More Progress on Spring

You might think I'm controlling the weather with that title, but I'm not. If it were up to me, it would be a lot warmer. We had sunshine yesterday, but still frigid temperatures. Nevertheless, I saw the first Rufous hummingbird of the season. We have Anna's hummers year-round, but the Rufous are only around in spring and summer, and then they start heading south in the fall. 

This guy was not at all happy about the cold temperature.

I went out for a little walk around. It's still too cold to see many blooming things, but there are more daffodils.

Also, I was happy to see new buds popping out on the wisteria we planted last year. I worried the ice storm might have killed it, but it looks like it's on its way back. You might recall our wisteria died last year, and we replaced it with this new one.

Also, I noticed some new growth on the blueberries we planted last year. No picture of those...there wasn't much to see, photographically-wise.

Of course, my furry friends came with me. Sadie thought she'd climb the cherry tree, but then decided just to give it a good scratching instead.

Smitty followed me as I made my rounds.

They were both ready to go back inside after just a few minutes. Too cold for kitties.

Speaking of kitties, I finished up the fifth of the Ties & Tails blocks. 

Here are all the blocks I have so far.

I was thinking I was being super smart about adding the sashings as I go, but it looks like there's a hole at the top right of the newest block. Maybe when I make the next block it will all fit together. 

It was too much for my brain to figure out in the moment, and so I decided to take a nap before I did anything else. You might recall from yesterday's post that I was mulling over what to do next. In the end, I decided I was more interested in finishing up the last row of blocks for Jenny's Flower Garden. I needed to cut 180 of the 2 x 2-inch squares. Believe it or not, there are 100 in this little box.

So I'll finish cutting the rest today, and then I'll get to work sewing them together.

The only other sewing I did yesterday was to stitch the rest of the tree and some more leaves below.

Now I've moved my hoop to the right, and I'll get started stitching the barn.

Did I say we were back on the Cooking Light Diet? I can't remember. We started on Monday. Last night, I made this Shrimp and Orange Salad. This was surprisingly tasty and easy to make. I sprinkled mine with black sesame seeds. None of those for Mike. He just says no to seeds.

I made it just as the recipe suggested, although I made up the red onions and let them pickle for about an hour before doing the rest. If I were to make this again, I'd probably just add a can of mandarin oranges rather than peeling and segmenting fresh ones. They were surprisingly tasty in the salad though. Using canned ones would just make it quicker and easier. With my broken thumb, I've been avoiding anything that might increase the pain, and so I asked Mike to peel and separate the orange sections. He also pulled the tails off the cooked shrimp.

While we were making dinner, Smitty was enjoying the afternoon sunshine. This is the best part of the day, if you ask him.

We're expecting warmer weather today and temperatures up into the high 60's. Yahoo! I might actually get out for a walk today. Nothing much more on the day's agenda. I want to finish up one housekeeping task, and I'll spend the rest of the day on my sewing. I did my two rounds of therapy exercises yesterday too. That's two days in a row. Yay me! Let's see if I can go for three.