This picture is similar to one I posted from the first day of spring. The ice cream shop is a popular place just to the right of the bike path here, while the community gardens are getting cleaned up and planting started with hay bales and fresh soil provided for the gardeners.
After the break are a few other pictures I decided to share because once the flora grows in earnest the views will be harder to see.
The first thing I noticed when I looked out the window this morning was how green the grass was. It was still wet out from yesterday's and last night's rain, and it seems to have done wonders. Temperatures rose steadily overnight and it's expected to get to the upper 70's ºF (about 22ºC) this afternoon for our nicest day of the year so far and since the first day of spring, a whole 5 weeks ago now. The trees continue budding and plants have continued to come up despite the cool temperatures and rainy/snowy weather.
The plan for the day is normal chores and Saturday relaxing this morning, mostly over by now, then I'm going out to lunch with a friend to a Greek restaurant I've not been to before but I think will be good. Early this afternoon my wife will be getting home from taking care of her Dad, so then we'll go for a walk, probably down to the Atwood area for maybe a drink and a snack. There will likely be lots of people out and about today so we'll see how crowded the bike path and businesses are, but I expect everywhere to be busy as many people like us will be eager to get outside and enjoy the weather today.
This evening I'll be grilling out for the first time of the season; natural casing hot dogs that I got from the butcher when I picked up our last quarter cow. And maybe, possibly, could there be a fire tonight? The weather will be good for it but it may depend on how tired I am by then. Today should be a good day to lift my spirits, and sorely needed. Have a great weekend, everyone!
(Edit: It's going to get way too windy this afternoon for a fire, but I think I'll manage with the grill. Windy like last post so I'll have to check out that wind map again.)
Mentioning the wind in responding to BW's comment on the last post reminded me that I saved the link to a site that shows the wind speeds on a map for the country, aptly called Wind Map. I've had it saved for some time but always forgot to look at it when it was windy or never found a chance to share it, otherwise, so here it is.
Screenshots were about the same time. This shows 20.0 mph sustained but around the Madison area I got from 19.9 to 20.7 mph. The weather map is from a local tv station's website. Much of the country looks very windy today, actually, not just our region.
My blog is now a teenager, this being my 13th year as of today. In some ways it seems much shorter, in other ways much longer, and it has changed a bit over the years. I used to have smaller, more frivolous posts, then I began writing less often but (hopefully) more thought-out posts. I've had my moments of wondering what I'm doing still writing here, but the occasional feedback has been nice and I still appreciate this as a good record of major events and milestones in my life. But, while inspiration comes and goes at times, I have no plans of stopping anytime soon.
We've not had as nice of a spring day since I last posted, which was on the first day of spring. Since then, it's snowed more often than it had all winter (including today) and the number of days with snow in the last 3 weeks is probably only outnumbered by the amount of days with rain. The sun has shown up a few times, but we've not come close to temperatures we had that first spring day. By this time last year I'd already had a few fires and grilled dinners while neither has happened yet this year. But, there I go talking about the weather again.
There hasn't been much other than the weather to talk about that's been happening recently, but I do have plans for when the weather finally does turn and my attention turns to projects around the house.
First, I want to paint the dark paneling on the porch and possibly replace the ceiling tiles. And if I replace the ceiling tiles I'll take a hard look at insulating the rafters to hopefully retain more heat in the early spring and late fall so we can have it open longer. Not sure the color just yet, but perhaps use up some paint we already have. With all the windows there's not much wall space so shouldn't take much paint to do it, but lots of taping on the trim.
Second, I want to somehow rearrange our computer room, the room I spend most of my time in - by far now that I work from home. I'm thinking of moving the dresser and the file cabinet to at least give the illusion of more space, and I want to flip the rug around the other direction due to a small stain on it and so I'm not vacuuming against the grain, so to speak. To do this I'll need to move those and more to the porch so it should be warmer out so we can leave the door open.
Another thing we've been waiting on for some time now already. We've had a sofa and ottoman on order now since last August but due to the pandemic furniture just hasn't been in stock. Currently it is expected to be delivered in late May, and I really hope this will finally happen. We could look for something else, but availability is an issue everywhere. The plan is to move the living room rug a bit to better fit the space with the new sofa and the new buffet table we bought a couple months ago that replaced our larger TV stand in the living room. The old sofa will then be moved to the porch.
I have another vacation coming up in May so hopefully I can get at least some of this done then, but as long as they get done I'll be happy. I took a half day off today so I think I'll go out to lunch and relax a bit. Happy blogday to me and have a nice weekend, everyone.
