Springtime Sunshine

It was gorgeous and sunny - though a bit windy - when I got up this morning. This week's Sunday pancakes were Chocolate Chip. I've just felt like I needed chocolate lately. I made it taste even more like a chocolate chip cookie with the addition of vanilla, cinnamon, and a hint of brown sugar. Yum. Came out very well, other than slightly burning the first one.

When breakfast was done, it was time to take down the winter decorations and put up what I have for spring and St. Patrick's Day. While there's still snow on the ground at press time, it's also supposed to get into the 50's this week. It won't be around much longer. The cardboard flowers and butterflies wouldn't stay up without a judicious amount of tape. The cardboard is thin, and they keep bending on the edges. Hung two yellow wooden tulips with raffia ribbon from the knobs on the cookbook hutch. Primrose, the sweet 6-inch porcelain doll in the pink dress that Jodie gave me in November, sits on the shelf next to the white lamp. (I need to find or make a scarf for her - she has a very loose head.) The spring stuffed animals - Stuffy the Rabbit, Sharri the Lamb, Lilly the Duck, and Greenwillow the Caterpiller - went up on the DVD shelves.

I had just enough time to rush out to work...and then I came back in briefly to drop my earmuffs and scarf on the table. It was so warm outside, I didn't need them! Maybe that's why we were crazy today. Families that had been hiding from the weather all week could now come and get big orders done. There were still a few unpleasant people around, including one woman who somehow thought 90 dollars would cover a 200 dollar order. She had to put more than half of it back. Other than that, my shift went quickly. It quieted down enough by 6 that I was able to leave on my own, since my relief was late again.

The ride home was even easier than the ride to work. Even by 2, a lot of the snow had already disappeared. By 6 PM, the sidewalks were almost totally clear, especially in sunny places. The wind was chilly, but the sun was so warm, I was sweating in my heavy winter coat.

When I got home, I put on Johnny Mathis while making scrambled eggs with mushrooms and escarole for dinner. With two slices of buttered rye bread and the grapefruit half I didn't get to this morning, it was a surprisingly filling meal.