Waiting For Spring...

I can hardly believe that one year ago today was the night before I got on a plane and flew to Loveland, Colorado to start my dream job working at Interweave Press. It was so much warmer, and much wetter, than this year. We had already had some close calls where roads were closed due to flooding, and we were having what seemed like nonstop rain.

A couple of weeks ago, Colden and I went exploring in the backyard and noticed that the buds were coming out on the box elder tree.

We also noticed some asparagus coming up in the asparagus patch, right next to the rhubarb. But alas, last night it was down in the 20s again, and the tender asparagus spears got zapped with the cold.

The forecast is calling for temperatures in the 70s later this week, and I can only hope it's correct! I just could not get warm today, no matter what I did. I finally wasted an entire hour trying to get a fire going in the wood stove, and if there's one thing that is most likely to set me off into a bad mood, it's my inability to get a fire going when I'm freezing cold.

Tomorrow would have also been my parents' 39th wedding anniversary. Mom has been gone for four years now, but it doesn't feel like that long. Sometimes I wonder if my dad thinks about her on their anniversary. True, their marriage was far from ideal, and I know he's happy now with his new partner. But I can't help but remember the anniversaries.

It also means that my birthday is coming up, too. In just ten days, I'll be 38. Edging ever so closer to 40. I've decided to do something crazy for myself this year. So, yes, on Wednesday, nine days before my birthday, I'll be getting a haircut and color. And not just to cover up the grey, either. Something a little more...daring.

I haven't told Tom about my upcoming hair color transformation. Or his parents. Hmmmm...

Anyway. Cozying up in front of the fire in the wood stove now, and Colden is asking Daddy if they can camp out on the back porch and sleep in the tent again tonight. Which will totally suck, because after sleeping in bed with Colden for the last ten days, I could not get to sleep without him last night. Ugh. Everyone was telling me how Colden wouldn't be able to get to sleep without me if I kept that up, but in reality, it's ME that's having the problem falling asleep without HIM! Ugh.

I started stitching peyote bezels around some of those new Czech spike beads that I got from The Hole Bead Shop last week. And then I thought, huh, what the heck am I going to do with them all? This afternoon, I think I found a way to use them, although the design looks an awful lot like other designs I've seen before... I just hope I'm not stepping on any toes with it.