• Eleven degrees and snow on the ground…

    November 11, 2019 / No Comments

    We got all of four inches of snow last night.  Just enough to be pretty and start the snowball rolling.  The wind has been blowing like crazy all day out of the North-Northwest.  The large flags in town were blowing straight out just like they’d been starched.  Earlier today, I think it was about eighteen degrees.  At the moment, it’s down to eleven.  It is so cold and I’m not ready for winter.  Since my two favorite seasons are Spring and Fall, I guess that’s a clue I don’t like hot and/or cold!  We definitely needed warm caps and a heavy coat today.

    About this time a year ago, I took an ungraceful fall on the sidewalk right in front of one of my favorite shops in Lincoln Square in Chicago.  The sidewalk was uneven and, apparently, I’m clumsy.  I think I saw on Facebook that if one falls and everyone laughs, you’re young.  If one falls and everyone comes running, you’re old. Needless to say, it was embarrassing when everyone came running.  I ended up with a torn meniscus and knee surgery on Valentines Day 2019.  Today, I saw my orthopedic surgeon for a shot of cortisone in my knee.  It will help for several months.  However, it probably means I won’t sleep much tonight and tomorrow I will have bright red circles on my cheeks.  Just a couple of temporary side effects.  It should help the residual pain and, hopefully, give me a boost of energy for a bit.

    Tomorrow I have a CAT scan on my right inner ear in preparation for my ear surgery in January.  I’m not thinking about it or dreading it yet.  It has to be done.

    After the injection in my knee, we stopped at Olive Garden for lupper…late lunch, early supper.  Tiger met us at the back door when we came home.  Obviously, we had been gone much too long to suit him.  I don’t know why he was complaining though.  He’s in a nice warm house all curled up in his cozy spot.

     

    What you see behind the last windbreak of shrubs is a harvested corn field

    belonging to the farmer who owns the land behind our property.

  • Snow poles?!

    November 9, 2019 / 2 Comments

    Not too long ago, the house looked like this.  Spring and Summer here were wonderful.  The second year for perennials is always a beautiful show and we weren’t disappointed.  We enjoyed the front porch with rocking chairs and an indoor/outdoor rug.  Granted, there were lots of days when the temperature and humidity were too high to even think about sitting on the front porch but it was nice on cooler days.

     

     

    All the plants on the front porch are gone after the freeze but the pumpkins made it.  Inside, it is definitely Autumn…at least until the weekend after Thanksgiving when the Autumn decorations are put away and the Christmas decorations come out.  Autumn is my favorite season.  Everything about it – from the colors to the clothes to the food!

    Doug was working in the garage one day this week and the next thing I see outside are these poles lining the driveway.  For my friends and family in the deep South, just in case you haven’t seen these down there, these snow poles mark the depth of snow.  When the snow is a foot deep, it helps to know where your drive and walkway are.   When I asked him about them, he mentioned that the ground is soft enough right now to get the poles in the ground.  So in they went.

    I’m a very happy camper with the first snow.  I get downright excited.  Watching the snowflakes fall with a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows is the perfect way to spend an afternoon.  I even get excited for the second and third and fourth snow.  Eventually, however, there are piles of snow eight feet high left by the snowplows everywhere.  The roads and parking lots turn into a black, dirty mess.  Snow boots track in sand and dirt.  This goes on for weeks sometimes.  I haven’t even mentioned the well below freezing temperatures and the windchill.

    There is something to be said, however, for living in Iowa where there are four distinct seasons.  You can count on it:  the green of Summer, the beauty of Fall, pristine white snowfalls in Winter and the new birth of Spring.  One after the other.  The circle of life.  I’ll take it.

     

     

  • Promises…

    January 13, 2015 / No Comments

    This morning began with a chilly three degrees outside.  Snow and patches of ice still cover the ground and tarmac outside.  Thankfully, the thermometer slowly rose to the day’s high of nineteen…but the wind chill made it feel so much colder.  As much as I enjoy opening all the drapes first thing in the morning, today they remained closed.  The goal today was staying warm.  Later this week a heat wave of 45 is predicted!  I look forward to that and will enjoy letting the sunshine in the windows then.

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    I’ve been thinking about promises today.  If you’re at all like I am, then you don’t make promises lightly.  Neither does God.  There are amazing promises in the Bible.  One of my favorite promises is found in Jeremiah 29:11.  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”.  The past two years of my life have held some sadness and a few challenges.  At times,  I confess to wondering what God had in store for me.  Still, I clung to the promise He made in Jeremiah 29:11.  He is faithful and I am thankful!

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    Doug left on Sunday for a much anticipated trip to Antarctica!  He made the plans for this once-in-a-lifetime trip to see a part of this world that most of us will never see before the two of us met.  Before he left, he planted the Paperwhite bulbs below for me and placed them on a small table facing the glass door in my kitchen.  As a Master Gardener, he knows far more than I do about plantings, but I could not believe they are “planted” in clean smooth pebbles with barely enough water to cover the pebbles!  Each of the bulbs holds the energy and everything it needs to grow within itself.  Amazing, isn’t it?  There’s a promise within each bulb of the beautiful Paperwhite blossoms they are to become.  Much like the promise you and I hold within each of us!

    So, in the meantime, I will take care of these little bulbs and watch them grow.  I will look forward to stories about Penguins, the amazing beauty of Antarctica and camping on the ice when Doug returns! 

     

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    Note:  The photo of the Paperwhite blooms above is from Wikipedia.  I will post pics of these bulbs when they bloom!