I want spring

I really want spring to arrive. This year more than ever. The arctic tundra in my backyard is depressing me. I feel like I am living on a glacier that will never melt. The bad part is that when it actually gets warm enough to melt, then it just turns into a mud-snow mix which cakes onto shoes and dog feet (all twelve of the feet), and is tracked into the house one piece of mud at a time. Then it freezes again as soon as the sun goes down, and it repeats the pattern each day. Living in Colorado, I should be accustomed to the winter, but this winter seems longer than all the rest, or else I have just grown weary of it this year.

I want to wake up one morning and be able to walk outside into the warm sunshine without bundling up into sweats and shoes just to retrieve the morning newspaper. I want to feel sweat dripping down my back again as I weed my garden. I want to feel like drinking a cold beer because they taste so great on a hot summer day. I want to grill outside and actually be able to sit on the patio while the food cooks, rather than run from inside the house to the grill every few moments, checking on the food, only to return to the heated house for some comfort before venturing out again. I want baseball season to start and I want to eat hot dogs at the ballpark and I want to sing "take me out to the ballgame" at the top of my lungs during the seventh inning stretch. I want to go fishing and sit in my lawn chair and look at the trees and the birds and the sky with nothing more than shorts and a T-shirt on.

I think Puxatawney Phil should be replaced. I really hate his prediction each year because he never makes it happen for us.

Please, spring, make your presence known soon. Just pop one little tulip or daffodil through the surface of the frozen muck. I need you.

Put on TO DO list: Waste time

Why do I always feel like I need to accomplish something every moment of the day? If I sit down for a few minutes with the good intentions of reading a book, which I love to do, I read for about ten minutes before feeling guilty of relaxing. Something in my personality or lifestyle makes me think that I have to jump up, empty the dishwasher, put a load of laundry in, or wipe the kitchen counters. I'm not a neat freak, but I do like things to be in order. I have found I can't stop and smell the proverbial roses.

I am not able to "do nothing". I can try and try to "do nothing" and I still do something. Even if I physically don't get up and move, my mind is still concocting mental "to do" lists of things I need to do tomorrow and the next day. I think part of my problem is that I have become such a supreme multi-tasker, that I can't stop. I consider doing two, three, or four things at once to be the norm.

I recently read a quote by Bertrand Russell (1872-1970 philospher and mathematician). He said, "The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." Wow, this struck me as profound. I cut it out and posted it in large type on the wall in my home office. I think this was a sign sent to me from above. I find myself looking at that quote more and more often, as if I will finally believe it if I read it and force it into my mind, like a mantra.

Maybe it is ok to waste time, I tell myself. Maybe sitting and pondering life and looking at the sunset over the mountains is something I can do without fidgeting.

While everyone in the world tries to be more and more productive, each day I am going to try to waste some time. It will be good for me. I'll let you know how it goes.

Girl from Mars

When my daughters were 7 and 5, my son Colton was born. I took my 5 year old daughter Alicia with me to my 6 week ob/gyn check-up and while we were in the exam room waiting for the doctor to arrive, my daughter asked the all important question: "Mom, where did I come from?" Here I was, in the exam robe with my breasts leaking milk, my six week old son sleeping in his car seat, hoping that the doctor would enter the room soon so that my agony with milk streaming down my body would end and that the baby would stay asleep long enough for my exam to be over, and she asks the question that all moms dread.

Thinking quickly, I answered, "Well, do you remember that Colton was just in my tummy? That is where you came from also." It was the quickest response I could think of.

She looked at me and said with a confused and impatient expression on her face, "No, mom, I mean what planet did I come from?" I realized that I had overreacted to her question. Without flinching, I said, "Oh, you came from Mars." To which she nodded her head and smiled, satisfied with my answer. Maybe I should have told the truth, but for that day and at that time, Mars was the perfect answer for her to hear.

Now that she's a teenager, I have discovered that there is probably some truth to Mars as her planet of origin.