Monday, April 18, 2005

Ah, the colors of spring time!


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It's amazing how different a change of location can make you perceive something as simple as the emergence of Spring.  I guess it's because there are such different trees in Central Virginia than in Central Texas.  Spring has come so vividly here and so quickly that I missed photographing some beautiful white-blooming trees before they turned green with leaves.  It seems like it happened overnight!  I do miss the blossoms on the peach, pear, crab apple, and crape myrtle trees back home, but the colors here are so lovely that I'm too busy grabbing my camera to miss Texas too much.  I do hope the bluebonnets are already blooming when we visit Texas in a month, though.  I'll be sad if we miss that.  There's just something about the bluebonnets.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

"Bye-bye, Daddy!" days are coming

I caught a glimpse of my future yesterday. Or at least it felt like I did. Britt had to wear his suit for an oral argument presentation at the law school. He had to leave pretty early in the morning (as least to our way of thinking), so Ava and I were still sleepy-eyed and just eating breakfast when he came in to model his new suit for me (I hadn't seen him wear it yet). Impressed with his double windsor, I gave him the thumbs up, and off he went to put on his shoes and be on his way. By the time he was ready to walk out the door, we were finished with breakfast. So Ava and I accompanied him to the door to see him off. Ava loves going to the opened front door, if only to attempt to set foot on the front step. Somehow that gives her quite a thrill. Imagine if it were only (let's say...) the eighth time you'd placed your socked foot on cold pavement. I guess it would be thrilling! Anyway, Britt was leaving for the day, all decked out in his fine suit, new shoes gleaming (which Ava the shoe hound was the first to point out), and Ava and I were standing in our pajamas at the front door to see him off. After Britt and I completed our daily exchange about who has the cell phone, what time to expect him home, etc., Ava, without coaxing, waved her hand excitedly and said, "Bye-bye, Daddy!" just as plain as day. In that moment, I felt like this might become a familiar scenario in the post-law school years -- Britt heads off to the firm in the morning dressed all fancy right down to his shoes, ready to tackle another case, while I stand at the door with our children around my knees, all of us sock-footed, in our pajamas, still puffy-faced, waving "bye-bye" to Daddy and wondering what the day might hold for us today. It was sort of a sweet moment. One of the kind you don't expect. The kind that is so ordinary that you think it's silly to feel struck by it, yet undeniably sweet in its ordinary-ness. That's the stuff life is really made of.

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Freeze Frame

The state of apartment 934 at the moment is somewhere comfortably between appalling and spectacular. The meter always points a little more toward appalling than toward spectacular, but not nearly as much so as in past working-woman years. Hooray! (Or, "Ray! Ray!" to put it Ava's way.)

There are cardboard boxes waiting to be broken down (Progress!) and taken to the dumpster. The Diaper Champ on the front porch is full and waiting to be emptied into the dumpster. The trash can is approaching full and waiting to be taken to the dumpster. (Trash is Britt's job.)

Only two bags of groceries from Monday are still waiting on the dining room floor to be given good homes in our cabinets. The dining table looks like I just opened a propaganda bomb on it, as usual. But at least we are keeping spaces available for placemats these days. The ironing board is still waiting to be put back into the utility room after we had to unload it for maintenance to come replace the air filter. Ava's placemat and one of her bibs is still waiting to be picked up and cleaned after being thrown overboard during a bitter spell at supper the other night. We are all too lazy to walk around to that side of the table to pick them up.
The dining room floor holds the vacuum cleaner, several books, a baseball, a blanket, plastic keys, scattered animal parts for a puzzle, a stacking cup, a shape sorter, four cardboard boxes, a bag of packing peanuts, a toy drum full of toys, a package of rick-rack, a dumped basket of plastic eggs, a ladybug xylophone and accompanying caterpillar sticks, and several little pages from my page-a-day calendar. All in all, not half bad! The worst part is HUGE, frightening, black ants that show up in my dreams are somehow finding their way into our home! EEK!

The kitchen counters are clear of clutter today, save one lone can of mandarin oranges which are eagerly awaiting addition to the chilling Jell-O. Wet laundry awaits a dry spell. Dry laundry is ready for hanging and folding. Wet laundry can't get dry until dry laundry gets out of the way. Wet laundry is getting testy over it. Oh, and there's a live ant still not drowning in my morning cranberry juice, which is still sitting in the sink making me a nervous wreck.

Most of our DVDs are scattered around the living room amidst the shapes for the shape sorter and the rest of the scattered stacking cups. Other toys and books are remarkably in their places, due in large part to Ava's Barney obsession. I only see four wayward garments right now. Amazing! The big blue rocking dog is keeping watch over all, so we are safe.

Ava's room is tidy and actually doesn't smell like poo right now...that I know of.

Our room is a work in progress, as always. But at least it looks more like progress than like work to me right now. The shelf unit I put together yesterday (with Ava's "help" of course) is waiting for placement and filling today.

Everything's dusty. But at least the filthy air filter has been banished, so I can dust without feeling defeated this week. I think the floors were all vacuumed within the week, so that gets a CHECK! Same goes for toilets and tub. CHECK! CHECK! Kitchen floor needs to be swept and mopped, but when doesn't it?

Wow, I'm feeling better already! If in a given moment, we are at a 6 or better on the scale, then I'm feeling pretty good about things. Now if I would get off my blog and on to those chores, I could make another nice, long TODAY'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS list to feel good about.

Girl Power Mama?

We've all taken those womany quizzes that are designed to result in pigeon-holing you into one of four categories. Well, today I ran across one on another blog I've begun visiting lately. As always, none of the the answer choices really appealed to me, so the resulting category is questionable. Those who know me would probably think it odd that my thoughts could somehow be twisted into any form of the idea "girly." I'm not sure what I would call myself, but I don't think I would ever have considered "Girl Power Mama."


Girly Mama 2
You're a girl power mommy! You love to be girly,
but you're no pushover. Your kids are learning
that gender differences don't have to mean
gender inequality. You've taken back pink, and
you don't care who knows it!

What kind of a freaky mother are you?
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