We have had a remarkable winter. It started out normal enough....first got cold in mid December and we had a white Christmas (not very common here and it was barely white). We had a good Christmas and did our traditional stuff. Jill and Iris came and stayed several days so we had lots to do and enjoyed the time together. We made our annual trek to St. Louis for Sheryl's party and later went up to Columbia for Donna's open house. We made our Christmas homebrew back in October so we shared some with people at the two parties. 
We had another snow after Christmas and in early January -- maybe 5-6 inches. Then we had a blizzard in early February. This was the first blizzard I can remember and I'm old enough to have had a few. They say that this was the first blizzard in about 25 years and the last one wasn't much. This one was. It hit on a Monday and I didn't get the driveway clear until the next Sunday when a guy showed up with a bobcat and bulldozed my driveway. We had snow out the wazoo and it was the heavy stuff. I think we had about 18 inches more or less....hard to tell because of the wind. We also had below zero temps. I had about four feet of snow blown on my deck. I woke up the morning after it stopped snowing and I was hearing odd noises coming from the deck...ominous popping sounds. I noticed that some of the screws holding the balustrade to the railing had popped out and I was seeing daylight where there shouldn't be any. So I shovelled my way out to the street first (so the paramedics and get to the house -- just a precaution, you know) and then started shovelling snow off the deck. Needless to say I was a little freaked out about adding my own weight on the deck since it was already stressed out but it held and I managed to get about a third of it cleared before I pooped out. It took me another two days to get it totally cleared off.
Watson had never seen so much snow and he was upset that he couldn't go outside. When I cleared part of the deck he went out but ran back in again. He has a water dish out there that was frozen solid and he was worrying about it. He was stuck in the house after that. I threw a little bird seed out so he watched the birds occasionally. The street crews finally got the streets clear enough to allow the mailman to deliver mail on Monday but trash collection didn't start for almost a week. After a week of extra cold weather and a few days with some more lighter snowfall things started to warm up. We began to see temperatures above freezing. Then we got warmer weather and eventually got several sunny days with temperatures in the 60s and 70s. The snow melted pretty fast....we figured it would stay until April but it is pretty much gone except for the places the snowplows dumped it. The warm weather is much appreciated. Everyone was out enjoying the sunny days and it is still fairly warm on sunny days but not in the 60s any longer. It should reach the mid 50s tomorrow.
I have been suffering from a prolonged period of the blahs. I can't seem to commit to anything or make plans and stick to them. I amaze myself at how I can undermine my own plans and become distracted from what I am trying to do. I can start a project and then walk to a different room to get something and be totally distracted so that I end up not getting anything done. I want to paint the hall bathroom and probably change the vanity top and the faucets. This seems like an insurmountable task the way things are going. First I couldn't decide on a color and had to get people to suggest colors from a few that I picked out. This was in mid January. Finally I bought the paint yesterday - in late February. I decided that if I can get the bathroom painted and make progress on the other improvements I will reward myself with a trip to New Mexico in March. That seems to be working as a motivator. I got the trim taped up yesterday and I'm going to start painting tomorrow.
I also started a class with the Learning in Retirement program (Lincoln U.). This is on the Czars of Russia. I decided I needed to get out and have some social interaction instead of being reclusive and only interacting on the Internet. The class is interesting but the teacher is basing the lessons on family trees of the various Romanovs. There are four classes and we have been pretty confused but we are making progress. Dr. Phil should have met the Romanovs -- he would think he died and went to heaven. I don't think any of them were normal. Next week is the last class and we will talk about Nick II - the last Czar - and Rasputin. The teacher has a knack for dwelling on the gossipy side of history.
