Thawing

Yes they look rough, but I'd still clean them up and use them rather than spend $300 on another pair!

Back in June my glasses disappeared. I wasn't sure exactly when I lost them because I don't wear them often--mainly on middle of the night ambulance calls or just those occasional days when my contacts are uncooperative. After they'd been missing for a few weeks I began to fear I'd lost them up at Twin Lakes while we were camping. I kept hoping they'd turn up, because around here sometimes things do disappear and turn up again months later in unexpected places. Last year someone took my wedding ring off the hook in my downstairs bathroom and three months later it reappeared in a small wooden box, inside a little coin purse, in the electronics drawer, in the closet of my office upstairs on the other side of the house. I'm pretty positive that is not where I left it.

But when the glasses still had not reappeared by Christmas I finally broke down and got more. It is both annoying to put in contacts quickly at 3:00 am and to drive without them.


I should've been just a bit more patient. The missing glasses showed up in Azia's "museum" of treasures she found in the melting snow a couple days ago. And it had only been nine months since I last saw them.  Sometimes I just give up too quickly.

Things always look up in the spring. At least that's the idea, and after almost five months of pretty steady snow and winter-like weather, it's actually seemed more springlike the past few days.

It inspires strange clothing combinations like jeans (or even snowpants) and no shirts.


Or snowboots and shorts.

In their defense it is a little confusing when the sun is shining and it's about 50 degrees (which seems really warm after all the below zero spells) but there are still big mounds of snow in some places.

 

By the beginning of the week there were all sorts of spots where the snow was completely melted. So Lex and I kept arguing about whether he had to even wear any shoes at all. I couldn't convince him to agree with me that footwear was mandatory for snow so I eventually locked him back in the house. (I think that was shortly after he tried to hit me with this boot.)

I still think the weather called for shoes, because much of the yard still looked like this:

Azia went for the shorts, winter hat and cowboy hat outfit for the confusing weather.

Besides luring the kids to play outside in all sorts of odd outfits, the thawing snow also began to reveal all sorts of garbage that had been buried throughout the winter. I didn't take pictures of that because it is really, really disgusting and I don't want photographic proof of what a garbage pit my yard looks like. It was quite exciting the first few days of melting though--it's what inspired Azia's museum. The "museum" was basically a collection of unearthed pieces of garbage--lots of milk cartons and juice containers and some broken toys...and my glasses. (They were along the fence line behind the play area in the bushes. Again, pretty sure that's not where I left them.)

A couple days later and our snow was completely gone. And even more garbage had appeared so I put the kids to work. They were not amused.

Well Lex was a little amused. But he also was not working. He doesn't follow directions well. He just made his garbage bag into a kite and tried to fly away.

As everything gets less frozen, it makes me impatient to get it all clean. We started with the car.

I think the yard is next. We didn't make it outside the fenced play area yet, but we need to soon. Then after the quarter ends it's on to the house. The piles in the closets and all the non-main entry ways are making me crazy.

But for now, this sunshine is too new and warm and wonderful to spend any spare hours indoors.

Zoran spending his afternoon working on some ball handling.