Hooray For February

I think this past January was the quickest January of my life.  Usually it seems that January is such a let down coming from the holidays, it always seems to drag on mostly because of the freezing cold temperatures.  However, not this January. A new job, grandma's declining health and higher than average temperatures have helped the month speed on by.  I'm hoping that tomorrow we will hear that spring is right around the corner, I mean really my NC friends are already enjoy spring, so why shouldn't we have it early here in Idaho too?

Tonight as I was leaving my grandparents, where I have spent the last 7 hours I mentioned that maybe the reason why grandma is still holding on is to teach us patience and to build stronger family relationships.  All those around the card table agreed.  We have always been a card playing family, but it's been a while since I've seen all of my aunts and uncles in a good card game.  I have distinct memories of seeing grandma around the table playing Rook, especially around the holidays.  The last few weeks have given us the opportunity to gather each day at the grandparents.  We all have busy lives, but we have been able to prove that we can slow our lives down.  If there is one thing I hope we remember is that we need to always be working on building relationships with our family, because in the end that's what matters; we've proven this over the past 2 months.  I've heard the words I love you more in the past 3 weeks than I think I have my entire life.  They come from everyone's mouth several times a day.  It has really been a beautiful thing.

This morning I decided that our family needed some cheering up, so what a better way to do it than with the southern delicacy of Banana Pudding, ok maybe not a delicacy, but certainly one of the best southern treats ever.  Can you believe though that the supermarket didn't have any ripe bananas and I'm talking the biggest supermarket in town?  And we made it late in the day so the nilla wafers were a little crunchy, but by morning if there is any left, it will be divine.  However I think my family was almost in heaven with a new dessert, as many had never had the treat.  As I was leaving a cousin came in and I heard my uncle rave about the banana pudding, it was awesome.  Yea, thanks to my southern friends sharing their recipe's with me, oh how I miss you all.

I love February.  It is such a happy month filled with my favorite colors of red and pink. Oh how I love red; I especially miss my red kitchen wall=( I love that February gives me a reason to think of all of the reason why I love the special people in my life and the opportunity I have to share those reasons even if they are silly through the 14 days of Valentines, yep one of my favorite months for sure.