With the northern snow pack yet to unleash its melt to areas already in a flood emergency situation, and temperatures still going south of zero at night, it sure doesn’t feel like Spring.  There are signs, however.  Buds are starting to form on the trees and shrubs, grass is starting to green up (of course my grass is always green – even in the dead of winter) and the robins are out and about.

I’m afraid for my appliances at the moment.  If things follow my Maytag range (stove/oven) and stop working just past the 10-year mark, I’m in big trouble.  My new stove arrives this morning with a feature I hadn’t heard of before.  It does have the self-clean where temperatures go way beyond my comfort zone – but it also has “steam clean”.  The bake/bottom element is underneath the floor of the stove.  You simply add a cup of water to the oven floor and turn on the steam clean feature.  This loosens all the mess you’ve made and you wipe it out with a damp sponge.  Yes, you should be doing this right after you’ve made the mess – but I do like having an option that doesn’t raise my anxiety level and also doesn’t use that awful oven cleaner spray.  We shall see how it all works out.

I feel very lucky that I have a neighbour who has set himself up as the local handyman.  My list for him this Spring is a long one – but he is gradually working through it….take down Xmas lights, patios, porches, garage floor and fences to power wash, new bench for the front porch to put together, out-of-control blue arctic willows to cut down and haul away, parts of the deck to be fixed, put new handles on my shower door – it just doesn’t ever seem to end.  As soon as one thing is done, I think of another.

I had a nasty tumble last week (my third this year) trying to take the new porch bench to the garage – I never know how I do these things – but in a nano-second, I found myself on the garage floor, having missed at least the last step – resulting in a few colourful bruises.  I should know better and ask for help.  I have no balance – partly due to the neuropathy in both feet.  I’m just too stubborn for my own good.  Lesson learned, I hope.

I guess Spring is here.  It just doesn’t really feel like it.

Sue