Rainy Saturday

It's rainy out. We had just shy of a foot of snow on Monday-Tuesday, and it rained all last night. Our back yard is a disgusting, soupy, slushy mess of snow and rain, and (I have no idea why) the majority of it is this icky yellow-green that looks as though a couple dozen frat boys decided to have a pissing contest.

I know, lovely.

The drama and contentiousness of the past couple of weeks are still here; this time with the added bonus of yet ANOTHER kid who decided to A) not do his homework and B) lie to me about it. Which was working fine for him until C) the teacher I have been communicating with emailed me and busted him, big time.

A ray of sunshine last night, though: a dear friend from California is in town for work and came over for dinner. We cleaned like maniacs all afternoon, and Rob and I put together a meal of bacon-wrapped water chestnuts in homemade barbecue sauce, marinated tri-tip steaks, green beans almondine, a salad, and oven roasted garlic potatoes. It was a TON of work, but it was a lovely meal, and she sat and chatted with us until way past our bedtimes. She is unfailingly generous and brought a huge, gorgeous Phalaenopsis Orchid plant and a jar of homemade salsa from her daughter's mother-in-law, who lives just down the road from us in Lake City, MN. Small world, no?

It was sunny for a couple of days this week, making me hopeful that spring is coming -- but today it is horribly gray and gloomy. It's one of the paradoxes of March -- the days get noticeably longer, the air is warmer, but there are often blustery days of rain and snow that belie the waking up the world is doing down underground.

There's a pithy quote about spring in one's heart (or maybe that's Christmas?) but right now I haven't got much spring anywhere. I just keep telling myself, "This, too, shall pass."

It isn't much, but right now it's all I've got.