisp. Not many people do that anymore, do they? I think I'm the only one in my neighborhood.

I've seen a few more birds around lately. Lots of bluejays, right now. I don't remember seeing any at all over the winter, but they are year round residents here. I also saw my first rose breasted grosbeak(female) at my client's feeders today, the male wasn't far away, I'm sure. And I just barely caught a glimpse of a cardinal at the river today, too. The goldfinches are all the way gold again. They're kind of a muddy greenish color in early spring. I really enjoy watching the crowds at the feeders, kind of like a deli-get up to the counter, get your order and move out of the way for the next customer.

It's time for my day to end, so that's it for tonight.

~Thanks For Stopping By~

May? Really?

I've checked my calendar(s), I've checked the weather reports. I've seen the harbingers of spring( the robins) returning from their winter homes. The lilacs have leaf buds that are swelling every day. It's getting light earlier, and stays light later each day. The ice is gone from the lake, and most signs point to the fact that spring has sprung. The only element still dragging it's feet is the temperature.

We've had a few nice, warm, sunny days, but it's still jacket weather here. That's putting a damper on my plans to get the gardening started. I've got seeds to start, but don't want to rush it. I don't have the room or enough light to start plants in the house, so I'm holding back on starting them. By next week I should be able to set the transplant pots out during the day and bring them in at night. Imagine Bro's surprise when he goes to take a shower in the morning and sees the bathroom full of little plants!

I really have the gardening itch.

We're not planting too much. I'd like to grow more, but that would require a fenced in garden, so that has to wait for another year. I'm planting a few cucumbers and tomatoes(2) in the flower bed by the porch, growing some herbs and salad veggies in pots and a window box planter. And just to try something different, I'm going to plant some dill seeds around a small tree that'll get enough sun. I'm not sure if the critters will dine on my dill or not, but I just love fresh dill, so I'm taking the chance. As soon as it warms up a bit.....

Speaking of cold temperatures, this is canoe race weekend in my little river town. I surely don't envy those guys jumping in their canoes in 45 degree temperatures and paddling a course that goes 3 miles downstream, then turning around and paddling back(more water splashes up when you're going upstream).

It's a teeny tiny race compared to the Ausable River Canoe Marathon, but still fun to watch and a preview of the summer race season. We have a river festival weekend in June, so I don't know why they don't wait till then to do the race-it'd sure be warmer for the paddlers. Anyways....I'm going to the park to watch the start, but will have to leave for work before they return...bummer.

I'm happy to announce that spring cleaning for my clients is done-except for one closet. Yay! I've discovered some muscles that don't get much of a workout on a daily basis, reaching waaayyy back and up in those closets and cupboards has my shoulders aching and caused a few bumps on my head(the closet door was short-the shelves high and deep).

I haven't done much of my own cleaning yet, we just took the plastic off the windows, and I've got to wait for nicer weather so that I can set some things outside to clean the carpets. But...now that it's May, theoretically, I'll be getting started on those projects. Oh, and I've got to defrost the freezer(yuck!)

Well, I'm off to try some new(to me) ice cream. Haagen Dazs 5. Brown Sugar flavor. Just a pint, and I'm going to make it last for 3 dishes, but it was on sale and I just couldn't resist!

~Thanks For Stopping By~

MayDay, MayDay...

...wait, let me brush the dust off first...

Happy MayDay! And for my pagan friends-Happy Beltane!

2 months. And truthfully, it seems much longer than that. It's not that I haven't been around. I have been. Reading, commenting once in a while, but just kind of hanging out on the fringes. Why? I'm not 100% sure of the reasons. There were days when I picked up my notepad and started entries...half a notepad full of partial pages that never made it this far. I even managed to start a few posts...just never hit the publish button.

And Now? What has prompted me to venture back to this venue of expression? A challenge. The challenge of writing 30 posts in 30 days. I'm calling it the 31/31 for the month of May. I wouldn't want to leave that last day out of the game.

So, let's get really crazy. I have 2 blogs here, I'll post an entry in both. Deep breath...I may as well jump in with both feet. I do know how to swim...maybe not in the ocean of the most prolific bloggers here, but in my own little pond-hell, it's over my head in the deepest parts. I've gotten out a fresh pad of paper, one of my favorite pens, and made room in my hectic(haha) schedule for writing time.

Wish me luck, I'm going to need it. And words, I'll need lots of words...*runs off to find dictionary and thesaurus*...

You can find me here and here: Walking In My Shoes, Honestly .

~Thanks For Stopping By~ especially since I've been gone so long.....

Revenge!

Well, I must have really pissed Ole Man Winter off with my last entry. His payback? A huge regional snowstorm with wraparound lake effect aftershocks. Phfftt....

I was out at 5:30am shoveling his latest contribution to the landscape-8 inches of it. ;P

Why so early? Well, I was supposed to have 6:30am shift in a town 15 miles away, but the nice man at the County Sheriff's Office said "The snow plows aren't out yet, old 76 has not been cleared." "If you don't have 4 wheel drive, don't go."

Okay, good enough for me! I called the office, talked to one of the on-call staffers that live about 80 miles away(our agency covers the whole eastern half of the Lower Peninsula, with 3 offices) and she sounded kind of doubtful about my not going. But I explained to her how far it was, what the conditions were and that the area is a dead zone for cell coverage-an empty, desolate stretch of road. If I had gone off the road, I'd sit there till I could flag someone down.

I made that trip in the exact same kind of conditions last year. Once. The roads were so bad, that I didn't dare stop, or try to turn around. All I could do was keep going forward. White knuckle time.

I also missed a 3 hour afternoon shift today. Again, 15 miles from my house. I called the client and she said that she didn't know if her road had been plowed or not-she can't see it from the house. She's the only house back on this country dirt road-not a priority for the plows. So I offered to drive out there and see. Not only was her road not plowed, but the dirt road that it connects with-that I have to drive on to get to her road-wasn't plowed.

Again, I called the office, talked to the same on-call and explained the situation. I know she thinks I'm being some kind of slacker, and that she called the client as soon as I hung up. I also know the client would explain the whole situation.

So, I basically have the afternoon off. The shoveling is finished, I've relaxed a bit and now I'm going to do some reorganizing in my bedroom. I really need to thin out my book collection stacks, and shelves, and boxes. I know, that's alot of books, what can I say?

I am still optimistic about spring's arrival, I can't let this late winter weather beat me down!
So, bring it on, Ole Man.... (there's another snowstorm forecast for Thursday!) ;p

~Thanks For Stopping By~

Signs

The other day, at my afternoon client's house, I was following the dog's path through the snow, laden with a bucket of sunflower seeds and the pole to latch the bird feeders for filling. Dodging Skye(the dog's name) bombs, planted haphazardly along the way, trying to keep from sinking into the soft snow on the sides , my head was down, I was concentrating on my progress. I reached the post the feeders hang from, set down my bucket, lifted the feeders down and filled them. Snow had been forecast for the next couple days and I wanted to make sure the "critters" had sustenance for the duration.

The chickadees sat in the branches of nearby pines, chirping their thanks and impatience at my fumbling attempts to rehang the filled feeders-or maybe they were laughing....I'm sure the squirrels weren't too far off and snickering, knowing that all the seeds that spilled out onto the ground were "Theirs"!

I picked up the pole and empty bucket and turned to follow the path back to the garage, when I spotted just the tiniest spot of green. Off to the left several feet from the path, a lone stem of a vinca vine-a (hearty)hardy perennial that flowers in the spring and then spreads as a ground cover the rest of the summer.

One stem, with maybe 5 leaves. Green, ready for the sun, green! Not the dusky dark green of a plant that has been buried under the snow all winter, frozen, bared by the latest thaw. But truly Green! The first sign I've seen that this long, cold, dark night of winter will truly soon be over. Just spring's little whisper that soon she will reappear.

I'm sure it must have snuck past Ole Man Winter's guard. He must have been garnering his strength for the storm to come over the next couple of days. Saving his breath to blow the cold snowflakes around to accumulate hither and yon, asserting his dominance over the landscape once again. He knows his days are numbered.

My eyes, having spyed that glimpse of change, began to search carefully for other subtle signs. I went back into the garage to refill the seeds for the feeders in front of the house, and I noticed the snow cover's edge receding ever so slightly away from the sidewall. I know that under it all the oregano is waiting patiently to begin it's climb out of dormancy to fragrant short bushes with delicate lavendar flowers and pungent leaves, perfect for that pasta sauce. In fact, there by the doorframe is a dry stem from last year with seeds just waiting to be shed and sprout into new plants to join the patch.

Following another dog track into the front yard to access the feeders there, I passed by the bare branches of the lilacs. Ah, but wait, they appear a bit heavier than usual. And there they are, the tiny buds at the end of the branches are beginning to swell just a bit. They're a long way from opening into the heartshaped leaves that form the umbrella of the lilac's shape, but it's time for them to start the process.

So, Ole Man, bring on that latest snowstorm, do your best. Spring has begun to prepare for her bursts of buds and greens that brighten from the palest tint of tiny leaves just beginning to open, splashing her colors about with abandon. The sun will join her growing brighter and warmer every day for just a few more minutes, equal in light and dark, just 4 short weeks from today!

Tonight, I sit here and think about the blustery conditions I drove through today, in wonder at the sunshine that increased the brightness of those snowflakes, sacrificing themselves on my windshield-that's lake effect snow for you-blizzards and blue skies at the same time. I shiver as the winds make the house groan ever so slightly, knowing that the wheel of the year turns so slowly, yet does continue-as in years past and will for years to come.

~Thanks For Stopping By~

The Big 5-0 !

No, not a birthday, the temperatures yesterday!

It's been 3 and a half months since the last day above 50 degrees. It was a wonderful break and the snow depth has been reduced by half! Now I can see over the top of the snowbanks at the end of the driveway! There are patches of mud colored grass along the edges.

But don't be fooled, all you sufferers of Spring Fever, we're not done yet! Spring is 36 days away and that's really just about the equal light/dark cycle of the Equinox. It has nothing to do with the date that the snow stops, or the ground thaws(the frost is still 4 feet deep in the ground here). Here in the great 'Up North' there's usually more than a month after that, and spring blizzards can be brutal!

So if one more person calls me out on my realistic outlook, I swear I'm gonna hit them in the nose with a big fat snowball in April! ::sigh:: The sun and warm temperatures were a welcome change of pace, though.

I am a computer dummy! Okay, maybe novice is a more appropriate term. I got the printer down out of the closet to try to hook it up to the laptop. It's brand new, the old computer crashed before I could even begin to use the printer.

Bro and Potsey are doing their taxes on TurboTax(the program) and need to print out their pages. The deal was, Potsey was going to "help" me install it and make sure it worked properly. I brought it out of my room, and suddenly he had to leave. So with the barest of instructions on what to do, he's out the door and down the road. Yeah, thanks for that!

I read the instructions, put the CD in to download the installer, and set it all up. I try to run the test page and it comes out blank. After fumbling my way around the instructions for troubleshooting, I discover there is only the color ink cartridge in place. No black. And I think I may have ruined the color cartridge. ::sigh::

I can't afford the ink cartridges for it, so I'm just going to pack it back up and put it back on the closet shelf where it can rot for the next year. They can find another way to print their tax crap. All I wanted was help to install it properly.

My life remains quiet for the most part. And I'm grateful. I just don't seem to have much emotional or physical energy right now. I've just been spending time online and reading. The beads have been gathering dust for the last week or so. This is just some time to catch my breath and unwind a bit.

It's time to go get ready for work, so I'll sign off for now....

~Thanks For Stopping By~

Oh Kkay....

K. That's my letter. The letter assigned to me by Betty (I think Koda was off surveying his domain).

Now, I'm to list 10 things I love that begin with the letter K. I don't know if I should list them from 1(being my favorite) to 10(last on the list), or if I should do it the other way around. So I'm adopting a randomness of order. Kind of just the order I thought of them in(I made a list).

1. Kraut-as in Sauer Kraut. This may actually "Be" my #1 favorite on the list, it's kind of a toss up.

2. Kittens-I was reminded of just how much this past fall, when the cat that hung around outside, had 3 and I got to cuddle them. I miss them, but am glad they found new homes.

3. Knitting-I learned how to knit when I was very young(5 or 6). My Mom taught me. Looking back on it now, I think I just went back and forth and when she checked it for mistakes, she'd knit a little and tell me how well I was doing. I did eventually get it right. I haven't gotten out my needles in quite a while......

4. Kisses-As in Hershey's Kisses. I love chocolate in many forms, but I think just plain, all by itself, is the best. Of course, I love other kinds of kisses, too, but I don't get many of those nowadays.

5. Kleenex Pompoms-Weird, I know. I was a Girl Scout and we always entered a float in local parades and made probably millions of them-grocery bags full.....

6. Kahlua-I hope I spelled this right. One of the reasons I love Kahlua so much is that it reminds me of a friend I spent time with in Ohio. We used to sip Kahlua and coffee for hours, contemplating life, and watching her girls and animals antics. Good times!

7. Kansas-Not the state, the band. You know, "Dust in the Wind", "Carry On Wayward Son", and many more that not everyone would recognize. They have their own playlist on my MP3 player!

8. Keilbasa-Which of course is the perfect complement for Kraut(see #1). In the oven, simmered for an hour with butter and caraway seeds.

9. Keleva, MI-I know this is a place that no one who reads this will have heard of. There's an interesting story to this. I have never actually been there and the place I really mean is a river bend a couple miles from there. See, my brother calls any form of cooked cabbage, sauer kraut tops that list, well, he calls it Toxic Waste. Relegates it to 55 gallon drums to be sunk to the bottom of the ocean. He goes on fishing trips to this particular river bend a couple times a year and that is when I get to have sauer kraut, or fried cabbage, or boiled dinner, to my heart's content. Hence the love of a place I've never been!

10. Kosher Dill Pickles-Last but certainly not least on this list. The crunchier and more garlic the better!

This list was harder to compile than I thought it would be. It took me a couple days to find things that start with K, that I love.

If you'd like to take on the challenge of this list meme, please leave me a comment and I'll draw a letter out of a hat for you. I'd omit Q, X, and Z. I was going to leave Y out, but I thought of several things that started with Y so thats not so hard! :) I'll e-mail you or leave you a comment with your letter.

~Thanks For Stopping By~