The Last Hour of Winter

Well. As far as winters in West Michigan go, this was not a bad one.

Did I complain TOO much?

THGGM found a nice snow blower on Craig's List and only had to use it a few times.

Anyway, even if it snows again it will be spring, and well, you know, spring t'would be a lovely season, if t'were nothing else but spring...

I've had the MOST difficult time processing all of the things happening in my life right now.

Being someone who has deep journaling tendencies even I am surprised by this.

I just cannot write. I sit myself down at my computer, or in front of a nice clean journal, and nothing comes. NOTHING. And, strangely enough, I also have no desire to read.

Then, with having given up thrift/antique shopping for Lent, I've got nothin'.

So, I'm going to try to force myself to put 'fingers to keys' and see what happens.

Let's start with breakfast. See that picture up there? If I don't make overnight-crockpot oatmeal this is what I eat in the morning. One apple, sliced. The Ida Reds were on sale last week - and they are GOOD. Sprinkle it with cinnamon (i like the penzey kind). Sprinkle that with steel-cut oats. That's usually all I add. But, today being Friday I added raisins (i like sun-maid) and raw almonds. I eat WAAAY too many almonds. Yes, it does look like what the zoo-keeper feeds the prairie dogs but it is GOOD.

Most of my morning and early afternoon was spent cleaning out drawers and hauling more craft supplies (junk) to the basement. My goal is to have all my stuff out of cardboard boxes (i am soooo hating cardboard boxes lately) and drawers so that it is visible to me. I'm getting there.

The discoveries I'm making are SO fun too! I opened up an old Lotto game and found a half dozen arrow heads. That's not something I run across every day. Last week I found a Petosky stone. I LOVE those. Oh. And a baggy of sharks teeth. Never know when I might need a shark tooth.

I had forgotten just how much I love organizing things. Keeping things organized is my problem (well, just one of many). The joy of all this is that no one else will EVER have to use my space. Of course, they MAY, if they ask nicely and don't move anything...

Time flies when I'm having fun, so it quickly became time for me to go to the nursing home to visit my mom. It was lovely, on this last day of winter, to leave the house wearing neither a coat nor socks. I HATE wearing socks.

It took me several rounds through the home and conversations with several nurses and aides before I found my mom. We had a lovely visit. I wheeled her to a window and we looked outside at lovely blue sky, leafless branches and bird/squirrel nests. Since I'd recently looked at some old family pictures I mentioned one of them to her. When I said the name "Grandma Dunn" (her beloved grandmother whom i never met) her head snapped to attention. I described what was happening in the picture and my mom threw back her head and laughed. Then she said, "That sounds just like her!" Nothing else she said was clear after that, but it was enough. She reached out and took my hand and we just looked at each other for awhile. We made a few more rounds through the halls and several people that we passed mentioned how happy my mom always seems. That's soooo good to hear.

And, I believe it goes without saying, as soon as I turned on my car to drive home the radio was playing Carrie Underwood's "Temporary Home". It was also playing when my alarm went off this morning.

I got home just a few minutes before THGGM. He had this WONDERFUL idea that we should go out for dinner. I like how he thinks.

Except that we also went grocery shopping. Neither of us were hungry, I didn't have a list, and it looks like next week we will be drinking diet cherry coke and 7-Up while feasting on peanut butter sandwiches.

That reminds me. I bought pistachios. Someone on a really crafty/creative blog somewhere showed a tiny nest of bird 'eggs' made from pistachio shells glued back together and painted. They were really cute (i really need to stop doing things like this). So, that's what I did tonight while watching recorded episodes of "Clean House". I ate pistachios and glued the shells back together.

Sometimes I do not like having to explain myself to THGGM.