We just had some crazy storms roll across Chicago… torrential rains, gusting winds & a few tornadoes in the area. We hunkered down & watched the weather radar from the “safety” of our classroom at Lillstreet tonight. I’m just hoping that everyone made it home safely & not too much damage from the storms. Me?… a bit of flooding in the basement & the street out front is flooded… and it’s STILL raining!!! But I’m home safe & dry. Hoping everyone else is too!!!

So I was just out for an afternoon bike ride along the lake… gentle clouds, breezy, nice. But then… seemingly out of nowhere, the winds went crazy, the clouds went dark & the temperature dropped quickly!!! I even saw little pop-up sailboats racing back to safety… only to see three of them capsize from the wind. Luckily, they were all well-trained and got them back up quickly. So… I turned around, got drizzled on twice & picked up my pace racing home. I just got home LITERALLY three minutes before the sky opened up & the rain started coming down!!! Whew!!!

While driving to the studio about an hour ago…
my car said it was pretty darn HOT in Chicago today!!!

Day One of “Hinsdale” done… and fairly drippy! We had pretty steady rain all day… and just hoping to have a better & drier day tomorrow! If you stop by, everything should be freshly washed!!! Nice & clean for Day Two of the Hinsdale Fine Arts Show tomorrow from 10am-4pm.

Experiencing the eclipse Monday with some friends… with a whole assortment of eye-protection! Also good for shooting photographs through! Here in Chicago, they say we had 94% totality… which was pretty darn cool.

While Spring might “officially” be two weeks away… I’m calling it Spring already here in Chicago. Especially with the warm near-70 temps yesterday & the forsythia bushes are already starting to bloom!!!

Another beautiful day… clear skies with a warm start & a forecast of upper sixties for later this afternoon. It’s hard to think that just a couple days ago we had SNOW!!! And that by looking at the calendar… we probably will again!!! But for now… maybe just today & tomorrow… SPRING IS HERE!!! Okay, just let me have this one…

Now don’t get me wrong… I’m not saying that it is quite “warm” yet as there are still remnants of Winter literally hanging on along the lakefront. And there are no delusions here that Winter is over. You know there is probably more cold & snow on it’s way at some point!!! But let’s enjoy this while we can…

Don’t get me wrong… it’s still chilly in Chicago.
And we had another hard frost overnight giving everything a beautiful coating of winter sparkle.