Things That Influence Me Today

O Lord, our Lord, you have created us for yourself,

and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

YOU WALK PAST A FIELD AND

WONDER WHAT HAPPENED THERE 

IN THE PAST 200 YEARS.

Dear spring - I like you.  I like your rain.  I like your dandelions.  I really like your chore list.

And even more I like your field trips.  Don't tell Winter - but you are my favorite.

~~~

I was staring at a spot of sunlight on the floor the other day and this thought came over me ~
this spot of light has been shining here on this exact spot since the beginning of sunlight's time -
what changes over billions of years have taken place in this exact, very same spot I wonder??
It can really get one's mind to wander ..... was it shining on a watery ocean at one time ( supposedly MN was under water at its beginnings) or shining on snow in the Ice Age .... shining on a swampy forest floor before developers/builders came in and built this house?  It also shown on this very spot when someone else lived in this very house and they moved and took their memories with them.  Which made me think of all the houses I have lived in over the years - and how those homes were alive with my families laughter and joy ~
do their walls still carry the memories, AND we never know the times that those homes provided a family before or after us.  Hmmmm.....I must have to much time on my hands for those reflections!!!!

6 days  21 hours  45 minutes  30 seconds left 'til Spring....I hope someone has informed Mother Nature!  March 20 will be here soon, and we have plenty of snow on the ground and still drop into the 20's.  Well...we are seeing more days of 30's and 40's so it must be true!!  Spring WILL come  ......

And with Lenten Season being here I am trying to spend extra time reflecting on prayer.  I found a great website for doing that @ online ministries.creighton.edu  which brings up 'Praying Lent'.  It has so many great things to click on for daily prayers, readings - a whole site index for Lent.

Well I must get on with the day....laundry calls and it is warm enough for a walk outdoors I believe :-)

SPRING AHEAD

Over the weekend we sprang ahead to Daylight Savings Time and we also reached 40 degrees for two days.  Today will be the highest predicted at 48 and then we will drop back to the 30's -- there are no 0 degree days in the forecast for the next week.  YAY  The snow is melting off enough that it is flooding some intersections around the cities and the DOT is out trying to clear paths for the water to drain off away from the roads where that all is taking place.  I do see there is snow forecast for two days this week...guess that is March.  LOL

There are two deer laying in the snow in the back and the turkeys (who we haven't seen for a long rime this winter) were back, trying to make their way through the snow.  The poor things feet break through the snow making it a hard trek for them.  They are 'digging' through the seed discard that have fallen from the bird feeders looking for food - I am sure with all this snow and cold weather it has been a hard season for both species.  I snapped a couple pictures to share.

It was a busy weekend.  We were able to watch Ms. Em perform her dances in competition down at the Convention Center.  I love all of her dances this year - and haven't picked a favorite yet...I love it all, Tap, Jazz, Lyrical.  She does all of them in the large group, and tap and lyrical in small group.  Their small group lyrical 'Pompei'  won the President's Cup Award .....beating out the teens, seniors and everyone.  VERY EXCITING!!  They have 4 more competitions to go, so it will be fun to see how the different judges score them.

Dear daughter-in-law had a Young Living Oils presentation at her home on Sunday....I now own a diffuser and collection of 10 oils to try out.  The idea is to try some healthy ways to treat some physical symptoms or environmental cleanliness without medications or caustic cleaners.  I think the younger generations DO try to find answers other than meds etc. because of all the controversies surrounding such things.  I do also have two friends that are big believers in this concept - one not having to use her inhaler for asthma hardly ever anymore, and the other for anxiety and pain issues.  The things I am mainly looking for are to treat my issue with driving on the interstate when it is busy (anxiety maybe) and SnOrInG.......we shall see.  There was a lot of positive testimony....so I'll see.  They have a little machine that you lay your palm on and it reads out on the computer to show what your body would benefit with the oils.....mine was 'emotional balance'....interesting!!  ANGER being a top issue.....hmmmm.

This week starts Spring Break for the littles, so I am hoping I can have some fun times with them for a bit.

Will have to come up with some good ideas maybe.

I did enjoy a SB non-fat Chai Tea Latte yesterday and it was wonderful!!  I do love my latte drinks!!

Memory Lane

For whatever reason this morning while drinking my frothed cream coffee, I was thinking about the McCall's magazine that my Mom sometimes had at home, and I remember there was a page in the magazine with a paper doll and clothes to cut out, and usually some kind of story to go along with her.

Then that got me to thinking about my Tiny Tears doll circa 195?.....I loved that doll.  I was so excited mainly because you could feed her a bottle (which she came with) of water and she then would cry AND wet her diaper.  She even had short fuzzy type hair.

There also were the animals in the back of comic books which you could send for.  I could NOT understand WHY we couldn't send away for a teacup dog, a monkey or a sea horse.

I found these pictures by perusing the internet:

Betsy McCall Paper Doll page

Tiny Tears Betsy Wetsy Doll

Comic Book Ads

I wonder how many families DID get those little monkeys and how UN-tame they became as they grew up, LOL.  

Still cold and cloudy outside today.  Winter storm Titan is making its way across the country again today dumping 1 1/2 feet of snow in some areas.  The West is getting inches of rain which is coming too fast, so they are fearful of flooding and mudslides.  We are just in for more frigid temps.....0 degrees, feels like -17.

Another cup of hot coffee is in order!!  

On this cold day (warmed up to -9 @ 9:45 a.m.) I was looking at the sunny view out the window and it made me think Spring surely

can't postpone itself this year, right?  So I went perusing the internet to find something springy and found this lovely pic of daffodils to post.   

By the looks of this photo - we won't be having daffodils or anything else poking through the snow in 30 days :-( 

The weatherman did predict we may see the +20's by the middle of next week.

~
"There are too many books I haven’t read, too many places I haven’t seen, too many memories I haven’t kept long enough."
~

This was my Goodreads quote from today.  It is so appropriate to life isn't it??

Speaking of reading - I just put a new book in my iBooks library.

It is titled 'Orphan Train' by Christina Baker Kline.  I am so excited to begin a new story since finishing 'Gone Girl' by Gillian Flynn, which was a very good read, but with an interesting ending I thought.  (not exactly what I would have thought)

I began a new project on Tuesday - a crocheted Granny Square afghan.  I had purchased all the yarn a LONG time ago with the intent of making it for Landon.  I had made the Jordan littles 'Granny' Square afghans when they were babies, and thought that it would be fun for each of my grandchildren to have a 'Granny' Square afghan from their granny.....I am a little behind.  LOL - they typically are not made from a really soft yarn fiber, so not really a blankie to snuggle up with.  So as I am working on it I am wondering if it is too late to make/give them to the littles Bizal. 

Here is the project thus far.....will just keep growing in same color sequence for about 17 more rows.  

Enoying several cups of coffee with frothed vanilla cream this morning....yummo.  Too cold, and dicey roads for me to head off to Starbucks or Caribou-will be a real treat when I ever get there.

Must go seize the day...

Another Snow

Well, we woke up to snow again today.....looks like 6 inches worth and it is still coming down.
The roads are in chaos....DH drove dear son-in-law into his Dr. appointment so that dear daughter wouldn't have to make the drive.  It took them 2 1/2 hrs to get to the 8 o'clock appt. The Dr saw him anyway, I would imagine everyone is late or cancelled appts.  Paul is doing well with his recovery from hip surgery.

I, on the other hand am feeling very much like I have cabin fever.  I did get out yesterday - went to Walmart, shoveled out the garage of icy melt and snow chunks that have fallen off the vehicles.  SO MESSY!!!
Was such a breath of fresh air...I even made a stop at SB for a Chai Tea Latte!

I found this picture on Wallace Garden Instagram and copied it, as it is so appropriate.  Spring seems to be a long time in coming this year as of right now.  We are headed to -10 for overnight again and that is actual not wind chill.

Little Isaac will be spending the day with me tomorrow so I must get some picking up and cleaning done.
Carry on.......

Ice Caves - Meyers Beach - Cornucopia, WI

I have always thought I would want to go see these ice caves when they were accesible - dear sister, Cindy, even came on January vacations two years in a row, with hopes these caves would be available to view but they never were.  Now this year when she isn't visiting she didn't visit LOL!!  

Actually the ice hasn't been safe enough to walk out to see the caves since 2009.  Our friends from the Lake condo's did go out that year to see them and had lovely pictures to show.  Now when I have the opportunity to venture out to see them - I don't go.   Number 1 - the weather is so dang cold I don't like being out in it.

Number 2 - when I read about all the precautions regarding your trek out to see them, I got cold feet.

I guess I will admire them from the posted pictures people have put on the internet and then I can view them via the sea cave cam provided to view scenes like this one above.  So pretty with that sun going down over the lake.  Ummm.. I didn't see any people visiting yesterday on the posted views every hour.  Could it be these frigid temps we are all experiencing here in the North Country.

For the second day this week school has been cancelled due to the low temps and wind chill factors.  -20 last night with a -45 wind chill this morning.  It is supposed to warm up as the day goes on; into the 20's for the forecast tomorrow.  I hope so.  I remain housebound, and drank the last bit of cream that I whip up for my coffee every morning.  Grrr....

I will enjoy my cuppa Kaffee cream free today - may the day be good to all!!

For the second 

JANUARY 2014

Christmas 2013 and all the holiday 'busy-ness' has passed.  All the 'things' that make the time so pretty and exciting still wait to go into their appropriate places of rest until the next Christmas Season rolls around.  I had so much fun celebrating this year; with a Christmas dinner party for my Crochet Club friends.  A Christmas sleep over celebration with the kiddos and their littles because of their plans taking them away for Christmas.  A Christmas Eve celebration with the Bizal family here, rounded out with a lively game of Catch Phrase - a tradition with them.  So much fit into a short period of time and then it is over LOL!  Christmas day was quiet with DH and I taking in a movie 'The Wolf of Wall Street' and eating left overs  :-)

Welcome 2014 quietly as DH was feeling a little under the weather with symptoms of a cold and was preparing to leave for a Wrestling tournament leaving on January 2nd for Rochester and I preparing to leave at 5:15 a.m. with the Jordan's for a 9 day vacation to Paradise Island, Nassau  (Bahama's) - resort of
ATLANTIS.

And what a heavenly vacation it was!!  How I long for the beautiful surroundings, beautiful weather, and waking up to the childrens' excitement of embracing life in a world of sun and all that the resort had to offer for adventure.  I got to kiss and hug a dolphin and be in the water with 'her' - after sharing literally, tears of laughter with my daughter as we tried to squeeze into our wetsuits LOL xoxo!!  I went down 'The Current'
a 'rapid' river ride on an inner tube (a challenge to myself to overcome actually going over rapids), going down a water slide which involved a tube going slowly through a shark tank, took a leisurely ride down a lazy river and a couple of beautiful beach walks on the ocean.  The food was great and Paul saw to it that we hit some especially good restaurants, and we even had a buffet dinner outside in the dark, with twinkling lights and festively decorated tables!!  It was a wonderful break from winter at home....a Polar Vortex that brought the temperatures to -25 to -35 degrees FRIGID - a great  time to be gone!!

HOW I MISS THIS!!

I returned home to DH and settled into the surroundings of cold and snow again and greatly miss the yearly January visit with sister, Cindy.  She stayed home this year on a 'stay ca' from work, and I realize how much fun she has brought to my January drudge the last two years.  Paul had hip surgery a week ago (last Wed) and he is recovering nicely.  DH has vacationed in Costa Rica, fishing for 4 days and he is back.  I have helped get the Jordan kiddos to appts and classes, while Amy helps Paul recoup.  I had a lovely evening with Laurie - who made me an outstanding dinner!!  (and movie of 'Hello Dolly' with Barbra Streisand).

Life resumes.....in the continuing cold and snow.  

I have hopes of blogging more efficiently ..... but you know how that goes!!  We shall see....

I missed Starbucks and Caribou while vacationing - so have had 3 chai tea lattes and one northern lite vanilla latte to make up for the losses LOL!! 

Now I must rush out and enjoy the few hours of purported 30 degree temps before the 3 inches of snow and temp of 2 degrees return!!  Happy Friday everyone!!