The first new day of a new year.

So, yesterday the thermometer missed a record high (66F) by one degree.  I only wore a fleece jacket to walk Quinn in the park, and the sun was brilliant in a sapphire sky.  Today, I wore a fleece jacket to walk Quinn in the park-under my ski jacket.  The high today in the 30'sF, and the wind was blowing so hard that even though the brilliant sun was still up there in that sapphire sky it was cold!  Not frigid, frigid would have required long johns etc, but cold enough especially face into the wind.  So it's January and the cold is more normal, I heard a newscaster ask when the "frigid" weather was going to break-get real, one day? It will warm up again by the weekend-but not into the 60's, still it's been a really mild winter so far.  Here at the edge of the great plains we have a great variety of weather, I'm told it's the hardest place to forecast the weather in the United States, so there is an old folk saying "It you don't like the weather in Missouri wait a day it will change." Truer words were never spoken.

I made a big pot of beef stew to be eaten with a big batch of biscuits for Tanya's birthday dinner today-it was yummy and perfect for a cold day.   Beth, Lucas, the boys and Zoe came to help us eat it!  Quinn found her inner 'wild child' again but I learned how to calm her down this time-we'll be working on that this week!  That's along with her current command to "come".  She answers nicely in the house to her name, but outside is a different story, she also knows "leave it" even if she doesn't always do the leaving at first, and "let's go".   Not bad for a 3 month old puppy.  Bobby brought his new huskie puppy over today as well for a few minutes-he's maybe 3 weeks younger that Quinn and already bigger, really big feet on that puppy!

I also did some tidying up in the kitchen and stitched up a couple of blocks in the flannel while I watched Harry Potter (only two more to go).  More productive than the past week but I didn't get everything finished.  I never do.  Ah well, it will still be there tomorrow.