Crazy Weather

I read this in the Farmer's Almanac this morning...and though I don't know how they do it when publishing nearly a year in advance, they have hit the nail on the head yet again.

Rain to Snow, Snow to Rain...

Do Si Do and back again!

Jim and I have been trying to get our garden started for nearly two months.  Each "Best Gardening Day" of the month has brought with it Winter Storm Warnings and talks of a Polar Vortex.  And each Saturday that we had planned to work the ground turned out cold or wet...or both.  

And so, five weeks ago Jim was finally able to catch the ground dry enough to till up the garden spot.  Four weeks ago was the application of natural fertilizer from the pasture.  (Stinky!)  Three weeks ago he barely got the lime on the ground before the rains came.  And last Friday evening he made the rows.  We rushed to Lowe's for tomato plants early Saturday morning...but by the time we made it home with them, the rain was pouring down.

My kitchen table is now covered in tomatoes plants and various pepper plants because last night was too cold to leave them outside.  I'm thinking at this rate, we may get the plants in the ground just before the tomatoes turn pink.  LOL!

Crazy weather!  

February Recap

What I did:

• 1st -Meagan's surprise 30th birthday party with the family

  

  Derrick got her pretty good!

• 2nd - Super Bowl Party at the Lozano's new Man Cave
• 8th - Maddux's 5th birthday party  

Pappaw and I got a big thumbs up for the Lego Movie video game gift!

• 14th - Valentine's Dinner with My Hero 

  

  My gorgeous roses...and delicious Dove chocolates!
  My treat to him was a dinner out...but only ten minutes from home.
  He LOVED it!

• 15th-18th  Grandma's Gone Wild: Texas Edition 

  

  Stacy, 'Guillermo', Robin and I at Becker Farms Vineyard
  We had a great time on the wine tasting tour!

• 21st & 22nd  Women of Faith: Unwrap the Bible -- Ladies Retreat with the church (Didn't take a single picture...but it was great.  Beth Moore, Lisa Harper, Priscilla Shirer, Shelia Walsh, & Christine Caine all in less than twenty-four hours = mind blowing experience with the Lord.)
• 24th - Table of Grace: Dinner at Zoe's Kitchen

What I Learned:

1. A self-cleaning oven REALLY DOES self clean!!!  Thank you, honey, for the wonderful Christmas gift.  I like it even better now!
2. Sometimes, when one wants to go by the prime planting dates on the Farmer's Almanac, one totally misses out on cold weather planting.  There was a winter weather warning in effect on each and every one of them!
3. I like semi-sweet red wines even more than the sweet whites.  Who would have thunk it?
4. And the ports!  Oh, the ports!
5. Sometimes you just need to have dinner with your girlfriends and wait for mundane topics like bill paying to CHANGE YOUR LIFE!  Thanks, Leesa, for sharing something that is second nature for you but set me free!
6. To copy photos to a new folder: right click on photo, press copy then right click in the folder you want to copy in and press paste.  I know that sounds simple but I had to have Cristina come in and show me how because I have a newer version of windows than I am used to.

What I Listened To:

• "A Death In Vienna" (Gabriel Allon Series #4) by Daniel Silva (Audiobook) -- When a bomb explodes in Vienna at the office of Wartime Claims and Inquiries, Gabriel finds himself to face to face with a figure that seems a bit too familiar.  Secrets are exposed that date back to the death march from the Nazi prison camps...and the pieces of the puzzle fall into place as Gabriel figures out where he has seen that face before.  This one was not my favorite in the series...but it is still worth the time.
• "Prince of Fire" (Gabriel Allon Series #5) by Daniel Silva (Audiobook)  A bomb blast at the Israeli embassy in Rome leads to an encrypted file that identifies the famed art restorer Mario Delvecchio to be none other than sometime spy, Gabriel Allon. And the game is on...but exactly who is being hunted?  A wonderfully written story based upon a photo from the 70's of a young boy sitting on the lap of Yasser Arafat after the funeral of the boy's father. This story had great character development and had you sympathetic towards both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict...where terror is an everyday occurrence.  This may very well be my second favorite Gabriel Allon book in the series after "The English Girl".
• Casting Crowns "Thrive" -- The whole album is good.  But the song that is speaking to my heart these days is "All You've Ever Wanted".  With a line like "I was chasing healing when I'd been made well; I was fighting battles when You conquered hell; Living free but from a prison cell: Lord I lay it down today" in the year of Wholehearted living...well, what more can I say?  I'm still listening to it!

What I Read:

1. I finished "An Unexpected Guest: A Novel" by Anne Korkeakivi.  From the book jacket: Clare Moorhouse, the American wife of a high-ranking diplomat in Paris, is arranging an official dinner crucial to her husband's career. As she shops for fresh stalks of asparagus and works out the menu and seating arrangements, her day is complicated by the unexpected arrival of her son and a random encounter with a Turkish man, whom she discovers is a suspected terrorist. More unnerving is a recurring face in the crowd, one that belonged to another, darker era of her life. One she never expected to see again. I couldn't quite connect with Clare.  She did things that just did not make sense to me...like hiding her son from her husband when the son ran away from his boarding school.  The story takes place in a twenty-four hour period and she is super busy with all the plans for a dinner that may mean a ambassadorship for her husband.  Clare seems to think she is 'helping' by not addressing the problems, but as the day goes on things just get more and more complicated.  Still, I enjoyed the book in spurts and starts, so I'm glad I read it.  It is just that Clare mystifies me.
2. "Chasing God" by Angie Smith --This book!  Oh my goodness, this book!  You have probably read stuff like it before.  But the way she communicates her journey from 'chasing God' to 'following Him' was as if we were sitting across the table from one another over coffee or lunch.  This book spoke volumes into my quest for wholeheartedness in 2014.  I will be reading it a little slower next time...probably with pen in hand.  But this first time through, I just needed to hear more and more of it while affirming a hearty 'amen' in my soul.  (And just in case you haven't yet seen the theme in my life these days...this is the book form of the song I mentioned above.)