It's here!

Oh, blessed, blessed day!

My car thermometer read 61 degrees just a short time ago. That's above the doughnut, people. 61 glorious, sunny, breezy, springy, birds-chirping, motorcycles-roaring-by, thank-god-the-winter-is-finally-over degrees. As my kids would say, Boo Yah!

In other news, part of my cheeriness today is due, no doubt, to the fact that I sent the kids to the Y today from 9-4. They swam, played in the gym, went to the playground, and ate the sack lunches I packed for them, and I:

*unloaded the dishwasher
*went through a list of pictures I need for my crop next weekend, found most of them on the computer, and ordered them online from Wal-Mart (note to self: you need to transfer pix from C: drive to CM Memory Manager, go through over 4,000 [yes, that is correct] pictures and label and sort them, and do a massive CD back up)
*cut all the fabric for my stained glass sweatshirt, stitched a few pieces, and am prepared to iron and sew the rest tonight
*cleaned up my scrap table
*took a bunch of printed photos that have gotten themselves into an unholy mess out to the dining room table so I can sort them properly
*made 2 VERY overdue sympathy cards
*went to WalMart for some groceries. I know, it's politically incorrect. And usually I shop at the locally owned store, which I love, but honestly, I figured I had spent $100 and at the check out it was just under $60. Wal-Mart may be evil but you can save money there. Seriously.
*realized as I loaded groceries into the car that I forgot the pictures (DUH!) and ran back in. Bought Pop-Tarts for a treat for kids' breakfast tomorrow and found long sleeved raglan style shirts on clearance for $4. Bought one for each kid for next fall.
*picked up kids. Noticed with disappointment the way Garrett's face fell when he saw me. I am hoping it was just because he had a good day, not because he hates me and I have irreparably broken him what with all of the "clean your room" and "do it NOW, not when you get around to it" he's been hearing lately.

So it was a good day, a day of accomplishment, a day of goal setting, a day that, once I let myself let go of the guilt at spending money on child care when I was at home with no discernible purpose and no money-generating activity, I enjoyed.

The windows are open (and my dog and many others, apparently are having a hard time with the bird and people and traffic noises that have been shut out of our houses since last fall), the kids are subbing for a neighbor on her paper route, and 24 hours from now Rob will be done with school for the weekend and on his way home.

I just can't tell you how incredible I feel right now. I feel like I did it. I beat the winter. I made it through. There were some rough patches, but I did it. I am stronger now, and smarter, too. Next year I will not only survive -- I will kick winter's ass!

But I'm not in any hurry for it to get here. Right now, 61 degrees and sunny is absolutely perfect, thankyouverymuch.