Monday

"To the house of a friend, the road is never long." My mom has a decorative something that has that written on it. These folks are road warriors. Treated the near 8-hour drive as peanuts. All in the name of friendship. Fellowship. Food. Fun (or so I hope). It was delightful to visit with a fellow blogger in person. Nice to share thoughts about marriage and children and joy and sadness and situations and well... you know life. The seven children between the two families are all near or close to the same ages. No fights broke out. Just good times. And very, very scary rollerblading down a hill and up a ramp. I'm certain our angelic kids had nothing to do with that whole scene. It must be the rabble-rousers from the south. Anyway, we invited some "extras" over for a couple of the meals. These people are not just fill-ins like in a movie scene. They are dear friends that we wanted to share with our far-away friends. It was good. All good.



Hmmm. Some thoughts from my latest grocery run. Do the baggers get tired of saying 'paper or plastic'? I think so. Lately, instead of asking, they just look at me saying nothing. A quiet stare that is saying, 'I really am not interested in bagging your goods and I must ask yet again if you want paper or plastic and quite frankly, I'd rather be doing just about anything else than this'. Do they profile people by what they buy? Wow... this lady has a lot of kids. Hey Mr. You've got a bit of a pooch over the belt. Do you really need those potato chips? Oh boy... a lefty-granola cruncher. All organic. I bet her wallet is lighter. Maybe they don't, but I sure would. I find it fascinating looking in other people's carts. I try to do it without notice. There's a special-needs bagger at one store I frequent. I am all for them working. In fact, I admire it. But I'm not the most patient person you'll find and he's tremendously slow. So I love it when I can bag my own.

I just got the van washed. You see the Chairman likes clean vehicles inside and out. The inside needs a warm spring day to do it up right. But the outside needed to get a big 'plop' of bird doo off the driver's side window. Typically, the Chairman just likes to sit in his seat and let the sprayers just take care of the soil. I've done that for 15+ years. But today I pulled into one of those do-it-yourself car washes. Plopped in my $3 of quarters and sprayed away. It was fun until the strong east wind blew soapy suds in my face. I rationed a bit too fast and had way to much time on the rinse cycle, but hey! It's clean. And the Chairman will be happy. And I saved three bucks!

We have some very cute house finches here. The guy has a red head. The mom is the normal dull-gray that most female birds are (how fair is that?). And they are planning a family this spring. Did some scouting and decided that our front door wreath would be a very cozy place to raise their brood. And I'd love to let them be there. But those cute little things eat worms and bugs. And then they have to go potty. All over my front door and porch. I went out and gingerly removed the nest. No eggs yet luckily. And the nest was beautiful. Soft and cozy from dryer lint they've gathered. It's quite a wonder how with only raw materials, a beak, and two little birdy legs that they can build up something perfectly round and soft for their young. Wow.

Broke out new walking shoes today. I'm kinda like MB with this... but only with my walking ones. It takes a couple times to really get in the groove and feel comfortable wearing something new. My baby toe always feels numb at first.

Better wrap this one up... once you start talking about your 'baby toe', you know it's gone too far long enough...