TheBanyanTree: All Fool's Day

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I’ve never been big on practical jokes, so April Fool’s Day hasn’t meant
much to me.  It just means I turn my calendar to 4/1/06, except all my
calendars are packed, so I’ll depend on my trusty planner right now to keep
track of the dates for me.

April 2006 is now here.  It means the baseball season will start this
weekend.  It means that we get to set our clocks ahead an hour tonight and
lose that hour of sleep.  But we’ll have more daylight in the evening and
that means Axel and I won’t have to walk in the dark anymore on our after
dinner walks.  April 2006 means that Easter is two weeks away.  It also
means that I’m finally going to really and truly move away from my home of
15 years.

I have never been so stressed out in my life.  Buying a first home is much
easier, because I didn’t have to negotiate between two houses.  I just had
to concentrate on getting everything ready to buy the house.  This time, I’
ve been consumed with worry and frustration from the time we decided to sell
the house two years ago until just this week when all the pieces for this
move are finally coming together.  I am back to myself again and not a
moment too soon.  Whew!

Now I can enjoy the coming of spring.  All our snow has melted.  We’ve been
being pelted with rain the last couple of days, but that’s OK, because the
ground is losing its frost, and that rainwater will seep into the thirsty
ground.  The birds are back in big numbers.  Axel and I saw many pairs of
mallards and Canadian geese in the ponds during our park walk last weekend.
The trees are getting their baby buds.  Some of my perennials are poking
their heads out through their blanket of oak leaves.  It’s been warm enough
for me to shed my heavy water jacket this week.  Spring’s birth is Minnesota
is slow and laborious, but it eventually comes and then slides quickly into
summer.

The thick clouds are still hanging around this morning, but I’m going to get
my car washed anyway.  I really want to get the inside clean – it’s dusty
and nasty from winter grime.  I’m going to stop at Goodwill and drop off our
bag of clothing and some other stuff.  We really didn’t have much to throw
out or give away.  I guess our de-cluttering efforts paid off in the end.
We should get a small dumpster delivered on Monday to dispose of the garbage
and useless junk from our house.

I need to get some paperwork type stuff done today, but that’s about it.  We
’re all packed except for the “last minute” stuff and we still have another
weekend in our house.  Perhaps we’ll take the boys to see “Ice Age 2”
tomorrow afternoon.

Axel was sleeping on the couch and missed seeing the big fat rabbit grazing
on bird seed in our back yard.  I guess that’s April Fool on him.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.
~Margaret Atwood