A little break

If you’ve been around my blog looking for me, don’t worry. I’ll be back soon. This week I’m too busy hugging babies, playing games, reading stories, and laughing to even blog. I’m so enjoying my grandchildren’s visit.

Surprise!

Happy 80th Birthday to my friend Lisa. I met Lisa nine years ago when I first retired from teaching. I was invited to join a coffee group by another teacher who also retired the same year I did. Lisa was a former school aide. Each morning without fail we girls met at various restaurants around town after walking or exercising for an hour first. Getting up first thing in the morning and chatting with the girls helped my transition from the bustle of school to the more quiet retirement life. The girls not only became my best friends, but also a great support system for me when needed. Lisa is like a big sister that I never had. 
   Tonight I attended a birthday surprise celebration at the Hostaga, a local restaurant. Lisa is a very young looking and acting 80 year old. It is so hard to believe that she is that old. I think the world of her.
  I also got to connect again with my friend Bonnie. Bonnie and I developed a bond while I was teaching. She was at a different school and we sent encouraging notes back and forth to each other. I always looked forward to getting those packages in the mail. It seems we thought alike and had similar interests. But with the passage of time our closeness faded and we lost touch. It was so great to see her again and talk. She’s a great gal and I loved seeing her again.
   What a great evening.

We’re ready!

Grandma (Nana to Sean and Mama Peggy to Dan and Scott) and Papa (to all) are ready! It’s always exciting when the boys and their families come home and I can’t wait. Ever since I was little it was instilled in me how important family was. My mother was from Georgia and met dad on Long Island, NY. AFter they married he always brought her back home every year. My mom was a southern lady, true and true and we were brought up on southern values. I just finished a book called, “Putting on the Grits (Girls Raised In The South).” So much of what was said in that book applied to the way I was raised. (Right down to the recipe for southern cobbler). Each time we would go to Georgia my mom was the one who made sure that we visited all of her brothers and sisters (and she was from a family of 13) so we could know our cousins. She was also the one who held dad’s family together insisting that we go and visit them a lot. Somehow our generation doesn’t have that connection the way hers did. I know my cousins, but don’t visit very often. Even with the modern email I don’t talk to them a lot. I miss that connection. I think I’ll email some of them right now.

COMPUTERLAND

Do y’all get caught up in computerland? You know, you sit down at the computer to check your email and the next thing you know a long time has passed. You just lose yourself in what you are doing or seeing or learning. Recently I learned how to download different fancy fonts to be used in Word or Photoshop. I guess I got carried away because I downloaded quite a few different ones today.
  I’m still getting ready for my company for Easter. I’m so excited about having the family here. Ryan is staying all week so I’ll really get to spoil my little ones. Today was floor waxing day. My whole house has hardwood oak floors. When they are waxed they shine like diamonds. I’ve really been in a cleaning mood. I’m gathering things for a sale in the summer. Every time something leaves the house I rejoice. Isn’t it funny how I spent the first half of my life gathering things and now spend my time trying to get rid of them. 
   

Those little specks of white

Those little specks of white aren’t fertilizer….it’s hail. A quick wind of hail blew in this afternoon and left just as quickly. It’s just Mother Nature’s way of saying….”It ain’t spring yet!”  But did you notice that the daffodils are up?

A little Spring decorating

It’s almost Easter and time to put out a few Spring decorations. Even though the forsythia outside hasn’t even begun to show a bud I always like to put this bouquet on my piano.



And what would Easter be without eggs?



This year I made a Spring basket.



And we couldn’t have spring without a bunny.



Easter will soon be here. I am looking forward to having all my family around next weekend.

Things to come

No, this isn’t what I see in my little garden. This is last year’s picture. But I so wanted to see blooming flowers that I am in Pretendland. Spring is on the way. At least that’s what I hear.

Where, oh where is spring?

Bradfordian lament.

I’m tired of being cold. The temperature today has been in the lower 40’s and damp. I’m determined not to put my winter coat on again. I’ve been wearing it since November. Six months is long enough to keep putting it on in the morning. Where is spring?

Don’t you love little girls?

What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and everything
nice.

Oh, Glorious day

Oh, glorious day!
When sunbeams warm the skin.
And the air is fresh and the wind so mellow
And the ground still damp with rain.
Soak it in, this glorious day.
Raise your face to the sky.
Feel the heat in the air and the smell of
the earth.
Let your thoughts explode and wander
towards the energy of the world.
This glorious day.
Placed here at this time just for your
enjoyment.
Take it in.
Take it in.

As you can tell by my poem the sun inspired me. It was very warm today and I enjoyed it tremendously. I didn’t even take a picture because I was so busy with cleaning projects and walking Sadie. So here is another one that I made using Photoshop.

Signs of Spring

I’ve been looking for signs that spring is really here. The faithful robins returned to the north despite having to pull their worms from frozen ground. The optimistic robins hopped through the snow knowing that soon the weather would have to change. And the daffodils pushed up their slender leaves, yearning for the sun.
 

But the one thing I had been searching for finally arrived..a spring flower. The crocus popped up with its bright purple bloom.

Spring must surely be here now giving us hope that more color, buds, and finally leaves would be arriving soon.  

Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter. Little darling, it seems like years since its been clear. Here comes the sun.

Bits and Pieces

Isn’t it funny how you learn things in bits and pieces and then one day all the little things you learn suddenly coalesce into one big comprehensive idea. I’ve been learning to manipulate pictures using different methods in Photoshop for a few years now. There is a steep learning curve for Photoshop and so I’ve studied different ideas on the web and practiced. I started with digital scrapbooking and went to actual photographic work. Yesterday I found word art and downloaded some. Here are some pictures I created.
 

Snow Damn..age!

The continuous snow last night weighed heavy on the trees causing a lot of branches to fall. A main branch of our old crabapple tree out front fell broke off and fell last night. The snow in the woods makes it hard for the deer to find food. There was a whole herd at the neighbor's feeder this morning.

Enough already!

All right, all right…enough of the snow.It is coming down fast and furious and it looks more like December than April. The roads were bad this morning and the ground is once again covered. I was out having my hips x-rayed first thing this morning for suspected arthritis. Then off to coffee, for water aerobics and to deliver a small bookcase to one of the gift stores downtown to use for displays.
    I’ve been busy since I got home doing household chores. It’s a good day to be inside. I refuse to put up another picture of snow because my sisters (who live in the south) are starting to pity me. So here is a picture of the mug the universe gave me today. The universe has been very good to me in the past. It’s part of the Law of Attraction. Send out what you want and the universe will provide it. When I was in the gift store today I saw a really beautiful spring mug, but knowing that I have more cups than I need I passed it up. From the gift store I went to the newspaper to renew my subscription and for starting up again I got a $15 gift certificate from the Chamber of Commerce. So I took the money back to the gift store and bought the mug……the universe just wanted me to have it!!LOL
I love the universe!!

Do you feel it?

It’s only 30 degrees and it’s snowing hard (again). Do you feel Spring? I don’t yet. It’s hard to get bunnies and eggs out when it feels like you should be putting out your Christmas decorations.
   But I have got Spring cleaning fever. It’s a disease that comes over women about this time of year when they feel like cleaning out the nest. I started in my computer room. I’m on the hunt for a new computer desk which will be smaller than the built in one that’s been here since we bought the house. It’s about time for a change. We joke at our house that we move like turtles when it comes to changing things. But little by little we’ve tried to modernize. I am so ready to get rid of things (and you have to be in that kind of mood when you organize). I plan on taking things to a sale in the summer so I’m gathering everything in the house that I don’t want and putting it in boxes to go. Today I decided that I had to give up my old printer. When I bought my new computer the package came with a printer. So I stuck the other one under the desk and kept it as a copier. But I didn’t copy much and the ink dried out and it’s very expensive to keep replacing it in the hopes that it will be ready when I want to make a copy. Do I’m letting it go. (Now I have to find the software that came with it).
  I also had Don put a shelf unit right into the back of my van. I’ve had it forever..but it’s time has come. I will drop it off at the Goodwill tomorrow. It was hard to let go of it for some reason..I like storage units…but there is no longer a place in my house for it. I’m pretending I’m on Clean House and letting things go out the door. Are you proud of me?

  

Maple syrup

“When made in small quantities—that is, quickly from the first run of sap and properly treated—it has a wild delicacy of flavor that no other sweet can match. What you smell in freshly cut maple-wood, or taste in the blossom of the tree, is in it. It is then, indeed, the distilled essence of the tree.”

John Burroughs, Signs and Seasons, 1886

Homemade maple syrup has no comparison. Don has been tapping trees  and boiling syrup for our personal use for many years now. There is nothing better than fresh maple syrup over pancakes. There is a lot of work involved. Wood has to be gathered for the fire. Trees need to be tapped and then sap gathered each day and carried home. Then there are hours of boiling since it takes 40 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of syrup. Then there is finishing, straining, and bottling this liquid gold. It’s four weeks of hard work, but so worth the effort.


Don finishes boiling the sap down in the kitchen, then bottles it. Mmmmm!
 

April day

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two month back in the middle of March.
    -Robert Frost


A perfect poem for today. Spring this year is coming slowly but typically April. Today I went to a few church rummage sales and came home with a decorating book. Lots of pretties there, but I’m working on getting things out of the house, not brining more in. My new  motto is “Use what you have”. Tonight Don and I are going out to dinner and see the new movie Source Code. (Date night)

April fool’s day

The first day of April and I’m glad it’s here. The snow is still falling (again and again) and I think everyone in Bradford has cabin fever. We’d all like to take a cruise or go to Florida to escape this constant cold weather. Don is still busy cooking maple syrup outside in his cooker while I spend the days inside cleaning out dresser drawers (doesn’t that sound exciting?) It’s that time of year when one can get (shall I say it?) bored easily. It’s not that there aren’t books to read or dinners to cook, it’s just that I’ve been doing that all winter long and now would like to get outside. The high spot of my week has been the photoshop class that I took this past week. Here are some more of my creations. The first is a shot of some yellow boots taken at Children’s Lake in Boiling Springs. The second is Biltmore in Ashville, NC. It’s a wonderful place to visit and we’ve been there in three seasons.
This lake view is of Jacki Norton’s lake behind her house.

Last winter we took a vacation and walked along the ocean here.