More Signs of Spring

When I was outside today, I noticed movement in the nest above my front door. I grabbed my camera and got a glimpse of the two babies as they stretched their little heads up.

They are kind of blurry, because they moved pretty fast, but I was happy to see that having bird poop on my door isn't all for nothing.

I've also begun the task of spring cleaning. I think we're finally done with the cold, so it's time to switch out everyone's clothes from winter to summer. But then you always need those "in-between" clothes as well. My kids rooms end are a mess for a week or so while I decide which clothes that they've outgrown would be a blessing instead of an insult for Goodwill, and what is worth saving.

But then I always get warmed up and just start throwing things out. Every now and then I do pitch something that I later regret, but the results far outweigh any risks.

The hardest thing for me is dealing with this: The Laundry Basket

Everything in my house seems to like to migrate to the floor where it doesn't belong. The basement toys end up on the main floor, the main floor things end up upstairs, and the main floor is the sad recipient of random objects from above and below. My solution: the laundy basket. It is my blessing and my curse. I love that I can treasure hunt and find everything that is in the wrong place, put it in the laundry basket, and the room I am cleaning looks fabulous so quickly.

But then I am left with the laundry basket of random items that each belong in a different place. I have two laundry baskets, neither of which actually is being used for laundry at this moment because once I get the satisfaction of cleaning a room, it's so hard for me to then tackle the laundry basket.

Maybe tomorrow...

My $60.61 Chuck E. Cheese Token

Who in their right mind would pay $60.61 for a Chuck E. Cheese token? Me. But only when it was very inconveniently dropped into the air conditioner control, forcing it to stay on full blast at all times.

I wasn't sure what had happened, but I knew these facts:

1. Andrew had managed to get up to the front seats. It was only about a minute, but he's a quick worker.

2. There were a few Chuck E. Cheese tokens lying on the floor between the front two seats. I have no idea why they were there since we don't even have a Chuck E Cheese within almost a 100 miles, but nevertheless, there they were.

3. The tokens fit JUST RIGHT into the control panel.

It all added up to a bad morning, and a $60.61 bill for the Toyota dealership to extract the token and allow me to drive in peace and quiet. Okay, I still have my kids, so it's not exactly peaceful and quiet, but at least I can control one of the noises again.

Is this why there is the word verification?

I received this great comment on my last post:

"Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =). If possible gives a last there on my blog, it is about the MP3 e MP4, I hope you enjoy. The address is http://mp3-mp4-brasil.blogspot.com. A hug."

It leads you to a website written in Portuguese selling (you guessed it) an MP3 player. But I guess I have to be happy I'm reaching so many people--I mean I'm going international now. And I'm getting hugs from them.

Saturday Yard Work

There were two large trees (among the dozens of large trees in our back yard) that we decided needed to be cut down since I noticed the ground by one of them would come up when the wind blew too hard. I thought it was a sign that the tree was going to land on our house when the next strong storm came through.

So Ryan went out with our trusty sawzall to cut them down this morning. The skinniest one came down without a fight, but the second one (the one I thought was about to fall at any moment) was much sturdier than I had originally thought, and ended up falling into the neighboring maple tree. Ryan climbed up to see if he could cut the branch away, but had no luck. I made the unfortunate comment that it made me nervous to have our breadwinner up so high in the tree--now Ryan thinks all I care about is the money.

After a LOT of work, we got the tree to fall finally. Unfortunately, it was right on top of our neighbor's fence. The bright spot in all of this is that the fence was already bent, and they hadn't gotten around to fixing it--so maybe now that it's bent in two places (and we'll offer to help pay for it) they'll finally get it done.

We are also sending out eviction notices to the ants and the moles in our yard. After all of this work to get grass to grow, there's no way I'm going to let them ruin it.

Spring Has Sprung

We planted grass almost three weeks ago. I haven't been the most diligent waterer, so it's probably my fault that it has taken so long, but we are finally seeing some green. It's going to take a while for everything to fill in, but it's nice to see something other than straw.

Another sign of spring is that a couple of birds have foolishly decided that right above my front door is a great place to build a nest. I think they might have been better off somewhere else, but I love that it's there and we can watch for the baby birds.