Spring?

It's been a bitter winter down here, but it looks as if we're getting an early spring as well. Earlier this month, we had some temps in the 60's and 70's, which were downright heat waves for us; then, it cooled down again. And now, the temps seem to be going up again. It's very exciting to watch the signs of spring. Our dogwood tree has buds that are beginning to open, the crabapple's red leaves are coming out, and the white tree (don't know it's name) is beginning to turn green itself. The tulip tree is beginning to bud as well, which means within the next month it'll start dropping sap all over the cars and the driveway. The weather has become so nice that Mom has begun her garden. She's planted some broccoli and I believe cauliflower for her cool weather crops, and she's got even more veggies planned. We moved the vegetable boxes this year to a sunnier area of the yard (which, believe me, is hard to find in our yard), so we're hoping our garden will do much better than it did last year.

Spring coming closer means spring break for me! I'm off school this week, and it's nice to have a break. My American lit. teacher, however, is desperately trying to get everyone to read a whole bunch of William Faulkner and to discuss it on the discussion board; she clearly doesn't understand the meaning of "spring break." This also means that the schedule for fall classes is up as well. I've got a basic idea of what I want, but I can't sign up until my advisor removes the hold on my account (which I don't know if it'll happen because of my interactions with her; I'd have to say she's the worst advisor I've had at GGC so far); and I'm also waiting to see which teachers are assigned to the classes, as I don't want to take a class where the teacher is horrible. Now this is making me think of me returning to the work force for the summer; I'm not sure yet where I'll work, but Dad is going to see if Radiant will take me back on for a few months.

Recently, I started guitar lessons with Mr. Price, and I've been enjoying them. My fingers are getting tougher, and I can play for a longer period of time without my fingers turning red and hurting like crazy afterwards. I've taught myself the old hymn "Wondrous King All Glorious", and I'd love to be able to play the hymn "Like a River Glorious", but that one has flats and I don't know where flats are on the guitar. I am also teaching myself Enya's "May It Be", and it's quite a lesson in speed. For now, I'm using an old guitar on loan from my friend Christie. I've named him Johnny, and I've developed maternal instincts around him; he does, however, need some work done. However, Johnny is a rather large acoustic guitar, which makes him rather cumbersome and difficult to hold given that I have a short torso. So, today, Christie and I are going to Guitar Center, where I'm going to test out classical guitars (which are not as big) and find one I like, one that I will buy and call my very own. I'm also involved in Christie's music club at school, and I try to attend meetings when I'm not too busy with homework.

And so, life is fairly busy around here though nothing too big has happened. We're excited for this Friday, which will be the church's spring bonfire and square dance. We had one last October, and it was a ton of fun. We danced the waltz and the polka, and I learned the Virginia Reel. We had to cancel the original date because of the weather, but it looks like Friday will be just right. We're all really looking forward to it.

Stupid Cat...

I think it's an established fact that cats are just, more often then not, stupid. Usually they show this in their various, strange antics... like sucking on the other cats' necks, attacking shoes or table legs, or fill in the blank. Well, we recently witnessed another strange antic that I've never seen before.

Now, it's common on warm spring days for the cats outside to roll in the dirt. I'm not sure why they do it, but I'm not going to get into cat psychology on this one. Anyway, I was at school when the incident happened, and I heard about it later that day. The cat boxes had just been cleaned and filled with new litter when Claws, our whale who is secretly disguised as a cat, decided to check them out. Then, suddenly, she started rolling around in the litter. It was new with nothing in it at the moment, but it was the strangest thing Mom had seen.

Now, if you'll excuse me, Pooky's stirring up a fight again, and I've got to deal with it before the situation worsens.