Two Februarys

Way-too-early buds and blossoms (the daffodil was purchased, but the other blooms came of their own accord), growing grass that had to be mowed, sunshine as well as rain.

Then... suddenly, Winter came. After a season bereft of snow, it came and came and came. And we were glad.

Into October

I returned from my late September retreat to a newly-revamped bird & squirrel feeder outside my kitchen window. I returned to continued mild weather, making a very green Autumn. I returned to a mound of firewood needing to be stacked (a seasonal favorite; no joke). I returned to just enough crisp in the air to justify the dusting off of my most delicious stew recipes.

I also returned to a scary call-back for a second mammogram and ultrasound (they found nothing but exceptionally dense breast tissue, thank goodness). And... after a few brief weeks of transitioning back to normal life, there was a fatal hard drive crash that ended everything abruptly.

With a family vacation on the calendar for the next week, all I could do was take the failed hard drive to the Geek Squad and pray for the best. Normally a faithful monthly backer-upper, I had lapsed in my good habits for months. Meaning master copies of any new design and financial records were under threat of being lost forever. Re-creating them would have taken weeks of my time, so I paid the big bucks for the highest chance of retrieval, packed my suitcases for vacation and tried to leave the worry behind.