Weather

Spring sprang a few weeks ago, it's been quite nice. Wildflowers are everywhere, blowsy little 4-petaled pink ones and white clover and of course Bluebonnets covering the mowed areas next to all the roads. The azaleas by the ponds here bloomed last week, huge bushes full of bright pink flowers. Last weekend the weather was perfect, sunny and 70 with a nice breeze. I spent most of Sunday afternoon sitting on the couch with the porch door open, letting the breeze ruffle my gauzy curtains, with the Kitten and a smoothie and a book. Perfect.

The smoothie was good too, vanilla frozen yogurt, frozen red raspberries, milk and just a bit of almond extract all blended together. I made a version with half a block of bittersweet chocolate chopped fine tossed in there too, which was also yummy.

I'd thought about going down to the pool here, but Boyfriend was busy, and pools are no fun by yourself. So the Kitten and I enjoyed the weather.

I planted seeds in the planters on my porch, thyme and forget-me-nots and catnip for the Kitten's garden. She likes to sit outside and stare intently at it, it's her hobby.

But unfortunately we only get weather this nice for a short time. The azaleas have already fallen. It rained most of this week, which washed the air clean and kept the temperature under 80, but it won't be much longer til I have to run the AC 24/7 like my neighbors. There is no break between having the heat on in the winter and the AC on in the summer here, you have to switch from one to other immediately.

Summer was always my favorite season growing up, but I think Spring has edged it out, in Texas at least. I really enjoy our 2 weeks of it.

Sweet Tea

My sister is back from Canada! She survived! (narrowly). The pics from her trip are insanely beautiful, all crystal clear blue sky, white snow-topped mountains, and perfectly symmetrical conifers. I really miss snow, I haven't seen it in years. Every time I go home it gets too warm for it. I'm really more of a lounging-on-a-tropical-island type of person, but I love the hush that falls over the world with a fresh snowfall, and watching big fat snowflakes drift down from a dark sky into the light before disappearing again into a blanket of snow is a pretty good definition of peacefulness.

Maybe that's one reason Texans seem so foreign to me, they don't really understand, at their deepest levels, the ebb and flow of seasons. Where I grew up, there are 4 distinct, individual seasons, which balance each other and share time equally. I've always claimed summer as my favorite, but living in it year round just isn't right. It needs to be balanced by a winter, and separated from it by a spring and a fall, each in their own time and each with their own personality.

On the other hand, man do I hate the cold! I've considered moving to the equator, Texas is too cold for me sometimes. Like today, I think it got below 60! In February!

Although today was a good day, I got a free cookie! I went to pick up lunch with friends at McAlister's, they have sweet tea! We were getting it to go so I gave them my name and then we hung out for a bit. A few minutes later, a guy called my name and I started to walk over but this lady got there first, grabbed the bag, and like booked it out of there. So I was like, that's weird, maybe another me?, but my friend was like, we should check that out. So we went up and asked, and they didn't have another me, so one of the guys who worked there ran outside and almost threw himself in front of the lady's car to stop her, and talked to her, and got the bag back. Her name was like Lauren, she just really wanted my lunch I guess. But I go there so often (they have sweet tea!) most of the guys there recognize me, and the manager felt bad and gave me a free cookie. And more sweet tea!