Of course, you'd know that the minute we get a sunny day with temperatures over 30°, it's Groundhog Day. And sunshine means shadows, so that's 6 more weeks of winter for us. The snow isn't that bad, but I can do without those single-digit temps.
Bruce took advantage of the warm day by trimming up the garden. Since our backyard faces south, that snow melts off fairly quickly. But the bushes in the front yard are still buried under a foot of snow. That trimming will probably have to wait until May. Unfortunately, we found out that the deer have been using our garden as their personal salad bar. They don't think of Charlie as much of a threat.
I went on an adventure this week with the Parker Senior Center to see the ice sculptures in Breckenridge. This is an international competition where artists from all over the world compete for gold, silver, and bronze medals. These sculptures are carved from huge blocks of ice - 10' x 10' x 12' high. I liked the sculpture on the left - I thought it looked like a modern interpretation of The Thinker by Auguste Rodin. Most of the people around me thought it just looked odd. The jester in the middle photo won 2nd place. Most people thought that one was really cute. The skier was carved by the US team who happened to also be from Breckenridge (of course).
This what the construction site looked like the previous week. It's hard to imagine getting the detail right on such large sculptures.
We got some free time while we were in Breckenridge, so I took my sketchbook to the Horseshoe Cafe. I ordered some really tasty breakfast tacos, so I got to cross off another item on my Winter Bucket list.
Janet and I both reached our goals for our January fitness challenge, so we decided to extend it another month. Janet is going for another 300,000 steps (600,000 year-to-date YTD). I'm increasing my step goal for this month to 200,000 steps (350,000 YTD) but decreasing my biking minutes to 300 (800 YTD). It's a lot easier to walk than ride in the snow.
I also wound up my January Something Old, Something New challenge. It was interesting painting pictures based on the artist's recommended colors, but after a while it tended to feel like a paint-by-number exercise (not a lot of creativity involved). I haven't figured out what I'm going to do for February. I've got a lot of unfinished projects going on right now. Maybe I should just finish up some of them.
Courtney and I finished our tropical scene this week in our Triad painting class. I thought it was interesting that you could mix up so many different greens out of that odd teal blue. Next week we'll do a winter scene with a totally new set of colors.
