Janet's Blog

I thought about calling this blog "My Burka-Wearing Self," but that would just be wrong. However, when I stopped to edit yesterday's selfies, I was a bit astonished to notice that my cold weather headgear looked more like an Islamic burka than I had intended. Hmmm... The stocking cap I usually wear on top didn't help at all, and it was even worse when I pulled my balaclava up to cover my nose. Last fall, when winter weather arrived early, I seem to remember wanting a black balaclava, like so many skiers wear to keep warm. I received two for Christmas, so I promptly gifted one to Meagan to wear on her early morning, winter runs, on the acreage behind her house, where no one will ever see her. I've been wearing mine all winter long, whenever I walk in my neighborhood, thankful for the warmth it provides, and especially for the way it protects my face and neck from the wind. I wasn't planning to make a fashion statement, and it's obvious that I di

I am feeling discouraged about my blog. If you are one of the few people reading my blog lately, you may have noticed that I'm not writing as often as usual, certainly not once a week, as I have intended. I just can't get excited about writing since my readership has declined so drastically since October. I can attribute this sudden decline to a couple of things. First of all, Facebook has changed its algorithms again and, this time, it affected my blog immediately, and not for the better. Secondly, Google is dropping Google +, which also directly affects the number of people who read my blog. I know I am not the only person who is grieving the changes that have been happening on Facebook. For me, and for many others in my extended family, Facebook originally provided a simple, suitable way to communicate when our family was enduring some challenging times. Later, I was pleased to be able to spend a few minutes each day catching up with old friends, and getting to know some

Here I sit, watching the snow fall steadily down, outside the kitchen window. The blizzard hasn't really started yet, but the freezing rain, followed by this snow, has arrived, just as numerous meteorologists have predicted, so I expect the winds to crank up to hurricane force within a couple of hours, as forecasted.  After a relatively dry winter, here in the Nebraska Panhandle, we have already had about sixteen inches of heavy, wet, snow in March. This year, March has come in like a lion. You've probably heard the old adage, "in like a lion, out like a lamb," referring to the month of March, which is supposed to start out with winter's full fury, and end with the promise of spring. I think it really worked that way, most years, when I was a little girl living in northeastern Nebraska. When we moved down to Fairbury, though, March sometimes started off with spring-like weather right away. When Bill and I  relocated to northern Michigan, we were surprised