weekend roundup

It's spring break today, and the sun is shining and it feels like spring! Broken trees are blooming and it's light outside. Yay! DH has a lot of work to do over the break so we aren't going far. I want to go here, but I think the drive is just too far for a day trip.

Area news--boy and girl basketball teams, both undefeated, from the same school, win their division. I'm sure much celebration ensued. Since my MC started playing team sports, I'm much more aware of this. (The days of news stories/multiple page spreads kind of makes you aware, too.)

I spent the morning driving around to find the cheapest mailing option for a package to South America. Just so you know, there is a significant difference in cost between sending something USPS through a UPS store and just going to the post office. And USPS was def. cheaper than UPS!!! (Like, $38 compared to $188.)

Not sure how much writing I'll get done while I'm the One Responsible Adult among five kids all day, but hopefully we'll have fun. I hope your week is spring-y!

Ahhhh.... spring

One of the things I love about my inlaws' house is their abundant use of skylights by day and artificial lights by night in the kitchen/family room area. One of the things I hate about this house is its terror of light, natural or otherwise. It has been so dark and gloomy (and when it wasn't I was sick), and I didn't realize how much my body was screaming for light until we took a walk today. Okay, so we had to drive to find a place to walk (how I hate having to drive everywhere!), but it was SO NICE just to be outside, throw rocks in a creek, dodge blooming branches, smell moss and tree sap, and even in the car, just be able to roll the windows down and hear the clatter of the railroad tracks when we crossed them and smell the cars puffing past. Anything but being blindfolded and wrapped in an endless dark cocoon of winter. I really need to reconnect with nature to keep my sanity. It's one of the things I envy robinellen for--public land and access to the wild is easier in the western US, whereas the further east you go, the more the land is owned, cordoned off, unreachable.

The kids have been asking for a true Ausflug (field trip? there's not a good translation) for a long time. I think it's time to research day hikes in the area. Let spring come!