Goodbye Whitney

On Saturday night, my husband and I went out for a Valentine's day dinner.  During our conversation that evening, we talked about a variety of things, one of which was Whitney Houston.  He thought that she was a has-been, but I countered his disregard for one of the greatest singers of all time with "Oh no, she's trying to come back.  Hopefully she will."  The next morning he woke me up by showing me the newspaper headline proclaiming "Whitney Houston, Dead at 48." I was shocked.

I grew up in the '80s when Whitney Houston went from being on the cover of "Seventeen" magazine to pop-diva queen.  I went to her movie, "The Bodyguard" and cried with everyone else during the last scene when she and Frank kiss on the tarmac.  "The Bodyguard" was the movie I watched when I locked myself in my little house one week in the summer of '93, mourning the loss of a baby that didn't have time to be properly formed.  I sat in my darkened living room and soaked in Whitney's rich voice.  When I became pregnant again, I was determined that Whitney's "I'm Every Woman" song would be played while I gave birth to my beautiful baby girl.  Complications arose and I was unable to do anything but pray for the safe delivery of my baby girl.

Through happy times and sad ones, Whitney's gorgeous voice was the soundtrack to my often chaotic life.
Even with all her tribulations and addictions, I will always remember her as that gorgeous girl with the huge voice who comforted me in the most trying times of my 20s.

Whitney, this Hockeymama will always love you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxZD0VQvfqU&ob=av2e

Gotta love that Global Warming

Who knew that Global Warming could feel so good?  All the "experts" last fall were predicting that this winter was supposed to bring us colder than normal temps with as much snowfall as we experienced last winter (88" total), but spread out in smaller amounts throughout the winter.

Today, I went to my backyard and cleaned up all the little presents my dogs have left around my yard, dressed in sweatpants & sweatshirt, no gloves, no hat, no scarf.  The presents weren't frozen to the ground, nor were they buried under piles of snow.  If I didn't know today's date, I would have sworn it was late March or even early April as the thermometer on my deck (in the shade) was showing that we were near 60 degrees.

Even if this "January thaw" is short-lived (the experts are predicting temperatures back in the teens/lower twenties by Thursday), it has been a wonderful break for those of us living in freezing flyover country! I just hope that we don't get punished for this weather by the weather gods and have snow in June this year!