No News (But Another Concert)

I think I can say "No news is good news" today and label it accurate. It was a good day, if anything, and it was routine enough that I was happy with it. I was driving home along a canopy road, and the sun was hitting through the trees just right, and I realized I'm pretty content; there will always be things that annoy me, but I'm really happy with how things are going lately.
I watered my plants this evening, even though I really didn't have to thanks to the rain last night; the rain gauge registered about 3/4 of an inch. It's looking really good outside lately. There are still a lot more improvements to do, especially before everyone comes over for Easter, but even now, the grass is getting greener, and it won't be long before everything is looking like we want it to.
The house was eerily quiet when Steph and I got home. Colin was over at Grammy's house, because we were picking him up later to go to a strings concert my niece was playing in this evening.


She's just to the right of the woman that's standing up on the stage. There were about eight or ten kids playing cello, my niece being one of them; there were also about thirty kids playing violin and viola. The first number they played, "Mary Had a Little Lamb", they played pizzicato (plucking the strings). For the second song, they played the theme from Jaws, which they would be playing with the bow. The teacher remarked to them, "Be careful not to hit each other with the bow. I know it's tight up here". I, without thinking ahead of time and in an almost reflex, said to no one in particular, "We're going to need a bigger boat". The guy in front of me turned towards me, smiled, and started laughing. Made my night.
We went to dinner with my parents afterwards, and then headed home to put Colin down for the night. It's hard to believe it's Friday, but with the weekend already planned out, I can't wait for it to get here; a cliche, yes..but wholly accurate.

Lousy Smarch Weather*

Late in the day, I was realizing I didn't have much to post about. I could have done what a newspaper columnist did in 1973, and simply type "I have nothing to say today", but that was the easy way out.
Work was fine; nothing really of note. I got home, watered my plants outside, and just enjoyed an hour to do nothing.
We went to church, and while we were inside, we began hearing thunder outside. It wasn't close; it was the slow, rolling thunder that comes in from a distance. I checked the radar on my phone, and there was a strong storm to the south of us that seemed to pop up out of nowhere. We came home, but there was no rain on us. I took my camera outside to try to capture the distant lightning, and while there were a few neat shots, it was nothing worth sharing...until later.
Steph and I had finished eating dinner, and we began to see more and more lightning outside, along with the patter of rain on the roof. Then the patter became a torrent of rain and small hail, and the lightning gained in intensity. That's when I got the camera again. Here's the result...



Like trying to catch it in a bottle with a thirty second exposure.

*Since the weather report on the radio said we had skipped March, and went straight into April,weather-wise, it seemed appropriate for another "Simpsons" reference.

First Walk of the Season

We finally were able to take our walk as a family this evening. It almost didn't happen, as there were storms in the area. Remember me talking yesterday about the "ominous, about to rain" type of clouds? I got those today.

That's what it looked like as we hit the roads that are in the middle of the golf course.


The wagon was Colin's transport, and he loves it. For some reason, he decided to ride lying down the last leg of the trip home.


The flower was an azalea that I had picked for him while we were walking.

The last photo isn't from our walk, but from Sunday night. I know I've talked about how much he loves to draw, and when he does, it's pretty intently. He's learned how to draw circles, waves, bubbles and squares. This is a more recent addition to his repertoire; faces. This is his. No one helped, and no one guided. The boy knows how to draw faces; we've even tested him on it to make sure it wasn't a fluke. I'm proud.

Too Good For a Monday

I know the normal meme is to complain vigorously about Monday, but today was a really good day for me. I had a good time at work, accomplished a lot, and then came home. I left it up in the air what we would do this evening; either take a walk, or try and finish the painting of the pool coping. I chose the latter, with a little input from my wife. Tomorrow night seemed better suited for a walk, and I had already started working on the painting. I was hoping for better weather all day, because it was that depressing, grey sky for most of it. I'm all for a grey sky if there's an ominous, "it's about to rain" tint to it, but the blanket grey that was prevalent most of the day wasn't doing anything for me.
I painted until I ran out of paint, and then made a quick run to the hardware store near me, and they didn't have what I needed. I at least appreciate the clerk's honesty when he said to go back to the big box hardware store to get another can of the same paint, "for the sake of the project" (his words). That means I will have to wait a few days to finish, but it will be worth it. I'll need to do some touch ups in some spots, but with the pool 5/6 done, here's how it looks.




Not too bad. It's certainly a lot better than it looked a few weeks ago, and certainly better than this time last year.



And here's one of the squash plants poking through the dirt. I'm glad, because I know transplanting them while they're so immature can be a shock.
We finished the evening by grilling steaks for dinner. I even ran the sprinkler over the front lawn in an effort to get a head start on a green lawn.
For now, I'm tired; very tired. It's been a long day, but a good one. And as a bonus, Colin didn't give us any trouble going to bed tonight.