It snowed here over night and all morning and stopped sometime after noon. We got about an inch and a half with drifts up to 8 inches. It's kind of exciting. It snows and stays around only a day or two and then it clears up and we get a little warmer weather for a couple weeks and then we start it all over again.  I guess I wouldn't think it was so exciting if I had to drive to work every day, but since I'm retired I tend to think of it in terms of a school child. It's fun.

Here's another picture from our recent Myriad Gardens trip. I really like cacti, but just not in my house. Thorns are not my idea of a friendly house plant.

Alice is trying very hard to teach me Photo Shop. When I run into a snag, the urge is so great  to go back to Paint Shop Pro because that's what I'm familiar with, but I'm really going to fight that urge. Otherwise I fear I'll never learn Photo Shop.  She was trying help me understand resolution and resizing and thinking in pixels instead of inches. I think we made some progress there.

I've been puny since Monday night and today I FINALLY feel like I'm back in the human race again. I didn't want to over do it by going out shopping or anything like that, so I stayed home today and did a "crafty" project. . . I made a pot holder.

I cut two 10" squares of "home spun" material. Cut six 9" squares of the same material and centered three of the 9" pieces on each of the 10" squares. Then I drew a line from corner to corner and single stitched both of them.

Then I stitched 3/8" away from the first line of stitching and kept repeating until I'd covered the entire squares, being sure to back stitch at the beginning and end of each line. Then I took a small pair of sharp scissors and sliced through the top 3 layers only. I then trimmed both squares down to neat 9" squares.

Placing the slit sides on the outside I stitched both squares together with the stitches running in opposite directions and sewed on a contrasting trim and making a hook for hanging up the potholder.

Then I washed it and dried it and VIOLA . . . it turned into a beautiful chenille pot holder. See the close up that shows the chenille like fuzzy surface. It was fun, but it took me 5 hours.

These Canada Geese stick around Oklahoma City each winter . . . they don't fly north OR south when the weather starts getting bad . . . they stick around here and fly from lake to lake and from field to field. That's our subdivision in the background.

Here's a little bit closer view of them as they congregate in the open field just southeast of our subdivision. What I love is when they fly overhead. When I begin to hear honking overhead I look up and see a couple hundred of them in huge V formations. Unfortunately I never have my camera quite at the ready in time to get a movie of them flying overhead . . . but I'll keep trying.

Here's another one of the beautiful flowers we saw at the Myriad Gardens Friday. I've "played with it" in Photo Shop to make it look like a painting. 

We went to the Myriad Gardens and the Crystal Bridge today . . . that's Alice, Gill and me. We had a great time taking literally hundreds of pictures.  I "played" with this picture in Photo Shop and this is what I came up with. I'm not sure what kind of flower this is . . . maybe an orchid, but I'm not sure.  I took a total of 232 pictures myself today and I'd say about 80% of them turned out pretty good.  I'm going to make a concerted effort to wean myself off of Paint Shop Pro and learn Photo Shop better. Alice will be just down to street to help me out if I run into any huge snags.  I can see that she is correct about how difficult it would be for me to constantly be flitting back and forth between PSP and PS. I need to learn ONE software and use it all the time, and Alice assures me that PS is much MUCH more robust than PSP, and therefore THE one to use, if I'm only going to use one. 

Well, I have a confession to make.  I just today learned the difference between "messages" and "comments" in Xanga.  Pretty dumb, right.  Alice was over here and wondered outloud why I had 47 unread messages in Xanga.  I think I said something like, "HUH?"  She showed me where to see how many I had and how to read them.  Soooooooo, if any of you have sent me a "message" and I haven't answered, it's because I'm a ditz and didn't even know they were there.   I'll try to do better now.

I know I said I wouldn't plant another thing, but we saw some bulbs at Home Depot at rediculously low prices . . . and I just couldn't resist. I've had them for well over a month but just haven't had the time, and then when I had the time the weather was too harsh. But finally we've had some pretty balmy days and in the past three days I've managed to get the new bulbs in the ground.    I planted all 278 of them either in the back yard and/or in the side yard. Here's what they are:

Miniature Daffodils                   Grape Hyacinth

 Crocus                                     King Alfred Daffodils

If I even THINK of buying any more bulbs . . . would someone just put me out of my misery.

I don't know what kind of bird this is, but I thought the yellow breast was quite impressive. I had a bunch of these birds in my yard a few minutes ago. I had to take the pictures through the window and the blinds, because they would surely have flown away if I had opened the back door. I feel badly that I haven't gotten on the stick and gotten a bird feeder so I could feed the poor birdies this winter.  I'm ordering one today and using a gift card to gardeners.com that I got for Christmas.  Below is what it looks like.