Pinks, Reds, & Grey In Between

{Some Snippets of Life Lately...}

An Impromptu Card-Making Session...Yes, can you believe it? The Christmas decorations have just barely been stowed away for another year and already I’m busy on Valentine-y things (for this lovely shop). It's so much fun though…I love the simplicity and sweetness of Valentine's Day (especially after the complex and drawn out Christmas season). I confined myself to a color scheme of rosy pinks and seafoam/aqua-ish blues. This made me feel less distracted as I pulled out all my artsy materials (velvet ribbon, paper posies, paper...) in just those 2 shades of colors and went to town spread out upon the entire kitchen table, not sidetracked by all my other fun things in various other shades.

Trying in vain to capture a video of the Northern Shrike impaling a vole under our birdfeeder. I witnessed the whole scene today firsthand…from him stalking his prey, to him catching it and poking it several times with his beak, to him flying away with his catch in his firm grip, and then coming back for more. It was so fascinating and he is quite a cute "hunter" bird with his pretty grey body and black eye mask. I wanted so much for Hub to be able to see this as well…as he’s been trying (in vain too) to catch the very plentiful, naughty voles (they destroy our grass making dead grass mazes that appear in the green of Spring) using mousetraps set up under our deck and has had no luck. That’s ONE for the Shrike, Hub…ZERO...so far! ;)
Looking forward with eager anticipation to our upcoming warm weather vacation...I bought a new swimsuit from Target yesterday for the occasion. It is red-ish with tiny white polka dots. What do you think? More than anything, I’m so looking forward to feeling warm, moist air. The dry air has to be one of my least favorite things about Winter time…staticky hair I try hard to tame and ultimately end up just throwing on a hat or pulling it back into a pony tail...dry, cracking hands...the electricity of sweaters as I pull them over my head...and oh are we going through the hand lotion like crazy! We should have big vats of it by every door and each sink. Our vacation can’t come soon enough for me now!