Spring Forward

Hallelujah!! Love when the time changes in the spring. Hate it in the fall. I don't care that I lose an hour of sleep in the spring. The extra hour of daylight more than makes up for it.
My question though this morning is...when the heck did we start this? I soooo don't remember my grandparents changing the clocks when I was a kid. Perhaps they did and just never told me. Perhaps I was just happily living in my own little kid world and never noticed. I simply cannot recall when this started or if it was going on all along.
I looked online and came up with all sorts of info about Benjamin Franklin and the Railroad Commission and Ronald Reagan and W. Never really saw if DST began on a particular date in history. Frankly, I was too lazy to research it any further. Not that big a deal on the grand scale of things.
Moving on....
Things I like about spring (especially in Texas) in no particular order:

1.  Bluebonnets/wildflowers on the highways and byways.
2.  When the trees start to bud out in that really fresh neon green color.
3.  Redbuds
4.  Longer days
5.  A new sport to hear about other than football or basketball. (ok..so basketball is still going on with that March Madness thing, but I can see an end in sight for at least a week or two. When does the new bb season begin anyway?
6.  The Colonial. I admit I haven't been in a couple of years. I used to go every year for about 25 years, but they just flat pissed me off when they took away "my hill", made the margaritas hardly worth the 20 minute wait in line in a hot ass tent, and the last straw was when they served soft drinks in bottles and had no ice available to pour them over. What kind of jackass came up with that plan? He must not have been from Texas is all I can say. Ok, so maybe this shouldn't be on my list of favorite things about spring, but it was a tradition with me for so many years, it's hard not to think about it.
7.  Baby critters being born and starting to move about. Saw my first baby snake yesterday. He looked so sleepy.
8.  Birds celebrating.
9.  WARMTH
10.  Anticipating a spring trip to Florida.
11.  Flip flops
12.  Violets
13.  Sun
14.  Severe weather/storm clouds....it's just so powerful and amazing. Tornadoes excluded.
15.  Rain on a weekend.
16.  School being out for spring break. This has to do with the flipping traffic close to my house. This item is also included on my favorite things about summer.

The summer list is longer. Love it. Can't wait for it. Oh, I know I got a little bitchy toward the end of it last year, but it's long forgotten and I'm sure I will complain when it's 110 degrees this year. I try not to complain though. This year, I will think of when it was 10 effing degrees with 4 inches of ice on the roads. That should cure me of my summertime blues.

Windy..

No, I am not speaking of the song by the Association from a lifetime ago. Those of you who are young won't even know what that reference means, and it's ok, you can't help it.

I can't recall if I've ever mentioned my disdain, hatred, contempt and downright dislike for one of the 4 elements. Wind. Actually, it's Air, but I take the liberty that Earth, Wind and Fire did and call it Wind.

Let me just say that I'm sure it has it's place. I'm sure it serves a purpose other than to mess up our hair, blow trash and leaves all over tarnation, make it colder than it actually is and just generally wreak havoc on mankind. I'm not sure if it's purpose outweighs it's sheer menace.
Just think of what happens when it really gets out of hand. Tornadoes, hurricanes, sand storms. Why, those things can strip a wind chime of it's chimes, rip a wind sock off it's mast, and send a weather vane rooster into the next state.
Mostly, it's just a nuisance when it gets a little on the confident side. You know, when it's blowing constantly at around 30-40 mph and the temps aren't that great to start with.
Gee, I'm not sure what started this rant today, but you can probably fill in the blanks.

Out of the closet

I've been putting it off for oh.....about a decade. The dreaded closet cleaning. I can't even begin to express to you what anxiety this causes me. For years, I've saved stuff just knowing that I'd:
1.  lose enough weight to wear it again
2.  wait long enough for it to come into style again (read...these are the very words my mother often repeated to me.)
3. wear it out and have to buy new

Sadly, only #3 has been the case. I have a closet stuffed to the studs and I still wear the same 5 pairs of pants, one or maybe two skirts, three pairs of jeans and about 20 tops. Mainly because #1 hasn't happened. I still have hope, but I'm not holding my breath.  Besides if it does happen, I'll need room for some new stuff.
This morning, I've found every excuse not to start this task, but I've run out of excuses, so today, the purge begins.
I have a feeling I'll find lots of stuff I didn't even remember I had. I will be sad to get rid of some really cute hats from the 90's--they remind me of good times at golf tournaments when I still knew the names of all the players. I hope some ecentric gardening lady will buy them at the Goodwill and wear them with joy while she's pruning her roses.
I'll be back when the deed is done and give a full report.................

Edit:  Well, that didn't go so well. I did get the hats and about 10 t-shirts and various other items in a garbage bag and into the back of my car, but that's about as far as I got. The whole task seemed overwhelming. Perhaps I should take it in small bites. Maybe only a rod at a time. Yeah, that's the ticket...take it slow. ;-)

Edit 3/31/11--It's done!! Actually, it's been done for a couple of weeks. It is a work of art. Color coded, organized, cleaned out, pared down. It's all in the back of my car.

I don't heart VD

The colors of Valentine's Day. Red, Pink, White.
 The flavors of Valentine's Day. Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.
The sentiments of Valentine's Day. Love, love, love.

What's not to like?

It's not always been one of my favorite holidays. There was a time when I dreaded it. A time when I wasn't "attached" to anyone and all my friends got flowers at work..the bitches. A time when one of my friends always got big, new jewelry...the little bitch. A time when all those little bitches went out for romantic dinners.

Oh wait....those things are still happening and even though I'm attached, not happening to me.
I'm lucky if I get to go to Red Lobster. I've never received one stinking piece of jewelry save my wedding ring and I never get flowers at work. I do sometimes get them at home....not the same.

I'm over it even though it's not officially here til tomorrow.

I have to go now and get ready for my dinner at Red Lobster.

Veg............

Homemade vegetable soup.Quite a switch from my usual diet of fast, fried food. I even put broccoli in it. Yuck..hate the stuff unless it's chopped up and covered in cheese. Otherwise, it's like eating a tree.  In the soup, it's not so bad. I have made a conscious effort the last few days to add way more fruits and vegetables to my diet. I've never really loved veg unless they're fried, but alas, I have to change my evil ways. Self imposed..not on the advice of any professional.
I've always thought that veggies had "personalities". Tomatoes always look really happy to me. Cucumbers look straight and narrow..sort of straight-laced. Cabbage...grouchy. Onions, well they are multi-layered. Badda Bing.
I used to like veg more when I was a kid. Didn't like meat much. Don't know when that changed. I used to order hamburgers with bread and veg only. Oh how I wish that quirk had become a lifelong habit. I wish I could make it a habit now. With the creation of the vegetable soup last night though, I just might be on my way!

The Mother of all Mothers.........

I don't much like it when reminders of my age crop up. I never wanted to sound like my mother or grandmother and use the terms, "the good old days", "back when I was young", "back in the day", etc., but there are just times when those terms are appropriate. I used to think of myself as young and hip, even as my forties loomed. Now, I just look in the mirror and there looking back is my mother saying something like, "nothing good happens after midnight".

I'm reminded every day that "things aren't the way they used to be." Lots of times when I pick up my cell phone, I'm reminded of the time when we had a rotary phone and a party line. As I stare at the computer screen, I think of the time when we had a black and white TV and actually wrote hand-written letters. I've never been big on delayed gratification, but I think in this day and age, it's unheard of. I think about how I waited for the mail every day to get a letter from a guy I knew in Vietnam and the feeling when the letter finally arrived! I think of how I couldn't wait to get home from a trip to the local drive-in restaurant and getting a message that my boyfriend had called. Maybe now, we're too connected. 
I guess all this nostalgia is sparked by a book I'm reading about Route 66. Man, I would have loved to make that trip in the Mother Road's heyday. We didn't make many road trips when I was growing up. Mostly they were from West Texas to Dallas. I wish I'd just taken off after high school on the Mother Road and who knows where I'd be now.
Maybe if we all got out on what remains of the Mother Road, we'd have stuff to actually "talk" about rather than post on our status. We could actually send post cards to people who would be thrilled to get some mail other than store ads. Most of us don't even get bills in the mail any more. Out there on the old road, we could buy souvenirs for friends instead of ordering them online. We could actually visit Winslow, Arizona and stand on the corner. We could eat food lovingly cooked by a real person with real ingredients rather than some Styrofoam eggs  on a fake biscuit with some paste for gravy. We could stay in a motel that has been owned by the same folks for 50 years and have the stories to prove it.

Ok, enough of my little trip down memory lane.....I'm thinkin' I'm gonna hit the Mother of all Mothers....Route 66..

Dear Winter, You Suck.

Yeah, you do.Yeah, you're all pretty with your snow and stuff, but the one and only good thing about you I know is that I don't have to shave my legs every freakin' day. The rest of you is just downright miserable.Your wind, your cold, your darkness so early.When I think of you, I am filled with dread. When I have to endure yet another one of you, it makes me feel older. Ugh. You soooo suck.


Edit: 2/3/11   We here in the Northern part of the Lone Star state have just endured what can only be described as three days of hell freezing over. If I never drive on ice again, it will be too soon for me. Oh wait, I have to do it again tomorrow.
 Edit 2/4/11   Damn! Woke up to 4" of snow on top of 2" of ice. Made my day....not. 

Oh yeah, Winter. You sooooooooooo suck.