Yep, it's January

We had some crazy weather earlier this week. In the very, very early hours of Monday morning, we had a thunder, lightening and rain storm like we haven't seen in I can't tell you how many years! It literally poured buckets and buckets of rain ... that is, before it turned into hail. Then, in some areas it hailed so hard it looked like it had snowed - some places had two inches of hail and it stayed all night and into the day it was so cold. The thunder was so close overhead, that our house literally shook. Poor Slips - she was terrified and woke us up to comfort her. Thankfully, it was a fast moving storm. After about an hour or so, the thunder and lightening had travelled far enough east that Slippers finally began to calm down and we could all go back to sleep.

By Tuesday, it was absolutely beautiful! The sky was a beautiful shade of blue and so clear there was not a cloud in sight, and the sun was shining and it had, in fact, turned quite warm. The rest of the week our temperatures fluctuated between the mid-seventies to mid-eighties -- and that's about where we stand right now.

With all of this wonderful weather, Kevin and I began to think that it will soon be 'porch sittin'' weather - we like to sit outside on the front porch and have breakfast on the weekend and read the paper - so we decided to work outside a bit this morning and get things back into shape.

Kevin removed all of the dead impatiens from the front of the walk way. He tilled the soil really well and planted new impatiens that will soon explode into bright, cheery colors:

While he was busy doing that, I removed all of the furniture and plants from the front porch, washed everything down and then began replacing it, rearranging as I went along. This morning we were out early and found some new cushions for the chairs and love seat. I also found a pretty green planter and some beautiful red cyclamen - just in time for Valentine's day!



Since the red camelias are in bloom, I picked a few of those and added them to an old red and white enameled pitcher. I thought it looked pretty on the little coffee table in front of the love seat.

Now all we need is a little coffee, some bagels and juice and the Sunday L.A. Times and we'll be all set.