Spring Cleaning With Mixed Nuts

I love spring! I love the comfortable temperatures. I love getting out all of my spring/summer clothes and putting away the fall/winter ones. It feels so cleansing. Usually, I go through all my clothes and shoes and make up a bag or two to give away, of things that have seen better days or things I know I am never going to wear again. This year I went through my winter clothes and made up a bag of all of the clothes that I didn't wear this season. Then I tried on everything else - winter and summer and packed up all of the clothes that didn't fit me. My poor mom. I made her sit downstairs and help me decide what to keep and what should go. I kept most of my shirts - which now look just fantastic! However, my pants and skirts were not so lucky. I kept none, that's right, zero of my summer pants and skirts. Nope, I take that back, I kept two skirts. Everything else went. All total, I had five large bags full of too big clothes and two bags of shoes that are dead or not the right size. (There was a time in my life that I bought shoes of any size, if they were the right color. I tried for 8 1/2 to 9 usually. Well, just recently I realized that I really am a size 7 1/2. It's amazing when you wear the right size, just how comfortable your feet are.) It was sad to see most of my clothes go. I had some really cute skirts! Then I let my sister and my friend Katrina pick through the bags and take what they wanted. It's going to be sad to see them wear some of my favorites, yet I am ecstatic that I am smaller than I was. It's wonderful! I did get a lot of mom's hand-me-downs, so I won't be going around naked. Phew! Although, I can't say the same about mom. She has had to get all new things.

While I'm on the subject of Spring Cleaning . . . I don't enjoy cleaning up the yard. That's not to say I don't pitch in and help, but I just don't like to do it. We are having several parties in our backyard in the next two weeks, so we're on a time crunch now. Ugh! Mom, Ryan and I spent a good part of the day hauling out crap that my Grandpa has accumulated over the years. This includes pvc piping, metal pipes, lots of 2 x 4's, more bagged leaves then should be legal as well as just dirt and dust that has been blown in all winter. It's been a ton of fun, I can tell you! It is looking better, so that's good. I'm afraid I'm going to be tired and sore tomorrow. I'm not really looking forward to that.

The last couple of weeks we have been taking my grandparents to the movies. We took them to 27 Dresses, Nim's Island, Penelope and just today The Bucket List. Taking my grandparents usually amounts to bizarre conversation - not limited to the car rides. For example, it was fun to listen to them debate whether Kathrine Heigl was the main girl in Love Comes Softly. Or, while watching Penelope there's a midget rowing in a boat and my grandpa says "looks like he got the short boat!" Or in Nim's Island there's a rather large woman in a swim suit and let's just say there's more skin than we need to see. My grandpa leans over to my grandma and says "now that's a lot of woman!" On the way home from Penelope my grandpa complains about the movie theater seats saying that next time he's going to bring his donut to sit on. (For those of you who don't know, this is an inflatable cushion, shaped like a donut, that takes pressure off of your tail bone when you are sitting.) I turn to my grandpa and jokingly ask "well do you want a cinnamon or a chocolate donut?" He says "Nope, I just don't want one with nuts." Then there is today while we're waiting in the car for my grandma to come out of the house. My grandpa asks us what's taking my grandma so long, she only had to go to the bathroom. Then musingly to himself he says, "maybe she's constipated." Then two seconds later he starts singing to the tune of Are You Sleeping Brother John, "diarrhea, diarrhea . . ." You just can't make this stuff up!

Last Thursday I subbed for Katrina's Kindergarten class. Everything went rather well. During snack time the kids were each given a tangerine. Now it was rather entertaining to watch the kids try to peel the tangerine. When finally peeled, some of the kids ate them like apples. I've never seen that. I have to say though, my favorite part was watching the kids save all of their seeds (and there were a lot of seeds: three per section!!!) and tell each other how they were going to go home and plant them so they can grow them in their backyard. I miss those days of youthful innocence and imagination. I miss the time when anything was possible. Anyway, those kids just totally made my day.