is it spring yet??

So I guess I am ready for a change in weather.  Since we moved here in 2006, our winters have been relatively mild.  This winter, feels incredibly long and cold.  Our snow base is more than we have had in five winters.  Really I am ready for the two and half feet of snow to melt and for the sun to shine once again.  It has been grey here, really grey and all I really want to do is hang my laundry on the clothesline and air my stuffy house out.  I want to get the saw out of the entrance way and finish off all the renos and have the house put back together sooner rather than later.  But I know better than to get my hopes up because something always gets in the way.  I can't wait to plant my garden and for the local farmer's market to start up again.  I always love the beginning of spring.  When the white snow melts away and the green starts to come back.  And being able to walk around the ponds again looking for the pussy willows and buds on the trees.  I am looking forward to sewing Anomantia's Easter dress and getting ready for family visits.  With all the work to do around our home, it keeps me ever so busy but not too busy to enjoy the little things.  I am enjoying all that I can on my days off, unfortunately I still have to work four days per week.
This weekend, Laurence had to be out for work, so Anomantia and I travelled with him.  We also got the opportunity to go to a couple of pet stores.  Anomantia LOVES animals and gets so excited when she gets the chance to see them upclose.  She even got to hold an albino bunny.  It was so cute.  She loves cats and dogs and horses and pretty much anything that is fuzzy and makes noises.  With all of Laurence's allergies, we are not able to have pets in our home and we feel our yard is too small to accomodate an animal, plus the weather in the winter is far too cold for a cat or dog to survive strictly outdoors.  As much as I would love to get a dog for Anomantia, this will NOT happen.  Our home will remain animal-less until we can afford to move to a larger property with a barn for animals.  I am starting to get impatient for the spring to come so that I can take Anomantia to the zoo either north or south of Gurneyland but it all depends on how work is going. 
Lately I have been suffering from severely stiff hands and joints.  I am hoping that this is a temporary thing but it has been two weeks of barely being able to hold a pencil and getting white knuckled from only a few minutes of operating my grinder.  My GP wants me to see the surgeon to have scar tissue removed from the middle of my hand but this would result in lost time from work (not what I want right now).  I have kind of lost faith in him and his decisions since Anomantia's birth and since he decided to put me on medication with which I couldn't breastfeed anymore.  I stopped taking the meds after four days and gave it a few days to clear out of my system, then tried to get Anomantia to breastfeed again, but she wouldn't.  She weened herself, even when I wasn't ready for her to do so.  I am still suffering from engorgement and really unhappy that I was pressured into taking meds even when I didn't want to.  If I could change doctors at this point I would but the doctors here won't take a new patient unless they are without a current doctor.  Back to my chores and renos.