Crocus: First sign of spring

It's still cold here, but we had a nice day last week, and the weather page said it's supposed to be nice this weekend. We've got lots of green shoots sticking up all over the yard, but this is the first one that bloomed. This photo was taken last week. Now there are more of these yellow flowers.

UPDATE:
Mom identified this as a crocus, and I found a picture of one on Wikipedia that looks just like the one in my yard. The genus name is Crocus, and there are lots of species, hybrids, and cultivars. The name crocus comes from Greek, and means saffron or saffron yellow. It also refers to egg yolks of the same color. The leaves look like pine needles. The flowers will be cup-shaped when they open all the way. It's been a while since I've added a plant to my 100 Species Challenge list. As more things start blooming, I'll have more to add. There have been buds on the dogwood trees (identified by Maggie's parents) since the fall, and I know which trees in my yard are redbuds, but I won't post pictures and add them to my list until they bloom.

1. Poison ivy
2. Virginia creeper
3. Wild blackberry
4. Lamb's Ear
5. Great laurel
6. Fireworks Goldenrod
7. Orange Jewelweed
8. Blue Anise Sage
9. Sage
10. Greek oregano
11. Rosemary
12. Azalea
13. Stilt grass
14. Crocus

Snow Day!

It's snowing! This is big deal not just for transplanted Floridians, but for everyone in North Carolina. Schools are closed, and the weather was the big story on the local news last night. The kids were eager to get outside and play. Even Scott ventured out to show the girls some snow fun. Audrey refused to wear mittens, so she found out quickly how cold your hands can get playing in snow. She came in, put mittens on, and fell asleep on the floor. Mary stayed out for a long time, making snow angels and knocking snow off branches and the deck railing. We lit a fire in the fireplace and now it's time for some nice hot breakfast.

Almost done!

Here are some photos of the master bathroom. The towel bar is a piece of driftwood from our first visit to California in 1996. Scott cut it to the right length and screwed it to the wall. You never know when your beach treasures might become part of your decor. The pebbles are in the floor of the shower/toilet room. The shower is still waiting for the glass for the top part of the partial wall.

Mary's NaNoWriMo

Mary just won NaNoWriMo! (That's National Novel Writing Month) I offered her a month off from narration, copywork, dictation, and any other writing assignments if she wanted to try it. She enjoyed filling in the novel planning workbook during October. Toward the end of October, we looked at the word count recommendations on the NaNoWriMo website and set a goal of 4000 words for her, with a daily goal of 175 words. That was more words than she'd ever written at one time. On November 1, she was a little intimidated by the blank page in front of her, so Scott helped her with an opening line. After that, there was no looking back, and we were both surprised that her first day's writing produced over 200 words! Some days she knew exactly what she wanted to write, and some days there was a lot of pencil tapping and sighing, but she stuck with it. We talked about her novel between writing sessions, about ways to get unstuck (just skip over or sum up the boring parts), about the relationships between characters. We noticed how other authors handled the passage of time in our read-alouds. Tonight we uploaded the first 4000 words of her novel into the NaNoWriMo word count validator and celebrated her win. She wants to keep working on her novel until she finishes the story, since 4000 words barely introduced the main characters and problem. Scott asked her if she learned anything about writing and her first response was, "I learned that writing can be exciting if it's something I want to write about!" I thought that was a great lesson to have learned.

Master bath

George the tile guy offered to trade jobs with me for a while. Under his supervision, I cut a hole in one of the tiles for our shower (the top hole in the picture) and set six tiles in the shower. He hasn't done any Barbie hairdo's yet, though.

Here are more pictures of the master bath.

Audrey's Wedding Cake

Audrey created this lovely wedding cake while Mary and I were doing our Greek yesterday. Each tier is separated by a layer of blackberry jelly, and the cake is topped with a smiling Inuit couple, also whimsically decorated with blackberry jelly.

Jaguar Girls

Mary put together a diorama of a jaguar habitat as part of her unit on Central America, and to fulfill part of a Brownie Try-It badge requirement. She made the jaguar out of Sculpey and drew the spots on with black Sharpie marker. The display shows the jaguar eating a peccary in the jungle, and a road nearby to represent the shrinking habitat. Audrey is not part of the diorama, but she had a good time leaping out of a tree (dining room chair) to attack a peccary (couch pillow). Fortunately, Mary used washable marker for Audrey's jaguar disguise.