I have a sign in my front yard and I am not running for office. The sign says: “Congratulations, Natalie O’Connor. 2026 Illinois Teacher of the Year. West Carroll Elementary School.”

The school had nominated her for this honor many weeks ago and recently the principal and office staff came into her room with flowers, certificate, and signs. Natalie was a winner and I was lucky enough to get one of her signs. Our family is thrilled.

Our family has many in the medical field and in high school Natalie was going to head in that direction. She was shadowing at Freeport Hospital and then she felt she was not in the right spot. She wanted to work with children but with an emphasis on science.

So the day came when she headed for fifth grade armed with the O’Connor family microscopes and her Great-Grandfather Isley’s science genes. Obviously that is working well and she is in the right spot.

My Christmas things are now all tucked away and one has the feeling spring is around the corner. It is suddenly great to be outside again even though there is a pile or two of snow.

The Winter Olympics keep us feeling like it is still winter and I have enjoyed watching some of it. I keep an eye on the advertisements, especially the ones where they are eating chocolates. I even picked up a bag of the ones that are so special and found them to be a tad sweet. But it was Valentine’s Day and I decided to splurge. The bag was soon empty. Then Linda and Charlie came with Kit Kats in a lovely bag and I love those. So my Valentine’s Day was complete.

Kevin on the Polo Historical Society’s Facebook page posted some of our beautiful antique valentines that we have on display in the museum. I remember when my brother Ed helped me put all that display together. We are lucky to have some lovely seasonal tissue paper cards that are so old and very fragile. We want to move that up to Aplington House but we have to figure out where to put it when we do.

My goodness, Alexa just told me that tomorrow it is to be 65. I will soon feel like digging in the dirt. At least my snowman is back in the garage and up on the freezer until next winter. He did not look right outside anymore but I am certain we will have more cold weather about the time we get used to these warm sunny days.

Stop by the museum on Saturdays when Kevin has it open. We never know who will stop by and visit or have something to drop off for us. There is always something interesting on the table for us to wonder where on earth did that come from. This week it is a picture of a Worden who married an O’Kane. Linda was excited to see that and she is ready to send a copy to someone in the Worden family who will be visiting us this summer.

• Betty Obendorf is a retired teacher and volunteer for the Polo Historical Society.