It was a lovely day -- made it up in the 80's and was very sunny. The spring flowers are blooming and lovely. We have hyacinths (I love the hot pink ones), grape hyacinths, daffodills, miniature daffodills, crocuses, tulips, Siberian squill, some little soft blue and white flowers whose name I do not know, and bright yellow forsynthia. Soon to come: our magnolia, dogwood, and redbud trees are in bud, and the violets are popping up everywhere in the backyard. We have large patches of chives growing well intermixed with the grass in the front yard, and the peonies and some other perrenniels are popping up in the beds. A deer broke into the garden to paw up some onion bulbs, and the squirrels figured out how to break into the latest high tech bird feeder.

I wasn't able to enjoy any of this, however, as I was busy doing housework all day until it was time to go to work. The kids got out, though, and practiced golf swings in the backyard. Dan worked burning leaves all day in the burn barrel and puttered around in the yard.

In four days we will be going to Arkansas. We will stop for the night in southern Illinois to break up the trip down...I still have to pack the clothes (and wash Bill's), though I have picked out which books and dvd's to take with us. It will be the first time we'll have used the little portable dvd player...I had bought it for the long drive out to New Mexico, but it will suffice for the long drive to Arkansas, too. We are hoping to get some time for ourselves down there...nest in our rental condo...I bet my sisters will have other plans for us, though...no one ever seems to understand how little time we have together...I work Sunday through Thursday afternoons and Dan works Monday through Saturdays days, and the kids have so many sporting evemts and practices...and when we ever do get time together, we are all tired and emotionally burned out...the wonder is not that our marriage has crumbled so badly, but that it has lasted as long as it has under the schedules we maintain...