It's Official. Spring Has Arrived.

Spring has sprung, or so I'm told. It was difficult to believe that though, with all the snow that's still on the ground.  This is a picture that was taken from my living room window on Sunday.  Does that look like spring to you?

The temperature had began to climb and the warm sun hit the white siding of my house, causing the snow to start to recede near the foundation on the south side.  I saw actual life coming through the ground on March 26th.  When I posted that on Facebook, a few people were amazed that I had bare earth. I explained that this was near the foundation, but it still gave some people hope that spring was not just a figment of our imagination.

Then, on the first of April, the snow melted back a bit further, and I discovered the narcissus had been hiding under the snow, and were also up. I posted that on Facebook too, half expecting someone to accuse me of posting it as an April Fool joke.

Today, even I got a surprise.  The first crocuses decided to bloom, in a spot where I had not noticed life yet.  Yes, they are snuggled right up close to the warm foundation, but now I'm starting to believe spring really has arrived.  There is hope after all.

 My first crocus last year, was on March 28th, by the way, and my records say they were a couple of weeks later than the year before. This year they are a week later than last year.  If this is a trend, then so much for global warming.

At supper time, I saw a mosquito sitting on the window screen.  Not everything about spring is welcome. But since it's still not warm enough to expose too much skin, we may be able to enjoy a few flowers before we start feeding the bugs. 

Happy Springtime, everyone!

My House Isn't Actually Shrinking

Earlier this year we were in a furniture store looking for a dresser for my oldest son. When he left home, he took an old one that had been in my own grandmother's house from as far back as I can remember.  I expected he would replace it eventually, but he never did.  When I mentioned that I'd be willing to get him a new one at Christmas he seemed happy to let me.  The thing is, it has to fit into the same space as the one he has.  That's where the problem lies. 

Today's furniture is bigger than the older stuff. 

I guess I first discovered that when I went from a double bed to a queen sized one.  I knew the queen size was wider, but I had no idea it was also longer.  Suddenly the rest of my bedroom furniture no longer fit into the room properly.  When we were looking for the new dresser for my son, I mentioned all this to the salesman. He said they don't even sell two night tables as part of a set anymore.  Apparently others have also found they just can't fit them into the room.

This past week we bought and replaced our old living room furniture.  We got a loveseat, a couch and a chair.  The salesman tried to sell us tables also, but I told him I would have to wait and see how things fit into the room.  I could tell, without doubt, that this set was bigger than what it was replacing, even though it was basically the same style.  I knew that any table wider than the one we already had, would never fit into the room.  And I was right. Even that table has now been moved to the basement, and we will be using my hope chest for a coffee table for the time being.  It's narrower than the table we had.  I have seen no tables anywhere in the stores that would be narrow or small enough to fit in my living room, even with the old furniture.  Apparently they are making everything bigger these days.

I think the couch and loveseat look great, but the chair is absolutely huge. What ever were they thinking?  It's like 3/4 the size of the loveseat, and dominates the room.   From what I hear, that's not uncommon these days.  I may be looking for a smaller chair as time goes by. If I find one, I'll just sell this one off.  Why not just return it you ask? Well, not only did I get lucky and hit a 50% off sale, but the deal we got by buying all three pieces basically makes the chair free, so returning it would not be the best move in this case.  I can live with it.  Ha.  I've actually been living in it, ever since it arrived yesterday!

This house is definitely starting to feel smaller, but then, it is only 900 square feet to begin with.  Some of the houses I see being built today darn near have garages that big. It's not us, it's the furniture companies. They are building things to fit in these big modern houses.
........................

Spring is here.  I have proof.  When I finally got outside after the furniture was delivered, I found my first crocuses of the year blooming close to the doorway. 

When I went for the mail, I found sample teas from the Alokozay company. Apparently they distribute though some Walmart stores. 

Early Spring Weather Gets Us Out

The weather has been great lately. Actually, even though this is the first day of spring, it's warmer than that. I was all over town without a coat today, and my crocus are blooming like crazy.

We were out for our first geocaching session for this year on Sunday. It's just been too nice to sit at the computer so I'm sure you will forgive me for telling you a little late.  We didn't go far.  We were in Smiths Falls for other reasons and I had downloaded a lot of caches that had popped since the last time we were out last year.  Someone has kindly decided it would be a good way to educate the public about Smiths Falls historical sites. 

Well, right off the bat we found out we were out of practice.  The first cache we tried to find eluded us completely, but we didn't give up.  We went on to find the next one at the old Central School. (GC2QR25) I actually took, then later taught, Tai Chi in this building, but I'm not sure I ever realized it once was a school. Though, thinking about how the rooms are arranged, that seems rather obvious now.

We went from there to the water's edge to hunt for one that we just could not get to at this time of year. Parks Canada has various gates locked, and no matter what angle we tried to get at it from, we could not get to the right area. We did get to see various parts of the park though, and some of it we have never seen before.  We'll go back and look for this one, and explore further, once the canal has opened up again.

There was another cache in the same park though, with totally different sights.  It was easy to find, but you had to be careful of muggles, as there were certainly lots of them out enjoying the lovely weather.




We then left the area and headed out the road towards Brockville.  We were looking for the Wood Family Mausoleum.  (GC2QR3R) I remembered where there was a cemetary, and expected to find this cache there. I was wrong but got a very pleasant surprise. This particular cache was the highlight of our day.  I'm not going to post a picture of that, as you really need to see it for yourself.

Our final cache of the day had a couple of guardians.  I was so busy taking their picture, I wasn't even looking for the cache at that time and had to go take another look a few moments later.

While we didn't go far, and didn't always succeed, we certainly did enjoy our afternoon on the prowl.