Welcome Spring!

A quick trip around the yard this evening to visit my flowerbeds, and there's evidence that Spring has really arrived. Not only are there buds all over the trees and bushes, but the early spring bulbs are finally blooming, and the forsythia bush is covered with gold.

My usual companions were outside with me, roaming the backyard. Big fat Beanie was hanging out on the deck, Tango was running around trying to get me to play ball, and Baby Kitty was trying to work up the nerve to come out. She never made it past the doorway even though she wants so badly to come out with the "big kids" and have a good sniff around the porch. One of these days she'll do it!

Happy Birthday, Baby Bird

It's a big weekend for our birthday girl who's turing 16 today. She received one enormous arrangement of flowers yesterday (white stargazer lilies with a Lenox vase) and then today, a delivery of a dozen red roses with 2 birthday balloons - UNSIGNED from an admirer, presumably a boy. She's going crazy trying to figure out which friend might have sent these. Heck, if I were sending a dozen roses to someone I liked, you can bet I'd want to get credit for having done so - no unsigned cards from me! I imagine the truth will come out soon. The lilies were awesome - they came in a huge box, carefully packed, all the buds tightly closed up. She trimmed them and put them into the vase with water, and within an hour they were beginning to open up.

It's now 5 hours later, and she received yet another gift of flowers a little while ago. We'd just gotten home from a family get-together at Graeter's (Cincinnati's best ice-cream parlors!) and the doorbell rang, with Kyle giving the final gift of (more) stargazer lilies - pink this time. Our house is really looking like there's just been a death in the family .... vases everywhere.

Anyway, the outing to Graeter's was a great idea - we didn't have to fuss with cleaning up the house (!) and everyone loves some good ice cream. Graeter's is also well known for their candies, chocolates and pastries, beautifully displayed all over the shop. They're geared up for the coming Easter holiday with chocolate bunnies and eggs, lollipops and jelly beans ... they've got it all. And of course the pints of their most popular flavors of ice cream are ready to go too. We ate our fill of ice cream cones and sodas and talked up a storm, a sweet ending to a special birthday for Kelly!

Chicago

I was in Chicago on Monday and Tuesday of this week for a couple days of training with my peers at CB. It was fun and informational, and I also got a peek at downtown Chicago for the first time. I’m the first to admit that I’m not an urban kind of a gal. Whenever I’m in a big city I feel overwhelmed, stressed and usually feel eternally lost. Everyone I pass on the sidewalk seems to know exactly where they’re going, and they’re in a hurry and I feel like everyone must KNOW that I’m unsure of myself. I love to people watch though, and love to look at the detail on old buildings, so from that perspective I enjoyed my brief look at the city. I love the colors of the neon signs and the lights in the buildings at night – a real treat for a visual person like me.

On Monday evening we took a brisk (cold) walk to the 10 Pin Lounge for a fun evening of eating, drinking and bowling. I learned 2 things that evening: always, always take a coat when you travel to Chicago in March (I didn’t wear a coat at all because I didn’t think we would have to hike anywhere); and 2) I still can’t bowl. I make a complete fool of myself every time I walk up to the line and I know everyone is snickering behind my back as I wing the ball down the alley. I did accidentally get one strike and a couple of spares, though. Maybe if I’d had something stronger than bottled water to drink I could have done even better! We were served a buffet dinner of do-it-yourself burritos – yummy – and dessert was fancy s’mores and rice krispies treats – mmmm.

The hotel was very nice – and of course the first thing I noticed were the gorgeous flowers in the lobby. I thought they were fake but no, they were the real thing. Wonderful colors! And the bottled water at this hotel was only $4.50, so this hotel was a step down (smile) from the Gaylord Palms in Orlando! And for Pete's sake, don't ever hang your clothes on the fire sprinkler above the bed! Evidently they have a problem with that therefore the graphic and dire warning.

Ahhh, flowers! Aren't those incredible? I could have sat in the lobby all day admiring them.

New Pipes

After an uneventful St. Patrick's Day, we're into another busy weekend. Chris is continuing to work on the podium for our teacher friend and I've been doing my usual laundry-cleaning-keeping up with the dogs-stuff today. We also went out and bought Chris a fresh new batch of polo shirts to wear to work, dropped off bags of clothes at Goodwill, bought pet food... you know, all those necessary errands that make life go 'round.

Yesterday Chris was excited to receive a new set of pipes for his motorcycle - he had been concerned about how UPS would handle the box and as you can see they were none too gentle. I'm picturing the opening scene from Jim Carrey's movie (was it Ace Ventura, Pet Detective?) in which the delivery guy absolutely terrorizes a package while delivering it. There was just a little bit of damage to the pipes that he thinks he can fix - thankfully the innards of the box kept them from being too beat up. I guess this is a sure sign that spring is almost here - he's thinking about the bike!


Someone got flowers this week from a boy friend (not a boyfriend) ... the most beautiful and enormous stargazer lilies I've ever seen. And so fragrant! Whew.

Towed Away!

It's hard to believe, but the saga of the Tracker is over. Matt had put the engine up for sale on e-bay about 2 weeks ago, and believe it or not, the bidding was fierce and somebody bought not just the engine, but the whole doggone mess! The buyer turned out to be a man who lives about 45 minutes away, so he came to the house last night and loaded the Tracker (and all the assorted parts and pieces) onto a trailer. Bye-bye little Tracker! Matt's thrilled to have made some money on the deal (who'd have thunk it possible?) and we're just glad to have our driveway back. And the neighbors, I'm sure, are happy it's gone ... we were kind of looking like the Beverly Hillbillies.

We're having a noisy thunderstorm pass through right now, but the last couple of days have been more sunny than cloudy. Typical March days - a little chilly, breezy, big clouds moving across the sky - but still that feeling that warm weather is just around the bend. C'mon Mother Nature, turn up the heat!

Feathered Friends

Have you noticed how the birds are coming back, now that Spring is just around the corner? I step out our back door and the racket is almost deafening because they're so busy talking to one another. We live in a community that's surrounded by a large county park, Winton Woods (our village is one of the original Greenbelt communities, founded and planned in the 1930's). So we see a lot of birds, flitting from tree to tree, street to street, looking for the best buffet they can find. We haven't been too faithful about feeding the birds this winter, but I did finally fill our feeder a couple of days ago. It didn't take long for the word to get out that our back yard feeders were open for business.

Once in a while a brave little sparrow or chickadee will venture under cover on the back deck, usually scouting locations to safely build a nest. Almost every spring we've had birds bustling in and out of the deck, carrying straw and grass into the eaves to make the best nest ever. This guy came onto the deck several times, perched on top of the grill and yelled at me through the back door. (Hey, mister, this is my house, and I'm not going to leave the window just for you!)

We can always count on a couple of acrobatic squirrels to raid the bird feeders. The dogs love to chase the squirrels off the feeders, and just after I took this picture I let the dogs race outside and scare him away. (Don't worry, no small defenseless animals were harmed during this photo shoot!)

Waiting

The month of March has always been an "in-between" month in the year. Winter is on its way out, but Spring is still playing hard-to-get. There are sunny, balmy days when you can run around in shirt sleeves, then there are windy chilly days that feel an awful lot like winter. Today we had a mix - we started out with thunderstorms during the night and buckets of rain - big puddles everywhere this morning! It was quite chilly went I left the house at 9 a.m. to take Kelly to work. As the day went on, the sun came out for a while, the rain stopped and voila! it was springtime for a couple of hours. By dinnertime we were back to clouds and light rain, with temperatures around 50 degrees. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? ... More of the same, no doubt.

I wandered around the back yard while it was sunny this afternoon, checking my perennials and tiptoeing around the many puddles and squishy areas. I can see things beginning to happen - my hollyhocks are bravely growing big green leaves, the forsythia bush is showing some tiny yellow buds and the tulips are coming up in the gardens in the front yard. The waiting is almost over!

Beanie took advantage of the nice afternoon to stroll around the deck and take care of his personal hygiene in the sunshine. He gave Tango a dirty look when she dropped the ball nearby as he bathed - "And what am I supposed to do with THAT dirty thing?" he wondered to himself.

I puttered around my work bench for a while - not doing much, just straightening up, getting the itch to start planting seeds - I just want to DO something to get the ball rolling! My gnomes have been standing idle all winter - they need to be washed up a little before I put them out. My dozens of pots need to have the cobwebs dusted off and I need to wash them out before I start fresh with new annuals in May. The bird bath needs a bath of its own before it gets filled up. But it's still too soon, really. I have to hold off until early April to get going - we'll probably have one last blast of snow flurries at some point, and plenty of frost. And so I wait. Impatiently, but I wait.

My ever-faithful companion when I'm outside is Tango. She's at my heels, blocking my way, dancing around me as she "drops the ball" begging me to toss that nasty green tennis ball for her to fetch. She really does have a one-track mind - "play ball with me, please play ball with me!" And so no matter what I'm doing, I have to stop periodically and throw the slimy ball out into the yard.

Only 10 days until the official first day of Spring!