In my family, February is The Birthday Month. My husband’s birthday is on the 21st and my daughter’s on the 24th, and this year they turned 50 and 27. So while February is still winter here up north, still dark and dreary, still too cold, my focus is on other, more pleasant things. I also like the whole only-28-days thing February’s got going on, so even if it’s cold, it’s at least short, right? 🙂
All in all, February was a good month, and we were unusually busy. So for once, I’ve taken pictures of something other than my kitchen fireplace, believe it or not. Wanna see? 🙂
Project Build Nell’s Fancy Bathroom was almost finished in February, and by almost, I mean that we’re still waiting on the tub, but everything else is done and I’ve already taken many showers in the lovely two-person shower. And that meant I could move back into my office. I’ve had a temporary office space downstairs, because Project Build Nell’s Fancy Bathroom was a noisy project, not conducive for neither writing nor working the Day Job from home. But now I’ve reclaimed my space. Yay.
Since everyone at work (except me) had covid in January, we’re all healthy and back to work now. But work offers a completely different trauma now; moving! We’re moving offices (in April) so there’s lots of frenetic sorting, throwing things away, and packing going on around the office. And I hate moving and now that we’ve found our forever home, the hubby and I are in agreement; we’re never moving again.
And then work came along and threw a wrench into that plan. But at least there’s one upside of being new at the office: I haven’t had much time to accumulate a lot of things, so I can just throw my stuff into a box and call it a day.
And I don’t even have to carry it myself 🙂
One day, something yellow in one of the dead flowerbeds caught my eye, so I grabbed my phone, ran out into the garden, and snapped pictures of these little darlings. Aren’t they a sight for sore eyes? (And let’s not mention that a few short hours after I crowed “SPRING HAS SPRUNG!” so loudly that my neighbors probably heard me and they’re half a mile away, it started snowing, but at least it didn’t stick around for long.)
I made a fabulous dinner for me and the hubby one weekend when I was in a cooking mood; I seared a pork fillet and stuffed it with garlic and fresh rosemary, and then finished it off in the oven. It was divine!
And now that the bathroom project was done, the next set of contractors arrived; the solar panel guys. This particular day was a cold one, with rain coming down sideways, and I sat inside by the fire warming up my icy cold bones, while the solar panel guys crawled around on my roof in that horrid weather.
That’s another profession added to my list of jobs I’m never applying for.
A short while before my husband’s birthday, all covid restrictions were dropped, so we decided to go out and celebrate him. He’s not as introverted as I am and needs to see someone else than me occasionally, so we spoke with a few friends, made reservations, and went out for drinks and dinner at the hubby’s favorite craft beer place in Malmö where we used to live before we moved to the house.
It was weird, being around so many people again. It was fun to see our friends again, but I won’t lie: I would’ve been just as happy at home with a glass of red, a fire, and a great playlist. I would also have preferred to wake up in my own cozy bed instead of the super hard am I lying on a plank? bed at the hotel where we stayed the night.
We took a wrong turn when we were out driving, which isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes you end up on narrow, twisting roads flanked by a beautiful landscape.
We’ve had lots of rain and snow (that’s melted) and storms in my part of the world this year, so the small creek behind our house has swelled to triple its width and flooded areas that aren’t usually under water. We have a rickety shed pretty close to the creek that usually is far away from the water, but currently the creek is less than a foot away. So let’s all hope it doesn’t get any higher, because if it does, I wouldn’t be surprised if the shed is swept away with the water.
The last weekend of the month, we went to visit family in our old home town because of the dual birthday situation. And I got to see my favorite person in the whole wide world again, my darling granddaughter 😍
My mother-in-law had a soccer ball sized globe-shaped lamp on the floor of the sunroom, and my grandbaby patted it and said “Ball.”
“No darling,” I said, “it’s a lamp. Look.” I turned on the switch to show her.
She patted it again. “Ball.”
“Yes, I know that it looks like a ball, but it’s really a lamp. See.” The switch again.
She furrowed her brows. “Ball!! Ball!!” She was unhappy with me until my father-in-law found her a real ball that she could play with and then everything was forgotten.
She’s the light of my life.
And on the last day of February, it suddenly wasn’t dark anymore. The sun peeked over the horizon when we left home at 6:20 am, and when I arrived at the train station, I was greeted by this gorgeous sky.
“SPRING HAS SPRUNG,” she crowed so loudly the neighbors could hear.
Tell me something about your February!
Nell Iris 