February 22

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Here's what it looks like when we have a heat wave, in the middle of one of the coldest Februarys ever. 

Piles and piles of really deep (for us) snow, everywhere.  well, almost everywhere -- lots of sidewalks, and most streets, are clear.

The 22nd wasn't as warm as the 21st, but it was very nice for February.  The sun came out, as I was walking.

When I got home,  very welcome sunshine was streaming in from the southwest.  I grabbed the camera and went around noticing the sun.

This vignette is on the kitchen windowsill.

The pig came from a thrift store.  It's plastic.  It's hollow.  You can see the sun shining through it.

Just to the right of the above, and down -- glass milk bottles await transport back to the grocery (they will go back to the dairy and be reused).  Here they sit, beside and in front of the microwave, spreading the sunlight in circles on the counter.

Turning right 90 degrees -- we have a big bulletin board in the kitchen, covered in art and craft and miscellany.  When my daughter was on the high school swim team, the swimmers would gift each other with little presents before meets.  A batch of brownies, perhaps, or a lip gloss.  I was always on the watch for purple stuff (school color).  Some fancy purple present-decorators were not used, and still give sparkle to the bulletin board.  I'm especially pleased by the end of one of the curls, visible at the bottom.

Making our way to the table -- this is the pepper mill, seen from the top.  I wanted something not-messy to put it on, so I grabbed an issue of The University Record which was sitting on the table.  It happened to have this nice lake shore on the front.

Here's something that makes me as happy as sunshine -- I've had this amaryllis for years.  And years.  It bloomed for many years, and then, as I didn't re-pot it, it stopped blooming.  But it never stopped putting out leaves.  Never stopped trying.

Last year I finally repotted it, and left it outside for the summer.

Look!  It's going to bloom.  Hooray! 

Incipient bloom, in the sunshine, against a back yard full of snow.

There's a paper bag collecting paper recyclables just inside the window above.  The three-hole punch got some use on the 22nd, and the results were recycled....

Some of the little circles landed this way, on top of a ledge formed by other paper.  This is the actual orientation.  The circles stuck (by static electricity, I presume) to vertical surfaces make it hard to tell how they are oriented.

I have a couple of old type drawers hung on the wall, with old toys and things in the niches.  Here are a few toys, in Venetian-blind stripes of sunshine.

One last image.  This head was alone.  I stuck it in a cork.

Most of the stuff in the type drawers is placed just as I chose to put it.  But sometimes the drawers get bumped, and things jump off.  Especially small things, like beads.  Those get put back up, randomly.  Perhaps on their sides, like the X.

Running the image above through some Photoshop filters, just because I can.

Charcoal.

Cut out.

Fresco.

Stamp.

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