Red Guardian Angels

Cardinals have gained quite a heavenly reputation. It seems, based on the gifts we've received after Mom's passing that cardinals are reminders that our loved ones are with us in spirit.

Touching poem. I still think that my dad shows his presence to me when I seen an eagle. But maybe Mom is the pretty cardinal.

I saw this red guardian angel outside my kitchen window tonight. They never sit still long enough for to take a picture. And even though I took it through the dirty window, there's no doubt Red is giving me the side eye to see what I'm up to and make sure I'm doing OK.

I'm hanging in there, Mom. I still have a deck of cards in my car for my next visit. So apparently I'm not quite getting beyond the "hanging in there" yet. 

Thanks for looking out for me! 👼

Many Angels Among Us

We continue to be blessed with friends and family who are reaching out to comfort us after Jim's mom's passing – and comfort Jim after his knee surgeries. Some friends dropped off this beautiful cardinal ornament on Sunday with the encouraging message below...

If you can't read it, it's basically reminding us that cardinals often serve as spiritual messengers – usually sent by our loved ones in Heaven to watch over us. Cardinals seem to have a deep connection with lost souls. People have often reported that after the death of their loved ones, they begin to see cardinals frequently. Seeing a cardinal for the first time or more frequently than usual can be an indication from your loved one that they will always feel your love and will be near you.

Since we see cardinals in our neighborhood but they don't stay at our house long – we don't have a feeder – it's nice to have this pretty ornament close by this season.

Jim's dad stopped out for a visit today. Since Jim can't get to him until he recovers further, then my father-in-law came to us. We showed him the cardinal and he said continues to receive cards or calls or messages of support. 

This is going to be such a tough Christmas!! If you pray for anyone in our family, pray for him. All the cardinals in the world won't bring back his wife of 60 years. But I'm hoping our endless hugs, prayers, and occasional plate of cookies will help. 

Sending out special hugs to those missing someone for the first time this holiday season. Remember, if you do see a red cardinal, it should also serve as a reminder to embrace the new beginnings ahead and have faith that they will comfort your soul. In the meantime, give and take as many hugs as you can from the friends, family, and angels among us.

Bless you!

The Luck of the Non-Irish

Happy St. Patrick's Day! My hubby is about an eighth Irish, I believe. So that counts! As a 100 percent Scandi-hoovian and zero percent Irish, my only luck is that I'm from Luck. 

How do you find Luck on St. Patrick's Day? You might need GoogleMaps, but it's there. Think northwest Wisconsin. Nope, not Eau Claire area. Keep going!

The town, er village, was so big we have two water towers. Actually the one up top is the newer one, but this one is still standing on the north end of Main Street. (As of Sunday anyway, when we drove by.)

Our high school yearbook was the Horseshoe. Our newspaper was the Cloverleaf. And our mascot was... not a leprechaun. Definitely not a leprechaun. Too many Scandi-hoovians in the area! They went with the bland cardinal for a mascot. At least it's red and pretty.

Hopefully, it's Luck-y too!

Of course, in true Irish poser fashion, I celebrated wearing green today (and I do have green eyes), wore shamrock sunglasses during work Zoom meetings, and sucked down a Shamrock Shake after work! Now Jim is gone to indoor golf league and this little leprechaun from Luck might just start watching a new series on Netflix.

Who's lucky now?

Oh, That Stings

Not sure how we missed the 90% chance of rain this afternoon and evening, but we did. So I finally got to test out some action settings on my camera at the Legion game in Nekoosa, where they hosted the Vesper team Carter used to play on.

I knew kids from both teams, well their parents anyway, so I got a few halfway decent shots. Lots of trial and error right now.

I think I know a few settings I can work with. I had to leave early because I was just resting my arm on the fence to focus on the batter and there was a bee or hornet or some evil thing in my spot. Arm went squish and the insect went sting.

Oh, did that sting!

Thankfully the ump had ice cubes in his cooler so I could apply that right away. Since I am semi-allergic, I went home and too some Benadryl and applied the appropriate essential oils.

When Jim got home he grabbed me to go take pictures of a weird sky and stormy sky and lightning sky. Pretty cool. We'll see if I captured lightning or not. But since the Benadryl is kicking in, I better wait on those until tomorrow.

By then, my right arm should be working better, too! My first photography injury and I survived.

Room With A View

Remember last year when I managed to get a nice hummingbird picture -- after about 323 attempts? Well every time a cardinal comes to our bird feeder, I miss it. Carter sees them. Jim sees them. I never do.

The other day Carter took this one and said, "Here, now you have one for your blog."

Works for me! Of course, I won't give up. One of these times I will see them out the back window and will have my camera in hand. In the meantime, it's good to know I've got Carter looking out for me!

Just as much as much I would love to capture a cardinal on "film," our poor sentenced-to-life-indoors kitty would love to capture the obnoxious red squirrel that torments her out the front window. She should thank me. I actually did capture it!

But only on film. Sorry, Sylvester.

He looks so cute and innocent, doesn't he?

But then... "There he goes, Kitty! Get 'em!"

Oh, that stinkin' squirrel! Just mocking her and her imprisonment. If only kitty would realize that she is snug inside while the birds and rambunctious rodents are stuck out in the bitter cold.

Then she'd be content with her station in life. Of course, I think from her lofty pedestal (several of them actually), she's gotten that figured out.

Now if only I would be as content when I miss out on things. Maybe just enjoy the rooms with a view and capture it in my mind.

Then take a nap...

Out of Luck in Mad Town

As the radio announcer so accurately stated: Luck was not on the side of the Cardinals today. My hometown boys lost 57-45 to the undefeated Suring Eagles in the semi-final basketball game at state.

But don't let the wide gap in the final score fool you. It was a close game for the first three quarters with Luck holding a one-point lead at halftime and the score all tied up 38-38 at the end of the third. I don't know exactly what happened to the Cards in the fourth. I mean I was listening to it on an Internet radio station, but all I heard was the remarkable Josh Regal from Suring taking charge.

To Luck's credit, they hung in there pretty well for being the underdogs. Not only was Suring undefeated this year, they crushed their playoff opponents, outscoring them 371-183. (Coincidentally, during the regular season, their closest game was against Iola-Scandinavia, who they beat by only 4 points.)

Although it would have been a great game to see, it was cool to listen on the radio and still hear our fans cheering in the background (some of the same cheers we did in high school!) and hear the announcers draw comparisons to our 1973 team who went to state.

Congrats on a great effort, guys. Let's hope our little village doesn't have to wait another 35 years to find luck in Mad Town!

Lion or Lamb?

The old saying goes... if March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb. I don't know if I buy into that. We've had years where it has come in like a lion and gone out like one, too. Or been a lamb on both ends with some wicked lion in between.

On Saturday, it was definitely a lamb kind of day. And ironically, the first time this winter Carter got to go out snowplowing with our neighbor Bob. Usually sometime around Christmas, Bob takes Carter out for breakfast and they go plowing. This winter, because there has been so much snow, Bob's actually been too busy to take a break and take on a passenger. Luckily, there was still plenty of snow to be moved around. Did I say luckily?! I hate this stuff!

On Sunday, it was lamb-like as well but we were under a winter weather advisory for sleet and 2-4 inches of snow for the night. I had to call my sister Rayna and get my "You'll be here in sunny Texas in 2 weeks" pep talk. That worked. Plus, I was relieved to wake up today and see the weather man was wrong this time. Just got a dusting this time.

Everyone around here hopes we have a nice, precipitation-free week for safe travels to Madison Thursday and Friday for the high school boys state tournament. As I hoped, both Luck and Iola are going to state!

Iola will close schools on Thursday so everyone can go to the game (which means it may be a ghost town around work). My Luck boys play Friday. Not sure if I'm going, but I'll definitely have to wear red and white to work on Friday if I don't. Whoo-hoo!

Isn't March fun? Who cares if the weather is like a lion or a lamb? The snow will still be gone by May Day as usual, right? Hmm... not so sure about it this year...

Pre-March Madness

Before March Madness begins, there is February Frenzy (well, there must be some clever name out there) for those of us who follow high school basketball.

My friend Julie emailed me that the boys from our alma mater, Luck High School, have advanced to sectionals. We shared a painful memory of when we (as in our high school boys team -- not the 2 of us) made it to sectionals our junior year and we lost by 1 stinkin' point.

The heart-breaker was that it was on a technical. It was a tie game and down to a few seconds. One of our guys (name withheld) was asking the coach through a hand signal "Do we have any timeouts left?" The ref saw it and thought he was actually signaling for a timeout. We didn't have any left so we got a technical. The other team got to shoot and we had a long, quiet ride home from Spooner.

It's amazing the clarity of that memory. I guess at that point in life, that was the most important thing going on. So much emotion was tied up in school loyalty. It could be a wonderful thing. And a heart-wrenching thing.

The last time the Cardinal boys actually made it to state and played in that championship game was way back in 1973, when some of my older sisters were in high school. They lost by 2 points. One of the players on that team, Rick Giller, is now the coach of our boys team. I hope with a little Luck, he can finally bring that championship home.

Go Cards!