It has begun.....finally

Good morning.
The weather has started to moderate a bit. We've had a few days of 40's with today topping out in the 50's before cooling down a bit after a weather system goes through tomorrow.
I arrived home early enough to do a bit outside and captured these signs of spring.

A clump of daffodils up by the house, and a hellebore just starting to come to life.

I spent the late afternoon, picking up sticks, cutting down the last of the grasses and perennials, and cleaning out some flower beds.
It's been a pretty good week in the Salon, and I'm booked solid today, and working late.
And with that, time to go.

did you say a million dollars?

Good morning.
We had quite the unusual day yesterday.
We had a money market account that was earning next to nothing, and decided to move it to another bank with a not much better rate.   :-\
We went to Flagstar, where we already had a CD. 
Went in told them we want to open a Smart Savings account and we already had a CD with them. The nice lady took us over to a desk, and proceeded to set us up with the account. Upon putting in Craig's name to pull up our other account, she said he already had a Smart Savings account. He said, no, I don't. I have just the CD here. She then ask to verify, his whole name, address, and SS number. Apparently, they all matched the name on the other account. She asked him if he knew anyone in Bloomfield Hills, (that's like the richest suburb of Detroit) He said no. The she asked him if he knew another name on that account. He didn't. She was puzzled, and we were concerned. how did someone get all his info, and why would they use it to open a savings account. Craig asked, "how much money is in the account". She said a little over a million. I said, "Craig, I think that's your cousin from your dad's side you've never seen." He looks at me and says, "ya, you wish."
Anyway, long story shortened up a bit,.
After she made a few calls, she discovered that the person down in Bloomfield Hills that opened the account, A person with almost the same name, different middle name, was put on the account as a beneficiary, and she accidentally pulled up Craig's info, instead of the other Craig.
If we wouldn't have gone in to open an account, that mistake may never have been discovered. Not that it would have benefited Craig. As a beneficiary, he couldn't have touched the account anyway unless the people that opened it passed away.
Computers are only as good as the people putting in the info.
And now back to work for another work week, but first, here's another tasty batch of wings I made yesterday.

On the left, garlic Parmesan, and the right, honey barbecue. um good!

again! really?

Good morning.
It snowed again last night.
But that's not what the post's title is about.
More on that later.

 Spring is just not showing up yet. You can see, the pond is still frozen. Normally, in about 2 weeks, the daffodils should be in full bloom. There are no signs of them even starting to come up!
Anyway....
The power has finally come back on after being out for just over an hour. I was online this morning, and all of a sudden, black. We have a couple of hurricane lamps that I lit to find my way around the house. To be sure it wasn't just our house, I have 2 things to check. One, in the neighbors property, near the back corner of our yard, sits a wind shear tower used by the near-by airport.

You can't see it in this pic, but there's a red light at the top that's always on. It wasn't. Second, if I walk out near the end of the driveway, I can see the traffic light down the street a ways. It was out also. So, I called in a report, and waited.
There's not much you can do without power, but I did have my fully charged laptop and tablet. That kept me entertained until the power was back on.
Now back to the post title. I cleaned the Salon yesterday morning, got a quick chiro adjustment and came home. Got Craig up and did our usual Monday routine. Back home, I decided it was time to check the water levels in the 2 mo-ho house batteries. They were fine. I also checked the inside of the mo-ho for any signs of mice. Sure enough, a trap had caught another mouse! That's the 3rd one this winter. We've never had mice in the mo-ho in the winter before. I don't know what's going on. Thankfully I'm getting them with the traps. I re-baited the traps and even added a couple more for good measure.
probably won't be doing much today, I'm suppose to be working in the yard. It's suppose to be spring. But it's not looking like that is going to happen anytime soon.. :-(
And that's all I got.

good morning

Good morning.
I've just returned from the Salon. No, I didn't clean it. I finally got around to replacing 6 floor tiles that were either cracked or stained. Went quicker than expected. I'll go in early tomorrow morning to clean the Salon.
And here it is, March 24th, and I've done nothing outside. Not for lack of wanting, but for lack of warmth. It's 25 out right now going for a lousy high of 36. We should be averaging 46 by now.  :-\
I guess were getting payback for our ridiculously warm March from last year. We had nearly 3 weeks of 80 last March. W-a-y warmer than normal. Everything budded up too early, and was killed by hard freezes in April. Michigan lost nearly it's entire crops of grapes, cherries, apples and peaches. So I guess all the growers are happy with a late spring this year. Just not me.   :-(
But, on a good note, our Spartans are once again in the sweet sixteen of the basketball tournament. At least we've been having some good games to watch.
And I just booked another camping weekend. This one will take us near Grand Rapids, MI, where we will finally take in the wildly popular Art prize.
 And that's about it for now.

netvibes, a good homepage

Good morning.
It was another snowy windy day yesterday, and I stayed indoors and cleaned. 
Since I haven't posted much in pics lately, here's a couple....
First up, my new Netvibes homepage.

Since igoogle is due to end this year, I was proactive in looking for a suitable replacement. I finally settled on Netvibes. It has similarities with igoogle, and although at first, I didn't like it as well, now that I've been using it for nearly 6 months, it's a fine replacement..  :-)
You can lay the page out in 1-4 columns, and add any thing to the columns and arrange them how you like. I currently have 3 columns with a pic of my summer garden I can change at any time.
The next pic is the background on my desk-top. No, it's not a pic of my yard, I wish it were.  :-)
It's a stock photo I got from the web.

It gives me hope that soon, it will be spring here.
And I forgot to mention in my previous post, I've turned on word verification for comments. I've been receiving a lot of spam in the comments. Blogger has caught a lot of them, but to try and put an end to them I'm hoping word verification helps. I'll wait awhile and turn it off again and see how it goes. I'm thinking it shouldn't be a big deal, since I don't get very many comments anyway.  :-)
Now time for another work week. It's looking pretty busy so far.

a visit with Mom.

Good morning.
Winter persists, as we got another dusting of snow last night.   :-(
Sunday, Craig and I drove up to Muskegon to visit with my Mom.
Cut her hair, emptied trash, and took her out to Applebee's for lunch. We were met there by my brother Brian and his wife Ruth, and another brother, Bruce and his wife Tammy.
We had a nice lunch, and a good visit. After lunch, we said our goodbyes to Bruce and Tammy, and headed to the VFW with my Mom and brother Brian and Ruth. As usual, no luck with he pull-tabs, but had a nice time with family. Left the VFW and said our goodbyes to Brian and Ruth, and stopped at the grocery store on the way back to Mom's apartment for some groceries. Got her back home and settled in, and headed back to Lansing, arriving save and sound.
Monday was our usual running around, bank P.O. and groceries. But before we left home, while Craig was in the shower, I put together our St Paddies Day dinner in the crock-pot. The most delicious corned beef you could eat. It cooks for 8 hours on high, so I needed to get it started before we did our running. And as usual, it was so tender and tasty! If you haven't yet, you really should try this one!
Anyway, with the colder than normal weather persisting, I'm unable to do any work outside yet.   :-(
Hopefully, the weather will soon get better, although the next weeks forecast isn't looking promising. We're suppose to "average" in the mid 40's this time of year, but 30's is all that's forecast for the rest of the week.   :-(
Oh well, spring will get here eventually.....I hope....

no spring here

Good morning.
Here's some pics I took yesterday after I got home from work. 

This funny little shrub is called a Contorted Filbert.

There really is a pond under all that snow.

No spring to be found here!   :-)
It's currently 23 out going all the way up to 31.  :-\
Of course, I just returned from cleaning the Salon. Saturday ended very busy, and after we got home, we watched as our Michigan State Spartans get sent home early from the Big 10 Tournament.   :-(
Now time to go. I've got another weekend to enjoy.   :-)

Locks of Love

Good morning.
Winter is still hanging around here in Michigan. We got another 2 inches of snow overnight.   :-(
We should be in the mid 40's this time of year, but the weekend looks like it'll stay in the mid to upper 30's. No early spring this year.
 The salon has been fairly slow, but steady, and I'm fully booked for today.
I did another Locks of Love haircut this week.

I had the mother of the girl fill out the donation  form, I put in two ponytails, measured the proper length, and cut them off. I bagged them, put them in a cushioned mailer, and will send them off this morning. I then re-cut the girls hair into a short bob.
And with nothing else to say, I'm off for my last day of work this week.

another weekend over

Good morning.
Our spring like weather was fleeting, as there's an inch of snow on the ground this morning.   "-(
We are in that time of year where we might reach into the upper 30's to low 40's, then drop back down into the 20's overnight.
But, we're almost half way through March, so spring is slowly coming.
It rained most of Monday and was cold and windy on Tuesday. Craig made a big batch of broth from the last two turkey carcases. I did some random house cleaning, and went through the DVD collection, and thinned out a bunch to throw away.  They weren't one's I could sell or give away. They were all movies I downloaded from the web, burned to disc, and watched. Anyway, some we didn't care for and other's we liked enough to go out and buy a better copy.
Dinner yesterday, was pork cutlets over stuffing. Craig mixed a bag of frozen veggies with the stuffing, added a can of creamed corn for needed moisture and binding, topped with boneless pork cutlets, seasoned and baked. Very good, and enough for leftovers.

And now, time for another work week.

spring like

Good morning.
Our spring like weather continues for one more day, as it's suppose to be rainy and 49 before dropping back into the mid 30's tomorrow.
Saturday went as expected, and I did as much income wise on Saturday, as I did the 3 previous days. I was exhausted when I got home.
Sunday, I of course, cleaned the salon, and later in the day, went out in the yard to enjoy our first 50 degree day this year. I checked out yard, and picked up numerous sticks and branches that have fallen during the winter.
Today will be our usual banking, P.O. and shopping. We are also picking up a new clothes iron, as our old one is spitting out water with the steam while ironing.
And with that, time to go.

slow week

Good morning.
It's been a slow week in the Salon, but it looks to end with a flurry. Sat. I've got a perm, a foil, a frost, 4 colors, and 7 haircuts. It'll be non-stop from 7:30 until I finish at 4pm. (hopefully, if I don't get behind.)
We are going to have a few spring like days this weekend, with temps climbing into the mid 40's.  :-)
And the new paint job in the Salon? I've had not one customer of mine notice.  I think over the past 2 weeks, we've had about 6 customers total, notice the new color. Apparently, it doesn't look out of place and blends well with the decor. That's a good thing.   :-)
Other than that, not much else to report.
So have a great weekend!

it's over again

Good morning.
Well, the weekend is over, and I did not one post.
And that's because I pretty much didn't do anything.
Craig worked on our tax returns, and I stayed out of the way.  :-)
He got them done and will mail them this morning. We're getting a nice little refund, and it was our best year since 2006. Hard to believe it's taken 7 years to recover from the great recession, but Michigan was hit pretty hard.
I also conjured up the IT guy in me, and fixed Craig's printer. He would try to print a page and it would spit out 7 blank pages before finally printing the page. After unplugging the printer, restarting the puter, running a diagnostic on the printer, I finally uninstalled the printer, and reinstalled it. That worked.
We also just missed the last big snow storm. It came down from Wisconsin, went through Chicago, and skirted to the east, just below Michigan. It actually was sunny here yesterday.
Besides getting our taxes done, Craig made a couple of tasty dinners. One was Cranberry Roast Pork, and the other was Kung Pao Chicken.  
And that was pretty much our weekend, and now, time to get ready for another work week.

I missed my anniversary!

I can't believe it!
I missed my blogoversary!
I started blogging way back on January 24th, 2006.
I've done 1447 posts. I peaked in 2009 with 266 posts, and have dropped every year since. And this year looks to be on target for even fewer. Either I don't ramble on as much about nothing, or my life was way more interesting a few years back.   :-)
Anyway, The week ended very busy, and I'm looking forward to another weekend.   :-)