Thursday 13: Much Better Weather!

This week’s Thursday 13 finds me much happier about the weather.

1.    We’ve had a few warm days that have been absolutely wonderful.  I know it’s probably not going to last, but I am determined to enjoy the warmer days for now.

2.    One of our hyacinths has even bloomed! 

3.    Some of the others have green shoots.

4.    Some of the daffodils have been sprouting too.

5.    These are in the front yard.

6.    These are next to the carport.

7.    I decided to try the milk jug greenhouse thing I’ve seen on Facebook.  If you’re not familiar, the idea is that you clean a milk jug (or similar container), put some drain holes in the bottom, slice it almost in half so you can access the inside, and plant seeds in it.  The idea is that the plastic jug serves as a greenhouse and keeps the seedlings warm enough to be outside and get an early start.  It’s also supposed to eliminate the need for hardening off seedlings.

8.    I’ve never tried it before, so I’m not sure if it works.  It sounds like it could, though, so I decided to give it a try.  If it doesn’t work, I can just use the potting soil for something else.  The seeds will be the only loss.  I started three of them (two different kinds of snapdragons and one zinnia) on Saturday.  I’ll let you know what happens. 

9.    In other yard-related news, I’m still working on the trimming/pruning I can do during the cold weather.  This is from about a month ago (before the first snowstorm hit.

10. Here’s the before.

11. And here’s the after.  I think I made some progress. 

12. A Thursday 13 doesn’t seem complete without at least one cat picture, so here’s one of Caroline.

13. And a few of Theodore.  

It Was Nice While It Lasted

On Thursday we enjoyed temperatures in the mid seventies.  It was sunny and beautiful, and it was wonderful. 

I wanted to enjoy every minute of the beautiful weather, so I ate my lunch outside, and took this picture of these tiny little wild flowers that are blooming in the yard.  I was so happy to see something colorful and blooming.

After work Nick and I loaded the dogs in the car and went to the cemetery to walk.  It’s not as weird as it might sound, I promise!  It’s a really big cemetery; lots of people walk and jog there, and bring their dogs.  It was fairly crowded Thursday evening.  I think a lot of people had the same idea.

We also walked through the neighborhood near the cemetery, and Nick showed me the house his grandparents lived in when he was born.  They moved from that house when he was five, but he still remembers quite a few things from when they lived there.  It was fun to picture a little version of Nick playing in the yard. 

We walked until it started getting dark.  We knew the nice weather wasn’t going to last, so we wanted to take advantage of every minute of it.  I think the dogs enjoyed the long walk, too. 

Yesterday started off sunny and warm, but the temperature started dropping in the afternoon.  It dropped twelve degrees in between the time I went back to work from lunch and the end of the day when I left.  It continued to drop last night.  Today has been cold and rainy.  The temperatures haven’t gotten above the mid forties, and it has been raining all day.

Fortunately, it doesn’t look like we’re going to drop down to freezing, so hopefully the little flowers will survive.  The beautiful weather was so nice while it lasted!

So how about you?  Have you had any warm days?  Any sign that spring might be on its way?

We Went to Saint Augustine

I doubt anyone noticed I was gone last week.  I had a few posts scheduled, so things didn’t go completely silent here.  Thanks for all of your visits and comments while I was gone.  I am working on catching up with everyone’s blog posts.

As part of our plan to actually do more things, rather than just talking about things we want to do, we took a trip to Saint Augustine, Florida last week.  It had actually been in the works for a while.  Our neighbors go almost every year and love it.  Last year, they spent a week there in January.  It was their Christmas gift to each other.  Being the type of people to copy a good idea when we hear it, we decided to do something similar.

We made the decision not to give each other any gifts for our birthdays or Christmas last year, but instead to save the money up for a warm weather vacation during the winter.  We reasoned that we really didn’t need any more stuff, we want to travel more, and our neighbors seemed really happy doing that.  And if you’ve been visiting here for a while, you probably know that I absolutely hate the winter.  I don’t do well in the cold, gray months.  I’m mostly miserable during the worst of the winter weather, and unfortunately, I think I tend to make those unfortunate enough to be around me miserable as well.  Poor Nick.  So an escape to someplace sunny and warm was particularly appealing to me.  Nick tends to wilt in the heat, so is much happier visiting beaches in the off season when it’s warm, but not hot.  A winter getaway to a warmer climate seemed ideal.

We chose Saint Augustine based largely on the neighbors recommendation, the fact that it was reasonably affordable during the off season, the fact that it has a lot of history, the fact that it was less than a seven hour drive, and the fact that it would be warm enough to make me happy, but not hot enough to make Nick miserable.

We take the dogs with us on our Folly Beach, SC vacation, but chose not to take them to Saint Augustine.  Folly Beach works well for them; we go there often enough to have taking them down to a science.  We rent the same house every year, so we know what to expect, where we can take them, and where we can’t take them.  It’s much more difficult to find a pet friendly place to rent, especially a place that’s okay with two dogs, and one of them being over 90 pounds.  We’ve also learned over the years that some places aren’t as dog friendly as they claim to be, so it usually works out better not to take the dogs with us the first time we go somewhere.  Honestly, it’s also nice to have a little break sometimes, too.  The dogs stayed in the kennel at their vet’s office, and seemed to have a good time based on the pictures the vet sent while we were gone.

We rented a condo that wasn’t at all dog friendly, and took full advantage of all the amenities it offered including a hot tub, heated pool, and Jacuzzi.  I would have preferred the weather to be just a little warmer, but it was warm enough to wear shorts most days; we both came back with a tan.  We walked on the beach, did some tours, spent time in the pool, visited some museums, and ate a lot of great food.

We had a great time, but I don’t think Saint Augustine is a place that we’ll go back to every year, or over and over again.  A lot of it was much more of a tourist trap than what we typically like to do.  Some of the tours and museums felt more gimmicky than educational.  I’m not saying that we didn’t enjoy a lot of things.  We really did, and it was wonderful to have a winter vacation.  I plan to post about some of the highlights later on.  It’s just not a place that we think of as “our place”, like the Charleston area.

We’re definitely hooked on the idea of not buying birthday or Christmas gifts for each other in favor of a winter trip to somewhere warmer and sunnier than home.  There’s definitely something to be said for experiences over stuff.  At least for us, right now.  We’ve decided to start researching other places for next year.  Maybe another beach in Florida.  We’ve also heard good things about Jamaica.  If anyone has any suggestions for a place that’s nice and warm in January or February I’d love to hear them.

I’m working on getting caught up with all of your blogs as soon as I can.  I’m looking forward to catching up and seeing what I missed while we were gone.