Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance ~ Three things will last forever, faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. ~excerpts from 1 Corinthians 13 [NLT]

Neil and I went to see grandson Elijah’s Valentine’s Day program at his school this morning.

That’s Elijah ~ top middle.

All the second grade classes sang songs about love and read Valentine poems. Such sweet voices. Later, the classes went to visit two assisted living residences to perform their love program and hand out valentines.

They held up their Happy Valentine’s Day sign so quickly that I didn’t have time to zoom back out to get the whole thing in the shot. Elijah is holding the A in Happy.

His class had their party and exchanged valentines and treats. I think this is why shoe boxes were invented. His decorated box was filled with love from classmates.

Grand daughter Shelby checks out her brother’s loot. She nabbed a Hershey’s Kiss.

Daughter Holly wore her pretty heart scarf in honor of heart day.

Shelby photo bombed her mom

Daughter Kelly and grandson Knox joined us for supper this evening at Ocha, our fave Thai food restaurant.

Love can be ticklish

Grandpa Neil and grandson Knox watched Thomas the Train videos together on the computer after supper ~ Knox’s fave past time at our house. Neil and I don’t “do” Valentine’s Day in the traditional sense. To me, it’s the most forced holiday on the calendar, and I tend to feel sorry for all the guys out there who feel compelled to meet the [sometimes] extraordinary expectations of their ladies, but that’s just my opinion. Loving is an every day thing. Spending time with my peeps is Valentine enough for me. Happy TGIF, everyone! And Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s all good.
The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough of is love.
~Henry Miller

With luck, it might even snow for us. ~Haruki Murakami, After Dark

No Snow Snow Day! Blue sky. Sunshine. 42 degrees. School is out [I don’t pretend to know why]. Grand peeps Shelby and Elijah are hanging out with their Aunt Kelly, Uncle Kerry and Cousin Knox today. We all met at Steak’n’Shake for lunch. Kelly had coupons! Neil ordered this monster hot dog with relish and hot peppers and other stuff all over it. He claims it was good.

Grand daughter Shelby had chicken fingers/strips and grandson Knox enjoyed a grilled cheese sandwich, although what he really wanted was ice cream.

Son in law Kerry ate half his dark chocolate shake before his burger and fries made it to the table.

Hey, Kelly, put down that phone and eat your lunch!

Grandson Elijah has decided that he’s going to be brave and try new things when it comes to food ~ such as this steak burger with cheese, bacon, and a fried egg on top. He actually ate that thing. At first, he wanted to try a burger that had jalapeno peppers on it. We talked him out of it for obvious reasons ~ hot peppers are hot! Then his grandpa offered him a jalapeno pepper off of his hot dog and told him to take just a tiny bite. Much to everyone’s surprise and horror, Elijah popped the whole pepper into his mouth and started to chew. He was OK at first and then his eyes started to water and his cheeks turned a flaming red. He couldn't get to his cold drink fast enough. Laughed at him until we cried. I love these snow days with my peeps! It’s all good.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day. ~Susan Orlean

Snow day! If snow had actually fallen today, I would have shared a picture of it with you. These days, even the hint of coming snow will net the kids an automatic snow day. My grand peeps spent the day with me. We were lazy bums, of course. After lunch, we headed to Ralph’s Donut Shop and loaded up on sweet treats ~ a must for a snow day. Who needs snow when you’ve got sprinkles? There might be snow tomorrow. School is closed. Better safe than sorry.

Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts. ~James Beard

My daughters gave me a bread making machine for my recent birthday. I finally gathered all the ingredients together and made my first fresh loaf this evening.

What an amazing gadget! All I had to do was measure (precisely!) each (room temperature) ingredient and pour it into the bread basket in a certain order (water, butter, flour, sugar, dry milk, salt, yeast), plug in the machine, and watch it do its magic. This was a simple 2 pound white bread recipe. The machine mixes and kneads the dough, lets it rest, then kneads some more, then lets it rise, and then punches the dough and it rises some more and then it bakes the bread. All this took about four hours and so worth the wait. I love the heavenly aroma of freshly baking bread.

My first fresh baked loaf. Neil and I had to laugh at how enormous the loaf was, but we’re not complaining. The big question was Will it taste as heavenly as it smells?

We slathered on some butter while it was still warm. I’m thrilled to tell you it was totally delicious. This does not bode well for people who are trying to lose weight. I’m looking forward to making more of this bread and trying the other recipes. You’ve heard of Cookie Monster? I could easily be Bread Monster.

The color of springtime is in the flowers; the color of winter is in the imagination. ~Terri Guillemets

Remember Spring?   (A long-ago Dahlia from my back yard ~ painted with the Waterlogue app in iTunes for iPhone and iPad)  Happy TGIF!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

I’ve been blessed with 61 fabulous years ~ another birthday is always reason to celebrate. My awesome hubby Neil made sure I enjoyed a happy birthday. He decorated our dining room with balloons and streamers, ordered this beautiful and yummy cake from Baskin-Robbins [chocolate chip ice cream/chocolate cake], made delicious punch and took me and the family out to eat a birthday dinner at Outback. What’s not to like about being 61?

Son in law Kerry had some fun with the birthday balloons. KerrBear, you are a hoot!

Grandson Knox would not sing the birthday song when everyone else was singing it which cracked me up because he had this frown on his face. I guess my laughter was contagious. I love this picture.

I think I forgot to make a wish. Doesn’t matter. Getting to celebrate my day of days with family is always my wish come true.

Grand daughter Shelby strikes a gorgeous pose

These were the only birthday napkins we had on hand ~ still hold true even a decade or so later.

Niece Julia waiting for cake. Grandson Elijah is ready to dig in to his piece. It’s tradition in our family that the birthday person cuts and serves the birthday cake.

This is what happens when you put daughter Kelly [right] in charge of picture taking with mom’s camera ~ selfie with her cousin Sarah’s eyeball. Nice shot, ladies.

That’s daughter Holly in the back [wearing her pretty heart scarf and most likely waiting for cake] and sister Jane and brother in law Don [taking one down and passing it around]. Love that horn growing out of Don’s head. Sorry, Don, those kinds of pictures are usually reserved for me.

Knox would not sing the birthday song, but he didn’t hesitate to boogie down a birthday dance.

Knox could not wait for me to open my presents. And not one ‘flat’ present this time. My daughters and their families gave me a bread maker [looking forward to making fresh bread], sister Jane’s family gave me The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler [which I’m looking forward to reading] and a Decomposition Book [love the clever name and also looking forward to filling it with deep thoughts], and Neil gave me a most awesome clock [three stacked clocks which I can set for London, Paris and New York time~unfortunately I don’t live in any of those time zones, but so what, it’s a really cool clock and he knows I love clocks]. And of course I loved all the birthday cards. My family always picks out the best cards [I think it’s genetic (thanks, Mom)]

Here’s my cool clock

The birthday party gang! Thank you all for the birthday love and for making me feel so special on my special day! I love you all!

"There seems to be so much more winter than we need this year." ~Kathleen Norris

A true statement, if ever there was one. Today we got a break with temperatures in the sixties and lots of blue sky and sunshine. Neil and I went for a walk around the block so we could soak up a little bit of this wonderful weather on the first day of February. Snapped a picture of the sunlight in the bare trees. This is what the picture looks like after I ran in through a new app I discovered recently called Waterlogue [available in iTunes app store if you’ve got an iPhone or iPad]. Fun stuff. Hope you got to enjoy some warmth today, especially if you’ve been buried in snow lately. Winter is nowhere near done with us yet. More cold and wet on the way, they say. But we sure did enjoy this hint of spring. Makes us hopeful.