This morning was very quiet & very serene. With deep shades of blue on the horizon
during this beautiful & unseasonably warm morning. And then I found a grove of
“spooky” trees just south of Belmont Harbor. Yes, I must have ridden past them
literally THOUSANDS of times… and just noticed them today! Finally.

Then, a little further down the path I stopped for a serene moment by myself.
Quiet. Relaxing. Reflective. All too soon it was time to turn around and head back home…

I returned to “the scene of the crime” and back to the spooky trees as the sun continued
to rise. A little brighter, but the trees still seem to be a little sad. Weeping as though
the Winter got the better of them. Although I know it was a surprisingly mild Winter?!

I still don’t know what kind of tree this is?!
Maybe I’ll be able to figure it out when the leaves start to come out in the next few weeks.

After a surprisingly warm Winter, it appears as though Spring has come early
as well. With some surprisingly warm days… and flowers popping up already!
And it’s just the first weeks of March… crazy!!!

With little beauties popping up in my front yard garden! Much better than snow…

Nature’s beauty times two… just a few minutes apart.

Well, I guess it is still “technically” Winter after all…

While working down in my basement storage room this morning,
I was surrounded by pots, crates, shelves, boxes, more pots… & flowers?! Who’da thunk?
There I was “finally” putting away all of the remains from the Holiday Home Shows.
Trying to make some sense of the mess I call my storage space! All of the stuff that filled
my condo just “filled” my storage space with no rhyme or reason. Putting things away
trying to figure what what’s left, what kind of inventory I have and what I still need to make!
And then I saw flowers… bougainvillea and gerbera daisies!!! Sure, they’re not the brightest
or healthiest of flowers… kind of anemic & sickly. Very few green leaves left on the branches!

So at the end of the summer, I take the flower pots of my back porch and literally
just throw them down in the basement. My hope is that a few of the plants might survive
until Spring rolls around and they can go outside again. I’ll admit my track record isn’t
all that great. Because I always forget to water them! But then today, amongst the dried up
& crunchy leaves on most of the plants… there were flowers!!! Crazy.

The bougainvillea & gerbera daisies are in bloom.
I know our winter has been warmer than normal, but really?! Flowers?… Now?!

Remember the beautiful cherry blossoms a couple weeks ago?
The ones I got from the Chinese New Years Party? Well, some of the branches
we holding up quite nicely on the back porch. I think the cool Winter evenings
were helping to keep the flowers fresh. But then the temperature dropped quickly
and I kind of forgot about the cherry blossoms. Until today…

As I was leaving out the back porch to go to the studio, I saw the now-frozen
cherry blossoms and saw something crazy going on in the bottom of the glass vase.
At first I thought it was roots sprouting from the branches. Apparently not.

Upon further inspection, these frozen “threads” turned out to be air bubbles. Really.
I’m sure there’s some sort of chemistry or physics explanation for what’s happening here.
Or how the temperature fluctuations, barometric pressure, molecular formations and other
incomprehensible factors all aligned to create this magnificent frozen illusion. However,
I don’t understand it. And I’m not sure that I need to. I just love that it happens!

I also like how the discolored water that the branches were soaking in has somehow
been “balled up” and pushed together by the ice threads. A beautiful “sphere” of tannin
surrounding the branches in stark contrast to the sparkling ice bubbles.

As part of our Asian themed party, we had branches of blooming cherry blossoms
in several of the rooms. A beautiful “pop” of color and a hint of Spring. Lucky for me…
we had some leftovers! So I brought home a few bundles to brighten up my home.

So many branches… so many that my neighbors got a beautiful centerpiece too!!!
Even this beautiful branch in an Emily Murphy bottle is now gracing my back porch.
Even a small bundle on my stove in fromt of my collection of mini’s!

And I think my class might “benefit” from some extras on Tuesday night as well.
Shhhh… don’t ruin the surprise!

The snow finally hit Chicago today.
We’ve had a few flurries here & there… but nothing like today!
And of course, the worst of it was during the evening rush hour. So my 8-mile
drive from “glitter gig” to the studio took me just over two hours and fifteen minutes!!!
And this is what it looked like most of the way… green street lights & red tail lights!

And not a single City snow plow along the way! What’s up with that???
Who would have thought that less than two weeks ago I was riding my bike
along the lakefront enjoying beautiful sunrises?!

If I didn’t need to make it to the studio to “top off” a cone 10 kiln tonight
I would have definitely gone straight home. But thanks to Corinne, she had
some space left in her kiln and was asking for people to fill the space…
and you know I’m the “King Of Kiln Filler”!!!

It was another unusually sunny & warm Winter day here in Chicago.
So, what else to do?…  but go for a nice long bike ride. And it was wonderful.
A lot warmer than my morning sunrise rides have been. So I went even further!
When I got home, I was struck by the beauty of my new orchid as it was dappled
in shadows from the sun that was streaming in through the dining room windows!