you know it's easter, right?

So, of course, we had the annual egg hunt.

Not sure what Jr is looking at here?

Totally not posing ...promise

Jack's toe helping Audrey find a well-hidden egg... 

 

 I love both of these shots

now i have a picture

See--cool, right?

quick--get out the camera

Driving home from work tonight and went past all of the car dealerships on State Street.

One of the dealers has a whole row of new Cameros lined up along the edge of the road.

It looked so cool.  Totally wished I'd thought to pull out the phone and snap a picture.

Next time.

a couple of other things

I will admit to being pleased with the finished product from pottery class.  It might not take much to please me.  You be the judge.

And on a completely different and more sobering note. 

I took this photo this morning at the hospital.  Dad had one of the screws removed that were put in his leg last year when he fell and broke it.  I know I get over the top with worry about a lot of things.  Thinking about my nearly 88-year-old dad undergoing anesthesia again is right there at the top of things that heighten my anxiety.  Without going into a lot of detail, let's just say that I took this picture before the surgery because I wanted a shot of his cute little grin, and best of all, he came through it okay.  So relieved.

march never lets you down

I got a new boss at work almost a year ago.  He's from Michigan originally, but he moved to Florida at some point and lived there for nearly 20 years before moving to our high mountain desert.

You would think that a former Michiganer--Michiganite--whatever the term is--you would think he would understand seasons, but apparently he's forgotten what seasons are all about.  He claims it takes him 15 minutes to get ready to go outside--boots, coat, hat, gloves, scarf...I don't get that and just look at him when he tells me that each morning.

But also, seasons do not mean you get up every morning and toss on a pair of flip flops before heading out to pick up the newspaper off the driveway.

Shortly after he arrived here last year, I had to explain to him that summer means warm, then warmer, then still warmer.  Extremely low humidity.  Until late summer when the humidity builds each afternoon and breaks out in majestic and awesome thunderstorms.

One morning he complained that he felt a chill in the air.  I told him that means autumn.  When the chill starts, it is followed by winds and leaves changing colors and falling from the trees.  There are cool mornings and warm afternoons that leave you puzzled about what to wear and help you begin to understand the value of layering when dressing.

And after days that become more chill and less warmth, fewer hours of light and more hours of dark, comes winter.  The wind howls, the skies become overcast in a dark way that differs from the ominousness of summer thunderstorms--and then snow falls.  Sometimes blizzardy driven snow that does sting the nose and bite the toes, but other times--other times, the snow falls lightly, huge sparkly flakes that don't disappear from your coat or hair instantly.  And if you ski, sometimes it snows glitter.  Really.  Snow that is so dry that it squeaks under your skis.  And it is beautiful, coating everything with frozen ice crystals.  And sometimes the cold lasts for days and days and feels bitterly cold deep inside and you wonder if you'll ever warm up or see blue skies again.

But one morning, it snows and the snow melts before you can shovel it from your driveway.  You see blue skies and glory of all glories--the sun.  It is still in the sky, shining so hard that it melts the snow.  And the temperature warms a bit so you might be tempted to think it is spring.  You might think that spring is the time when it is sunny and snow melts quickly and birds sing.  But don't be fooled.  Spring means quickly melting snow, but it also means warming days possibly followed by cloudy, drizzly, rainy days.  For days and days. Rain.

But March never lets you down.  It gives you snow and wind and sunny warmth and rain.  And green.  Growing green things.  And whether it's lion or lamb, March gives you hope.

That's how seasons are.  They are not all temperate, the same 40-degree spread with just a sprinkling of precipitation.  Seasons are all about change.  And the future.  And hope. 

and then

My hair has been awesome for the past two days.

Apparently if you develop sudden onset self-loathing and whine about it on the internet your hair gets its act together stat and voila!      you feel better.

Maybe I just need a new hair conditioner.

It starts with the static electric fly-away hair.  We got up early yesterday intending to organize all of this:

This is all of the stuff we hauled up from the storage room.  We needed to find places for all of it in the garage.  And since we got up early, I dressed, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and headed to the garage with Jack.

Where my hair started doing that fly-away thing it does on occasion.  My response to that physics event is to pull it all back into a ponytail.  Problem solved.  Back to the organizing.

Which we did, off and on, all day, interspersed with episodes of Breaking Bad from last season.  And then we decided to go eat at La Frontera.  Before we left, I, of course, used the bathroom, checked out myself in the mirror, and gasped at what I saw.

Who is that looking back at me?  How did I not notice all of that grey hair?  When did I start needing to wear makeup before going out in public?  Where did my eyebrows go?  My cheeks?  Whose neck is that under my chin?  And thank heavens I'm wearing long sleeves.  And a non-fitted shirt. 

Bam.  Pow.  I suck.  I'm old.  I'm fat.

Dinner was good.


Then this morning, we got up early again.  Headed back out to the garage. 

It was in that really bad messy stage, the total chaos just before it's all put together stage.

But now, after another hour or so, this:

And my car and Jack's truck are parked in their spots in the garage.

 

And maybe, just maybe, what I really need is to be a little kinder to myself, take care by choosing better food, remembering to spend a few minutes on the treadmill.

Maybe, just maybe what I need is a new hair conditioner.

just putting this out there

Yesterday at work, I went on the internet to my blog.  (Okay, yes, I was checking for comments.)

There were no comments, so I clicked on the link to Jessie's blog to see if she had posted anything recently, you know, any new pics of the kids.

Not sure what happened next, but before her page could open, I was sent to a page that said I had been blocked and logged for viewing pornographic material.

Whaaaa???

I'm just saying here and now that I was absolutely not viewing porn.  On Jessie's page or anywhere else.


Period.

Seriously. Porn?  At work?  On Jessie's page?

No.Way.

Sheesh.

dear facebook

Dear Facebook,

A few questions...

1.  Why do you regularly suggest that I should 'like' the Dr. Oz's Diet:  Lose 27 lbs Monthly page?
2.  Why do I have 46 requests from my niece for Farmville 2?

gilian

ps  please tell my bro that I was not--not for even a second--writing about him in my last post about 50ish men who shave their heads and grow goatees.  Not for a second.  Never even considered it.  Really.

some of this some of that

We've been watching a bunch of TV around here lately.  

 

Finally decided to watch Breaking Bad.  Totally cannot recommend it to most of my friends or kids or family, but it's very entertaining.  I will never be able to look in the same way at 50-year-old guys who suddenly decide to shave their heads and grow a goatee.

We've also been watching a bunch of DIY TV.  

Always lots of demolition on that channel.  So we decided to start a project.  We emptied out part of the basement storage room and then knocked out the shelving so we can knock out the wall, thereby enlarging Jack's shop space.

Check it out:

 before (after we cleaned out all of the stuff)

Yes, totally me in action (I only posted this one because somehow Jack got one that almost makes me look thin...

 Jack in action (that's a sledge hammer in his hands but he's too fast for the camera)

 

Pile o' shelves

and now we have open space

And remember these?

Now they look like this:

Slightly imperfect, but nearly flawless.

 

And see this? 

 This is spring nearly here.

Seeing them in the beds out front made my heart smile.