The world around us grumbled a lot about Winter… for us it was brilliant…lots of snow and cold weather which meant plenty of cross country skiing, hot soups and time for art projects. But then Spring really dragged its pretty pink slippers this year.  We’re still waiting for one of those energizing days when you want to put everything outside to air and open the windows wide…for now we’re happy if we can take a coat off for a few hours… The upside to a slow spring is that daffodils and other flowers are going to be magnificent around Memorial Day.

Steven’s been busy clearing the grounds of debris left from the storms and smoothing out the frost heaves that are leaving unsightly holes in all the wrong places.  The work crew are all wearing mud boots because there are no dry spots in the park.  While he’s been doing that, I got shoved down a different road… first I became grateful to our local hospital when I suddenly needed an appendectomy…and just when I thought things were turning around, I needed another surgery…so I’ve been watching the world through the large windows in the living room…just hazy enough from the meds to be mostly useless at any task requiring concentration or physical movement.  The funniest story I have to tell is that when I called the insurance company about coverage, the politely well-trained voice on the other end of the line suggested that I talk to our human resources director about my health care concerns…in my own strained way I explained that I was the HRD for our company of two so she was going to need to dig deeper than that for an answer… she apologized and then hung up the phone.  Yup…but I’m feeling much better now and expect to be out and about before long.  In the meantime, thank you Alice for taking the wonderful pictures you’re enjoying in this post.

We open next weekend with our 20th annual Ship Shape Weekend…want to trade projects for free camping?  The growing list of chores includes building another artist retreat cabin, building another component in the playground, picking up brush and tending beach bonfires, setting the rec hall straight and sorting out the books in the lending library, lots of raking and garden clean up…and two art projects to be revealed soon.  Everyone’s welcome…we’ll have a casual cocktail party Friday night,  homemade doughnuts and cocoa on Saturday morning, a beach bbq at lunch and a Saturday night potluck supper with some trivia games.