Hello blog.  I've missed you!  Things got busy this past week and I haven't made it to post anything all week.  I need to catch up and not get so busy.

So, what to talk about today.  My husband and I will celebrate 41 years together on March 6th.  That's practically a life time.  There are some people that don't even live that long.  We have our rough spots but it would be interesting to see if we can get to 50!  My parents were going on 61 years when my mother passed and my husband's parents were together for almost 60 years before my mother-in-law passed.    It's an oddity any more to see couples together for so long.  So, I'm curious. I start researching the percentage of people who stay married (you know me, I'm a researcher).  But I am alarmed at what I find. 

I google marriage statistics 2012 and find a chart that says a female married in 1971 does not make it past the 30th anniversary and the shocking part: the note at the bottom of the chart that says "Marriage cohort had not sufficient time to reach stated anniversary at time of the survey."  What the heck does that mean? There's no one who made it past 30 years in this survey? How can that be possible?

So, I move on to something a little more interesting and with more information.  I come across the "Highest Divorce Rates In the World".  Interesting, right?  Well, listen to this: Russia has 5 divorces per 1,000 people; Belarus (where is that you say? it's a country in Eastern Europe bordered by Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania. You're welcome.) 3.8 per 1,000;  Ukraine 3.6 per 1,000; Moldova (never heard of it right? It's a small, former Soviet country sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine.) has 3.5 divorces per 1000 people; Cayman Islands: 3.4 per every 1000 Caymanians;  the United States as a whole has the 5th highest divorce rate in the world—3.4 divorces per every 1000 people; Bermuda: 3.3 per 1,000; Cuba: 3.2 per 1,000 (less than the US!); Lithuania in 9th place at 3.1 per 1,000 people; and last, which is actually 1st in the least amount of divorces is Czech Republic 3 per 1,000 beer guzzling Czechs. Czech is known for their beer and has the highest beer consumption per capita in the world! 

So the moral of this story is to drink more beer!

There's a good chance that I'll do most of my blogging on weekends.  I work long hours and am too tired when I get home in the evenings to try to blog.  During the day there are so many topics that run through my head that I would like to discuss here, but they usually require a lot of thought and research and take time that I just don't have during the week. 

The past few days have been filled with the news of tornado devastation across the mid-west and eastern parts of the country.  My thoughts and prayers go out to the families who have been in the paths of these horrible tornadoes.  I was close to a couple tornadoes when I was young, had friends who lost their homes, and I don't think there is anything more frightening than a tornado.

So, my 3 year old granddaughter told me today that she wished I was little like her.  And when I explained to her that I couldn't be little anymore because I'm a grandma, she wanted to be a grandma so I can be her.  How sweet is that?

Birds

Enjoying the birds today through the blinds.

Saturday.  I love Saturdays.  Although like all working women, most Saturdays are spent working at home and today was no exception. After cleaning the house and doing laundry, with my husband's help I put up my new stand for my bird feeders. 

I get such pleasure in feeding the birds. It's my relaxation to sit and watch as they come for breakfast and dinner.  We hung another feeder on our window but I haven't seen any birds there yet. I suppose they have to find it and trust that we're not going to come thru the window and snatch them!

Next I'll find the proper feeder and food for the squirrels.  We have a lot of them.  I watched one in the fall make a nest running down the tree to pick up dry leaves, then run back up the tree, place the leaf with precision, then run back down the tree for another.  He did this for who knows how long. I got tired of watching and went inside. He was still running up the tree with his leaves and down the tree again.

After a busy day of chores I think tonight might be a fast food night. Hamburger, maybe pizza, or Chinese food! My latest favorite drink: Sangria with fruit punch, OJ, and pineapple! Cheap but tastes good. I like a sweet wine.

Sitting with my granddaughter anticipating 75 mph winds and tornado warnings.  (No, these are not my photos!) Now I hear thunder.

We have no idea where the cat is. She goes outside a lot.

Tried to get my granddaughter to take a nap but she won't have any of it.  She's a little freaked over the weather.  She doesn't like thunderstorms.

The cat, however, sleeps all the time.  Ahhh, the life of a cat!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Virginia has some of the most changing, unpredictable weather anywhere!  Today it was nearly 80 degrees! Just last weekend it was snowing, and it's still February. It's getting pretty dark out there and it got really still.  Not a good sign.  Crazy I say.

I'm always amazed at how really hardy God's creation can be. Like the flowers that are blooming around here, still, even after the last snow fall. 

Or the cherry trees blossoming.

And I always love the Dogwood blossoms in the spring.

And I love the sound of the birds in the mornings. It's hard to believe this sometimes, but in Alaska in the winter it was so silent of any bird sounds that I missed it when I would come to Virginia for a visit and return home.  I plan to get a book about birds and find out what kinds of birds I see in the mornings feeding from my bird feeders.  The only ones I can actually recognize is the Northern Cardinal and the Chickadees.  There's one that has a little spike on the top of his head that seems to dominate one of my feeders.  And then there's a Woodpecker that barges in on the others and takes over the feeder. But there are many others that come along for a snack.

I can hardly believe we are almost through February already.  And who would have thought when we were kids (back in the good ol days) that the earth and civilization would even be here in 2012!  Here are some examples of some events in history when I was a child:

U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin tells President Truman that the State Department is infiltrated with communists and communist sympathizers. This initiates a period of witch hunts and blacklists

The Soviet Union begins putting nuclear missiles on submarines.

Television started hitting homes, for those who could afford one.  I can remember the snow and the test pattern on the screen after hours. We didn't have tv for 24 hours a day.

The Soviet Union detonates its first hydrogen bomb with much more power than the atomic bomb.
The Korean War

Schools were segregated--separating whites from blacks.

First human trials of "the pill" oral contraceptive for women.

Rosa Parks, a black woman, was arrested after refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama.

The Soviet Union test their first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) that's capable of delivering nuclear warheads in minutes to the U.S. If you could afford one, people built bomb shelters in fear of the Soviets sending one of their missiles to the US. We had bomb drills in schools.

Alaska and Hawaii become the 49th and 50th states in the United States.

Xerox introduced the first commercial photocopier to the market.

The Berlin Wall is constructed to prevent East Berliners from defecting to the West.

John F. Kennedy was president and assassinated.

It's all relative I suppose.  But the "good ol' days"?  I think not.