February - A Look Ahead

First things first. Yes, I am alive. The congestion and cough haven’t completely subsided yet. It looks like the cold is going to take its sweet time in clearing out completely. The older I get, the harder it is to fight the wintertime cooties. As you may recall, I suffered through a cold when we went to Churchill in November too. Fiddlesticks.

I said goodbye and good riddance to January. Though we had some mild temperatures sprinkled throughout the month, our area received an extraordinary amount of rain. We logged in almost 13 inches, the second highest ever recorded for the month. This staggering amount tripled January’s average. A cold front has now settled in, and I see snow pelting down on the other side of my office window. I am not a fan of February’s weather either. It can zip by quickly, thank you very much. I've already started a countdown to March!

I’m running behind on posting photos of my journeys, but I hope to pick up the pace a little bit this month. Bear with me until get back up to normal speed again. The posting agenda includes more scenes from the snow country of Churchill and also the wilds of Alaska. There will be a variety of other subjects in my posts this month, and you won’t want to miss those either!

Mister Jim and I are deeply involved right now in planning our various major journeys for the calendar year. We have one lined up completely at this point: a fall trip to the Tetons and Yellowstone areas of Wyoming. Now we are working out the logistics for spring trip to southern Utah. Once we get that all of that nailed down and reservations made, then we’ll plot out details for a summer visit to Newfoundland. Oh my, it is shaping up to be a busy travel year for us!

If I get my energy back soon, I will continue with some sewing projects this month and also tackle some needed clean-outs here at our cottage. Mister Jim has completed some serious whittling in the clothes closet, and now I need to get my part done. You know what they say: “Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.” Words to live by! The dreaded task of preparing our income tax return is already underway.  I will cross that item off my to-do list by the end of the month.  

I received some unexpected recognition this past week. Travel Manitoba discovered the Churchill inukshuk image in my Flickr photostream, and they highlighted it as a their photo of the day on Twitter. Happy dance! Our tour group only visited the structure once in the daylight hours and only for a few minutes (since polar bears can lurk in this area). So I had to make the best of the conditions and limited time to capture the scene. Though there was a boring overcast sky, I was able to enhance the photo through digital editing to bring out some details.

The giveaway drawing for my handmade photo greeting cards closed yesterday. The winner was Ann of Snap Edit Scrap. Congratulations, Ann!

The famous Pennsylvania groundhog proclaimed that spring would arrive early. If the daffodils in our flowerbed are any indication, that prediction may be true. Daffodil blades have sprouted profusely through the mulch and some are already 6 inches tall. Blooms will unfurl this month! I love my daffies, so bring them on.

Best wishes for a good month in your neck of the woods!