WINTER WEEKEND AT THE LAKE

Warning: These pictures may make you shiver. The lake is covered with a sheet of ice. It's hard to believe that 5 short months ago we were zipping around in our boat and swimming at the sand bar. And it will be awhile before we are doing that again.
As I took these pictures I felt like I was somewhere in Alaska, just no sign of life anywhere. The roads were desolate looking and although many people don't come up in the winter, everything looked closed up and deserted.
Inside we kept a fire blazing and the wood stove burning. We only ventured out to get a bite to eat. In the evening we rented movies and watched them cozied up in the loft with popcorn. I rented Pride And Prejudice. I was hesitant to watch it because I haven't finished the book yet. The good thing is, I fell asleep before the end. Perfect timing.
Funny, after not being at the lake for 3 months, I expected the house to look different; dusty, abandoned, but it looked the same. The only plants I seemed to have lost are my two huge ferns and that makes me sad. The Husband's palms are thriving. Everything was in it's place, it looked like we just walked out yesterday.
There was just a tiny bit of snow left as you can see and the grass looks looks nice and green. My porch looks like it is crying out for plants and flowers and big fluffy cushions on the furniture.

It wasn't all melancholy {baby} as I am making it sound. We weren't stocked up with food so we had 3 wonderful dinners out. Saturday we went to a small town about 45 minutes away and browsed around an old bookstore. It also carried new books and I bought a book of short stories by Alice Munro. It was sad to see that some of the antique stores we love were closed down with For Sale signs in the windows. Here I go getting melancholy again. We visited the gift shop in town and I bought a beautiful big trellis, about the size of a twin headboard, for planting flowering vines on this summer. I also bought a big bouquet of flowers that I filled several vases with and that really brightened everything up.

The forecast was that we were going to warm up to about 50 and the sun would be shining. Well, it never went over 30 degrees and Sunday we had snow and sleet and rain. We sat on our rockers and read our new books. It was peaceful.

So that was our 3 day weekend. It has been snowing and raining off and on since we got home, but as always, this house is always bustling and lively. I think we better wait for a guarantee of warmer weather before we hit the road again. I hope all of you are having a wonderful week and staying warm and dry. See you in a few days! :-)