Brought to You by the Color Purple

Today I thought I share a little springtime with you.  The weather can be kind of"iffy", ranging from frosty nights of 32 degrees to hot and humid days of 85 degrees. It's a great weather rollercoaster.  But, on the lovely days, I walked around our property and took photos of everything purple.

This looks lovely to me!

Does anything smell better than lilacs?  I don't think so!

Violets always make me happy

These azaleas came with the house.

This is what I see when I look out of my bedroom window.

I always think of my mom when the irises bloom, because they
 bloom close to her birthday.

Our three steers: Rib Eye, T-Bone and Ferdinand

Red buds are my favorite, but think the winter was hard on them.
The blooms were a little sparse.

I guess I just like this view!

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Project 52 - Week 11

As I look out my window, I'm happy to report that it does look like Spring might actually arrive. I have a purple crocus in my possession, the sun is shining, at least right now, and I can see the grass. On Friday, we had rain. All. Day. Long. Saturday morning, we awoke to several inches of snow covering everything. It was kind of a pretty snow, but after admiring it for five seconds, I was done with it! What a crazy spring we've had. Hopefully, our March snow storm is over, and every day will get warmer and warmer. 


I've been working on several of my projects. I'm close to finishing my jeans blanket. I have to decided on the backing. I kind of like it without the backing, but decided, it wasn't warm enough. So, now I have to decide on a red and white checked flannel for about $6/yard, or plain red flannel for about $3/yard. Since I'm basically cheap, and unemployed, I'm leaning towards the plain red. 


One of my other projects is finding "Do not fear" verses in the Bible. I had heard someone say there were 365. I thought it was interesting - a verse for every day of the year.  I'm not trying to prove a "do not fear theology", because I came across a lot of "fear the Lord" verses. But, here are the first ten "Do not fear" verses.

1. Genesis 15:1 - After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward."


2. Genesis 21:17 - God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying.


3. Genesis 26:24 - That night the Lord appeared to him and said, "I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham."


4. Numbers 21:34a - The Lord said to Moses, "Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you, with his whole army and his land."


5. Deuteronomy 1:17 -  Do not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do not be afraid of any man, for judgement belongs to God.


6. Deuteronomy 1:21 - See, the Lord your God has given you the land. Go up and take possession of it as the Lord, the God of our fathers, told you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.


7. Deuteronomy 1:29 - Then I said to you, "Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them.


8. Deuteronomy 3:2a - The Lord said to me, "Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you with his whole army and his land.


9. Deuteronomy 3:22 - Do not be afraid of them; the Lord your God himself will fight for you.


10. Deuteronomy 7:21 - Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God.


I hope you are still working on your goals.

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Snow, Ice, blah blah blah

We have been having quite a lovely week here in the Land of Snow and Ice. The temperatures have warmed up to just below freezing. The snow is falling ever so gently onto the already snow-covered land, and the ice-covered driveway. Ice cicles are hanging like daggers off the snow and ice covered gutters. Large, ice covered tree branches are littering the yard. And, now those lovely little snowflakes are suddenly getting larger. And heavier. And denser. 


YUCK.

I've heard rumors that another storm is on its way. That crazy groundhog was said to have not seen his shadow. So, I was expecting melting snow, not more snow. I think he's lying!


We had a lovely ice storm on Tuesday. We had bought a generator for those rare occasions when we might lose electricity. (Back in '05 we were without electricity for an entire week!)  Hubby had just returned from the gas station with gas for the generator. He said, "If we don't lose electricity tonight, it will be a miracle." So, we started locating all the candles, matches, flashlights, and extensions cords (for the generator), just in case. 


I started making a batch of popcorn. (I don't know why, but we always want to make popcorn when the lights are out. I guess we think we're going to the movies!) I put the pan on the stove. The lights flickered once. The lights flickered twice. Total darkness. No popcorn!


It did give me an opportunity to play around with my camera:

We didn't rush right out to start the generator, because it was getting late. We had a gas stove (not the cooking kind) for heat. Amazing Daughter made her bed on the couch, and we used the generator long enough to get air in our lovely air mattress. We stayed roasty-toasty all through the night.

In the morning, still no electricity. We heard that the transformer exploded and burst into flames, so we figured it would be a while until the electric came back on. Hubby got the generator going, and we started unraveling extension cords and plugging in the freezer, fridge, and most importantly, the coffee maker!

Hubby gave me special instructions to "Look down" when I'm walking, because I have a tendancy to forget about things, and he didn't want to be scraping me off the floor. 

All in all, we weathered the storm pretty well. The electricity was off for 17 hours, which seemed like a walk in the park compared to a week. 

As I look back out my window, I see that the snow has stopped. At least for now. I think I see a robin hiding in the bush. Even though I now know that those little critters stay here year round, I still look at them and say, "Spring is just around the corner!"

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Has Spring Sprung??

I'm very excited to report that Spring is on its way! This winter has seemed to go on and on and on, and it is still JANUARY! 


The reason I am feeling slightly optimistic is because I happened to see three robins the other day!! Hubby and I always have a contest to see the first robin, and this year I am the without-a-doubt winner. If you want to read about last year's contest, click here. I have never, ever seen robins this early in the year, so I am hoping against hope that it means spring will be here sooner than later!

Not my photo. Found it from
blog.duncraft.com

This year, Amazing Daughter and I were in the car together. I looked in a tree and saw two orange bellies. I yelled, "I see robins! I see robins!"  She doubted me, claiming she saw nothing. A moment later, I saw another one. (We were on an empty snow-covered street, so I told her to back up so we could get a better look. I wanted to be very sure I had seen robins because I planned to do a lot of gloating to Hubby!) 


She backed up, but couldn't see anything. I kept pointing to the tree, with no leaves, thinking, 'how hard is it to see a robin?'. She couldn't see it!  I kept pointing. "There! In that tree!"  


"Which tree?"  


"The one with the robin in it!"  To be fair, there were two trees, side by side, but only one tree had a "blob" in that that looked like bird!  


Thankfully, the robin was in no hurry to leave. (The poor thing was probably frozen, and wondering who's bright idea it was to come back to Ohio in January!)  He stayed long enough for Jennee to finally see him, and provide confirmation that we had indeed seen robins!


So, here's to SPRING! May it get here SOOOOOON!


(And, now I have to tell you that I just learned that robins very rarely leave to go South for the winter! Most of them stay in their Northern homes all year long! We don't see them because they are busy hiding in brush and eating berries instead of hopping around on who knows how many inches of snow digging for worms! I'm not sure how I feel about this news. I think I'm kind of disappointed. All those visions of robins coming back for spring have just gone *poof*!)

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First Sign of Spring!

Oh, there's so much to do, so little time. After a week, I've FINALLY been able to get back online. First I have to check my email and delete the 300 "messages" I've gotten, then on to Facebook to see what everyone has been up to. And then to blogging...but do I blog or respond to the comments? I want to thank everyone who has left a comment, and I promise to visit everyone, it just may take me a while.  In the meantime, hopefully, my computer will quit being a pain in the neck...

I am happy to say that Spring has not forsaken us, and I am confident that it will soon be here. The reason I am confident is because I saw a flock of robins yesterday.  They were all on top of the eight inches (roughly) of semi-white snow.  Our family always has a race to see who can be the first one to spot the beloved robin.

There is a little bit of controversy surrounding the self-proclaimed winner, who happens to be Hubby. I have actually proclaimed myself to be the winner, but Hubby disagrees. So, here is my story, and I'll let you be the judge.

Hubby and I were both together in our truck running an early morning errand. I didn't get my coffee, but Hubby was sweet enough to fix me some, and brought it along. Hubby knows that the only way I like coffee is when it does not taste like coffee. My way of fixing coffee is to add heavy cream until it turns a nice caramel color, followed by some hazelnut syrup (sugar-free, of course. I don't need the extra calories!)  Unfortunately, I am out of both heavy cream and hazelnut syrup, so I'm putting up with just having dry, off brand creamer.  So, hubby hands me my coffee. Before I take a sip, we're chatting it up, and I mention that it's probably too early for the robins, since the ground is covered with snow. I said, "They probably take one look at the ground and head back south until it all melts."

At that point, I decide to take a sip of the coffee that hubby has so lovingly prepared for me.  (It's in a travel cup, because when it comes to liquids and vehicles, I'm worse than a kid.) So, I push back the little tab and notice it is the right caramel color. Good job, honey. Then I innocently, and unsuspectingly, take a sip. Something is happening to my mouth, and I don't quite know what is wrong. (OH. MY. GOSH. I'm thinking)
My mouth is all kind of puckering up. I can't speak. I smell the coffee. Do I smell.....vinegar? What? I'm very confused. My brain isn't working. My mouth isn't working. And, that is when I spot them. An entire flock of them bouncing around on top of the snow.  Suddenly, I hear Hubby saying, "Robins! I see robins, and I saw them first!"

NO! I finally get my mouth to work." I saw them first, but I couldn't speak, and what in the world did you put in my coffee???"  He just laughs, "HA HA. I saw them first, and I said it first. I win." I maintain that I saw them first, so I am the winner.  He then calls my mom, because he especially likes to beat her in the robin race.  We relentlessly argue about it for the next 15 minutes, proclaiming ourselves the winner.

Oh, so are you wondering what he put in my coffee?  You'll never guess in a million years.  We had some leftover wine, and yes, he did put wine in my coffee.  How much, you ask? I asked the same question. "Oh, not much," he said, "maybe just about a fourth of a cup."  Needless to say, I did not drink the rest of my "coffee".

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