Back Deck Visitors

 We've had all kinds of visitors to the back deck today, as you can see below:

We were spending more time today removing Christmas ornaments, taking things down once again.  It took some time to put them up, so it stands to reason it will take several days to take it all down again.  We'll leave these guys up a few more days though:

The Three Wise Men nutcrackers we picked up last year looked very nice in the sunlight this morning.  The birds on the back deck fly away, and that must be our other daily visitor is back for a few cat snacks.

Nana gets excited about our neighborhood friend, who prowls about from house to house begging for treats with a longing gaze through windows at the owners until they relent and give him a meal to eat.  

Speaking of visitors, our amaryllis is finally starting to bloom.  Typically, these bloom rather quickly, the basic idea being to have them planted somewhere before Thanksgiving, and then usually they flower right around Christmas.  This one, however, was indeed a slow bloomer.  The difference, perhaps, is that it is planted in soil in a pot, whereas usually we have these in the rocks with a bit of water in there.  Regardless of the timing of the bloom, it will be quite nice in a few days.

Here is one of Mom's favorite birds - a bluebird.  We've had these visitors before, but not as frequent.  So these sightings are nice.  We've got a few bluebird houses to put out, some of them gifts from Christmas.  Hopefully we'll see some more.

Today was COLD.  Winter is back, and it is so abrupt after so much unusual warmth the last few weeks.  Other areas got snow, but the warmth of the day previous combined with the timing of the front sweeping through stopped any snowfall from happening.  This happens frequently here.  All we have to show for winter's first visit is cold, cold, cold.  We've had the fireplace going, and sometimes it's just nice to sit there on the bricks and feel its warmth.

Tonight Maddie was back at taekwondo, and it was good to see many of the other students back with her as well.  Everyone was anxious to get back.  Nana and I were in the spectator area, watching the students stretch and spar.  Maddie is particularly ambitious about stretching - she's doing splits now, and has goals to go further with those this year than ever before.

As we need to have some sort of programming on with Nana, we were binge-watching this glassblowing show on television, and we ourselves got sucked into it too.  The show "Blown Away" has us hooked, watching all this artistry with heat and glass.  But the programming of the night is our continued "Spider-thon," which ended tonight, unless we go see that latest movie in the theater again.  Which Maddie wouldn't mind, of course.  But "Far From Home" is such a great movie - we enjoyed this one, just as we've enjoyed all nine of these that we've watched since Christmas.  Maddie and I may continue a more informal  Spider-thon with some episodes of the television show, but starting tomorrow, we've got to get into the mystery mode, watching more things based on Sherlock Holmes for ideas about our upcoming series.  We're doing work on "Get a Clue" still, and we've got a ways to go.  It starts pretty soon!

Tonight we were reading before bed, a couple chapters a night.  After prayers, we're reading other books in bed.  Maddie's been working on a book she picked up at the bookstore a week ago, and I'm still reading this book on Ulysses S Grant.  Who actually didn't have a middle name that starts with an S.  History can be fascinating - not necessarily the middle initial part, but rather the entire division of the country.  Why can't we all just get along?  Age old question.

Anyway, it's chilly outside, and we're off to sleep tonight under the warmth of our blankets.  It just felt odd going to sleep in the winter with a ceiling fan on - so glad things are back to normal!