Spring into Spring

Daylight savings already? Ever since Bush fiddled around with the dates (honestly that’s the best you can do when it comes to energy saving policies?!) I’ve been surprised by the clock changes. They just seem too early in the spring and too late in the fall. Over the last few years, I’ve spent two springs overseas and their dates for the clock change to “summertime” don’t necessarily match up with our dates to daylight savings. Ha! Another excuse for my confusion!

But goodness is it spring outside. Only a few bitty patches of snow remain in the parking lot. The pine grosbeaks appeared to have headed north to cooler climates, transforming the bird feeders into squirrel feeders. In this warm weather only the chickadees and squirrels have been frequenting the feeders. I’m not thrilled to have a squirrel feeder, but I also want to get rid of the remaining sunflower seed before it turns into bear season. Muck abounds outside and while I could complain about the mess, it feels too good to be running around outside in a sweatshirt to bother.

This weekend marked the last hurrah of sorts for the winter season at the restaurant. An annual breast cancer fundraiser/end of winter party took place this weekend. The event’s meant to involve sled dogs but because of the utter lack of snow that didn’t happen. So instead it turned to a vodka and ________ (tonic? Sour? Diet?) fest with live music. Everyone seemed to have fun but it’s kind of weird to think that’s pretty much it for the season. Now we have two and a half of whatever until closing for the month of April.

A coworker with a green thumb brought in an African violet for me on Friday. She’d asked if I had room for a cutting and since the rest of the houseplants are doing so well (the Christmas cactus appears to be putting on new leaves for the first time in the year and a half that I’ve owned it), I thought, what the heck, I’ll make room. What I expect was a leaf in a pot. What I got was a beautiful, blooming healthy plant that crowds out the spider plant on my desk. I need to figure out some solution so they don’t die during my absence in April. I fear with every houseplant I acquire I am getting one step closer to becoming a crazy cat lady. My reputation (aided by my love of knitting) is saved only by the fact that I don’t particularly care for cats. That said, I don’t vehemently dislike cats, but in our house, Andy’s the cat person while I prefer puppies.

In January, back when I didn’t have that much to do, I volunteered to help judge an online fiction contest. Yesterday, ten submissions showed up in my inbox. They printed out to 47 single spaced printout pages. Guess those are going on vacation with me.

Andy’s been out of town this weekend, attending the big premiere canoe sports show of the Midwest. Andy has somewhat of a whirlwind effect on clutter in the Shack so I’ve taken advantage of his absence to get things straightened up a bit. In advent of my new summer job (oh, it’s so exciting!!) we will not be summering in the Shack but instead will be moving even deeper into the woods. Things are up into the air as to whether or not someone else will live in the Shack over the summer. Since that’s by far the most economical option, I want things organized for an easy exodus. Cleaning the Shack for new inhabitants will be a big enough project at the end of April without having to organize the whole thing first.

Beyond laundry, recycling and bread baking, I need to get through a chapter of the novel and edit three radio commentaries before the day is done. I have to get the personal stuff out of the way today because tomorrow we’re right back into the work week and ideally, I need to finish up two articles tomorrow. Life’s only boring if you let it be.