Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just past 10:30 p.m. in "The City", where the current temperature is 23° under cloudy skies, but it feels like 23° with a slight wind out of the east @ one mph. The overnight low temperature will be 22°.

However, the NWS has issued two alerts for tonight into tomorrow. First, is a Flood Watch for the southwest, MI area, including Ottawa, County, in effect until 4:00 p.m. tomorrow afternoon. Joining that Flood Watch will be a Small Craft Advisory from St. Joesph to Manistee from 4:00 a.m. tomorrow until 7:00 a.m. Sunday. Windspeeds up to 30 knots may propel waves up to nine feet! The sun will rise tomorrow @ 7:27 a.m. and set tomorrow evening @ 6:29 p.m.

Tomorrow's high temperature will reach 31° with an overnight low temperature of 30°, with cloudy skies in the a.m. and sunny skies in the afternoon. Best of all, the NWS is forecasting warmer daytime temperatures beginning Sunday and continuing in the 32° plus range for the foreseeable future. 

Today was an average day in retirement here at the manse. We had several inches of snow overnight, but our snow removal service came by earlier this morning and it was soon gone. 

Our fur-children had to go out around 9:00 a.m. this morning before the snow had been cleared but by the time they had to go out after their brunch, their area had been cleaned. 

This morning, well actually early this afternoon, Mary made some tempeh sausages and French toast for our brunch. She had prepared the sausage last night and the bread for the French toast was from the loaf she had baked the other day. Coupled with maple syrup, it was delicious. 

This afternoon, after brunch, we read the newspapers, worked on some crossword puzzles, and Mary listened to her latest book and cross-stitched in her office upstairs. Other than those crossword puzzles, I didn't accomplish much today.

Earlier this evening, while Mary was once again in her office upstairs, I read more of the biography of Lady Bird Johnson, and then she came down and using a previously prepared pizza dough, created our dinner of thick-crust pizza topped with two kinds of vegan cheese and in a first for us, barbecue chickpeas. Another delicious repast.

The pizza tasted even better than it looks as it sat atop the wooden pizza paddle I made many years ago. 

Tomorrow, I have some indoor chores to do, and Mary has more ear reading to go with her cross-stitching. I have no specific plans, but that's okay, as I am quite content to enjoy retirement here on the Palatial Estate. 

No baseball yet, not even spring training, with the lockout still in progress as two groups of millionaires haggle over how to split up the huge pot of money. Baseball is a business, but the two groups are taking away the fun in the game for me and many other fans. Sigh Ciao.