Ah Spring!  Hard to believe this was just yesterday.  I woke up in the dark and looked out the window to see snow all over everything.  It quickly turned to slush and disappeared.  Sun came out briefly and big dark clouds rolled over us.  Thunder, lightning, and then hail. 

I wondered if I should bring these stalwart flowers in but they seem to be doing okay.  They are on the porch.  Then the sun came out for about 30 minutes and it started pouring rain, a rainbow appeared briefly, but I didn't get a good snap of that.  We are surrounded by farmland that's been too dry so its good thing as someone likes to say.  But I am back in my winter underwear and wool socks.  There was one day in the last two weeks I could wear sandals and it got to 70 outside.  Bi-polar weather.  However, we live in an area that is not assaulted by tornados, blizzards, and rarely earthquakes.  In the big picture we do pretty well.  Still I am beginning to feel light-starved and antsy. 

I refuse to turn the heat back up, so I snuggle up on the sofa with a blanket and read.  I finished up my hot off the press copy of Dana Stabenow's new Kate Shugak mystery, "Restless in the Grave," applause, very good.  Then I have worked my way through "The Fifth Woman," a Kurt Wallender mystery by Henning Mankell.  For variety I am reading Jean Potter's "Flying North."  I found that title in one of Ms. Stabenow's books.  It's non-fiction about the early pilots in Alaska and was published around 1949.  I'm really enjoying it. I made myself a list of authors and books mentioned in Dana's books and have found them to be a treasure trove of Alaskan history and great murder mysteries such as "The Life and Death of Bobby Z" by Don Winslow, as well as classic literature that I missed along the way, or read early on and have forgotten.  So besides entertaining me, she has been educating me.  I titled it "Reading List for 2012."  I doubt I will make it all the way through it in 2012.  Some of these books are really old, especially the historical ones.  So maybe I should quit dissing the weather that's kept me inside reading.