SPRING FEVER

Yep. I've got Spring Fever. You know when you can't wait until you feel a warm breeze, instead of an icy cold one, or the thought of not having to wear a winter coat, or maybe looking out your window and NOT SEEING ANY FRIGGING SNOW!

Yesterday we did have a 50 degree reading. That was nice. And my husband and I went and climbed on top of one of the remaining snow drifts in the yard. It is still at least 3 feet deep, I kid you not! There are still piles of it in our driveway, and in parking lots in town and along the ditches. I've pinpointed the date on which we will no longer see any bit of snow and that will be April 8th. We'll see if I'm correct. I've said all winter long it won't be until April when you won't see this snow on the ground. We've got some cold days still, with 30's for highs and lows down under the freezing point. But it will happen. We've been seeing all sorts of spring heralding birds in our yard or flying overhead. The sandhill cranes came through a few days ago, and they like to head back to Kansas or Nebraska to the larger birding/wildlife areas where no one is allowed inside--not even "dog walkers" or people who would disturb the nesting areas.

I'm still trying to finish this huge granny square afghan. I need to finish it because the yard work will take me outside and I won't have time for much else. I needn't tell you that this winter was extremely hard on all of us. And a body wanted "comfort food" in excess. Even my husband tells me he knows he will have a hard time getting back into shape. Me, I'm thinking of going back on the Adtkin's diet. I lost a lot of weight fast the last time I did this. I saw the pounds just drop off in a matter of over-night. That was years ago, before they had the snack bars and frozen foods.

And my edits are just sitting there waiting for me to get back to them. I'm blaming Spring Fever on not being able to attend to this. I've got the crochet bug bad, I guess. Every new pattern (well, every other) I see I want to try. It's crazy.

This one was something I found and wanted the pattern. Well they didn't offer it. Instead the crafter offered a lucky winner to win a free pattern. Screw that. I've crocheted since I was a teenager, I could see how this pattern went together. It's pretty straight forward.

It begins with your magic circle (chain 4, slip stitch in first chain, and chain 3-counts as first double crochet in the first row). You make 16 dc's in the magic circle (remember that the first ch-3 is one dc). Row 2 is ch 3, then 3 dcs after this, chain 5. you make four dc's chain 5 around, and join with a slip stitch. Row 3: ch 3, dc in each dc, then in the chain 5 you made on last row, make 2 dc's, chain 4 this time, 2 dcs in the chain, dc in each dc--around. You're going to do this through the fifth row, same pattern, only you reduce the chains until you get to row 5, and you have only 2 chains at the corner. Easy. I worked on this with a really thin green yarn and used a size F hook. I'm actually going to keep going on the square, as there wasn't that much yarn left on this ball, and thought I'd just make it as however large as I can.

Since I'm going to make this a quick post I'll direct any of you who are into crocheting to this page. If you have not signed up to Laying It All Out, and you'd like to, go for it. You will find lots of free patterns, some you can down load as ebooks and such. It's what had had me going cross-eyed lately, with all the great patterns. More than I'll have time to work on in whatever's left of my lifetime.

Well, I should go to work on those edits. I'll have to try and get something done today on that!

Signs of Spring & WIP's

Hello, my pretties.
Well, the first real signs of spring have shown up this week! In fact today was the first spotting of the red-winged blackbird--a sure sign of spring for us. A robin showed up earlier, but these birds don't really go south for the winter--although if I were a robin, this year, I would have headed for Mexico!

My husband has been putting birdseed out for the birds, and squirrels in our snow-packed drive. Currently, and since the rain last week, we've got an ice pond. He put out some salt where we park and walk around the truck, but the rest of the drive is icy. But I saw that the mountains of snow along side the road by us has been visibly reduced to at least half of what it had been. The sun is traveling back north, meaning the length of days are getting longer, and the sun's warmth--even when it's only 20 out--helps with the melt.

That's the news on our weather here.

On my WIP's. Well I have a couple. One is my large granny-square afghan, which is about 75% - 80% done (that is the squares that are done--sewing it all up is another project that will take time, of course) I think I began working on this larger project at the end of December, or around Christmas time.

My writing projects still consist of working on over-all edits of the 4th novel in the Sabrina Strong series, which goes slowly. I'm now not seeing this finished until March or April. I don't like rushing a book these days to get it published. I simply can't do that.

Work on my stand-alone book Dhampir Legacy is still being written. I'm working on the last portion of this book--the climax. I'm guestamating this as being finished (written) at some point in March. And then I let it sit and I'll be working on editing after I get Vampire Caprice done and published to Amazon. I hope to also put it up at Smashwords for those of you who do not have an e-reader. You can go and buy the PDF version of it there.

I've had a number of setbacks because of the weather, and related problems, things like having to fill the washing machine manually (because of the pipes being frozen) was not a joy, and it took about 3 hours to do a load of laundry! Thankfully, the pipes haven't burst, and we're back in business, as they are all thawed out.

Although I may not have had to do much work outside, like my husband, I still had to drive in horrible weather, and driving a 12 ton bus in the winter is stressful. My route is an hour long, and the time points are extremely tight, especially when a lot of people ride and I have to stop at a number of stops along my route. I rarely have enough time to eat or hit the bathroom--but I make time. I've dubbed this route my "diet" route. I usually come home exhausted, and an exhausted mind is not easy to recover from. So, the signs of spring coming in is a wonderful thing to see.

And this year I'm calling my 60th  Jubilee (sounds better than birthday to me). When I come up with a few ideas of how to celebrate it, I'll let you know. I'll try and have some giveaways. More on that later on.

Hope you're having some signs of spring where ever you are today! I know I'm looking forward to not seeing snow out my window for a long, long while. But this will not happen any time soon.

So Much To Chirp About

Hello, my fine feathered friends out there!

I am happy. Happy because for 3 days straight I didn't have to wear my winter jacket! It got above 50--in fact yesterday it was mid-sixties! Three days I've gone for a walk, one in one of my husband's and my favorite places, and then today out in our own park. Just seeing, and hearing the birds again is wonderful. In fact, when we drove into White Pines the other day, I saw a bluebird. That's the earliest I've ever seen one. (the fellow above is a beautiful indigo bunting. He's actually so dark blue this picture does not do him justice!)

Earlier this week I emailed an acquaintance of mine who investigates haunted areas, and he has gotten back to me. I have not been in touch with him in a few years. He has published a few of my pieces at an on-line magazine, which is no longer up and running. His name is Micheal Kleen, and has his own site where he and others post about various true hauntings in Illinois. His blog is http://trueillinoishaunts.com/ and if you enjoy true tales of haunted places, you'll definitely want to go and check out all the stories and posts he has there. There are separate pages for just about everything, including murders, and he sure has a lot on cemeteries. Mike is also a pretty good writer in his own right and I happen to have met him at a author signing back over a year ago with another author, and bought a copy of his short tales.

Earlier today I put up a post over at one of my sister blogs Something Nebulous Within. The title is "Popularity:What It means For A Writer". I had something to say and just wanted to say it there, since this site is where I like to post things for other writers, and I knew I wanted to post this little "up-to-speed" post here on Muse today. So, if you'd like to check out how I view blog-hopping and the idea of using up so many hours in a day blogging, you may go here for that.

I realized that today is Friday. It was also payday and it was nice knowing we didn't have to go in to drive today. But next Monday we are back to the grind-gack!

I've been printing up chapters of my second book, and doing my edits that way. This is much easier for me to find mistakes, places where I've repeated myself, and so forth. Also have been reading two novels (Raven Corinn Carluk's All Hallow's Blood, and I simply couldn't resist picking up Quinn's An Embarrassment of Riches), since I've had plenty of time, could stay up longer than normal and read, if I wanted. I will post about these two book separately soon, so stay tuned.

Also, if any of you are not aware, the moon will be full this weekend, and it is closer to the earth than it has been in 18 years. This is called a Perigee Moon. It will appear 15% larger. So, if you are a Were, I'm sure that your senses have already been feeling the itch to howl. I know I have been feeling oddly both excited and drained at times. I'm hoping it rains on the fullest night, so I can get some sleep! If not, I'll just sit up and read.

The Beginning of the End (of winter)!

Yesterday, my husband brought my attention to dozens of American Robins roosting in trees around campus as we drove our buses. I looked up to where he'd pointed as we passed--me turning into a drive, and he turning out--and I saw them. Roosting high in a locust tree. And then in around this turn-around, there are crab apple trees and there they were nibbling on the frozen, shriveled up crab apples. Dozens of them were in different trees, some flying down to the stream to get a drink.

The other day I saw Cedar Wax Wings, and one robin doing exactly the same thing along my route. I knew that the beginnings of spring had been felt by these feathered friends. And that is what the month of February is all about. The awakenings of spring in the northern Midwest.

Contrary to belief, the American Robin does not fly south for the winter. They are a hardy bird and can withstand very cold temperatures. What they actually do is congregate en mass inside forests, and where they can feed on berries and yes, crab apples that have dried up. We see them appear on our lawns, and think that this means spring is here. The robins already know this. And for these guys to come out with the two feet of snow still on the ground does say something about our coming out of the bitter cold and finally seeing an up-swing of temperatures. This coming week we will see the thirties, and even a 40 degree mark. By golly, we'll think it's down right hot out!

My husband has been feeding the birds in our backyard this past week. Well, everyone is showing up, of course. The squirrels are finding the peanuts, and so are the Jays, and I think everyone is happy, now. The blast of sub-zero temperatures was really horrible, and we went and bought a large bag of seed for both song birds, cardinals and the other critters who needed the food to stay warm through this. It is, after all, National Bird Feeding Month.

Now, the birds who actually do tell me that winter is over are the red wings and grackles. The red wing males--black birds the size of a robin with red epaulets on their shoulders--are the real call of spring. When they come around, you know it because they will sit up high in large groups singing--the sound will fill the air, and it makes my heart jump for joy.

Grackles are a longer, larger bird, the size of an oriole. They have iridescent feathers, very long tails, and beaks, and yellow eyes. When they come to patrol the ground for food, then you know Spring is here to stay. I look forward to seeing all these guys soon. The earliest I have seen these birds has been in February of 1999, when we had 70 degrees and stayed warm all winter. That was an odd year to be sure.

But we will see if the groundhog theory holds true. He did not see his shadow--in fact they had to cancel the up-rooting of this fellow because of the blizzard! So, let us put it to the test:Spring comes early?