I enjoy the sunrise over the lake, and then the sunset reflections from my east-facing patio! I love this time of the year when the sunset turns the clouds pink in the eastern sky! Sometimes it's hard to tell a sunrise from a sunset.

We have been enjoying our mild winter weather and not wanting to miss a minute of it, so we drove to a friend's home about an hour away. Hubby needed a refresher course on leather working, and there's no better teacher than Bobbie, a multi-talented artist.

This is some of Bobby's beadwork. So intricate and colorful. Wish I had the patience to do this type of work.

It looks a lot like spring in my backyard! Everything is bloom.

This 'N That

I'm still harvesting carrots every day! They will be gone next week and I finished the kale yesterday. I planted cauliflower, red cabbage and peas in their place. I'm loving my vegetable gardening.






This runaway sweet pea bloomed last week. The rest have a long way to catch up!






I picked one ripe tomato and have tons more!! A green pepper plant is also loaded!

The nasturtiums started blooming this week. I have two varieties in each planter.

I want out of this car seat!!!

It looks like spring has sprung in my back yard!!

Hubby has had it pretty rough the past few days. He has chemo treatments twice a week--blood tests twice a month at the lab--and at each treatment--another blood transfusion, and this will go on for 6 months, at least we hope only for 6 months. Our world changed overnight and we are so grateful that our insurance is paying for everything. And, the Dr. and labs are within 20 miles of our home, so no stress driving!

Life's Clouds Have Lifted A Bit

Good news! The Dr. told hubby that he will be around for a very long time with the treatments he will be starting soon! Everyone has a big smile today!





Great grandson enjoys the swing as much as his great grandma does!






I'm addicted to playing Farmville on Facebook! In fact, I am managing five farms! Friends and family got bored with it all and I picked up their farms from "short sales"! I love all the plowing, planting, gathering eggs, milking the cows, etc., while the background animal sounds draw me back to my childhood memories of farm life. It allows me not dwell on the "what ifs" and other overwhelming thoughts of Hubby's cancer diagnosis. I can't help but stay in a positive attitude when the baby calves or lambs are born on Farmville. It also keeps me from a sugar binge! So I really don't think of it as a waste of time, just a distraction needed from the struggles of life. That, and our family's ability to view humor, are the necessary ingredients to help us to focus on the positive. I'm not hiding my head in the sand--just trying to stay just on the surface of the sand. It's comfortable there.

Great Gifts--26 Years Apart

My sister gave me my most favorite gift for Christmas this year. It is a hardcover book of all my blog pages!





It captured all entries I've done, including all the photos, up to Thanksgiving day. I couldn't believe I had written more than 200 posts, and it was enough to make into a book!

My next favorite gift was....




On Christmas Eve in 1983, I received the latest in communication technology--a "small" Bell Atlantic Special Edition cell phone. It was the last gift I opened, and right when my husband handed me the gift bag, it started ringing! Although the range was limited, having a cell phone was still very unusual, so I felt really cool to be one of the first to get one. I still have the phone and I'm told it might be worth a couple hundred bucks. I would like to use it again in public just to see what response I would get! (That guy on the commercial for FreeCreditReport.com uses one like it after he goes broke because of ID theft, so maybe I could pass myself off as a D-list celebrity!)

We've come a long way, baby!

Huge! In five years, we will think today's cell phones are huge.