My Dash - Weeks 7 and 8

Last week for Valentine's Day I made a little card and treat for each of my kids for Valentine's day.  I am following my parents tradition of making Valentine's day special. There was always a card and little treat for Valentine's Day for each of us at the breakfast table.  I remember getting a cute pencil with a heart shaped eraser one year that I was really excited to take to school. My mom likes to decorate for each holiday and have the right treats. I also remember eating corned beef and cabbage for many St Patrick's days.  I did try to make corned beef and cabbage a couple years ago for my family. My kids and hubby were not very fond of it -- especially the cabbage part... Maybe I will try again as they get older.

This week has been unseasonably warm. That seems to happen every year in late February or early March.  I remember on one warm winter day as a kid riding bikes with my brother P to the neighborhood park. From there we walked through the woods and a field to "the creek".  It was flowing quickly, but there were still some icy patches. I think we must have been around 8 and 10 years old.  P had played little league baseball the summer before and for some reason was wearing his baseball cleats that day. As we played, hopping across on the rocks, P misstepped and fell through a patch of ice into a deep part of the stream. He got all wet and his baseball cleat was washed away downstream.  We tried to catch it and just got colder and wetter.   After that it suddenly felt like a very cold winter day again and home seemed a long way away. We went quickly hobbling along through the woods and field back to our bikes. P said that his foot felt frozen and he was not sure whether he could pedal his bike.  I gave him my shoe and we rode home. We were shivering and so cold that we thought we might die.  Later that night we told Dad about our misadventure and he completely ignored the important part of the drama ("We almost died of cold!") and was angry about the loss of the baseball cleat. We tried to tell him that we were lucky not to have frostbite, but he kept going on about how expensive those cleats were. P and I still reminisce about that day - so many funny adventures together.