Spring and Normal (What ever that is...)

Here's Maggie curled up in the sun and enjoying the first warm weather like a cat. She even tried grazing today, although I think she's betraying a healthy dose of wishful thinking as the grass hasn't begun to really emerge just yet. And every hair on that horse's body is falling out- an avalanche of shedding! I considered saddling up the splendid palfrey and trying to ride, but the wind was so fierce I decided against it. (Wind makes horses very high!)
We heard peepers, tentative, but peepers sounding off last night after I got home from work. I could hardly believe my ears. I think the only one sorry to see the snow recede is Jules who prefers snowballs to almost anything- even tennis balls. There's one small patch of snow by the horse barn that is my reservoir for snowball activity, and Jules is making sure that none of it goes to waste. He and I took a super long walk today; we just kind of kept going. I'm sure the suddenly nicer weather has put me in a better mood about being outside.
And I had my first "normal" day of working in my studio in a while. I bought paper the other day as I feel a collage series coming on. Today I just got into my studio and it felt like home. I began to make a mess and sort of fool around. That's what it takes! I think the extreme weather this winter (remember all that cold and snow?) and my showing in NYC and the hectic schedule of work... all of it contributed to my feeling a bit out of alignment. But now that the weather has changed, I feel like creativity is reawakening.
And Bob and I are starting some seeds tonight! That's a sure sign of a Spring full moon!

Jules was getting jealous that I hadn't featured a picture of him, so here he is. The funny thing about this photo is that Jules looks so small... like a little tiny puppy. Maybe it was the angle.

Not Quite as Bad as it Looks

Doesn't that look just awful? Only in our sink! It is an unhappy confluence of melting ice and my dumping my left over coffee on top... looks nasty! Don't worry; the images get nicer as you go along.

Look! Here's the naked Xmas tree! I'm very happy now. In case we don't remember, the two things that make Christmas Christmas for me are Christmas cookies and the tree. What a nice surprise that Bob went yesterday and got a funny, very wide tree from our friend Joe's yard. It made the fact that we had more snow and very cold weather sort of tolerable. I'm sorry, I was crabby all day because of all this early winter weather and nascent cabin fever. I'm already sick of winter.

That's better! Pretty much all lighted and decorated, but the nicest part was when I went to photograph the tree, the full moon had come out from behind the snow clouds and shone in the second story window above the Christmas tree! (In the picture, it sort of look like he lights on the tree, but the light in the center top is actually the moon.) Just something about Christmas trees make me happy. And I was baking cookies and consuming vast quantities of dough! Heaven!
You can have your Christmas music and consumeristic nightmares...I'm really glad to not feel that craziness of running around panicking, unable to find a parking space and incurring credit card debt. And to boot, today at work we had a Christmas cookie exchange, so I came home with ten other varieties of cookies. And it's over fifty degrees outside. Yay! I hope all that stinking snow melts and I don't need a white Christmas, either. (Remind me again why we live in the northeast...