Spending Winter thinking about Spring

We're finally over all the sickness and survived the Boat Show. Yea!  And we're halfway through winter which always makes me excited about working in the yard.  I'm thinking about doing my own canning this year so I'm thinking out what to plant with that in mind.  It seems like a lot of the home arts/crafts are becoming extinct these days.  Kind of like less and less people know how to use a sewing machine let alone sew a button back on.  Canning is one of those things I always meant to learn how to do and haven't done it.  I remember my mom canning applesauce when I was a kid and it was so delicious it was practically dessert.  It was probably because it was made from scratch that it tasted so good.  I still owe it to my great-grandma to learn how to tat.  She was the fastest tatter I ever saw and maybe that's why I couldn't figure it out.  I need to see happen in slow motion.  I think I was the only great-grandkid even interested in needle work so I was her best bet.  My thing is counted cross-stitch but that is far easier than tatting.  One day, GeeGee, one day I'll learn how to tat.  The kids are both filling out their clothes so I think I'll need to start window shopping for good deals.  Holiday and Johnny are starting to get that urge to play outside again too.  Since it rained at our house on Saturday I took them on a nature walk instead.  We at least got some fresh air and Holiday learned a couple of names of plants and trees that we passed.  She had all the names of the birds we saw down.  Ducks, geese, crows and seagulls.  I took them to Pritchard Beach near our house.  It's a teeny-tiny beach but it also has a wooded trail that goes through the wetland.  It's the right length to walk a preschooler and a stroller through from our house and get back home without a meltdown.  The kids slept great that night.