March 16, 2008

Signs Of Spring

St. Patrick's Day is an enchanted time - a day to begin transforming winter's dreams into summer's magic.
~Adrienne Cook


* It's St. Patrick's Day, a sure sign that tulips and garden fresh herbs and open toe sandals and long walks through Central Park and the Shawangunk Ridge are right around the corner!

* Here's an obvious one - It's 6PM and the sun is still shining!

* Our neighborhood animals are slowly returning, (birds, squirrels, possums, groundhogs, chipmunks) and along with them free entertainment for our cats! We woke up to our cats going absolutely nuts over something downstairs, so we went down to investigate. It turns out a small bird had found it's way into our screened in porch and couldn't figure out how to rejoin his friend on the outside. Once my husband opened up the screen door and the bird eventually found it's way out our cats quickly lost interest. No worries though, it didn't take them too long to find another outdoor creature to amuse them!

* Given our recent car "luck" we spent all day Saturday shopping for a new car, but that's not the sign of spring I'm talking about - the sign was that we did it with NO JACKETS! It was a beautiful sunny afternoon so we were able to walk the lots in light sweaters and just enjoy the day.
Side note: We signed our first ever lease on our first ever brand new car. Our version of a "new" car has typically been 4-10 years old and usually ends up having a better relationship with our mechanic than we do with the local vineyards (not easy) so we're very excited to have a vehicle that requires zero maintenance aside from oil changes. Although now our mechanic is going to need to seek out other resources to fund his children's college educations...

* My husband installed a new mailbox. Why is this a sign of spring you ask? Well, it's become an annual tradition for the snowplows to knock over our mailbox every time we have a significant snowfall and it wouldn't do us any good to install a new one until we're fairly certain there snowstorms are over for that winter (knock on wood). A new mailbox is definitely a sign that winter is on it's way out!

May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.
~Irish Blessing

4 comments:

Courtney Rose said...

I dig the new mailbox tradition....

Have a great St. Patrick's Day- I'll raise a glass of green wine to ya and hope that this coming month is your lucky one!

Dan, Misty & Ashar said...

Love the post...and LOVE signs of spring! Hooray for spring and longer days and no jackets and birds and anything which means no snow! Happy St. Patty's day!

Gamma! said...

Signs of Spring? Or you could live in Minnesota where it looks like a scene out of Narnia this morning! Rush hour traffic jams/accidents, appointments cancelled . . . thank good Spring WILL arrive - hopefully sooner than later! Enjoy your day!

Amanda said...

Hi, Jo! I'm going to give you the number to my agency if we don't get movement by Friday. I called today and spoke to the director (directly) and she informed me that she was under the impression that our homestudy was completed weeks ago. Interesting, huh?

Anyhow, she said she would personally make sure it got out by Friday. I told her that I wanted it emailed to Toni by Friday, not sent to USCIS. God forbid it's "wrong" and we have to go through this again....

so, if I don't get any word by Friday, I'm posting their address, phone number, names, etc...

:)
Thanks for your support, it means a great deal to me.

(By the way, we're doing flank steak on the grill tonight, another recipe I forgot:

flank steak marinaded and grilled with lyonnaise potatoes.

Marinade is cilantro, lime juice, olive oil and it's allowed to soak into steak overnight.

Let me know if you want the potatoes recipe. Perhaps I shall post a picture of our dinner. We'll see how pretty it turns out!)