1. I'm ready for the spring weather to come back.

I forced myself out the door for a run this morning, telling myself that if the weather was really bad, I could turn around and come home after one mile. Just one mile, I convinced myself. And I didn't even have to run fast. And, as luck would have it, the weather was fine for the first mile. So I went ahead and kept at it, picked up the pace a little. It started to sprinkle. By mid-way through mile 2 I was damp, but not horribly so.

Then I turned a corner. Suddenly I was running into the wind, and being pelted with big, cold drops of rain driving straight into my face. And I stepped right into a great big ankle-deep puddle and my left foot was instantly so wet that it squooshed and squelched with every step. And by that time, I was at the mid-way point, far enough into my route that turning around to go home wouldn't have made the misery end any faster. There was nothing to do but stick it out. And I came home soggy and cold and got right back into bed.

Because a warm bed is the only appropriate place to be on a morning as nasty as that.

2. I just finished the sequel to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." This one was called "The Girl Who Played with Fire." Still a pretty good read, but didn't match up to the first one, in my opinion. Also, all the Swedish last names really started to blur in my mind after awhile. Bjork and Bjurmann, Berger and Blomkvist--apparently B is the most popular surname letter in Sweden, because I really think half of his characters had B-names.

3. Evie can now say her own name. "Eh-ee." "I Eh-ee." It is the cutest thing ever.

4. I hardly used to shop at CostCo at all. I had a membership so I could buy their gas and their diapers--that was it. And I still agree with Michelle from Scribbit that a lot of their foods are not really a bargain because I rarely buy name-brand foods. Plus, I don't really have the space to store 20-pound bags of flour and 60-packs of toilet paper.

But, as my kids get older (and they're not even very old yet!) they are really starting to go through the food. Bread, milk, fruit and veggies, and other basics--that's pretty much all I load up my cart with. And we go through it all in a flash. It's gotten to the point where I now feel that I really NEED to go to CostCo at least once a month. What am I going to do when they're all teenagers? How much food are we going to eventually go through? I'm a little scared.

Now, if I can just get them all OUT of diapers, maybe that will cancel out the damage their increased food consumption is doing to my budget...

5. Me to Beth today, after noticing that she had just applied a Dora the Explorer sticker to the front window: "Beth! Take that off of there! You know you're not allowed to stick stickers to the floors or the walls or the furniture or the windows."

Beth: "Well, you never said the windows before."

Leave it to her to find the one flat surface in the house that I had not explicitly forbidden her from sticking stickers on...and exploit the loophole.

6. Why are people so gross? There is this little pathway that leads from our house to the school grounds, and it is constantly covered in litter. Why do people think it's OK to just throw their trash on the ground to rot? Candy wrappers and sandwich bags, cigarette butts and coffee cups...and one time an empty 40 of Old English. Gross! And it's right next to the school grounds. What is wrong with people? It makes me mad, in case you couldn't tell. Whenever I remember, (which is maybe once a week or so) I bring a bag with me and the girls and I go on a grand trash pick-up on our way back from the school. Just call me the Litter Patrol.

7. Looking for a way to kill time on a Friday afternoon? Here are some links for your enjoyment:

A great post at Five Minutes for Parenting by Beck, about paying attention to all those little details that make up our day-to-day routines, because all those little moments? These moments are what life is, and we shouldn't miss them. It's worth a read.

A funny comic for fantasy/sci-fi nerds (thanks to my husband, uber-nerd that he is, for passing it on. And I mean that as a compliment, really I do).

And an awesome music video from the band OK Go that features a huge Rube Goldberg machine. Smashing TVs! Flying umbrellas! Paint guns! Really, you have to see it believe it.






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