gah

March is so long. Not as in farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, goodnight, but as in SOOOOOOOOOOOO LONG. It feels like it has been March FOREVER.

March has the unfortunate distinction of falling between lovey dovey (and short) February, where the snow is still romantic and the temperatures are slightly warmer than the dead of winter; and April, which signifies everything spring (theoretically, of course. We know that in Saskatchewan this does not always hold true).

March is the month of unpredictable weather - sunshine which makes slush and muck, snowstorms which reverse everything the sun has done, and make people grumpy. This year, we've had 2 beautiful "trial runs" for spring, both followed by snowstorms. It just makes for a very tedious month, and one with 31 days at that.

I would like to propose that we make March shorter, just for sanity's sake. I know this won't change the weather patterns we experience during this time of year, but it will make this month go by more quickly....Why not have February (lovey dovey and getting warmer) and April (by the end of it, we'd better have green grass, daggone it) into 31 day months, thus shortening March to a 27 day month? We could even move leap year to the end of March so it gets 28 days every 4 years. Just think....in March, depending on when weekends fell, you might only have 3 calendar weeks of work, as opposed to 4 1/2! It would fly by, and we'd be well on our way to the hope of April.

the joys of home ownership, the blessings of parents

Right now, my darling mom and dad are at my house, pumping water out of our backyard.

Our whole yard is kinda below grade, and the snow melts, but the water does not go anywhere. Last year it took us by surprise (along with a day of rain while the ground was still frozen), and we had water in our basement. This year, we have been watching the situation very closely.

A couple weeks ago when it was above 0, we spent a lot of time shovelling all the snow off our huge concrete patio, thinking that if the snow was melting into the lawn, the water would just absorb instead of pooling back there. But interestingly, even though we had that cleared up (and any melted water at that time pumped out to the street), it seems to be the low point in the backyard and so the water is melting from other areas of the lawn and running to the patio. Sigh.

But the pump we have works very well, and the back patio has a crown in it - if the water stays on the yard side of that crown, it's all good; if it crests and comes towards the house, it's very bad. Most days we just do a bit of pumping after supper (on a side note, i will probably say the exact same thing 6 months from now with a different meaning...) and it's all good. But today, it is warm enough that we were concerned that it would crest before we got home from work. So mom and dad went over to do some pumping (probably NOT something I'll say in 6 mos in relation to a different situation, lol), and we're good to go until after work.

Here's to dry basements and a wonderfully green spring with all this moisture! And thanks, mom and dad!

Good To Know....

Proctor & Gamble not in league with the Devil

must have been the late night snack...

Last night, I had a dream that made me SOOOOOOOOO angry. I dreamt that Tony put in our new tub, but then decided it was too high, he didn’t like having to step up that high over the edge in order to have his shower. So he grabbed a utility knife, and cut the whole tub down to about 3-4” high all the way around, leaving a really nasty jagged edge, and effectively destroying the tub and turning it into a shower floor. I was so ticked at him, and he didn’t think there was anything wrong with what he had done, he thought it was just fine, jagged edges and all. Oh, and our bathroom was in the hospital, and about 20 of my friends were all in the hosptial in hospital beds, and for some reason they all had to be wheeled into my room (my bedroom, I wasn’t in the hospital…but my bedroom was a hospital room, if that makes sense). So we were just bed to bed packed in there, and I decided to take pictures just to use them as “proof” of the overcrowding issue in hospitals these days (??) but the nurses were not happy with me over that idea.

Indeed, it was too good to be true

(this just confirms and reinforces my inner pessimist)

Current Temperature: -17C, with snow falling. With windchill, feels like -29.

Overnight forecast: -21C.

I sure hope this isn't a teaser.

I love spring. I love the sunshine, i love the smell in the air, i love the streets and sidewalks that are getting drier with every passing day. I love that it is light out when i wake up, and light out until well after supper. I was absolutely excited when it was raining the other evening. I love the sense of life and hope that comes with spring.

But it is only March 12. Seems to me that spring usually arrives a bit later than this in these parts.

So while I am truly enjoying the weather as of late (sitting in an office with a window from which I can watch the melting snow and feel the fresh breeze and hear the cars driving through the puddles), i am still hesitant to declare that winter is over.

I suspect that we may get one more big dump of snow, and one more spell of cold(er) weather - my guess would be that we have 3-4 days of at least -10 coming sometime this month. Yes, i guess it is the pessimist in me, but i'd rather be prepared for this than to think we're in the clear and then have it come anyways.

Of course, i'd be entirely thrilled if the weather proved me wrong and we didnt' see snow and cold again until October/November.

oops

So, when I walk all or part way to work, I almost always wear grungy clothes so that I don’t get my work clothes either (a) wet from the snow/slush (bottom of my pants) or (b) sweaty (my shirts). Then I just change into fresh clothes when I get here.

Well, today I walked half way, and guess what? I forgot my change of clothes at home, lying in a nice folded pile on my bed. So I’m sitting here in very old sweats (7 yrs) covered in dog hair (me n jessa were cuddling this morning before I left) and a t-shirt from my mexico missions trip 2 years ago… Stylin!

Yeah. I’m glad I have no meetings today and no need to leave my office except to pee. I was even thinking of just buying lunch today, but took the time to pack one, so I can even eat without going out. I'm also glad that I'm basically decent and covered - some of my walking shirts don't really cover my belly anymore...also, depending on the work shirt i'm wearing that day, sometimes there's a ... "conflict"... between my bra and my walking shirt which I don't care about because it is just for under my jacket (i.e., dark or colorful bra under light shirt). So things could have been worse!

Hey, my first week here, they did tell me that there's no dress code to worry about!