Havre de Grace, Maryland, U.S.A.

After a harsh and snowy winter spring is here.  Easter Sunday and it was 80 degrees and beautiful. We decided to take a jaunt into the next town for a stroll in the sun on the promenade in Havre de Grace.  Everyone was out.  It was a breath taking day.

This is the Havre de Grace lighthouse.  One of the oldest operating lighthouses in the United States.

The Promenade

We took our little dog with us.   He was very quiet taking it all in.

A muskrat enjoying the sun and lunch

We saw this snapper in the water - I was amazed.  There were many - this was a smaller one - his shell the size of a small dinner plate.  There was a much larger one under the pier.

It was a gorgeous day

After  such a hard winter I find it hard to believe that spring has arrived

Spring is Really Here!

Spring is here for real!  The Spring Peepers are out in force singing their spring song and I found these gorgeous flowers in my hedge row this morning. To think that three weeks ago the State was in a standstill brought on by 3 consecutive blizzards. This week has been 75 degrees and sunny.  Everyone has cabin fever and are out in force just soaking up the rays.  I know this warm snap is a freak streak of weather and it will get cool again. I intend to enjoy it while I can.

Spring is Really Here!

Beautiful

These are very tiny wild flowers in our backyard.  While standing all you see is a white dot.  When you get down your your knees and look closely you see the white dot  is actually a flower.

First Signs of Spring

It was a beautiful sunny warm day today.  I found these beautiful flowers while doing yard work in our backyard. They are very tiny as you can see from the size of the clover leaf next to the flower.

How To Build a Birthday Cake

 

5 pounds of chocolate buttercream icing

 

Begin with your basic cake -I chose a yellow cake with chocolate marble

 

Level your cake by cutting off the rounded top

 

Ice the top of your base layer which will of course be the center of your cake

 

 Assemble the cake by topping with your second layer

 

Apply a layer of crumb coat icing to lock in the crumbs and give you a smooth base for decorating

 

The application of the crumb coat is complete - the cake never looks attractive at this  point

 

The start of the basketweave and decorating the cake

 

Basic Basketweave

 

 Basketweave complete -  now ready for the border

 

Piping the border around the edges

 

The finished product - ready for candles and a fork!

Vintage Crystal

 

One of my hobbies is "beading" or jewelry making. I enjoy working with crystals and pearls.  Recently I have started buying vintage beads and reworking designs.  I found this beautiful vintage necklace a few days ago at an antique mall.  It's a beautiful 2 strand necklace.  Such a beautiful design and the crystals are so brilliant I will keep the design as it is.  I will take it apart, clean the crystals and restring in the same pattern.

Cat Rescue

This is Eve.  We found Eve in our yard over a year ago on a bitterly cold January day.  When I found her she was very sick and near death. We took her into our house and turned our bathroom into a cat intensive care unit.  We took Eve to the vet, had her put on antibiotics and nursed her back to health.  She was a beautiful cat.  After we nursed her back to health we found a cat rescue organization to take her in to find her a home.

 

The final members of our herd.  The kitty in the flower pot is Socks. She is the mother of Valentino.  The cat to her left is "Boy" - he is the kitten from her first litter which makes him Valentino's half-brother.  Socks and Boy live outside.  We supply them with a never ending food supply and have built them a nice, dare I admit it, heated shelter for the winter months. Boy is semi wild and will never be a house cat.  Socks on the other hand, is a sweetie of a cat. She was feral when we found her in our yard a few years ago.  Since then she has become very tame and we are grooming her to be an inside/outside cat. 

Nap Time

We could hardly believe what we were seeing........Valentino crawled into Gizmo's bed and took a nap with him.

Snuggle Time

 

Gizmo is very jealous of Valentino.  Valentino loves Gizmo and always wants to play with him.  Gizmo misunderstands Valentino's "play" for agression and signals get crossed quite often. When Gizmo sits in my husband's lap Valentino wants to join Gizmo and be part of the snuggle. 

 

 A favorite photo of Tiger and Foxy

Top Dog

 

This is our dog Gizmo. He is a Pomeranian. He lost all the fur on his body when he was a young puppy.  He must wear a sweater in the winter to keep him warm.

This is Valentino. He is the latest cat addition to our herd.  We took him in just over a year ago.  His mom is the "stray" that lives in our back yard. She had a litter of kittens under a bush by our deck.  We fell in love with the kittens and found homes for all of them except Valentino.  We took  him in our home to "foster" him until we could find someone to adopt him.  Needless to say, we fell in love with him and made him a permanent member of our household.

 

This is Tiger.  He has been with me for a long time. His favorite pass time is lounging.  

Here are a few photos of some of the things that keep me busy.  We have three house cats and a dog.  We also have 2 stray cats that live outside that we take care of.  This is Foxy, our female cat. She is the sweetest cat I have ever known.

Blizzards

In the last week we have experienced 2 back to back blizzards.  Very rare for Maryland. We live in a State where people are snow-phobic and 4 inches of snow can bring the state to a standstill and close schools.  Last Saturday we had a snow storm which dumped over a foot of snow on us.  A few days later, Tuesday, we had a second, more severe storm dump almost 2 feet of snow on us.  The snow brought the state to a standstill.  My place of employment has been closed for a week.  It was two amazing storms.  They were being called 100 year snowstorms.  The storms broke the budgets of the local County and State Governments.  The local Governments requested Contractors from out of state to bring equipment to help with the snow removal.  Believe me, we are all looking forward to spring.........

Learning Stages

I wanted to begin a blog to connect with other people that share my interests in life.  I live a busy life, as we all do, and I try my best to achieve a balance in my life.  A balance of family, time for myself, my home and my hobbies.  My current hobby is jewelry making.  I have been making jewelry for the past 3 years.  The hobby quickly became an obsession and I also have begun to sell my jewelry via Etsy and through friends and coworkers.

This is my first attempt at any sort of blog and I am in the learning stages of how to design my page, post my messages and upload photos of life.

Check back to check on my progress.

Mary