the earth breathes

yesterday the earth took it's first deep breath of the year. it breathed in and then exhaled its inner smell, that of rain, fresh dirt, and the rich smell of decomposition. the earth then stretched, that deep kind of stretch that one takes after a long sunday afternoon nap, the kind that stretches your muscles and opens your pores. During its stretch small bright yellow and purple crocuses popped out of the earth's skin. it's spring!

bretty j. and i went for a long bike ride yesterday. it felt good to not have socks on. not only did the earth breathe, but so did my feet. we rode to reed's lake with intention to ride all the way around it. we both figured we needed a little exercise after such a long winter of hiding under blankets watching reality tv (you're fired!). but, by the time we got there we were so pooped that we just decided to buy ice cream instead. the ice cream shop was a bustle of bikes, kids, and dogs licking the sticky ground. what would dogs do without small children dripping ice cream off their chins? there were two mother's there, each with their small children. they were taking pictures of their kids lined up on a bench licking their bright pink watermelon cones. the mother exclaimed, "smile, it's the first ice cream!" i felt sad for those children that they had been deprived of ice cream for so long...i mean, they were probably 5 or 6 years old! but then i realized that she probably meant that it was their first ice cream of the year. i felt a lot better then. in fact it made me so happy that this woman would even think to document the first ice cream of the year. wouldn't it be great to have a collection of pictures of "firsts?" first kiss, snap! first dance, snap! first crock-pot meal, snap! first win at mankala, snap! i better get a picture of those crocuses. first sign of spring, snap! maybe a better first sign would be those kids eating their first ice cream of the year. mom's think of everything!

my friend hannah gave me a book for my birthday. it's called "i'm in charge of celebrations." it's about a young girl who makes up her own celebrations, writes them down in her notebook, and then celebrates them every year. one of her celebrations was "dust devil day." so, in honour of celebrating, i'm declaring March 30 as "first ice cream day." lick on! --SN

yankee's walk

happy new year in march

so, i've just discovered that i have been using a 2004 calendar since january...it is now the end of MARCH. my friend hannah is here for a visit. she was admiring the organization and complete control of my life, happy that i had rememberd to write down her birthday on the 23rd, when suddenly she said, "hey my birthday wasn't on a tuesday this year...sara, this is a 2004 calendar!" um....ok, yes, my organization is a front and having complete control of my life is a lie. you happy now?

the 2004 calendar would explain why i have been so completely messed up on days lately. i could swear that it is a certain date...and then i would arrive at work and suddenly it would be a day earlier. for some reason i never stopped to think about why this kept happening. i would just accept that it would be a day earlier. i think that it made me feel younger somehow.

today is EASTER. i was greeted this morning with the sounds of the Hallelujiah chorus playing on the record player and brett saying he had "a little somethin' special planned for me." it was an easter egg hunt. if you knew about my childhood, you would understand why this was such a big deal. my mother was the "no easter eggs, no halloween costumes" type. Easter was for Jesus and Jesus did not die on a chocolate cross. and halloween, well...don't even get her started. my most prominent memory of easter was the year of the block hunt. an old woman held a neighborhood easter-egg hunt in her yard and in the lots that connected all of our houses. i watched that hunt from my kitchen window. as each egg and piece of candy was plucked from under a bush and grabbed from the clutches of another i tried to remind myself of the true meaning of easter. but let's just face it...kids just don't get that kind of stuff. all i knew was that b/c it was easter i was stuck inside on a beautiful spring day watching my friends' mouths turn black with their chocolate drool. i've carried this resentment around with me for a long, long time. have you ever seen the movie Steal Magnolia's? it's one of the saddest movies ever...some girl dies, the town is sad, blah, de blah...but the saddest part for me was having to watch the easter egg hunt at the end. bet you don't remember THAT part do ya'! so anyway, thank you brett for the hunt. and mom...thank you for teaching me about Jesus. i just don't understand why it's ok to bring easter baskets to your grandchildren! i suppose it is not your job to teach them about Jesus.

we've had sun for two days straight now. could this be a record? we have taken full advantage of it, hiking and off-roadin' in the ol' jeep-a-roo. our jeep's name is Chingis...as in chingis khan...as in gingis khan...only in Mongolian. can you dig? if you've never been to Mongolia you should really go. it's beautiful in july...so i bet it's a beautiful place to spend easter weekend. --SN

did you hear about the easter miracle?

read about this miraculous plant here.

linked

i have now linked to bretty j's blog. beware, he has scary dreams and he writes about them. but, as the love of my life, i support any dreams he may have.

i should really read things over

so, i submitted my first blog ever without re-reading it first. let's just get one thing straight here. i make a lot of mistake.s oh, see? and that was not on purpose.

I DID THIS B/C OF BRETT

so...here it is. MY NEW BLOG. i decided to do this b/c my new hubbie brett does it...and i just got done reading his. he said these nice things about me, so i wanted a space to say nice things about him too as well as perhaps embarrass myself a bit. but first, brett. brett has this way of looking at the world in a way that nobody else does. he has introduced me to NEW COLOURS. just as soon as i think i've seen them all...brett points at something else, some small mystery hidden in a tiny crack somewhere, some small piece of sky that the sun has decided to pick on, or some small trace that a retreating wave has left behind on the sand. if you haven't seen something new in awhile i will loan you brett.

today is one of those day where i will acheive absolutely nothing, and yes, i am at work. i don't know, i have these days where i just kind of space out and stare at my screen. the only thing productive about a day like today is the guilt that it will produce. that guilt will help me produce twice as much tomorrow. so, don't hate me.

you know what is funny? so my old students in Honduras always sign into instant messanger with the funniest sign-on names. like this one student, his says, 'Someday, sometime, Zambrano will be mine." Now, to the average on-looker that doesn't seem so funny. But, Zambrano is referring to Ms. Zambrano...a teacher at this particular student's school. obviously he has a little crush on Ms. Zambrano. Most likely nothing will ever come of this crush, but...keep dreamin' kid. (did my font size suddenly change? see...this is why i should stay away from technology.)

this weekend is EASTER. and i have received an easter MIRACLE. it's not JESUS. well, i mean, c'mon...Jesus is a given. This is a different easter miracle. so, on thanksgiving my wonderful uncle jim gave me my yearly thanksgiving day plant. i always kill my thanksgiving day plant in a matter of a couple weeks. this year i was determined to do better. this year's plant was an amaryllis...or some other spelling of the same sounding word. anyway, for months this bulb in this pot of dirt did absolutely nothing. i stared at it every day and it stared back. i moved it from place to place around the apartment. i talked to it. i sang to it. i shed my own tears on it, hoping it would grow. nothing. for three months...NOTHING. we had a family get-together and my sister's and my mother were squealing in delight over their "awesome amaryllis...es." i tried to just roll my eyes and pretend not to care, but on my insides i was literally dying. so i kind of just gave up on the plant for awhile when one day i just happened to look at it one day and saw not one, not two, but THREE stalks growing up out of the bulb. i yelled to brett to come over and confirm what i was seeing. he confirmed. it looked like things were a go. so...one of the stalks grew maybe two inches and died...but the other TWO shot up about ten inches in a matter of days. suddenly there were these pod-like things growing at the top. i asked brett what he thought were going to come out of those...and we proceeded to convince each other that our little baby was about to birth aliens...i mean, the pods were THAT BIG. this story is getting long...so I will just say that I now have FIVE, count them, FIVE, huge ginormous white flowers on my amaryllis. i have taken maybe...20 pictures of it. as soon as i figure out how to throw a picture on this thing i will! that's all i have for today, except why did i pick such a manly blog theme? maybe it's b/c i took this test on-line the other day where you had to do all of these things like look at images and answer questions about sex and stuff and it turned out that i am more manly than most men. i have to admit that part of that was pure luck b/c i got bored with the test and started answering questions without reading them...but still.
sn