January's over?!

Doesn't seem like it should be February already. I have to confess, my Christmas tree is still standing in the corner of my living room. It looks a little forlorn now. Why is it so difficult for me to take it down? This is precisely the reason why I didn't put one up for years. Oh well.

Well January here has been satisfyingly typical. Up down up down up down goes the thermometer. It's very obviously driving my sinuses CRAZY.
But, that doesn't mean it hasn't been absolutely GORGEOUS most days. I took this pic while walking Toby up the hill.

The flowers are all starting to burst forth with glorious color. They make me feel all warm and sunshiney. They make me want to start digging in the earth, to start planting new things. Crazy enough, they make me want to start cleaning house. However, I am sane enough to realize that the former statement is only a symptom of Spring Fever, and therefore must be ignored! :)

I did take the time recently to at least freshen up the paint on my totem pole fence post. So that's one thing off of my refresh and renew list! CHECK!

Mom and Dad have been enjoying the pleasant evenings by sitting out on the front porch, or out in the backyard while grilling miscellaneous meats on the charcoal grill. Last week in particular afforded several evenings of splendid weather and spectacular sunsets.

Other than that, not a lot going on. Well, aside from the fact that I'm purchasing my first rental property. Which therein means I'm taking on my first ever HUGE amount of debt. Yup, time to start wearing my big girl pants.

To end, here's some Frog and Feather shots. Hope you have a wonderful first week of February!! :)

Frog flying up the hill on Avalon Road. What a beautiful day!

Toby sends you nose kisses!!

Lots to do. . .

So, I'm turning 30 in 21 days. Depressing.

Been working on lots of projects for the past month. The envelope project took up a lot of my time, but the rest has been filled with updating the inside of my parents house.

I haven't taken any pictures of it yet. I'll post some when it's all done, hopefully.

I've painted the walls of mom's room, and set her up with some new bookcases. All in the name of making her life easier. I've been really frustrated with the fact that there's nothing available in terms of practical furniture for people in wheelchairs. What you do find ends up costing ridiculous amounts of money. So in the end, you have to be really creative with what you can find at places like IKEA.

I love IKEA. We found two bookcases, some wall shelves, a bedside table, storage boxes, and blinds for mom's room the other day. Great stuff. Great fun for me and mom. . .not so much when I had to go through the self-check out, but oh well.

We really should go buy some stock in LOWES, seeing as how much we've been frequenting them lately. The only excuse is that mom and dad have lived in this house for twenty years and never done anything to update since it was built back in 1991. Add to that the fact that mom's wheelchair is really rough on the cabinets and door frames, and well this refreshing was way over due.

The hope is that we'll get all of this work done before the big family birthday party in June. Which is interesting, because all of our birthdays are in May. Today is actually my grandfather's birthday. Russ's is next Thursday. Mine is the next Thursday. Dad's is the next Wednesday, and mom's is the next Thursday. So, we decided that the first weekend of June would be appropriate enough, lol.

AND. . .I'm going to Costa Rica the second weekend of June. . .I can't wait. . .this will be my second trip there. . .last year I went to Alajuela in mission with our young adult group at church. This year the same group is going, but we're going to San Jose to work on a different church.

So, be looking forward to pictures of all the work at the house and of the tropical lushness of Costa Rica.

I'll leave you with this entertaining video from the Muppets new movie.

Vaya Con Dios!