Almost Spring, Creation Station, Flame, Rain & Other Updates

Well sometimes life just keeps marching on and before you know it a new month is at hand and tomorrow is February, can you believe it?

While I've been puttering around here in my craft room, my mind rambles hither and yon, and a good name finally hit me for my room.  It's the area where I create and is really my 'hub' where I do my thinking, I pray & study, and where I just do most things aside from cooking and housework.  This room is now going to be known as my Creation Station. 

Marty starts a new job on the 8th. I'm praying it goes well.  His unemployment of one month, is far better than the nine months we faced in 2013/14.  The CT scan he needed after a suspicious xray came back fine with nothing showing.  We praise God for that.

Another friend lost his sister to cancer this week.  She was the sister-in-law of the young lady I taught to quilt a couple years ago.  She had gone to Thailand and became too ill to return to the states, so he traveled there for a final visit just a few weeks ago.  I pray the Lord comforts their family.

Ornamental Pear

This week with its 80+ temperatures, revealed spring is on its way.  The neighbor has an ornamental pear that hangs over our fence and I noticed the leaves are beginning to show.

Ornamental pear and a house across the 'valley'.

It'll be blossoming before we know it.  The blossoms don't last long, and then they blow off and look a bit like fluffy snowflakes falling.  These two pictures were just taken yesterday.

Open it Flame.

This young lady was hanging out with me here in my Creation Station.  I had the door mostly closed so that the heat would stay in.  She decided it was time to leave but I didn't open the door for her.  It had just the tiniest of gaps - less than shown in the photo - so she worked on opening it.

I think I did it.

She finally pushed it open with her paw and her nose...

...and said good-bye.

Rain on my window.

A storm began blowing in last night, and this is how it was looking this morning.  Rivulets of water streaming down the Creation Station window.  Notice that same pear tree there on the left?

Bright sun, blowing wind, pelting rain.

Awhile later the sun was attempting to peak through a thin section of the clouds.  It was, at the same time still blowing very strongly and the rain was pelting the window.  That gap hung around for about 20 minutes and I had to close the blinds as it was just too bright in the room.  As I look out now, the sky is blue, fading as the sun is setting with a bank of clouds off over the hills that have a crown of pretty pink-orange on them.  Too low, and not enough for a good picture...and already gone.

Tomorrow, I'll be headed off to Costco for a few things and then meeting up for lunch with my friend Panda, hopefully also finding out when she and her other friend want to get together so that we can start on Allietare. 

Rain...It DOES Exist

Over the past few days, we have finally received more than just a spritz of rain.  Tuesday morning I woke up to that glorious sound of rain and wind, and could look out the window from my bed and watch the trees blowing along with the sheets of rain.  The water on the streets was flowing well.  Our house is in a gently sloped area, so the water runs off well from the street as long as the drains aren't clogged and there was no problem with that. Our back yard is a different story.

This picture was from several years ago, but is similar to how it was looking on Tuesday.  I refer to it as our own private "lake".  The majority of the back yard is concrete that is badly cracked and lifting from the root structure of the 50+ year old Modesto Ash that takes up the only non-concrete area.  In some places, the cracked concrete is lifted over an inch higher than the other piece it's cracked from.  Because of this, the concrete also slopes downward slightly towards the house from the big crack, and some of that water pooled up to over an inch deep.  I was worried it would get so high we'd be getting some into the house, but it didn't, so all is well.  

Marty had made it up onto the roof on Monday to make sure the past known entry points for leaks were tended to with the Henry's goop stuff, so thankfully, I didn't have any leaks in the ceiling of my craft room.  There was water that got into the window track though, so I had to use towels to sop it up.  I think that has been a problem since those windows were installed 10-12 years or more ago.  

Over the two main days of rain, I think we received just under 2" of that glorious, and much needed, wet stuff.  Mountain areas got a lot of snow, and that's even better because it will help fill lakes and reservoirs as it melts.  Heavy rains create too much run-off and end up in channels that run to the ocean more than they fill underground natural aquifers I think.  Slow, persistent rains might be better, but I'll be happy with whatever we get, it is so badly needed here, and in the mountains in this state.  We will get more, but not to this level at least for a week or so.  It sprinkled just a little when I went out early today for my "girls" annual appointment. 

The kitties were intrigued with the rain too.  Not so much with the rain maybe, but with the little birds that were trying to seek shelter under the entry area at our front door where the cats could hear them, and then outside our bedroom windows are flower pot ledges where the birds were also seeking a respite from the downpour.  The kitties were just itching to get through that glass to grab them.  I stood at the window myself watching for awhile and some of those little birds' heads were totally soaked.