I had an unpleasant shock early this week when I learned that a friend who lives in another state died suddenly the very day I last spoke with her. Since she was expecting company the next day, I hadn't expected to hear from her for at least a week. And since her family doesn't know me, I didn't know about her death for over two weeks. She had already been cremated.

After not hearing from her for over two weeks and not being able to reach her on the telephone, I looked at the obituaries in her city's newspaper and saw the sad news. I was able to get in touch with one of her relatives and learned that she had probably died not long after I spoke with her on March 29.

As we all know, we never know when we'll be speaking with someone or seeing them for the last time.

Better late than never?

Obviously I didn't follow through on "taking up" the blog again as I said I would in 2013.

This has been a tough winter but we can't complain that much in this area, although we do. People in other parts of the country had it much worse than we did. We all just got very tired of the cold and the snow. It's been like living in a snow belt, but now it seems that spring is finally coming through. As my daughter says, we'll soon be complaining about the heat. There's always a good store of things to complain about.

Spring is my favorite season. My only complaint is that it goes by so fast.

I'm taking up this blog again, although I'm not sure why. Maybe just because I feel like it. I think I should continue this insigificant celebration of mundanity, since it's all around me.

The first day of 2013 has proven to be utterly mundane at our house, thank goodness! I cooked. My husband watched the Twilight Zone marathon on television. The dog and the cat napped a lot.

It's frigid outside, several inches of snow on the ground, and promises to be the same all week.  

Such a long time since I've posted here and such a hard year it's been. My aunt died in February, my brother-in-law died in March, and my mother died in August.

They were all in their eighties and had long, happy lives, but it was still hard to lose them all so close together.

Leaving for Cleveland

We'll be leaving for Cleveland around noon tomorrow. The service for my aunt will be Monday morning at 10:00.

We're still getting snow. It's been a record snowfall for us this winter, but still we haven't been as hard hit during this storm as people farther east.

We could have another two weeks of this, but I would think by the middle of March, we should see some milder weather, and that will be very much welcomed by everyone in these parts, I'm sure.

Two days after my last post my aunt died in San Diego. The day of my last post was her birthday; she was 89. I had spoken with her on the phone on the 15th to wish her a happy birthday.

She used to read my blog, so it's been rather sad for me to come here and look at it knowing she'll never read it again.

She's being laid to rest in Cleveland and we'll be attending her funeral there on Monday.

She was the last surviving member of my dad's family and the youngest member of the family. I'll miss her and already do. We always had so much to talk about, and her mind was as good the last time I talked with her as it ever was.

We were certainly in for it. We lost our power for two days after the date of the last post, and it's been snowing off and on ever since. Snow is piled all around us. We got another onslaught of about 5 inches yesterday. This has been an unusually snowy winter for these parts. Everyone is looking forward to spring more hopefully than usual.