Getting Better

Okay, it’s improved. Look at that sky!

And better than that, the leaves are coming back to the trees. It’s about time. Today I put a few flowers in our front planter and in the hanging pot in the screened porch. This is partly because it was a beautiful day for outdoor chores and partly because Cute W has been fretting that our house is an eyesore that will prevent people from buying our next door neighbor’s house. He’s impatient for flowers. So rather than waiting for the perennials, I bought some annuals to spruce us up. I always end up doing this before Niska-Day, anyway, because we’re on the parade route and we get an annual letter which politely reminds us not to embarrass ourselves or our community. Not in those words, but that’s the jist. But I was also trying to make Cute W feel better about the house.

Actually, come to think of it, everyone’s down on the house lately. That’s partly because the girls have been watching House Hunters. In fact, we were talking about it, and one of the girls said, “I like that show, but it kind of makes me feel like we live in a dump.” I laughed and agreed, and I said that that was why I sometimes avoided shows like that. Then I pointed out that if they were watching people shop for small, crappy houses, it would be not as fun and possibly depressing. “It’s just like how, when you watch tv shows, everyone’s weirdly and unbelievably attractive–have you noticed that? It’s considered more entertaining.” They agreed that this is probably true, but they’re still watching. I’m fortunate: I tend to not notice all of the glaring deficiencies that Cute W sees, and when I’m feeling annoyed that, say, my kitchen cabinets are ugly and don’t close all the way, I can just look at pictures of our old bathroom and suddenly I’m filled with gratitude for what we do have. But poor Cute W has a long list of things of more substantial fixes and improvements that the house requires, and I am not competent to do most of them. But I can put in flowers! And I’m sure I could do other things, but then I wouldn’t be doing them exactly right and I would just make Cute W crazy and he’d have to do it over again, like how I rearrange the table after he sets it. Better to stick to flowers. So now we’ve got some in the front to go along with our smattering of daffodils and hyacinths

I’m also super-excited that it looks like it’s finally warm enough to put some of my house plants outside. This is always a gala event for me, because our house is small and I’m not good at pruning back the plants. So it feels like they take up way too much space inside. When spring comes, I think we’re all happier. The plants get a nice little hose-down and some unfiltered sunlight, and the rest of us get some breathing room.

J’s finally turned in that dang school project. It seemed particularly cruel that the kids had the pile of homework this week, when the weather was so awesome. In our school, the reputation is the 4th grade is challenging, culminating in this project, and then 5th grade’s a breeze. So I’m hoping that J can go into coast mode. I was also thinking that, just like winter’s extreme weather can mean that kids are treated to a snow day, it would be great if spring offered a reprieve, too. I’d love it if teachers would cancel homework on extremely warm and beautiful days.