The Wait for Spring

I've been under the weather for the last few days and so haven't accomplished a whole lot.

I'm feeling a bit better today and spent a few hours doing errands.

In my travels I just happened to pass by Apache Seeds where I picked up a bale of seed starting mix.

By extraordinary coincidence I also passed right by Holes garden center!

This lovely primrose sneaked into my hands while I wasn't looking, as did one of her sisters.

I'm not quite sure how they managed it as my hands were full of seed packets at the time!

The wait for spring has begun. . .

Photography

I'm going to a photography evening tomorrow, being held by an amateur photographer in one of our churches. The idea is to dust off the camera sitting on your shelf and develop your artistic skills.

It sounds interesting and challenging so I signed up

The first assignment is to come to the evening with three pictures whose title are WINDOW.

This is my first picture. (And of course the reflection of my living room window in her eye was deliberate. Ahem.)

One down, two to go. . .

Working On 'The Plan'

My friend Ev (the smiling lady on the left) and I spent most of today working on 'the plan'.

My plan's pretty ambitious , and one that I will be working on for a few years, but when we get a little further along in the first phase, I'll share more details.

For the time being all I can say is. . .

It's been quite a while since I've had to work so hard at learning something new!

I find it strangely satisfying however.

Now I'm off to find some extra strength Tylenol. My brain hurts from all that thinking!

Happy Monday to all of you.

Quiet Sundays

Photo courtesy PDPhoto.org

Dogs Are Funny

Our respite from winter has passed and we are back in the deep freeze.

I'm being a big baby and refusing to leave the house any more than necessary.

When I went out to drive the bus this morning it was -24C.

At these temperatures my bus does not really warm up until it gets to school.

I got home and told Jada there was no way we were going for a walk today.

I felt bad though because with her fur she would go for a walk no matter how cold it got!

To give her something to do I put part of her breakfast into a Kong. I mixed together kibble and peanut butter in a small bowl and then stuffed it into the Kong, blocking the openings with a piece of a milk bone treat.

It's great fun!

Rather than waste any kibble and peanut butter that wouldn't fit into the Kong, I put the bowl on the floor for her to lick out.

I heard her happily licking away as the bowl slid around the kitchen floor.

Suddenly she raced to the patio door. I let her out and watched as she threw herself into the snow rubbing her head with her paw.

What in the world? . . .

She rubbed her head furiously in the snow then got up licked the snow she had been rubbing in.

????

Ohhhh. . .

She had managed to get peanut butter all over her head while licking out the bowl!

I don't know if she was trying to clean it off or just didn't want to waste it. . .

Dogs are funny.

A New Computer!

After more than a month of being without my own computer, I'm back in business.

My son Morgan has been very sweet in allowing me to use his laptop but it's not the same as having your own.

I had thought I had purchased a desktop from Dell online but when, after a few days they was no e-mail acknowledging my order I got concerned. For good reason as it turns out. Somehow My order didn't actually go through. Making things worse was the fact that what I had ordered was on sale for one day only. It was now $200 extra!

In the meantime while using Morgan's laptop I was regretting purchasing a desktop. I have something in the works that really requires a laptop and although I don't anticipate needing it for another year, if I had bought a desktop now there is no way I would spend the money on another computer a year from now!

So. . .

Morgan and I went shopping last night.

Here is my lovely new laptop and printer/scanner (another necessity needed for 'the plan')

I'm still wincing over the money spent, but, well. . .

I love it!

Now all I need are my files which the computer repair people are backing up for me.

I leave you today with a picture of Jada I took on our walk this morning.

She loves to sniff!

And a good time was had by all. . .

Turn out was small for our seed party last Friday.

For those of us who were able to be there though, there were many seeds just waiting to go home with someone new.

Munchies, good company and talk about gardening.

We had a lovely time.

Respite

After six weeks or frigid temperatures we have been blessed with a short respite.

The last few days have seen the temperatures climb above freezing.

Today was especially lovely as the sun shone and the thermometer hovered around 9C.

I've spent the day puttering around the house and stopping often to just sit in my sunny living room and drink in the peace and warmth of the day while I admired the beautiful pink gerbera daisies I bought to decorate for my seed party last night.

Of course part of the reason that it was so peaceful had to do with the fact that Henry and Morgan went ice fishing with Russ out at his cabin, taking Jada with them.

Since nothing wakes Jesse up before early afternoon and he then had to go to work, I spent the day on my own.

Bliss.

I read, tidied after last night's party, did some laundry, bought a new purse to replace my broken one, bought a few packages of perennial seeds and picked up fresh bread and a lemon meringue pie. (I don't bake pie.)

All in all a wonderful day.

And yesterday was Henry's 49Th birthday.

Happy birthday honey. . .

Bad News, Good News

I just heard back from the computer repair people.
The bad news is, the computer has something wrong with the actual hardware.
The good news is, it will not cost a small fortune to save my files as there is nothing wrong any of my programs.
What does this mean for my blog?
I could have the computer fixed, but my friend Ev found a tower on sale that doesn't cost a whole lot more than it would to fix the old one.
So I'm buying a new tower. I'd like to buy a package so that I can get a 24" flat screen monitor for my aging eyes. Since I couldn't even bring myself to spend money on a flash drive to save my files (That's going to change!) I won't be buying any more than I need. (Bummer!)
I am going to spend the money to save my files though, which means that once this is all sorted out, I will have some lovely warm weather pictures to blog with!
Anyone care to join me in the happy dance?

Happy Monday.

I've just returned from a very chilly walk with Jada.

They keep promising that it's going to warm up but when it's going to do so keeps changing!

I could whine, but we all know how effective that is, so. . .

I decided to smile instead.

Henry's new Christmas hat.

Mom's ready to help with Christmas dinner.

Happy Monday!

Snow

The snow is blowing down on a slant.
Large fluffy flakes are piling up on the bird bath.
Sedum peek from under their little snow caps.
And it's cold.
Very cold!
You would think I would be moping around the house just waiting for spring, filled with gloom at the thought of many more winter days ahead.
And yet, you would be wrong.
I know, I'm surprising myself!
I have been immersing myself in all things gardening.
Books, magazines, blogs, DVDs, the works!
I've been inspired. It has given me a few project ideas, one of them big.
I promised Henry there would be no more projects for a while but I just can't help myself.
After all. . .
Projects are the spice of life!
Look on the bright side Honey,
most of theses projects I can do by myself. . .

Computers

While visiting my sister Tamara's blog just now I noticed that it has been six days since I have posted anything!
I still don't have a computer and although Morgan has been very good about allowing me to use his laptop I still have an issue with my pictures.
All my pictures on on my computer.
Unbacked up. . .
And yes I know how foolish that is. I've been telling myself for three months that I need to come up with a PLAN.
I bought a stack of DVDs from Costco for cheap which was to be the solution, but, somehow. . .
Morgan couldn't get them to work.
My new PLAN was to get a flash drive.
However, I have a lot of pictures.
Which means I need a more expensive model.
I just couldn't bring myself to buy it.
Now I'll have to pay $80 or more to have the files retrieved.
Assuming they can be retrieved.
I took a lot of pictures over the summer I had intended to use for blogging in the depths of winter.
My camera's memory card is full and I don't dare delete any in case they can't get my files back.
I could buy a new memory card, but that costs money. . .
Notice a trend?
I hope to bring the computer in tomorrow and then. . .
We'll see.
I might have to spend some money.

A New Year

The sun is shining, and it's still very cold on this first day of 2009.

Henry and I spent New Year's Eve with a group of friends at Bart and Jurrina's home in the country.

I almost missed it due to some serious crankiness and an unwillingness to brave the cold.
The desire to be a good friend won out however and a good time was had by all

Bart and Henry B. put on a great fireworks show, which, aside from that one rogue firework which decided to shoot itself at the crowd rather than above us, was very well executed.

The kids who attended spent lots of time on the frozen pond skating and playing hockey. (Miles had gone the extra mile and strung Christmas lights around the entire pond.)
A few of the kids had stayed out just a little too long and had to deal with some painful thawing, but thankfully no one got as far as frostbite.

Jurrina, Lorretta and I also decided to have a seed party again this year which we will hold at my house.
Seed parties are always great fun. Everyone brings something to munch on and any seeds that they might like to trade. If someone doesn't have seeds to trade we don't mind. There are always lots to go around. This year I saved lots of sweet pea, poppy, and iris seeds. And of course there are all those seeds I bought. . .

We all chat and peruse the new seed catalogues so we can make one order and save the extra shipping fees.
Some people come just to chat gardening with other like minded women.(Or men.)
We also make cute little seed envelopes so everyone can take home the seeds they want.
The year I took the Master Gardener's course they let me borrow the box of old seeds to give us the chance to try something a little different, which was very fun.

I choose to grow something whose name I had never heard before. I searched for information but I turned up nothing.
I was sure I was growing some very exotic plant that would have all my gardening friends green with envy!
Until it developed it's first set of true leaves. I thought they looked rather familiar but still couldn't figure out where I had seen those leaves before.
Jurrina dropped by for a visit shortly after and checked the plant out.
"Oh I know what that is," she informs me airily.
"You're growing celery!"
Ack!!

The seed party will be on Friday January 16Th at 7:30pm.
If you are in my neighbourhood, drop by and join us for some fun!
You could always go home with some celery seed of you're own.