Spring is here, perhaps?

 I am still fascinated with the writing in the books.  It is beautiful and I am envious of the person who has this ability to write so beautifully

 This sign is on a car that parks daily here.  I guess the attraction to the outdoors is really overwhelming.

 The beautiful, still Kennebec.  the tide was going out when this picture was taken because I watched a stick float from left to right.  It was much larger than a stick, I am sure, for me to be able to see if from this distance.

 These next two scenes are my favorite view of the Kennebec river bank homes.

They must have been absolutely beautiful mansions when they were first built.  these homes are close by a boat landing that is no longer used.

The reckoning of time has been changed to daylight savings time.  I have no idea where they are putting the savings because we still only have 24 hours to each day……………do they have a bank somewhere that they put the time they have saved?

Bedtime is still a challenge for Lyla and Oliver.  The Sleep Fairy has visited a few times and it has been successful, until this Past Sunday evening when Lyla made the following announcement:  I am going to tell you why I am not in bed.  It is because I did not want the Sleep Fairy to leave me anything – because you know why?  This Sleep fairy is not Grandma and I want Grandma to leave me something.

So How do you rectify that situation – I am in Maine and she is in Nebraska.  This child is a total night owl and has been ever since she was a baby.  Oliver is also a night owl.  I live with a night owl – Bill is the total night owl.

So what do I have to do to influence this little girl that it is important to go to bed?  Well, when I was in K-Mart I saw a shiny heart necklace and the thought crossed my mind to send it to her and along with it, I have a note there that says that the Sleep Fairy and I are in cahoots with each other and that she  can have the necklace if she can go to bed 5 nights in a row and stay in bed.  Is that devious or what?  Sometimes it is necessary to pull out all stops when trying to train children.

When David was little it was difficult to get him to go to bed.  When he was about 3 or 4 I was putting him to bed and it was summer time and the neighbor kids were all out playing.  It was light but he needed to be in bed – correct that!  I needed him to be in bed because I was finished for the day and could go no longer – caring for him had totally drained me.  While putting him to bed this one night at about 7pm he said “I hear kids outside playing.  Why do I have to go to bed?”  I told him that it was time for him to go to bed and then he said, ”But my eyes feel like they want to play outside!”  How do you answer that statement?

Sara, on the other hand used to go right to bed and stay there and sleep all night.  She could sleep through anything.  One night there was a serious explosion of a Gas Tank down in the valley from where we lived.  No one got hurt, but the fire ball could be seen for quite a way.  The explosion was a good 2 or 3 miles from our home, but David bounded out of bed and was hard to console that things were ok, and he insisted on sleeping in out bed that night.  It took him a long while to settle down.  During thunder storms he also came into bed with us because the noise bothered him.

We are now entering another week of digitizing.  We could not put in our report for last week because the system was down and we received an email telling us to resubmit the report after 12 noon Utah time.  Well, just to see if it had been fixed, Bill put in the report about 9am and it went through.  I guess they got the system fixed well before Noon, Utah time.

We are still doing Hancock County and soon will be done.  Jeff came into the room and told us he had contacted Misseur Allard (he is the French Canadian we have to ask about proposed projects for us to do) about further work for us and the email came back stating that we could possibly start on the Civil War letters.  Jeff has been proposing that these letters need to be added to the collection of the FH Library.  To that end, Jeff spent the morning going through the boxes of the civil war letters to find about 6 or then that are representative of the letters we have on file that give genealogical information.   Jeff says that these letters are invaluable to researchers of families involved in the civil war.  They give information on where the soldiers were serving, who was captured, who died, who won medals for bravery, who mustered out and where they went, where the dead are buried and dates of birth, marriage and death.  This is quite a fund of knowledge for those who are researching, and they can flesh out  their family stories from the contents.

Our temperature was 53 yesterday and looks like another above 50 degree day today.  At this rate we will have no snow piles to speak of except on the North side of the buildings where the sun does not yet shine.  Peter was telling of the amount of water that has accumulated in the wetlands near his home and how happy the beavers are.  More animals are being seen and he said a Red Fox was in his backyard this week.  I still have not seen a Moose, in spite of the sign on the highway.

It is heartening to have warm temperatures for a change and to see green grass.  I wonder when the Dandelions will come in bloom?