Busy Weekend and Day

It was a good weekend, but busy, with lots of company. On Saturday Harry’s daughter came with the little guy. We had a fun evening and Sunday morning, but all too soon, it was time for them to head back home to Massachusetts. Then later on Sunday, Harry’s son came through briefly, stopping by the house for a couple hours. By last evening we weren’t doing too much other than relaxing. We ended the evening by cheering on our favorite team in the Amazing Race (Go Cowboys!!).

Today was the typical Monday – off to work to open – my only real early day!! Monday always comes in with a bang! Speaking of coming in, tomorrow is the first of March. I am so happy to see March arrive. With March comes the changing of the clocks and daylight in the evening hours, the first day of spring and hopefully the snow will recede enough so that we will once again be able to see the grass!! Simple pleasures. March seems to be coming in like a lamb with no major weather systems on the horizon at the moment. We hope to be able to go to the RV show in Syracuse this coming Sunday if the weather stays nice.

Hope everyone had a great Monday!

And Yet Again

Here are some more pictures of….yes, you guessed it!

Anyone out there getting tired of seeing snow?

Yup, welcome to my world!!

More Snow Pictures

I don’t know when it finally stopped snowing – sometime after I got home at 6:20. I have to admit that the trees are beautiful this morning. All the dirty snowbanks have been covered up with a fresh coat of white.

I don’t know what kind of shape those poor bushes are going to be in when this all melts for good. They’ve taken quite a beating this winter.

Our nice clean driveway is all snowed in again. But at least it’s just snow and not ice. It is supposed to rain on Monday, so hopefully our driveway snow at least will be gone pretty quickly.

I’m off to work in a bit, and this morning Gretchen is coming with the little guy. Time for the cats to go into hiding.

Positive Thoughts, Positive Thoughts

Well, after my great start this morning with lots of positive thinking, it got a little tougher as the day wore on. According to the weather guy, (…ahem…), it was supposed to start as a little snow, and then turn to rain, and then later on back to snow. But we were only supposed to get 1 – 3 inches of the white stuff.

SO……

…when it then proceeded to snow all day, that was a bummer! Harry had to park his car in the road, so he could snow blow first before trying to come up the driveway.

We lost a branch on the tree. The heavy snow was too much for it.

Our road was a mess but I made it home safely – scraped just enough off so I could see!!

Now it is time to relax and be grateful that we are home for the evening!!

Spring Snow

There’s a real difference between snow in the winter and snow in the spring.

Today we’re getting spring snow. It’s wet and heavy and sticks to the trees in a different way than the light fluffy snow we get all winter. It doesn’t pile up as fast either, and seems to go away faster. (Maybe that last part is just my imagination and/or wishful thinking.)

Because it is warmer out, the snow has a higher water content and turns into slush really quickly. You can see it where the tracks from Harry’s car tires went through, especially at the end of the driveway.

And when I stepped outside to take these pictures, I could even hear birds singing.

For some reason I’m really enjoying the sight of this spring snow. Now let’s hope we don’t lose power.

Tout Finis :)

Exciting day! The kitchen remodel is all finished.

YAY! I am so glad to have the kitchen back! Now to find the rest of the house.

What a Shock!

Haha – with a title like that, I’m sure people had all kinds of ideas for what today’s blog would be about. Well, nothing too exciting - it’s just about….today’s DENTIST appointment!! My mouth is a veritable cornucopia for probably at least ten different possible types of dental work. There have been years when I spent so much time at the dentist’s office I felt like I should put them on my Christmas card list! I dread going to dentist appointments because it seems like they always find something. So anyway, today I had a first appointment with a new general dentist, and he was very thorough…AND after an hour-long examination, I had a good report!! Woohoo!!! No need to schedule follow-up appointments for cavities, crowns, root canals or any other “fun” at the dentist’s office. Just need to make an appointment for a cleaning, no big deal.

Other than that, not much going on today. It has been a beautiful day (too much white still but oh well). Our high was a balmy 28 degrees, but the blue sky and wonderful sunshine made up for it.

Our kitchen remodel is almost done. The tiling is done except for the grout part. Tomorrow will be the last day. Pictures tomorrow night.

Slowly But Surely

It’s not been a quick process by any means, but slowly and surely, spring is tiptoeing in. If I look, I can definitely see the signs. On my way home from work today at 5:30, it was clearly still light out. What a great feeling to have the days getting longer! Also, I can definitely tell that the sun is stronger these days. Today our air temperature was only 20 degrees, but it doesn’t feel that cold when the sun is shining and there isn’t any wind.  Even when the high temperatures are below freezing, which they have been many days recently, the pavement is still wet from melting snow.  Don’t get me wrong, we still have a lot of snow! Nevertheless, I know that winter days are numbered. Time for you to head on out, Ol’ Man Winter!!

Another milestone of sorts was passed today - I have 50 followers for my blog page now! I really appreciate all of you who stop by for a visit and leave a comment now and then. It sure makes writing the blog more fun when I know that someone is looking at it!

Have a great evening everyone!!

A Great Day Off

Today was an all-around great day! It started off with Harry and I actually sleeping in! Until 7 am! That is really late for us, and makes two days in a row that we slept in past our usual wake-up time.

We came downstairs and, while Harry got our coffee going, I started my normal routine of blog reading and my day got much more exciting really fast! I opened up Rick’s blog only to find out that I was one of the 5 lucky winners of the MS Streets and Trips 2011 that Rick was giving away by drawing names out of a hat. Even now, hours later, I can’t believe I won! I can’t wait to try it out and see what this program has to offer! Thanks again, Rick!

That was clearly the highlight of my day, but the rest of it has been pretty good as well. We headed out a couple hours later to get an oil change in my car. We took both cars, and after dropping my car off at the service center, we headed to a local diner.

Yes, it was snowing but at least we didn’t get too much.

Yum! There is nothing like a diner breakfast.

By the time we finished breakfast, they had called us from the service center to say that the car was ready, so the timing worked out perfectly. We ran a couple errands and headed home, where Tom was there working on our tile backsplash.

If anyone lives in our area and wants to have kitchen work done, we highly recommend these guys.

It should be completely finished by Thursday, but this is what it looks like so far.

So all in all, I’d say it was a really great day! And we still have an evening of relaxation left.

A Lazy Quiet Day

It was a real quiet day around here. We actually slept in a little bit, although our little Ariel was walking all over us, and doing her best to wake us up for her morning head scratching. I just kept my hands under the covers and ignored her for a few minutes, until she gave up on us and jumped down, leaving us to sleep a bit longer in peace.

After a leisurely morning and a late breakfast, we settled in for a quiet day of….not doing too much of anything at all. I did stumble upon two unusual shows this afternoon to watch for a couple hours on the National Geographic channel – one about ex-Amish, and the following show on email-order brides. Yes, we learned something new on our lazy, quiet day.

In a bit, I’m going to make some sauce to have Fettuccine Alfredo for dinner. So that will be a nice end to our low-key day. Plus, the new season of Amazing Race starts tonight!

We are supposed to have another storm tonight, but I hope we don’t get too much. On a positive note, at least there are high 30s in the forecast for the end of the week so more snow will be melting hopefully! I am so so ready for spring and warmer weather.

Not So Fast

That’s what Ol’ Man Winter has to say to those of us in upstate N.Y. – not so fast! I’m not ready to head out of here just yet.

I took pictures every morning this week to (hopefully) show the progression in the snow melting away. But there’s no point in showing the frames like a time-lapse kind of thing, because, well, there really wasn’t that much change to see.

Here’s the beginning of the week…

Those pictures were taken on Monday morning. And now, these pictures were taken this morning…

So, yeah, winter isn’t relaxing its grip on us so easily. But we’re getting close to the end of February, so there’s only a few more weeks until the temps start coming up for good.

We’re heading into a long weekend! I have my morning at work coming up and then we are off for Sunday and Monday! The main order of business for this weekend is getting this house back in order; with the kitchen remodel going on we’ve just been putting stuff all over the place. What a mess! Hopefully by Monday night we will have things somewhat organized. We have been doing a lot of weeding and sorting while everything has been out of the cupboards in the kitchen. So for the most part, we have whittled the contents down to items that we use regularly. We are going to have A LOT of STUFF to put in the yard sale this summer.

A Spring Teaser

Today was a great day, as far as temperature went. I think our high got up to around 52 degrees. It would have been even better if it had been sunny, but we can’t have everything! I’ve been spending some of my spare time at work this week gazing out the window, trying to see if the snow banks have decreased at all. I have to say, I can’t really see much difference yet, although the pavement gets wet during the afternoon, so something must be melting. I have been taking pictures every morning to document the difference in the snow in our front yard that take place during this little warm up. There’s one more day yet to go before we go back to our normal February weather. I was actually thinking of all my blog buddies down in the southern regions of the country this afternoon while I was at work. It was so “warm” outside that we set the doors on the open setting so that they stayed open, so we could get the nice fresh air inside. We left the doors open for at least a couple hours. It was so refreshing!!

Our kitchen remodel is coming along. The kitchen looks so great and it’s not even finished yet. Our sink is hooked up now, and we can use our dishwasher again. All of our cupboards are able to be used now, so over the weekend we can start putting our stuff away. There’s only one part of the project left, and it’s going to make another huge difference I think! The tile backsplash will be put in starting on Monday. I can’t wait to see how it all comes together.

Part of a Day Off

Well, I got up this morning with lots of ideas about what I was going to accomplish today, however, the reality was somewhat different. Around 8:30 this morning, I had an email from my boss that two people had called in at our office, so was I interested in a few hours of overtime. After a few moments of thought, I decided to go in to work for a few hours. So that ended up being most of my day. After I got home, Harry and I did walk a couple laps around the development, but it’s still cold. Although the thermometer said 39 degrees, the wind made it feel much cooler than that. I’ve read on a few blogs that snow is melting in some locations. Here – not so much. We still have lots! I have been taking pictures every morning out our front door of our front yard and snow banks. So by the end of the week, we shall see how much we lose. Won’t be as much as I want to get rid of, I’m sure!!

Another Exciting Day

Today started out with an interesting bang! Our condo’s heat pump was being worked on today, and Harry was going to meet the guys there to let them in bright and early at 8:15. (As a little sidebar, we started this week switching off on which cars we drive. I only have to go about 10 miles a day in my car (roundtrip) while Harry puts more miles on his car daily, plus we tend to use his car whenever we go anywhere on the weekends. We noticed recently that the mileage on his car was catching up to mine, although my car is 2 years older. So we decided to drive each other’s cars to try to even up the mileage we’re putting on the cars.)

Back to this morning….Harry left our house around 7:20 to head to Scotia. I didn’t have to leave for work until about 8:10. So I was sitting on the couch, finishing up my coffee, thinking about heading upstairs to start getting ready when…..my phone rang. It was Harry, calling from his car. He had just realized that the keys to the condo were…yup, on his key chain, in my bag. Uh oh. All of a sudden, my heart gave that little jump like the one you feel when you realize you’ve overslept! So I grabbed my keys, threw on Harry’s moccasins, which happened to be the only shoes in sight, threw my coat on (over my sweatshirt and pajamas) and ran out to the car. I was on the phone with Harry at the same time while we figured out a place to meet in the middle. We decided to meet in the parking lot of my workplace. As I drove down our road, I passed the Hickory Hill truck on the way to our house. I wondered briefly what Tom was going to think when he walked into an empty house with lights on and tv still going. I made it to my workplace quickly and was able to wave at my boss as she arrived for work while I was waiting for Harry, very glad that she was not able to see into the car! She gave me one of those looks that said something like, what are you doing here so early? I’m sure she wondered even more when I drove away just a couple minutes later! Then it was back to the house where a very surprised Tom was starting his work in the kitchen when I walked back inside in my pajamas, oversized moccasins, sweatshirt and coat. Yeah, that was an interesting start to my day.

The end of the day was much nicer! I had a meeting after work and then came home to today’s changes in the kitchen!

I am SO glad that we have had the kitchen work done now, when we can enjoy it for three years. I love it!!