Weather in Key West

Let's all take a moment and pretend we are enjoying a cloudy day in Key West where it is 75 degrees today. The dew point of 70 means that I would have crazy frizzy hair, but who cares! It's still preferable to the freezing rain I hear outside the window.

Clyde the Cypress Tree

We planted Clyde the Cypress Tree in the backyard today. The flier that I picked up with Clyde says that cypress trees are very slow growing.
Every year on or near the first day of school, my mom took my picture next to my tiny 4th Grade Arbor Day tree. So here I am next to Clyde - we'll see how big he is next February! :)

Masquerade

It was a dreary, rainy, cold weekend - but we had a great time! First, we pretended to be cool and artsy. Yesterday we went to the Moxie - an independent small movie theater downtown. Our friend's Jim and Patty's son is a film maker in California. His film "Feeding" was playing as part of the Show-Me Film Festival, so we joined their friends and family to see it along with several other short films. It was lots of fun and the Moxie is a really neat place. Jamie's film is great - it's about a woman's unlikely relationship with her garbage disposal. It doesn't exactly end well for the woman's husband. ;)

Then we pretended to be great gardeners. Today we went to the Lawn and Garden Show at the fairgrounds. That always gives me spring fever! We picked up a brochure for an inventory reduction sale on big trees and have had visions of hole digging all afternoon. I picked up a free tiny bald cypress tree to plant. It appears to be a stick wrapped in cling wrap, so I guess we'll see if it grows. The arbor day tree I got in 4th grade is now a large beautiful shade tree, so maybe 20-some years from now, the bald cypress will look less pitiful.

Further evidence has been found that Raul the Rabbit is indeed living in our backyard. I want to start feeding him - that would bring the pet tally to four!

Lights! Dryer! Action!

This is the damage done to our siding last year when a limb fell on the cable TV cable and caused it to zipper through our siding. We thought it was unfortunate at the time that we had to buy a whole box of siding just to have that small section fixed. We're glad now that we did because the same thing happened this year. The damage is much less this year though and we may be able to fix it ourselves.

This is the damage done this year.

Since Wednesday, we have been without full power. We thought we'd escaped the power outages when we still had power on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, a branch fell from a tree, pulling one of the cables free from the weatherhead. That night, much of our neighborhood was without power. It was restored about 10, but our lights were unusually dim and just didn't seem right. By Thursday evening, we could run one furnace, a light or two, and most importantly, the TV. This morning, our power was fixed - won't say how! - and we can now go back to being the energy hogs that we are. I can hear the dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer humming happily away. Yippee!

Freezing Rain Freezing Rain Go Away

Does this look familiar? Maybe similar to the ice storm pictures from last January? Yuck!

Cookies, Burgers, and Hockey

I had a most fun Saturday! Christina and I made Valentine cookies at her house. We cut out big hearts, medium hearts, and tiny hearts. For those who may not be crazy about all the hearts of the holiday, we made a few Valentine turkeys. :) We were cruising along pretty quickly decorating the cookies, until we discovered that cookie creativity is way more fun than solid colors. We stopped and met my mom at Ruby Tuesday for a fun and delicious lunch. On our way back through town, we couldn't resist stopped by the two neat antique stores in Galloway. When we got back, we continued the artful icing until each and every cookie had personality.

Here're some of the finished products. I got home just in time to put on a coat and get back in the car. David and I met Todd and Kevin for dinner and the MSU hockey game. It was lots of fun. I was thankful for that net that goes from the top of the glass almost to the ceiling!

Just pretend that my eyes are open in this picture. Kevin took several, but as usual, my eyes are closed in every one. You can't tell, but my eyes are closed in this one too. :)

For some reason, Blogger spell check has stopped working. At least that's going to be my excuse when someone catches misspelled words.

Grandad's Birthday

In January, we celebrated my Grandad Corwine's 80th birthday. My Aunt Connie sent these pictures, so thought I would share. Above is Grandad and his tractor cake.
This is Grandad and Granny and their combined kids - left to right - Rick, Gail (my mom), Connie, Sharon, and Terry.

Good-Bye Old Friends

I should be embarrassed that I ever wore these. I'm not, but I should be. I have a pair of flip-flops that many of my friends really hate. I think Kevin dislikes them even more than David. They're orange and have little fruit on the top. Very Carmen Miranda. David's dog Kaiser used to really like to try to eat the fruit off the top - even if I was still wearing them. If my math is correct, they will be 7 years old this summer. For several summers, I wore them every day. With the colorful fruit on top, they just match everything. And I used to get quite a few compliments on them - from strangers, not from my friends. Kaiser and lots of wear finally took their toll on the fruit. Undaunted, I found new tiny fruit and glued it on. As I said, no one liked these shoes except for me. Eventually even I could see that they weren't looking so swell. I thought I threw them away. Until this morning. I found them! In the back of my closet. They looked worse than I had remembered. So good-bye old friends...may you rest in landfill peace.

Happy Fat Tuesday - Yesterday

In honor of Fat Tuesday, I thought I would share some pictures of our trip to New Orleans in 2005 (pre-Katrina). We were there the end of Jan - first of Feb. A week or so before the REAL beginning of the celebration in The Big Easy, but we were fortunate to catch a couple of early parades. After that, I can't imagine being there for Mardi Gras. Here's David near Jackson Square. As you know, we love to eat. We had the best po' boys ever at a restaraunt just off of the square. They were on the best french bread I've ever tasted. Strange thing to remember 2 years later, but yu-um!
A nice man on Bourbon Street took our picture with his beer ad for only $1 - a real bargain. It looks like I should have had a V-8! Instead, I had a hurricane at Maison Bourbon. An aptly named drink - a couple hurricanes and you wouldn't care how hard the wind was blowing outside!

St. Louis Cathedral - Jackson Square

Picture Update

The weekend after we returned from our honeymoon, we went to Illinois for David's niece's (Erin's) wedding. It was so nice to sit and enjoy someone else's wedding so soon after our own. I have an all new appreciation for all that goes into the big day! The above picture is of Erin and Darren. Their reception was in an art gallery in Peoria. It was a really neat place for a reception!
Below is a picture David took of the Discovery last Friday in the snow. It's on a bridge over Bull Creek in Christian County. I think it should be January's picture in a Land Rover calendar!

Winter Wonderland

It snowed yesterday! It was such a pretty, light snow.

We went to Todd's last night to watch the much-anticipated season premiere of LOST. I opened Todd's refrigerator to add a few cans of soda to find that all of his food must have come from a Dharma food drop! Everything wore the generic label and emblem of the Dharma Initiative. It was pretty clever! The premiere was great, although we've gotten used to watching LOST without commercials on DVD. Can't wait for next week's episode!