This and That

House finch outside our kitchen window. He's sitting on an azalea bush
with snow in the yard as a background.

Everything here is good, in case my absence had you wondering. Probably not, since it's not like I post on a regular basis, anyway. It's the time of year when precipitation of various kinds has been occupying a lot of thought and time. It seems as if we've had some kind of wintery mix here for several weeks now. If I looked up the actual weather statistics, that's probably not true, but what is it that they say, "My perception is my reality." :) What I do know is that even though it was in the 50's yesterday, there was still a thick layer of ice on our walks. We managed to get the driveway cleaned earlier, but not our sidewalks. Stories abound about people and dogs sliding on the ice while they (the dogs) are trying to do their business outside. Miss Landers and Aunt Martha have tales of this including a head bounce on the ice with a slip while waking the dog in the yard.

We are lucky that we have continued to have electricity and heat and have been able to get to work. Although the walk from my car to the building one day was especially treacherous when the entire parking lot was a sheet of ice. But signs of spring are in the air with birds singing and reports of crocus blooming. I'm not sure if we even have any leaves poking above the ground of the early bloomers since most of them are covered with snow. This afternoon, I'm going on a treasure hunt around the yard to see what I can find.

Also, we got an estimate on some landscaping around our back porch and I want to walk out the plan. We're not sure what we're going to do at this point, but the estimate was about 5x more expensive than we had planned. I'm not sure that it's out of line, but it's still a lot of money. We tried to get some estimates last fall but didn't because apparently the landscaping business is really booming since people are spending more time at home because of COVID. I think this will be some kind of a phased in plan.

In other news, my class is winding down and I'm happy about that. Even though it has been a good class, after a year, it's starting to wear thin. I graduate in a month. Yay!

Time to move onto other chores this morning. First up is a call to the insurance company about coverage. Yuck. But it's a necessary thing. I am so happy that I don't have to process insurance claims and deal with people who are not happy with their coverage. Thanks to all of the people out there who do that for me.

Until next time...