Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just past 9:30 a.m. in "The City."

Yes my loyal readers, you read the right, 9:00 a.m.! I went to bed @ 12:30 a.m. and stayed there until about 8:30 this morning, That may well be a record for me, especially since my recent shoulder repair. Mary and the fur-children are still resting comfortably.

We have a current temperature of 24° under cloudy skies as we have already passed sunrise @ 7:21 and well before we see the sunset @ 6:34 p.m. In between, the high temperature has been forecast by the NWS to reach 32°.

I'd like to say that we have turned the corner, weather wise, but the NWS is forecasting a high on Monday of only 11°! With a bit of the luck, we will see the temperatures rise after that. I have to remind Mary that it is time to plant some of her seeds. NOW!

In temperatures across our nation, and specifically across the baseball world, the current and forecast temperatures/weather conditions are as follows

Beloved Red Sox camp in Ft. Myers, FL, 68° and sunny. Later today, 83° and cloudy

Cubs camp in Mesa, AZ, 52° and cloudy. Later today, 76° and sunny.

Tigers camp in Lakeland, FL, 67° and cloudy. Later today, 83° ands partly-cloudy.

We got to my P/T session yesterday and once again I got put through my paces. I am making significant progress, albeit not in a linear fashion. As previously noted, some days are better than others. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it is not a train.

Lunch @ "The Bell" was followed by a stop at the paint store for a color fan. Yes, it is time to paint the living room once again. John is on tap to complete that over the coming weekend. I'll stay out of the way and not offer advice/assistance as he repaints the ceiling white and the walls in a color called Golden Gate, I believe. At any rate, the color should look nice with the woodwork and our furniture.

Speaking of color, Mary signed me up for an acrylic painting session @ Hemlock Crossing on Saturday, March, 9. I've never done acrylics, but I'm game. If my efforts turn out satisfactorily, I'll post a pic. If not...

Mary, with a little assistance from yours truly laundered the linens yesterday. Since the bed linens were off, and since John was here for that painting estimate, we collectively turned the mattress before replacing the linens. I think this may have been the first time that we got the bedspread back on in the right orientation on our first try.

While we did have lunch @ "The Bell" yesterday, Mary gave up her toona casserole for another day and instead made another of my favorites, soup. She Incorporated some of the broth that we had bottled earlier from a 24 hour session in the slow-cooker. See below.

About seven quarts of rich, fragrant vegetable broth!

Once we returned from an impromptu trip to procure more humidifier water late yesterday afternoon, Mary set about making that aforementioned soup. With a little assistance from her spice cabinet and some frozen vegetables, the soup was delicious, in my admittedly biased opinion. I use the term biased, because I could eat soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner almost everyday! I wonder if I can get a reprise today?

Carrots, green beans, corn, were combined with those spices to make this a keeper!

Today, we have nothing on tap. However, I still have to finish yesterday's crossword, and do today's after reading the newspaper and taking care of the fur-children. Oh yeah, it is the first of the month, so I have to change the furnace filter and give the fur-children their requisite medications. Otherwise, that's it. Ciao.