Nature Walks

So as those of you with dogs know, life is sometimes all about the routine.  At some point in every single day (unless we're away), Sadie and I walk down the same street.  

If it's morning & I'm rushing to get to work, we walk to our first landmark, the first fire hydrant (making our round trip about 0.4 miles).  If I have a little more time, we walk down to the second landmark, fire hydrant #2 (about 0.6 of a mile round trip).  And if we have enough time, we walk all the way to the end of the road, which makes our round trip 1.1 miles.

I don't usually have time for the full walk in the mornings, or on dark winter evenings, but on weekends and summer evenings, we always go the full distance.  I love this time, this 20-30 minutes of shambling down the road and taking in the day.  Sometimes the reservoir along the road looks like this:

And sometimes it looks like this:

Yesterday, it started to melt a bit, so it looked more like this around the edges:

On the return trip yesterday, we wandered off the road and down a narrow path by a stream.  I took some video of the burbling stream and the slight springy feeling to the scene.

Today, that same stream looked like this:

Waah, waah.  Whatever - I know spring is coming someday!

A Duh! Moment

From a study I found recently . . . "Millennial consumers (age 18-34) are more likely to own laptop computers and other portable gadgets than older consumers."


Um, did anyone not know this?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Not the most romantic of holidays for me this year, since the husband is 6,000 miles away.  However, I worked from 9:45am to 8:30pm, so that helped keep my mind off it.  And, I spent the morning touring the MFA's new Art of the Americas wing, which is where I saw these heart shapes in a pair of panels flanking a 19th century doorway.  How great are they?

Also - I arrived home around 9:40pm to a lovely white & green bouquet from Justin, so I've got that going for me.  Which is nice.  :)

Self-Evident

Our new faux-leather armchairs from IKEA!  I love the way they look in the living room & they were really reasonable ($199 each).

Plus, they're super easy to assemble.  The box is huge & unwieldy, so it was awkward to carry into the house, but once I opened it, there's just the chair piece & four legs.  The instructions are above and because there are so few parts, they're almost ridiculous.  Look at the photo!  

My caption for these instructions?  "Screw the legs in, dickhead."

"Maybe Bed, Bath & Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time."

Last weekend: skiing/snowboarding at the lake house on Saturday; a chocolate lab's birthday party on Sunday.

This past weekend: Trader Joe's, the vet, and my nephews' birthday party at an indoor play space on Saturday; IKEA on Sunday.

I've officially drunk the middle-class, suburban Kool Aid. ;)