We always take a birthday selfie. It's a tradition.
We always take a birthday selfie. It's a tradition.
Have I mentioned that our nephew Tyler and his wife Jessica are having a baby? They're the ones who got married last summer. They're expecting a little boy at the end of May! The whole family is pretty excited.
Two weeks from now I'm headed up to Raleigh to attend the baby shower. Since Marla is a longtime friend of the family, she's going with me. We're heading up the afternoon before and staying the night. (The hotel I've booked for us has a really cool rooftop lounge overlooking the city, so we're looking forward to checking that out!)
Anyway, I decided to get creative for a shower gift. I wanted something fun but also practical, so after much perusing of Pinterest I decided to buy them a huge box of diapers and to build a castle out of them! Here are the two main photos that inspired me:
Of course, I'll post pictures later on and show you how it turns out.
So we're not quite done, but we're going to add some finishing touches next weekend. And this picture was a quick one before we disassembled the various parts for storage, and some of the turrets aren't straight, etc. But here's what we have so far!
My school had our annual "Doughnuts for Dads" breakfast this morning, where dads are invited to come have breakfast with their kids. You wouldn't think there would be much scope for excitement in that, but oh boy, what a morning it turned out to be!
Several of the dads in attendance today are police officers. And one of them spotted a dad who was wanted for attempted murder having breakfast with his child! All of a sudden our parking lot (which I have a good view of from my office window) was swarming with undercover police officers. One or two of the plain clothes officers sat in the office with our security guard, watching all the guy's movements on our school cameras. After he finished breakfast with his little girl and walked her to the kindergarten hall, he walked out the front door, and was immediately arrested.
Fortunately, they took the guy in without incident, and most of the staff (and all of the students) were blissfully unaware of what was going on. But the office staff and administration were quite nervous, waiting to see how it was going to go down. Thank goodness nothing bad happened!
And can you believe the nerve of that dad, on the lam for attempted murder, coming up to his kid's school to have breakfast?!
You can't make this shit up!!
This past Saturday Marla came over and spent the afternoon with me. I hadn't seen her since the week after my dad died back in early January. I've been really busy with all the changes happening around here, and then she got sick (pneumonia) and was out of commission for a couple of weeks.
We spent hours talking, snacking, and drinking wine, and it was just exactly what I needed!
Talking over all the stressful stuff that's been happening with a trusted friend made me feel so much lighter. She's always so supportive and encouraging, plus we laugh a lot when we get together. I'm so grateful for her and her friendship! I hope I'm a good friend to her in return--I certainly try to be.
Did I mention that I'm off work this week?
It's February intercession and the schools in our district are closed. It's nice to have these extra breaks in February and October, not connected to any holiday. This will be the last time I have a whole week off to myself, because after next week my husband will be retired.
He's looking forward to it and I'm really happy for him. The dogs and Marco are going to love it! Nothing makes them happier than to have one or both of us at home with them. Poppy has followed me everywhere this week, even to the bathroom. She sleeps curled up tight against me every night. George isn't nearly so clingy, but he likes it when we're around, too.
Poppy has this thing she does when we get home from work: she takes a running leap across the threshold of the back door, and lands on the sofa six feet or so away. It's her way of expressing joy and excitement at seeing us again! Pretty soon she'll only be doing it for me!It was seed starting day here at Casa de Sparrow!
I'm off work next week (yay!) for February intercession, so I'll be planting lettuce (and maybe radishes) outside. Those can handle the cold weather we still have coming. Hopefully the tomato and pepper seeds I started today will be ready to plant out in mid April or shortly thereafter, which is our usual last frost date.
Seed starting day is when I truly feel like spring is on the way. It's so exciting, waiting for the first tiny green sprouts to appear. The joy of planning and planting a garden never seems to get old for me.
― Thomas Jefferson