Welcome to a new week

I love Mondays. A new start to a fresh new week with so many possibilities. I'm ready to move on. Lots has been happening in my posting absence, some bright and cheery things, some not so much.

Let's start with a happy thought. My husband and I took a trip to Kansas City to spend Super Bowl weekend with his sister and her husband (I say that like I care about the SuperBowl LOL!). It was a lovely trip, Pam and Rob are always overly kind and gracious. We had fun and laughs and good food (lots of good food!) and it was nice to get away, we hadn't done that in ages.

On a more serious note, while we are still organizing and preparing for our journey to Hillman Ferry, the news from there is less than pleasant. Remember the wave of winter storms that blew through the Midwest a couple of weeks ago? Here in south-central Illinois we made it okay. We had 8 to 10 inches of snow but snow is not a problem (and we were way overdue for a big one.) But some areas didn't fare so well -- Land Between the Lakes is in a world of hurt. A few hours to our south, the snow missed them. They got ice and lots of it. Accumulating ice with great destructive weight. It's a sad and serious situation. We're receiving regular updates of the damage and recovery progress from our park manager and in one of those updates he linked us to Sherry B's blog "Blooming Things". Sherry graciously gave me permission to share some of her remarkable photos --

Of course, I haven't seen it first-hand, but from what I understand this type of damage is widespread. One report estimated that 50 to 60 percent of trees had received "mortal damage". Staggering.

Up close -- and a fence line.

It's pretty unbelieveable, isn't it? And of course it wasn't just limited to the LBL. Thousands in that area were without power for extended periods of time. In some cases, the estimates were three weeks. Can you imagine that? I can't.

Besides trees, there was structural damage, water leaks - you can only imagine. Reports are that clean-up and repair are progressing, if slowly.

But to lighten your heart and offset some of this seriousness, here are some of Sherry's photos of the glories of LBL.

Bison calves and wild coneflower. Sherry has so many amazing photos, it was hard to pick just a couple. If you have time, click on the link above to check out her blog - it will take your breath away!

Well, I've rambled enough for this post. Just so you know, I've been sewing too. I have lots of things to show you so I'll be back soon -- I promise!