It's still kinda winter-ish...

I love all four of our glorious seasons. 

I love summer for its warmth and sunshine.  Summer is for trips to Lake Geneva.  It's for sitting outside during my lunchbreaks.  It's for days at the pool.  

Fall has her beautiful colors and her mood-swinging temps.  Cooler at night which is a reprieve from summer's hot-and-humid-all-the-time weather.  Fall requires sweaters and blankets and extra mugs of hot cider and trips to the orchard.

Winter is for staying inside and watching copious amounts of old Christmas movies and drinking a ridiculous amount of decaf coffee.  Winter is for rest.  Winter is for comfort foods and ice skating.

Spring.  Spring is the season following the bundle-up-so-you-do-not-freeze-to-death.  Spring should be light jackets and umbrellas.  Mornings filled with a chilly start and then a warm-up.

We are currently experiencing the chilly start...which lasts throughout the day.  

Yesterday we had flurries.  Flurries.  It's April 9th.  Flurries on April 9th.  Clearly we are what....20ish days in to spring and spring has yet to sprung!!!

I do see daffodils and robins both trying to survive this nonsensical nonsense-ish weather.  

I miss warmth.  I'm not even saying it has to be 80.  I would love it if it would get near 70.  Goodness - even a steady diet of the 60's would be divine.  The 60's are do-able.  And bearable.

It does not feel like spring out.  

I cannot take anymore winter.

Let me say it again.  I. CANNOT. TAKE. ANYMORE. WINTER.

Dear Winter, 
Apparently you did not get the memorandum that we are over. Completely over.  I need you to take your cold temps and move up to the Artic Circle where you belong.  You do not need to write, text, or email me.  I will re-evaluate our relationship next December.  Until then - see ya!  Wouldn't wanna be ya!
Sincerely,
Angie

The trick is...

After several years of card-making, I finally figured out the trick to be overly-productive at my friend Nancy's stamping evening at Michael's.  ( Her event is from 3 to 9 p.m. on the first Saturday of each month. )

Hours before the event, I go through my card-making supplies and say to myself, "What stamps have I not used recently?  Which embellishments have been in this box for ages?" 

I pull out the not-recently-used stamps and the long-forgotten embellishments and I take ONLY those items.

Tonight my goal was to make cards for some smallish envelopes that my mom had given me over a year ago.

The envelope size was 3-1/2 inches by 4-3/4 (ish).  Not my standard A4 envelopes.  But cute and I had a ridiculous amount of this new size...and I was running low on my beloved A4's.

I pulled out kiddish stamps and 2 containers of square brads.  I used all by 3 stamps and none of the brads.  You win some and you lose some.

All in all, I assembled and colored 29 cards.  14 designs with some duplicates here and there.

I played around with my early birthday present colored pencils.  Ooooooh and I bought a colorless blender marker-y pen.  It blends the colored pencils so they have a watercolor finish.  No one else in the room had ever heard of this lovely piece of crafting equipment.  And you're welcome, Rockford Michael's store because you sold out tonight.

After stamping, the girls were headed to Thai Hut for nourishment.  Kathy and I opted to head to respective places of residence as we had both been gone from said locations since circa 9 a.m.

Back-tracking...IKEA was lovely.  I thoroughly enjoyed spending the beginning part of my day with my organization-loving co-worker.  We spent nearly 3 hours in IKEA and then sought nourishment at Sweet Tomatoes.  I forgot how much I love that soup and salad joint.

The weather today was February-esque at best and obstinate at worst.  It fluctuated between sunny & blustery to spitting snow-flurries & blustery.  One minute the snow would cease and sun would shine and the next said co-worker and I were looking outside questioning, "What is happening?"

April in the Midwest.

Joy.

I am praying tomorrow is "normal" and April-esque.  Because snow.......ain't nobody got time for dat!!!!

It's sprrrrrrrrrring!!!!!!!

Happy 1st day of Spring!!!!!!!!