Spring Has Sprung

There is hope. Spring has sprung in Sunny South Texas.

The leaves have returned to the trees and the forecast looks closer to normal

It seems fine having our weather returning to what we are more accustomed to.

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Elise in a train hat- Super cute!

Hopeful

The weather moderated a bit today and tomorrow is supposed to be a jewel with temps in the mid 70's with sunshine! Next Tuesday is another dip but then it looks good for 10 days out with temps staying in the 70's. I really feel bad for people coming to the valley for the first time. They are not getting the best view of this very beautiful place and I could see where they would think we were not worth a second look.
We have been in bad weather mode for what seems like ages. I am hoping we can venture out into the sunshine and do some different activities more in keeping with summer...like grilling a burger...or wearing shorts...or watching the bobble heads in the pool. Hopeful...ever hopeful!!

Winter in South Texas

This has been the coldest winter we have ever spent in South Texas. In the olden days the weather is a non-issue. We used to joke about the weather report being all of of 30 seconds long and monotonous. Today the temps did not get out of the 30's. Has that ever happened before? Yes, maybe once or perhaps twice in a whole winter!  We are having to wash our winter clothes far more frequently and many of us did not bring enough with us to last from one wash day to the next. Cabin fever is taking its toll as well. Yes, we can get out and scurry from one building to another but being the warm blooded folk we have become we are very reluctant to do so. Butch and I had a conversation this morning whereby we are toying with the idea of staying here longer this Spring. It is far too early to make that call but it is a seed in the back of our minds.

Butch had a pool league to play in this afternoon and he did not do well. We came to the conclusion that his hands are like ice and being plagued with arthritis form all his winters of outdoor work they simply do not work as well as he would like. He sat with a heating pad on his hands for the remainder of the afternoon and finally managed to get the cold to leave his hands.
I have stayed in most of the day and worked on beading some rings and some computer work. I have on two pair of socks, two shirts topped off with a hooded sweatshirt and I have not once broke a sweat.

So tomorrow I must get out because I have computer classes in the morning. Will anyone show up?

Clean Your RV Windows & Mirrors Super Fast (no window cleaner )

Today is not a good window cleaning day but it could be a perfect video watching day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egT7FYHlWho

Up North Great Grands

Leo is learning to vacuum very early in life

Elise is working with edible glitter

And Ethan is outside having fun with snow,,,lots of snow!

From Grandpa Gary

Who has no school today and has not had school for most of the week.
View of his deck...

And then...
Gary says...

Got around to editing a pic I took last week. Leo was a little fussy so I thought he might need his bottle early. Next thing I know, he put himself to sleep by the back door where momma left from.

The Days are Full and Busy...

Coffee hour this morning of course and then I came home to get a soup going since our weather has been soup type weather far too often this winter. This next week is predicted to be more of the same. I was short a couple of carrots so I moseyed down to my friend Kay's place to borrow a couple of carrots. The veggie cart was scheduled to be here at 1:00 but I wanted the soup on its way to completion by then. And it was. When the cart arrived I bought 6 very large carrots, 2 very large heads of farm fresh cauliflower and a stalk of celery for $7. I returned Kay's carrots.
Then I helped one of my Apple/Mac people who has Chrome get the Magnolia contacts into her gmail account. That went smoothly and quickly.
Next a 3:00 pm haircut appt with Yolanda. Quick stop at the grocery store for some Crackers for Butch.
Home-
Soup for supper
And then Butch off to the Pool hall and me getting caught up on the computer. And this is how it goes. And here we are!!

Teeter kids go swimming!

The goggled girl-Elise

and her baby brother Leo-now 9 months old

It came to mind...

I took a few pictures for the next directory. They missed this years deadline so I put them in a file named  Magnolia directory 2015. 2015!! Oh my how time flies no matter if you are having fun or not!. It is so hard to believe we are into February already.
This afternoon I went to a friends house and there I was when the cold front came through and dropped the temp by 10 degrees in a matter of a few minutes. I had come without a jacket so I made the return trip in a beeline for home. Missed the second walk of the day. That has happened frequently this season, one of the coolest on record for South Texas.

A house was moved here in the park yesterday and I swear half the park were preoccupied with the process. I was preoccupied with other stuff but my friend Deon did get pictures and will be putting together a smilebox slideshow so keep checking for that.

Costco Thursday!

Peggy is kind enough to take us on a Costco tour, usually on Thursdays. We have a bunch of fun on girls day at Costco. We have a little lunch from all the offerings and sometimes we succumb to temptation and buy into it and other times we pass it by.

Letter to My Grandfather by Colleen O'Brien

Reading my friend Colleen's column is like an early morning walk with her on the bike trail.
In this one she ponders what her grandfather would think of the newfangled stuff we all have now.
Enjoy
http://greenecountynewsonline.com/2014/01/22/letter-to-my-grandfather/#more-2029

Catch up

Well now really, what have I been doing, the answer my friends is the same stuff as I was a week ago. My two brand new baby newbies are coming along at a very fast pace. I said to Sally,"When was it that your Chromebook got here?" The answer is 4 days ago! She is sending email and checking in on Facebook and beginning to be comfortable in doing that. Her hubby Don pretty much has his Kindle Fire figured out and can navigate it almost faster than I can. I doubt that it is a month old. They both have taken off like big agile birds.
Our weather in a word stinks. The trees were coated with ice this morning however the high for tomorrow will be 70+ and I am ready. I haven't had a good walk now for a couple of days.

I was very surprised to get an email from my sis-in-law Keri telling  me that her workplace is switching to Chrome/gmail. She isn't all that crazy about it, of course, because it is always a bit uncomfortable to change. Daughter-in-law Susan wasn't either when her workplace did the same. It has been long enough now  for Susan that I imagine she has figured it all out. I came to Chrome basically because I liked the speed of the browser compared to the other top two-Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer.  I kind of doubt that Internet Explorer is still in the top 3 but it might be. It has probably been 8+  years since I last used it. The last time I did use it, on someone else's computer, I found that it had not changed much. Still slower than molasses in January.

So I find that helping others with their computers makes me a bit buggy eyed by the time I get to my own stuff. Oh yes, that reminds me of the 20-20-20 rule for sitting at the computer. To prevent eyestrain you are supposed to take a 20 second break every 20 minutes and look up and out at a point at least 20 feet away. Very good advice-Pass it on.

Now I think I will check in with my "Words with Friends" people and see how bad they are beating me.

Here we go again

The temps are to drop into the 40's and stay that way for a couple of days. I am always so grateful that my interests basically revolve around indoor activities. I love to walk and bike but a couple of days away from those activities are not bad. Now when we get into the 3rd day I start getting antsy.
This morning I wandered over to the pool hall to join the other ladies playing. I had a good time and played well.

I decided to look for a bit of color to add to the blog. It is kind of amazing that when I go back and look at pictures I take, I am whisked  back to that moment in time and I know exactly where the picture was taken, This was taken at the Leo and Keri Brooker house on their patio on the northeast part of their yard.

Now this is freaky. I turned the channel because I was "watching" the public television station but they decided to show a Texas political show so I stayed with public television but a different one and they were covering photographers and asking them how they feel about their photos and what they were thinking at the time they took the shot. My photo above was taken because I loved the color contrast and I am always partial to flowers.

Happened Yesterday...

Admit it. You saw the title and started anticipating something big happening. Sorry to disappoint you. I do not know if you would have an interest in my discoveries of yesterday or not but it is my blog after all.

In my discoveries and rediscoveries of all things Internet helping others is a great refresher course for me. I did an overview of Chrome with a newbie and we were briefly  looking at each of the apps in her Chrome apps collection. It struck me just how much there is to learn! We have only begun on email. Then there are all the things you have to join or sign up for. That is a tedious part of it all. Lining up newsletters and websites of interest and getting them bookmarked so they can be found easily. And then we looked at Youtube and particularly the tutorials. There are many great tutorials on youtube and that is an area I have neglected in my own daily computing. We watched a couple; one on a seed bead bracelet, another on the Kindle Fire for beginners. On the Kindle Fire tutorial I was reminded that you can watch movies and TV shows on the kindle Fire and on Chromebook so we need to take a look at that sometime soon as well. And we have not even touched online shopping and searching. The world is large and there is much to learn for them and me!

And then after all this I went to the pool hall for the mixed scotch doubles league. I think I have won 3 games all season and you play 5 each night. I do not feel I am that bad at it but the numbers say otherwise so may decide enough is enough and stick with what I know. Someone has to fill that bottom of the barrel spot each season but no one wants to be that person. I am sure my partners will  be feeling they have lost when they see me coming if they do not already. Unlike years past I do go practice on Monday mornings. I may stick with practicing.
Butch read his book on Kindle, practiced hitting some golf balls and watched 2 Mexican women sitting in chairs on Mexican TV. Oh, and I am sure he won his matches at Mixed league scotch doubles as I was not his partner.

Cold...again

They said it would be in the low 30's but they were wrong! It was only in the low 40's but I am okay with that. Cloud cover made the difference. We apparently had a nice warm blanket of clouds that kept us toasty warm. Yeah clouds! Never thought I would say that.
For me yesterday was a day filled with computers of one sort or another. I am seeing progress and that is gratifying. One of my newbies said I got much more out of today's class than I did last week. Music to my ears.
Butch played pool in the morning and bridge in the afternoon. They need more bridge players. As it is if someone doesn't show they have to go get them or go home. It takes a commitment to learn to play bridge and not everyone is up for that. Square dancing is the same way. Both are fun activities but you do have to learn the ropes. Some people like to take on a challenge and many are reluctant. Tis what it tis.

Cold snap!

A friend on facebook pointed out that this is our 4th cold snap of the season! We usually have 1 and it usually happens in January or February. The low this morning was 35 degrees!! That is the bad news. The good news is that it will be 75 by Sunday. It has been a roller coaster ride in the South Texas amusement park.



Butch came in 5th in a big pool tournament yesterday. More detail on the Magnolia blog. And I am still immersed in computer business. I need to get some cleaning done but cleaning has never been my favorite choice of activity.
 I have returned to beading in a small way as I have made a few beaded rings.
Just putzing around and having fun doing what we love to do every day. We could not be more grateful for all that we have.

Our lives today...

Our lives today and this season in sunny south Texas have evolved in a way I never thought would happen. Butch is playing very little golf and much more pool. He is good at both of course but one of those two is far less of a strain on a back that has had 3 surgeries. We sometimes see each other in bits and pieces throughout the day and it is working out that we are both okay with it.
My part of busy is largely computer related and it will reach a leveling off once we get everyone who has issues of one thing or another settled. The number of those issues has increased from years past and thus taking longer to level off
I have been playing more pool this season and enjoying it. My skills are improving but still have a long way to go.
I read on Facebook that son Gary and family have suffered with the flu. Gary did not have a flu shot and seemed to have it much worse than Susan who had a flu shot. She was surprised to learn that 35 people have died in Texas from the flu. I told her a lower number but they just reported that the number is up to 35 and they expect it to go higher.  When Butch and I were at Walgreens on Sunday there were people lining up for flu shots. It takes about two weeks for full protection from the vaccine.
I am doing this particular post on the chromebook and run into my first tiny snafu. I have been saving some photos to put on the blog but they happen to be on the Toshiba so not today, Maybe tomorrow.
It is now time for a long winters nap.
Goodnight ya'all

Tiny House

I am fascinated by tiny houses. I think the one we have is small enough but this guys house is really cool too and so much smaller than ours.

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/21990470?utm_source=Houzz&utm_campaign=u423&utm_medium=email&utm_content=gallery0