How're YOU doin'?

I'm going crazy from all of this snow. It's been the worst winter I can remember in a long time. Snow. Snow. SNOW! It just. won't. stop. I honestly don't remember the last time it's snowed this much. My kids are going to be going to school until July to make up for all the lost time. For reasons known only to them, our district's BOE built a grand total of ONE snow day into the school calendar.

Yes, you read that right.

One.

Day.

Now, this is NJ. We don't always get a LOT of snow, but it does snow. Blizzards are rare, but not unheard of. I can't remember there ever being less than three days built into the calendar. But not this year.

One.

Day.

And they burned that day off back before Christmas.

So far, my kids lost President's Day. They lost the Friday before Memorial Day (don't know why that was a day off, but it was) and now, their spring break will consist of two days. Two lousy days. And that's only if there is no more snow this winter.

Excuse me while I go laugh over that one.

There are twenty-nine days until spring and with any luck, I'll still have some semblance of sanity left. And who knows, I may even see my front lawn again by June.

Rain, rain.... GO AWAY!

**sigh**


It's done nothing but rain in my little corner of the world.

Rain.

Rain.

Oh, look! Rain.

**rant alert** 

Seriously - we have not had a truly sunny day since May 12th. My backyard has inches of water standing on top of the grass. For some insane reason, our landscapers decided to try and mow the lawn. After 7 straight days of rain. WTF? Are they trying to ruin my yard??? Both my front and backyard now have stripes. I can't believe I actually have to tell the (supposed) professionals that, from now on, I do not want them anywhere near my lawn if it's rained in the last 48 hours (or nonstop for the last week.)

Of course, my plants are growing like crazy (except for my pot o'basil, which is pretty waterlogged. For some reason, the pot has no drainage. I'm hoping I can salvage some of the basil, but right now it's looking as if I'll have to plant fresh. Rats.) And the little sapling the Boy brought home from school on Earth Day? It's put out a separate branch and a bunch of leaves. Now, that may not sound like much, but this is the third sapling I've tried to grow. The first one was a little white pine that was doing very well until my landscapers (the same ones who didn't see anything wrong with trying to mow over-saturated grass) apparently can't tell the difference between a tree and a weed and cut it down. I coaxed it back to life, and on their next visit, the landscapers hacked it down again. It gave up after that.

As for the second sapling? The Boy's teacher forgot to put them in the kids' backpacks. She also forgot to keep the roots wet. I tried, but after about six weeks of it remaining a stick, I pulled it back out of the ground. Oh well.

But this one is doing well (I've got it staked so no one mistakes it for a weed.) My mint is growing like crazy. The parsley and sage are doing well. The rosemary is finally taking the hint an starting to poke up through the soil. My vincas are doing well, but the heavy rain (occasionally accompanied by end-of-the-world type winds) have decapitated the blooms. Fortunately, it looks like they're putting out new flowers, so all is not lost. And the entire woods behind my house is a stunning array of very vivid greens.

**end rant**

Now, in the spirit of trying desperately to remain glass-half-full, the sore muscle that's kept me from running (and walking like a normal person) for the last ten days? It's finally starting to feel better. I've missed running (I started in March, could barely do a quarter of a mile. Before I got hurt, I was up to two miles. Yay!), so I'm looking forward to getting back. For now, I do the same two miles on the elliptical machine, so hopefully I won't lose my endurance. I'm down almost 15 pounds (yay!) with ten more to go. I've actually had to go and buy new jeans because the old ones don't fit any more (yay!)

A Perfect Lady is chugging along. I'm still ticked with the characters, but payback is here and it's going to be fun to torture the daylights out of them . And I'll be here for Six-Sentence Sunday with another six from Rebecca and James. Want to know if she found her chemise? Want to know if she's caught with him and ruined forever? Well, tune in this Sunday...

Snow (Again) (Again)

Yep - another snowstorm. Two more days off from school for the kidlets - and since the district only budgeted two (maybe three? I've lost count of how many snow days we've had. It's been a long time since I've done that!) days, they've now stripped away two days from Spring Break. Oh well, the Girl is going to Florida to see her grandparents, so it won't affect her, but the Boy will lose a day. His preschool is already closed every other Monday, and as luck would have it, the last Monday of Spring Break is a Monday it would be closed any way. Whew.

But the thing is, I'm tired of snow. I'm tired of cold. I'm ready for spring. And let's face it, I don't get a whole lot of work done when the kids are home. I spend too much time yelling at them for fighting (which reminds me, I need to call my mom and apologize for the days when my brother and I were the ones fighting, Sorry, Mom!)

So, let's all think spring, shall we?

And now, I think I'll try to use this momentary lull of peace (maybe the kids have killed each other?? I should probably check) to try to get some work done.

Is It Spring Yet?

Because I am really sick of the cold.

Normally, I'm a huge fan of the cool weather - spring and fall are my favorite seasons, and I despise NJ summers. I swear my people must have come from Ireland in the cold months because there is no way they stepped off the boat in the middle of July, looked around, and said, "YES! This is the place!" Not. Possible.

But for some reason, this winter seems endless. Maybe because it got very cold very fast, and has pretty much stayed that way (though, on Monday, the temp was in the fifties, so it was like a mini-heatwave!), but I am sooooo ready for the cold weather to be over with, and there's still what? eight weeks left?

Ugh.

So, as I sit here in my office, looking out at the nekkid tree branches, and seeing the snow (finally) melted away, all I can think about is opening the windows and feeling warm air. I'm sick of cold, sick of ice, sick of my hair being all static-y, and sick of having to wear gloves and earwarmers when I walk the dog.

So, is it spring yet?