Really?

I just looked at the forecast for this weekend. Didn't the weather gods get the memo that it's mid-April and we'd like nice weather?

Saturday Night
	Rain in the evening...then rain showers likely with a chance of snow showers after midnight. Little or no snow accumulation. Lows in the mid 30s. Chance of precipitation 80 percent.

Sunday
	Mostly cloudy. A chance of rain and snow showers in the morning...then a chance of showers in the afternoon. Highs around 50. Chance of precipitation 40 percent.

Spring, Hurry up and get here. Please.

Earlier this week we had a "warm" spell. It was in the 40s. Glorious! The warmer temperatures, combined with some rain, and the foot or so of snow on the ground mostly all melted away. I knew it was too good to last.

As I write this, snow is starting to fall outside my window. There are a number of things that I'd like to get done outside at home, but it's always dark, too cold, or everything is covered in snow. Blech. And I continue to have spring fever.

Even though I know it won't truly warm up for 3-4 more months I've started to plan my garden. I've run into issues in the past where I've put it off and things I've wanted to order have been sold out. So over the past couple of weeks (inspired by some emails I've received) I planned out my garden and placed a number of orders. We still have work to do prepping the ground (building beds, etc) but all of the plants and seeds have been ordered. And according to UPS tracking, the seeds should be coming to my house today.

I've ordered tomato, asparagus, rhubarb, and strawberry plants and lots of seeds-
Petunias
Nasturtium
Cosmos
Four o'clocks (never heard of these before, but they looked pretty)
Cilantro
Basil
Parsley
Mesclun mix
Broccoli
Sweet peppers
Zucchini
Cucumbers
Beans
Scallions
Carrots
Corn

Wow, that's a lot of stuff! And most of it will go into 4 4x4 foot beds. The asparagus, strawberries and rhubarb will be going into a larger bed along the porch. And the flowers- haven't really decided. A few here, a few there. And maybe some of the herbs will end up in pots as well. All I know if I've got my work cut out for me with seed starting. Hopefully I'll have better luck than I've had in the past.

A little of this, a little of that

I guess I'm just not meant to blog all that frequently. I'd like to get back into it, but I seem to lack topics to blog about. And this post is all over the place as I play catch-up with everything.

I took some vacation days and was off of work from Christmas Eve until yesterday. It's a bit of a shock to the system to get back into things. While I was off I did a whole lot of nothing. And I loved it!

I watched a lot of movies and some TV shows. Serenity, A Knight's Tale, (yes, we started with an Alan Tudyk theme) Troy, There Will be Blood, Four Christmases, Nobel Son, Surviving Christmas, Lost in Austen, Dangerous Beauty, Picture Perfect, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Harry Potter 1-6, the final episode from season one and the pilot of Dollhouse, and Buffy, season one and 15 episodes of season two. Plus we went out and saw Sherlock Holmes. Our Netflix account definitely got a workout!!!

I knit. And I knit some more. (Basically I spent my time knitting and watching movies.) This included 2 chocolate chip cookies, an oreo, a sugar cookie, and a peanut blossom, all on a plate and with a matching mug of milk. To combat that sugar, I made 2 sugar snap peas- one with a closed pod and the other pod open with 3 peas in it. (Not sure why the pattern for the open pod is about half the size of the closed pod.) Then for clothes I made a quick black and white hat and then have started a couple of other projects.

I bought new ice skates and Chris even humored me and went to the rink with me one day. Although he won't readily admit it, I think he had fun. He didn't fall and was actually skating away from the wall for a while. If only they actually sharpened rental skates, he might have done even better.

Had a scrap night with Kelly. I had grand ambitions of working on my Acadia album from when we were there in 2008. Instead I spent the night helping Kelly with her album. And we got 12 pages done, finishing up DJ's first year of life!

In other Christmas relatedness....

I was a little late getting the decorations up, but about halfway through the month things finally got spruced up. Due to various other scheduling I imagine decorations will be up through the end of January.

We had survived Cookie Baking. We cut back the number of recipes and stretched it over the weekend. We also did gifts over the weekend, thus eliminating the need to schedule another event. I still need to finish making the cookbook.

On Christmas Day, Mom came over and we had a nice meal, gifts, etc. Then that evening we went and saw Sherlock Holmes.

Coming up... on Saturday we're having friends over to make gingerbread houses and do a re-gift Yankee Swap.

Coming up.... Jan 30th getting together with my mom's extended family for our "Christmas" gathering. A turducken is in my future...

Other December activities included a Lost and Found concert. Hard to believe that I've been following them around for 16 years now! Michael (frizzy hair on my right) and his wife had a baby recently so I gave him a little sweater that I had knit. When George had his girls they got dresses, so it was only fair. Plus it was a sweater I had originally planned for a baby boy I know, but it ended up looking too girly.

We shoveled snow a couple of times. And then when we came back from Cookie Baking to 8 inches of snow in the driveway, our next door neighbor asked us if we wanted the number of his plow guy. Um, yes, please. He's now saved in my phone as "plow guy". :) While waiting for the plow guy I looked out the window and saw this fabulous sunset. (The snow picture is from our commute in to work earlier in December.)

In other news, I got new glasses. Not very exciting, but in mid-December I realized I had about $400 left in my FSA. Since it's a use it or loose it kind of thing, I figured since I hated my old glasses, this would be a good way to use up the money. Hopefully these will stay on my head better than my old glasses.
What was weird though, is when I went in to pick out my frames, the saleswoman remembered my name. I hadn't been there since the summer! She said she remembered the fun colors of my hair.

And at the beginning of December Chris once again had a table at Good Shepherd's Craft Faire. Pictured here is only about half of his inventory. He's done really well this year, especially with his Etsy store.

Snow

So it's been a while since I've blogged. Here are some pictures from Dec. 20th. As you can see, we've had a lot of snow. This was the Sunday storm that came right after the bad Thursday storm. Since we don't have much of a yard, we quickly ran out of places to put the snow. Luckily we have since had some warm days and the snow has melted a bit. In fact, there's a little bit of grass visible int he front yard. And the neighbors built a fort out of the piles in front.