Visiting Africa

I couldn't resist taking a picture of her beautiful hair.  She's been a library customer of mine for two years, and several days ago she came in and surprised me with her new hair style.  Apparently, she went to Africa over spring break....not sure what country in Africa, but she came back with a full head of braids.  She told me it took eight hours to braid her hair.  Wow.  So beautiful, and I just had to touch the multiple braids......I just had too!

Just Helping

It really wasn't planned, but I somehow developed a partnership with a local business owner who has run a successful soup, sandwich and gift show for fifteen years.  I know I've mentioned this before in my blog post, but I decided to help this business owner discover the success of marketing her business via Facebook.  You see, this business owner has no computer experience, so she happily took my invitation to help her.....and of course, it was a challenge for me!  

We've worked out a really good system over the last five months.  Sometimes I will stop by her cafe on my daily post office run and take a sandwich photo of the day's sandwich special, but most day's she now takes the sandwich and soup photo using her iPhone and sends it to me by email.  Within several minutes, I will post her sandwich special with a photo on her Facebook page.  To see her Facebook page, search Farmhouse, Colfax Wisconsin.

In five months time, her Facebook "likes" have more than doubled and customers are now commenting on daily posts.  On some days we'll have 100 viewers to her Facebook posts, and other days we'll have 600 viewers.

I'm not really sure why, but I wanted to take on this challenge to help this business owner, especially since I've known her for 15+ years.  I don't know, it's just me....always wanting to help a friend.    

  

The Women

Beware.  We were just warming up!

Because when the ladies of my family get together.......

We just can't contain ourselves.  Getting together with family, especially the ladies, means comedy-hour!  Spent a wonderful Easter with the family.

Each Day Gets Better

Still two feet of lake ice despite the 48 degrees today.  Perfect day for perch fishing....see the perch path in the photo?  Bike man came back to the house around 7 pm after catching ten perch.  Perch fillets went into the freezer for a future fish fry.....my favorite meal.

Beautiful day for a run, and soon we'll be getting the bikes out for our first spring ride.  Can't wait!

Look to the North

It's happening.  The lake ice to the north of our house is finally opening up.  This can only mean one thing......spring has really arrived and the perch will hopefully start biting!

Just Being Honest

I hope you won't think differently of me, but I have to be honest.  Something made me really, really excited today.  On my run this afternoon (I took a different route), I got a nice good whiff of turkey manure.....seriously, it was a big whiff!  After months of no smells because of the snow covering the ground, I finally realized I was smelling the first sign of spring.  I know that sounds weird, but you have to realize we haven't seen the ground or dirt since last November.  I took couple more big whiffs of that lovely smell as I ran by the turkey farms.  Yup, it made me smile.  Sorry.....  

Peaceful Moments

Life in general has a way of just squeezing all the energy out of you.  Have you ever felt those squeezing moments?  Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and a work issue or work task will just pop into my head  and before I know it, I'm wide awake worrying about not getting a task completed.  When I start to feel the panic rising, I will scold myself and then shut my eyes and try to fall back to sleep.  Most nights when this happens, I do eventually fall back to sleep.  Isn't it funny how the mind plays tricks on you?  Anxiety is never easy to just brush off, but I hope I can learn to deal with that overwhelming feeling of never having enough time....enough time to finish my work-related tasks, my home chores, help my friends in need, help my aging parents, finish a really good book, and to pray for my loved-ones.

Today, I spent a much needed day in slow mode.  Early church service, followed by a 3-mile run and then several hours helping Bike man with his urban stream monitoring.  Walking through the woods breaking a trail in the snow is physical, but also therapeutic.  Of course I never go anywhere without my camera.  All those years tromping around with my father, who always had his camera round his neck, has paid off for me.  I am now finding those peaceful moments with my camera!