I'm so grateful for the start of spring. Flowers are growing in our yard and some of the smaller trees and bushes are sprouting some leaves. I moved the figs trees from our garage to the driveway. Evenings aren't dark until after 7p.
Winter doesn't necessarily make me sad ( I really enjoy playing in the snow and battling the elements on my bike rides to and from work). This year the experience was more discombobulation. I couldn't assemble a coherent story for the various pieces of this life. Each piece was acceptable or good enough on its own, but I didn't see any bigness to it. As a grown up with barely sufficient maturity, I continue about life despite the dizziness. Someday, it will likely make sense again.
Parenting anecdote: this morning (Saturday), Janny came into our room at 7:15 to play and request pancakes. Both Jill and I wanted to continue sleeping. Every single day this past school week, I had to talk to, shake her (in the legal sense), and carry her out of bed at 7:30 to get ready for school. She turned 6 a couple of weeks ago!
We almost had a new adventure for spring break, but fate intervened to give us a different adventure. We made plans to stay at a bed and breakfast along the Katy Trail in MIssouri. We would do some short out and back rides with the kids on our tandems. I did some measurements and some preliminary packings, determining that our trusty Protege could in fact transport 2 tandems. I removed the forks, racks, and wheels so that only the frames would be on the car's trunk rack.
As I wrote, fate intervened so we didn't get to that adventure. But we did visit a lake in Kentucky and took a nice hike. On Thursday night we want to eat pizza in Cadiz. We found pizza at 8pm in the Casey's general store (the 7/11 or Circle K of the rural midwest) and drank slushies (cherry/coke mix for Jill and Chad, cherry for Clara, and blue raspberry for Janny). Delicious if not highbrow. And we got to spend some good time with family. The girls love playing with their cousins.
Clara has 2 nearly fully sprouted front teeth. She is growing out her bangs. She is getting so much better at reading lately -- we are so excited to see this happening. She is slowly getting through one of the Key Finders books and reading other smaller books with ease.
I have a business trip in May to Warren, MI. My last trip for work was probably 6 years ago ( DOE conference in a Pittsburgh exurb. The highlight of that trip was meeting a brahman that worked in coal gas extraction (i.e., removing methane from coal deposits, initially to reduce chance of mine explosion, then (and possibly now?) a profitable business.).
I started a new group on facebook called Urbana underground. So far, claiming the cool name is all I have done for the group. We have 4 members. Maybe if we had a purpose or goal, it would be attractive?
Finally, I bought another cheap, 15ish year old mountain bike. My intention was to swap wheels with my other psuedo-mtb and sell this one. But it's fun, so I might keep it. Now that 26" wheeled bikes are obsolete, I'm in! When the trend reverses (and mark my words, it will), I'll be swimming in cash.
