April 1 Daybook

Source: seasonalwonderment

For today, April 1...

Outside my window... Tis Sunny and nearly 80 degrees! The boys are outside, soaking up all the sunshine before it snows again tomorrow. That's Spring in Colorado for you! The good news is, most of my bulb babies survived the winter! Not without some losses though... my double row of mixed white and purple tulips all came up like champs, and were promptly devoured by squirrels and deer. Now there are just depressing chewed-up leaves left. The squirrels stole the little patch of tulips Stephen picked out, I dug around in their bed and they've disappeared. The daffodils and grape hyacinths are loving life, guess I need to just plant zillions of those. No more tulips for me. *sigh*

I am thinking... You may have noticed the title of this post is different, and there is no weekly menu. Have no fear! There will be food! I've just decided to change my blogging schedule. (No, this is not an April Fools) Lately, with my brain full of big things and small things, not to mention Spring Break and the slowly creeping fog of allergies, putting together a weekly menu has seemed rather daunting. So I'm going freestyle! I will post recipes when I have recipes, throw a daybook entry in there here and there (at least one a month), and hopefully we'll stop having two and three week breaks around here. I still love blogging, (and baking! Just ask the three batches of scones I made last week!) but when I'm trying to remember which adoption forms to only fill out in BLUE ink, submitting payments for TWO forms, not just one, hunting down a mobile notaries to meet us at physical appointments then frantically canceling them to wait for blood test results, watching ticket prices like a hawk, while trying to remember when exactly the boys' homework is due and what the heck I had planned for dinner... Yeah, blog organization kinda takes a back seat. :)

Source: booksandleaves

I am thankful... for soft-boiled eggs and Trader Joe's crystallized ginger, for daffodils and grape hyacinths and my bomb-proof mini rose bush. I am grateful for new neighbors and warm afternoons and going back to bed right after dropping the kids off at school. Sometimes it just needs to happen! Speaking of which, I'm grateful I remembered to start taking allergy medicine before the allergies turned my face into a cement block, they aren't nearly as bad so far! I'm so thankful that my parents live so close that we can hang out whenever we want, I'm grateful for museum passes and planetariums and boys who apparently don't get tired of seeing the same exhibits over and over and over... especially the gems and minerals. :)

A peek into my day... Today I have a guy stopping by to give me an estimate on pruning our cherry trees a bit, and helping me figure out what is up with our lilac bushes, then it's off to the doc for my adoption physical, where they'll look at me funny after reading my medical history, yet miraculously sign me off as healthy anyway, then home to take the Beastie for a walk... or a nap... whichever... then picking up the boys and playing traffic cop so they can ride their new bikes on our street until the storm rolls in. It's supposed to get here around 5 and start raining. I'm excited for the rain part! Less so the turning-into-snow part. 

Source: forestlore

In the kitchen... I rediscovered the awesomeness of my Ginger Chocolate Chip Scones last week, sent a batch to work with the Geologist, then made myself a batch just because I could! Goodness gracious those things are yummy. I've got quite a bit of baking on the docket for the rest of this week; some sort of treat (undecided, but leaning toward a carrot cake bundt with cream cheese swirl) for company tomorrow, banana cream pie and some other kind of pie (also undecided, maaaaybe lemon meringue? Never made one of those before...) for our very small Easter egg hunt with neighbors on Friday, then hot cross buns!!! this weekend for Easter, first time everrrr, plus it's General Conference weekend, so I'm sure I'll bake something else as well! Or maybe I'll just eat the leftovers of the week. We shall see! :)

Around the house... The boys have BIKES!!! We bought Stephen a bikes years and years ago, when he was... five? Maybe six? A used one for 25$. He got okay at riding it on the little loop of sidewalk around the playground in our apartment courtyard at the time, but he only had a few months of riding before we moved up the hill, and there was nowhere to ride. Our apartments have been like that ever since, so the boys never learned how to ride, and of course, like children, stubbornly decided they didn't even want to learn. The announcement that we were going bike shopping was met with wary disapproval, which vanished as soon as they started trying out those shiny new bikes! With very few bumps along the way, we now have them doing figure eights in the street outside. It's pretty glorious. Now The Geologist and I need to replace our bikes... both were stolen when we lived in Utah. :( Family bike rides, here we come!!

Source: Pinterest

One of my favorite things... Burgundy and grey. My favorite colors. I can't say no. Burgundy is my color, I would wear it every day if I could! I actually just bought the exact same shirt in two colors, burgundy and grey, last week, because I couldn't decide which I liked better!! You would laugh if you could see my clothes/shoes board on Pinterest. I'm a burgundy-and-grey junkie.

Something new about me... I'm a total review addict. Where are we going for dinner tonight? Hmmm, let me read some reviews. Which tree doctors should I get a quote from? Don't know, but they better have good reviews! Which bed and breakfast should I book? Give me a few weeks, I have to read all of the reviews. Sure, they aren't always fool-proof, but at least I feel informed. You also have to learn the knack of reading between the lines of the disgruntled reviews. Some people are literally just impossible to please. I care considerably less about the snotty waitress than I do the plate of food in front of you. Amazon product reviews, mail-order bulb reviews, GNC health supplement reviews... it may be my favorite thing the internet has spawned. That and Netflix. And FOOD BLOGGING!!! :)

Source: Pinterest

Guilty Pleasures... Shoes. I know, I know, it's a pretty common one, but this is a relatively new guilty pleasure for me! We pretty much couldn't ever afford anything but basics for the first eight years of our marriage, and I didn't have tons of experience buying my own clothes before that, so I never thought of myself as a shoe person. I didn't understand how people could own closets full of shoes! Ohhhh, now I do. I still don't have tons, but I would almost always rather go shopping for shoes than clothes, and I actually gravitate more toward casual shoes than dressy shoes, like heels. Partly because heels are so flipping high right now! My little sister and I discovered this past year that we have very similar tastes in fashion; she made me a Converse convert, and I spent forever tracking down a pair of burgundy Converse (burgundy because burgundy!!). Unfortunately, she also made me a Vans convert, so now I covet a pair of burgundy Vans sneakers. Which I bought her for Christmas. We will match some day!!

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