I’m going to take a little break from the Playlist. We’ll do another edition next week. I’ve noticed my page views (the way Google Analytics measures visits to the blog) are down, so I’m thinking that not everyone is interested in the Playlist. I am, of course, and many of you have left comments saying you love the lists. I never tailor the subject matter of my posts to analytics, but it did make me think that perhaps I shouldn’t do several of them in a row, but instead, throw them in once a week or so. So that’s what we’ll do.
Let’s get back to harsh reality:
What the heck? If you walk up to the back of the corral, the fence posts are thoroughly covered with snow. We must have about three feet of the white stuff on the ground and it just keeps coming. Thank the heavens for the snow blower. Yesterday’s snow was heavy and wet and would have been a giant pain in the tush to shovel. Fortunately for me, Mr. Sparks took over and, aside from shoveling the mini-corral, I watched the action from inside.
We are more than ready for Spring.
This girl won’t know what to do with herself when she gets to use the big corral again. She’s been confined to the mini-corral (the best decision we made this winter) and she’s been a trooper, but she needs more space. I told Don yesterday that I yearn to see her loping from the back of the corral all the way to the kitchen door. She’s tries to lope now, but it just doesn’t work, bless her heart.
It’s March. That means a new edition to my Penguin Classics Jane Austen collection. And look what arrived on my doorstep yesterday:
Hello, pretty little Coralie Bickford-Smith designed cover!
Yes, I’m going for one a month. Yet to come are Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. I’m also going to add Bickford-Smith’s edition of Middlemarch by George Eliot – another dearly loved favorite of mine.
Each of the books has a pretty satin bookmark, as well.
There they are, right next to the two volumes of Shakespeare that dear Judy gave me. I’d say this is a “Favorites” section of our bookshelves, wouldn’t you?
A funny little story – yesterday morning I was sitting in my chair in the den and the phone rang. Just one ring. I got up to get it and nothing showed. No number. Nothing. Okay, I thought, and went back to whatever it was I was doing.
A short time later, one ring. Then nothing. Hmmmm.
Then about ten minutes later, one ring.
In the meantime, I was planning to call my dad to check on him, so I did. In the course of our conversation, he said that he had tried to call three times and got a busy signal each time. I mentioned what had been happening with the phone. We couldn’t figure it out.
A while later, I was telling Don about it. Since I was able to make an outgoing call, I was thinking there was maybe something wrong with the circuit or the line or whatever. So I decided to use the cell phone to call our landline to see if it was still happening. It was. One ring on our landline.
But the cellphone I was holding kept ringing in my ear and to my shock, my dad answered.
What the heck?
Was something screwed up? Were the lines crossed?
I tried again. Same thing.
Finally, after some sleuthing on my part, I deduced that somehow our phone number was being forwarded to my dad’s number in Florida. Since we have a landline phone that is made by AT&T, I googled something or other that took me to an AT&T page where there were instructions on how to forward your phone calls and how to cancel forwarding. I tried several methods and finally hit on one that worked. We tested it. Our landline rang several times. Bingo.
Here’s what happened. I think. Our number shows up as Private when we make outgoing calls. When I call my dad I always hit *82 before I dial his number so he knows it’s me calling. According the chart I consulted, you can forward your calls by hitting *72 and then dialing the number you want to forward to.
So, I must have hit *72 by mistake. That’s a first.
It was the strangest thing. Thank goodness we discovered it rather quickly, or my dad would have been getting our calls all day!
Happy Thursday.
LOL, Claudia, I can just imagine how exciting sleuthing through that telephone problem must have been to snowbound individuals looking for entertainment! I actually gage kilt love solving little home problems like that… Jane Austen, one of my favorites. Shakespeare, one of my younger daughter’s favorites… Scout will get to lope soon. I can imagine how delighted she will be when she finally can.
I love figuring things out. Don would tell you I try to do that with EVERYTHING. Probably true!
That was quite a “thing” with your phone wasn’t it? Quite good sleuthing on your part, I don’t think I would have figured it out so fast. I’m still visiting my daughter in the D.C. area where we’re forecast to get another 4-9 inches of snow today. It’s coming down pretty heavy right now. I miss our west coast winter this year. :-). It will be good to see pictures of Scout running when all of that white stuff goes away.
Blessings,
Betsy
You’re getting quite the taste of winter, Betsy. Now you know how we feel out here in the East! I think you’re getting more of the stuff today than we are.
I haven’t made any comments in a while Claudia because well life has been crazy around here. But I enjoyed the playlist posts and plan on going back to them and looking up the songs to hear them. We have been running our a.c. here for about a week, even at night. We had pretty cold weather for about 2 days this winter and that’s pretty much been it. The thing with the phone was kind of funny. Glad you figured it out, something like that can make me nuts. Hope you get a break from the snow soon.
I can only dream of running the AC, Janie! Someday!
Too funny!! We sometimes fw our calls to one of our cells when we are out and about and forget to take it off when we get home. Then it takes a few minutes to realize what is going on as we get that one ring.
Ugh to the snow. And the cold. It is supposed to get up to 12* today. woot. BUT, on the 7 day forecast into next week, there are a couple of days where the high temps start with a 5 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t believe it.
Enough, don’t you think, Chris! I did see a warm up for next Monday and Tuesday. Hopefully, that will happen. I told Don I just need to get one whiff of Spring in the air. Just one.
We’ve gotten our first ‘big’ snows this past week (5-6 inches!) and extreme cold here in southern Missouri. I am already tired of it all, so I can only imagine what you all are experiencing there!
I wanted to tell you that I am in the middle of reading Small Blessings and I love it! I don’t want to do anything else but read, and, at the same time, I don’t want it to end too soon, either! I just went back and read your review of this book, and I agree with you completely!
I’m so glad you like it, Myra. I read it on my Kindle, but I really want my own copy for the bookshelves. I can imagine reading it over and over again.
We have gotten well over a foot of snow here in Kentucky overnight and it is still coming. I think we will all breathe a collective sigh when spring arrives. xo Laura
You’re not kidding! Stay warm and safe, Laura!
I love your playlist posts. You have reacquainted me with some of my old favorites – thank you, Claudia!
You are very welcome, Susan!
The whole phone thing is funny and I’m so glad you figured it out! Love the new book. They really are gorgeous editions. Scout will be glad for Spring to arrive soon also!
hugs,
Linda
She’s sick of winter for sure, Linda. As are her parents!
I love the playlist posts! I have remembered so many songs that I love, but have not listened to for a long while. Glad you will be putting a playlist in every so often.
I would have thought the snow or ice was messing with the phone. I never would have thought about the call forwarding!
Give Scout an extra long hug and a kiss on the head from me. For some reason, when I saw her picture today, I almost cried. Probably cabin fever :)
Hugs,
Deb
She looks awfully pretty in that picture, Debbie. I think we’re all suffering from cabin fever!
Aren’t the Austen books lovely? Mansfield Park is my daughter’s favourite, so that recently appeared on my shelf as well. When she saw how pretty the books are, my favourite bookseller bought the boxed set for herself. She didn’t particularly want the box, so she kindly passed it on to me. Now I want to make a miniature Regency room box out of it!
Oh, what a good idea, Barbara! A room box – how neat that would be!
Cute story about your phone dilemma! Nothing simple these days compared to the old days of simply dialing a number with the old “party lines”!
Scout is cute as usual!
Sometimes we yearn for the old days of a simple landline – and a nice solid phone, I might add.
I love the playlists. Brought back lots of good memories. John and I would dance around when we’d hear an old favorite song. My favorites were the slow, dreamy ones.
I feel so bad about your snow. We’ve had ice and snow but today the sun is shining brightly and warming up fast. Thank goodness. Wish that for you soon.
Judy
Love to you, my dear Judy.
Part of the reason your numbers are down is me…we are vacationing and I have missed your blog for a few days. I am a faithful reader, looking forward to your post each morning. My schedule is completely awry this week. I’ll catch up on your playlists soon! Another (part of a) mystery solved! Lol!
Welcome back, Barbara! Aha! It was because of you!
I feel like I’m living in Alaska…I could never take what they go through..I must tell you that my cactus flowers are blooming and at least the give me a bit of brightness and cheerfulness..Poor sweet Scout..I will be glad to see her bouncing around the big corral again too..Well..at least the phone mystery got your mind off the snow for a while Claudia..lol..
I’m so glad your flowers are blooming – we’ll take any color we can get, right?
Good morning Claudia loved the picture of beautiful Scout! I also love Jane Austen where did you buy the books from? I have been trying to find them to purchase for myself? It has been so hot here and Adelaide, South Australia had a terrible bushfire so I adore looking at your snow pictures it keeps me wanting winter to arrive LOL. Kind regards Janine
I bought one from Powell’s, which is a bookstore in Portland, OR. I bought the other 3 from Amazon. There is also a site called Juniper Books, which sells them. Hope this helps!
I’m so sorry to hear of the bushfire. Any fire is horrific and I also worry about what it does to the wildlife, not to mention homes and people.
By the way, search for the books under “Penguin Classics Jane Austen” or Penguin Classics Coralie Bickford-Smith” That will narrow down the search for you.
Your Jane Austen books look so pretty lined up next to each other! I’m glad you figured your phone thing out … that’s crazy. Hopefully your dad got some entertainment value out of it :)
All that snow, and for such a long time … miserable! Normally we get rain, rain, and more rain this time of year in Oregon. INSTEAD the sun is shining with a predicted high in the 60’s! The weather is crazy everywhere this year … but I prefer my crazy weather over what you’re having!
I think he was wondering why, all of a sudden, I was calling him so darned much!
I would definitely prefer your crazy weather, my friend.
Such lovely books…they look so pretty together on your shelf. I plan on looking through your playlists later when I have some time. I like to discover new-to-me music
They are very pretty, those books. I like looking across the den and seeing them on the shelf!
I’m a little surprised that readership would be down because of a playlist. Those people just don’t know what they are missing! Hope the snow stops for you…today really cold here…but warmer next week….like 50’s! Quite the confusion with the phones…but I’m sure you enjoyed the sleuthing! ;)
Ah, well, you can’t please everyone, I guess! Supposed to be in the mid-forties for us next week, not as warm as your neck of the woods, but we’ll take it. The melt is going to be something else, though!
I just thought I would give you some feedback since I am a constant reader of your blog. When I saw the playlist the first day I skimmed the list, the next posts on playlists lost my interest. I love music but I guess no one else’s choices interest me. Good idea to mix it up like you are so good at doing with your posts! Gayle
Well, it’s always a good idea to mix it up, but I will say that many readers wanted me to keep on going….so who knows? Thanks, Gayle.
You know thinking some more about this topic….some will like it some won’t ,so do what you like to do. My husband says ‘if you ask opinions you are going to get so many different ones with no clear direction’. Do your own thing!
Your husband is wise, Gayle! Thanks for being a loyal reader, it means a great deal to me!
I love your playlist! I don’t understand why anyone would not enjoy it. I appreciate the effort you put into it.
Wishing you snow-free days! Surely they will come.
jane-in-tx
Glad you fixed the puzzle of the phone. Now, if you could twitch your nose like Samantha in Bewitched, maybe you could make the snow go away!
Had to laugh at the phone situation. Sounds like something I would do but I would never figure it out. That’s why I haven’t made any comments in a while. Something wrong with my computer that we have not figured out. Sometimes it is fine; other times the computer does all manner of crazy things like singing at you. Gonna have to have my daughters come over and see what wrong button we have pushed. I do read and enjoy you every day.
Oh- How weird about the phone situation. Glad you got it figured out—so essentially, your dad was dialing himself and getting a busy signal
I am ashamed to say that is one book of the classics that I have not read….I even have it in my library. I really need to do that.
Your sweet furbaby is going to be more than ready for Spring-like all of us.
Hope your day was a good one, Claudia…
xo Diana