BRRR

As I wandered around the house Friday, I spent a lot of time looking out the window, watching. . . WAITING for that snow to stop and the sun to shine out and clear the roads. For those of you that have been to my place, you know that we positioned our "pondless" waterfall right outside our front door and adjacent picture window. We love to hear the sound when the windows are open. We love to sit on the deck and listen in the twilight. We also love to watch the wildlife enjoying the clear water (despite an occasional rat we see in the early morning). Even other animals can't resist it. We watched our friends' kids and weiner dog a couple weeks ago for the afternoon while they were with an ill family member. There was a bowl of water out for that dog, but she couldn't stand it--she only drank from the waterfall when we would let her out.

We don't seem to have any bluebirds or cardinals around, but we enjoy the little sparrows, goldfinches, and dark eyed juncos. I filled the waterfall up Thursday as it was starting to get really cold--I hadn't realized how low it was getting. Thankfully I did, and it stayed running through the storm. The birds would land in the small sections that they could see and drink from them. They get water in their mouths and then throw their heads back to swallow it--it's pretty amusing. Above is a sparrow (don't remember which variety, but we have about 4 different types). Below is a beautiful little goldfinch. That was some of the best money and hard work we ever spent!!

By Saturday, J was keeping me so busy, I barely remembered that we weren't supposed to be there. We moved all the desk furniture out and he laid carpet down in our front room. We bought it from Lowes and he borrowed the stretchers from a friend. I absolutely hated it, when we first laid it out, but now I just love it!! The desk will move in Thursday. We took my little computer hutch downstairs to Grant's room, and he is thrilled with that--will keep some of his clutter down too! Right now my computer is sprawled out on a card table. I put EVERYTHING from my cluttered little computer desk on my bed so I would HAVE to sort and clean it before I could sleep. So now that is done, and the new little piles are lined up in my bedroom patiently waiting on their new home.

And of course, the kids did lots of snow play over the weekend. A friend of mine mentioned her kids going out and lasting 7 minutes. I just smiled and remembered when my kids only needed 7 minutes, once. Now it is more like an hour "or so" 3-4 different times. They have figured out how to run the dryer. I was surprised when I heard them come in the first time. Everything went into the dryer and Tristan turned it on. VOILA. . . the clothes were ready and warm the next time they were ready to go out. So look out Sara, it will happen to you. . . SOON!

This is my first week of the new schedule. I'm excited but wondering if I will ever stop jumping when the phone rings, stop taking the phone to the shower with me, and trying to think each day when my next call happens. It will take a while I'm sure. Next week I have an extra family planning clinic (Becky, that would be on Monday) to learn how to do IUD's--I'm pretty pumped up about learning a new skill!

I'll leave you with a picture of the best thing I saw outside of my snowy window last weekend--how can you resist a little face like that??

Remember when the snow was that fun??