Springtime in February!

This morning when I was driving to my exercise class, I noticed that there were some red bud trees in bloom. This is way early, I think, for that to be happening, but we are seeing some early signs of spring this year, that's for sure!

When I got back to our neighborhood, I noticed that the red buds have not started blooming on our circle, but the magnolia across the street is starting to burst! Here are a couple shots of that:

I found one lone crocus near our holly bush:

And our lenten roses have been in bloom for several weeks, as have the daffodils on our slope.

I noticed lots of new growth on the rose bushes and the butterfly bushes. The tulips are several inches high. Willow trees have gone from having that yellow halo to actually having some green leaves emerging and the pussy willow bushes are getting green, as well.

Don't they all know there is still another month of winter?

A brilliant idea!!!

We had some areas in our house repainted this week. Now you would think that two old people wouldn't be too hard on walls, but there are some places that just show signs of use no matter how careful you are.

One of those spots that really showed the wear was the area around the hooks that we use to hang our extra keys and my purse. Looking at the fresh paint in that spot between the hall tree and the half bath, just inside the door from our garage to the laundry room, I was thinking out loud about how we could protect the wall. I suggested some clear contact paper, which Russ thought was a terrible idea. (It probably was.) Then he said something which I thought was a brilliant idea. He said, "What about putting some fabric there."

So I went up to the sewing room, selected a scrap of rather neutral yellowish fabric, fused it to a rectangular piece of Pellon, folded the edges over and did a couple of lines of stitching and made a mat for under the hooks!

Then I just nailed the bike hook through the mat and into the wall. A screw holds the froggy purse hook.
I think that was a great solution to the problem! Now, why didn't I think of that?!