SPRING IS COMING !

Do you wonder how I know? Today while driving I saw a Robin red-breast fly in front of my car. This picture below is not one I took myself. It was taken by a friend of mine who was kind enough to e-mail it to me and did not want her name published so I can't properly give her credit, but please accept my thanks. She knew I needed a sign besides the one I saw flying.

I think it is very exciting to finally see a sign of spring.........it assures me that it will arrive eventually.
Even if they did just put us under another "Weather Alerts
SNOW ADVISORY in effect for :
Allegan, MI Barry, MI Calhoun, MI Clinton, MI Eaton, MI Gratiot, MI Ionia, MI Kalamazoo, MI Kent, MI Mecosta, MI Montcalm, MI Muskegon, MI Newaygo, MI Oceana, MI Ottawa, MI Van Buren, MI" beginning at 4 AM on Fri. and lasting through 4 PM Friday. And beginning tomorrow there are only 21 days left until the official start of Spring. Spring begins 3 days after our Amber turns 13. I can't believe she will be a teen-ager this year. I was at the hospital, in the room, when she was born and it doesn't seem like that many years have elapsed since that day when I first held her in my arms and counted all her fingers and toes! She was our third grand child back then...........now we are expecting number 19. I think I might be getting to old for this baby stuff!!!

Happenings and inconveniences!

Second youngest son's(the one who is engaged)fiancee is sick with pneumonia. She's had it since Jan. but just got into see the doctor. She also just found out that she is pregnant so that limits what medications she can take. He gave her an antibiotic shot in the butt and told her to take Tylenol for fever, aches and pains and that was all. I think she is starting to feel better, but is way behind on laundry she says. Doug helps when he can, but working full time and coming home to take care of her and 4 kids makes it a little difficult. To top that off, something happened to the pipes in the apartment complex they live in and they've had no water for the last 3 days. We have taken them drinking water and they got 35 gallon buckets of water from where she works part-time to flush the toilets with and heat for washing up. But the laundry was just piling up. I told them to bring some here and I would do it. I washed 3 big loads for them. So at least the have clean underwear, socks, pj's and a couple outfits each now. Hopefully the water will be repaired soon. While they were dropping off the laundry they took the time to shower too...........that's pretty important for anyone they have to be around!

I talked Hubby into staying home yesterday and going to the doctor. He hasn't been feeling well and I was sure he had the flu in spite of having had his flu shot last fall. I was wrong. It is an upper respiratory infection and he is on a course of antibiotics to make him well. I have been making sure he is getting plenty of rest and sleep and lots of liquids to drink.......and not beer either. Mostly water, orange juice and and occasional soda. I'm hoping he starts to feel better by tomorrow. He will have to return to work on Monday, even if he isn't 100% yet. Poor man. I hope I don't catch it either.

I was supposed to keep Drew today while Naive and Mr. Naive went to watch E. in her competitive cheer leading, but because of illness in the household, they chose to find someone else to watch him. I don't blame them. I wouldn't want the little guy to get sick either. But I do miss him coming here. I miss Amber too. We haven't seen her since sometime in Jan. And the last time she was down this way was the week before Christmas and New Years, and part of that time she spent at her dad's of course. I spoke with her last night and wished her well on the all day basketball tournament she played in today, and told her to let me know how it went, but I haven't heard anything from her yet.

I'm hoping that the weather breaks soon and the distance to pick her up and bring her here won't matter so much if the roads are clear. I'm eagerly awaiting springs arrival!

What about the groundhog?

(ozoni11's photos)

Here it is, the 15th of February, 2008. I live in southwest Michigan and we are in the throes of winter. As a child, I loved the winter time. The sledding, building snowmen and snow forts, snowball fights, making angels in the snow and ice skating. That was then………..now back to real life at the age of almost 62 (unless you’re dyslexic, then I’m only almost 26)!

It’s cold out there. It’s 8:30 PM and the temp is 14º. There is no wind tonight (yet anyway) so there is no windchill to report. Last weekend our temperatures were in the single digits with wind gusts between 40-50 mph, making the windchill at times -23º……..now that’s cold!

On February 2nd, someone a long time ago decided that if the little groundhog saw his shadow on that day, we would have 6 more weeks of winter. Where in the world they (whom ever ‘they’ are) came up with this theory is beyond my comprehension. If groundhogs can predict the weather, why do we need meteorologist? And I was taught in school that groundhogs were some of those animals that hibernate for the winter. That being the case, how could he see his shadow if he’s asleep? I’ll tell you how. Those same ‘they’s’ decided they should wake him up instead of letting him sleep!

I think we should just leave the poor little guy alone and let him sleep. At least he won’t see his shadow and maybe, just maybe, we won’t have six more weeks of winter. Maybe spring would come early, although I don’t put much trust in the whole theory anyway, but we could give it a try……………at least once!

It's Fixed!

The garage door is now working. It seems to be considerably noisier than it has ever been before, but it is working. And do you know what it was? A $9.00 capacitor..........a cheap fix for us this time. Especially since we were looking at purchasing a whole new one to the tune of $184. big ones.

Saturday, our oldest son, Brian, came over to visit with his three kids. David, 11, Elijah 4 and Rebecca (aka Baby Becca) just 2. They decided they wanted to try doing some puzzles. David wanted to try a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle and Elijah wanted to help. David didn't want him to. We found a 34 piece puzzle for Elijah to do. Made them both happy. What surprised me is that Elijah was actuall able to put it together all my himself, and insisted I take a picture of it........that's what the above pic is for...........to make Elijah happy.
This photo is baby Becca...........just because she's cute!



And this one is of David trying to put the 500 piece jigsaw puzzle together while Elijah watches because he finished his!

I love having them come and spend a day or evening with me. It gives me a chance to play with them and enjoy them. Maybe even more than I could their Daddy when he was their age because I don't have all the responsiblities that go along with raising them! It's so much fun! What a blessing all my grand children are to me!

Garage door openers..............

are great when they work right! Lately, we've been having some problems with ours. When we wake up in the morning, the garage door has been opened even though we know we closed it before retiring. Bumpa always checks it before he goes to bed at 3 AM. He works second shift so he makes sure it is closed after he gets his last beer for the night out of the refrigerator in the garage. I get up usually by no later than 8:30, sometimes 9 AM. The rest of the doors going to the garage are locked so no one could get in anyway. Besides, we have the 4-legged variety of ADT. Anyone trying to gain entry to our home would be severly startled by a vicious looking and sounding critter!

A few nights ago, the door kept opening all by itself sending my ADT monitor into a steady stream of barking and snarling. I would go up and push the button and watch the door close and go about my business. And within about 40 minutes the same thing would happen. This went on for a while, until the last time I went to close the door and the button on the wall would not work. So I went to my car and took the remote out and pushed it and that didn't work either. Thinking that the battery was probably dead, I replaced it and re-pushed the button without any luck. Of course this was a night when Bumpa was working overtime and would not return until 1:30 and that was only an estimate because the roads were rather nasty. It was the night of the big snow and high winds with blowing and drifting and many interstates closed for accident clean ups. Needless to say, my garage was also filling with drifting snow! I pulled on my boots and ventured out in my fleece jammies. I opened the rear driver's side door and climbed inside to stand on the floorboard in order to reach the rope that is the manual release for the door. AND.PROMPTLY.FELL.OUT.ON.MY.BEHIND! Those things happen when you are vertically challenged!

This required me to pick myself up and use a naughty word because my behind hurt and I was now wet and muddy and snowy and cold! I had to come into the house to get my step stool since the ladders in the garage are all hanging up and too heavy for me to lift and get down. I set up my stool and pulled on the release cord. I climbed down and went to the door and tugged on it. NOTHING! I literally hung on and wiggled my body (good thing it was dark) and the door still would not budge. After several attempts at looking silly and pulling on the door, it finally shut, but not before I had to shovel the snow out of the garage.

Why do these kinds of things happen when the men are not home? Anyway, he thought he had it fixed. We now think the motor is shot and it is just as expensive to fix it as to purchase a new one. So, we will be shopping for a new door opener soon. I'm getting tired of having to open and close it by hand, but I shouldn't complain. Before we moved here we didn't even have a garage.

And I want to close with this statement. I apologize for any mispellings.......the spell check on this hasn't worked the last few time I've tried to use it. Anyone else having this problem or does blogger just hate me?