Getting Our Balance

We are quickly adjusting to life in the Midwest, though our "clocks" are still off.  [Last night we started a movie with the kids (Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark) at 11:00!]  There seems to be no end to the things you can do in Michigan, particularly in the summertime.  Here are just a few...

1.  This morning (actually it was, by then, early afternoon...we are on a very relaxed schedule here) David and I went running in the woods by Stratford Lake.  Incredible tree canopies covered the whole trail and it was gorgeous.  And who ever heard of running at one in the afternoon?  Just absolutely stunning weather. 

2.  Caleb helped his grandpa plant some flowers and fix the sprinklers.

3.  The girls rearranged all of grandma's outdoor figurines...formed a club with them and made up a whole world for them to "live" and "go to school"  in.

4.  And then there was this...

I feel my heart expanding in a million directions, so full of joy to be here, where my children can really play and explore and lay on the grass and watch the snails travel the rocks in the garden.   

And may I just add to David, that, my love, it has been such a joy to be your wife these last 13 years.  4,745 days.  Happy Anniversary.  You are my heaven in this wilderness.

Childhood is Calling

We're off to spend a month in the midwest.  Do you want to know why?

Word of the Week: Pettifog

pettifog  /vt. /   to bicker or quibble over trifles or unimportant matters.  to argue over petty things.  to practice chicanery of any sort.  to raise unnecessary or trivial objections.  pick to pieces.  carp.  cavil.  niggle. nitpick.

pettifog  /vt./  1.  This week was the final week of swimming lessons (for Ethan) and diving lessons (for the other three).  I think we're all happy they're over.  Ethan is a great swimmer, but I put him in lessons anyway this year so that he could improve his strokes.  He did not enjoy his lessons (that's putting it mildly) and spent much of his time in the lessons crying and much of his time outside of his lessons begging not to go.  It was clear that he thought learning to "use his arms" and "kick his legs" was just pettifogging his own natural technique.  Plus there's no chicken fighting in swim lessons.

pettifog  /vt./  2.  One of my favorite things about my children is how much they enjoy being with each other.   Without much pettifogging, they can spend hours and hours playing together.  I snapped these two pictures, the first after a long day of swimming followed by warm baths, and the other on Sunday evening. 

I wish I could freeze my life right here.

pettifog  /vt./  3.  The girls had their dance recital this week, which meant a dress rehearsal as well, which really meant that they got to wear mascara and red lipstick twice in one week.  Their idea of heaven.  This past year has been a difficult one in my girls' dance "education," with a studio move and a change in studio ownership.  Throughout the year I had pettifogged my grievances to David, but all of that faded away as I watched my girls on stage last Friday night.  Beaming.  Dancing beautifully.  And so happy.  Savannah blew kisses as she lept offstage.  I blew them right back.

I snapped this picture after we did their hair...just waiting for the curlers to dry.  They are decorating David's Father's Day gifts...all I had was Christmas wrap, so we turned it wrong-side up and they made their own personalized wrapping paper.  Darling girls. 

pettifog  /vt./  4.  David took Caleb and four of his friends to the Diamondback's game on Saturday night to celebrate Caleb's 11th birthday.  We used to have a rule about parties only every four years [Marie, try not to die], but the kids (and especially David) have worn me down.  They all had a great time (Caleb's review:  "It was wonderful!") and the only thing they had to pettifog about was that the Diamondbacks got beaten badly.  Caleb acknowledged that they did get to see a lot of home runs though.  Too bad the Royals were the ones hitting them.

The ballpark was giving out free hats...the perfect party favor, I think. 

pettifog  /vt./  5.  I started yoga classes this week, and I'm completely hooked.  There is a moment in every class where I just about burst into tears though.  The teacher is so gentle and the invitation to relax and release all the tension I'm carrying around is so sweet, that I just about start bawling.  My favorite part is that there is no pettifogging.  My teacher doesn't even let us pettifog ourselves.  She encourages us to just observe, not judge.  So I accept and observe my tight hamstrings and the poses I can't do and (at least in this one area of my life) I don't judge.  It is unbelievably tender to be so kind to myself, and it feels so good that I am even considering practicing this outside of yoga class.  My husband would be thrilled.

Word of the Week: Gainsay

gainsay  /vt. /  to deny, dispute, or contradict.  to speak or act against, oppose.  to refuse to admit the truth, reality, value, or worth of.  controvert.  disaffirm.  negate.  oppugn. 

gainsay  /vt./  1.    Summer has arrived in our part of the world.  Just like that.  Our winter has been long and glorious.  In fact we still haven't hit 100 and we're in the latter part of May.  Unbelievable.  But then today it's supposed to shoot up to 110.  I made Caleb go change into shorts when I saw him this morning.  No one can gainsay the fact that summer is really here with these kind of temperatures.

gainsay  /vt./  2.  For years and years, David has gainsayed my contention that he works a lot of hours.  But this last week was particularly bad, and promises to be so again this week.  The hospital is rolling out a new "paperless clinical documentation" (he made me say that) and this has meant even working overnight.  In addition to this it was also "Hospital Week" (Woohoo! I hope you all celebrated) and this meant visiting all the shifts to serve dinner and treats.  He even dressed up Hawaiian-style (wish I had the pictures) to spread house-wide hospital cheer.  Not even he can gainsay the fact that he spent very few hours simultaneously at home and awake last week.

gainsay  /vt./  3.  My Aunt Margaret sent my girls a surprise package this week: new outfits for their American Girl dolls that she had designed and made herself.  Their shrieks of glee were followed by awe at Margaret's sewing skill.  They would heartily gainsay anyone as being as talented and clever as their great-aunt, who was quickly promoted to grandma status ("one of our Grandma's") and their dolls have worn nothing but the darling clothes she sent since the package arrived.

 

gainsay  /vt./  4.  Savannah's eye tooth started getting loose this week.  She has been begging me to take it out since Thursday.  I told her it wasn't ready yet, but she would not be gainsayed.  Yesterday she worked at loosening it and at bedtime implored me again to try and take it out.  It came out and she was thrilled.  She giddily exclaimed that she has now lost 10 teeth, the most in her 1st grade class.  Aha!  The ulterior motive revealed.  School ends in four days and she has been "tied" with another boy in class for "most teeth lost."  She just pulled into the lead.

gainsay  /vt./  5.  Olivia has been coughing for weeks now, but towards the end of this last week she was getting particularly bad.  I had gainsayed the need to go to the doctor because it was "just a cough" (surely viral) and assured her that eventually "it will clear up on its own."  As I was doing her hair on Friday morning she kept getting paler and paler until she looked positively faint and told me she was going to be sick.  She slept for an hour or so and then begged to go to school.  The same thing happened this morning, so after a weekend of serious coughing and another "vagal episode" this morning, we went to the pediatrician.  He jokingly told me that maybe I should stop doing her hair, and then told me that she had two really bad ear infections and pneumonia.  What?  Oh, good heavens.  That mother-of-the-year award is mine for sure. 

gainsay  /vt./  6.  This week we had our Laurel Transition Dinner for my five young women who are graduating and moving on to Relief Society.  There is no gainsaying how very much I love these girls, what a powerful force for good they are, and what a blessing it has been to serve them.   In the past I have been really bad at documenting my quilts...first of all they are really hard to take a picture of without a proper studio and usually I'm in such a rush to finish that I don't have time to snap a picture.  But I did manage to take a couple this year, so for the my record:   

 

gainsay  /vt./  7.  For me, the pleasures of motherhood are really very simple.  Ethan and I took advantage of a rare empty "to-do" list on Thursday and met my sister and her kids at my parents' pool for lunch and a swim.  After Ethan's swim, I wrapped him in a towel and pulled him onto my lap.  I cannot gainsay the absolute joy of holding his trembling, shivery body, towelled and damp against mine.  Our days alone are numbered.  My days of being able to hold him like this at all are dwindling rapidly.  And this thought makes my heart beat hard and fast, because it's swamped and drowning and gulping for air.

Word of the Week: Wistfully

wistfully  /adv. /  characterized by longing or yearning.  to be reflective in a pensive or even melancholy way.  with musing.  suggestive of deep thoughtfulness.   

wistfully  /adv./  1.  I wistfully composed quite a few posts in my head this week while I was in the shower.  However they never actually made an appearance on my blog due to my workload outside of said shower.  I am now wistfully dreaming of a waterproof laptop.

wistfully  /adv./  2.  Olivia finished reading On the Banks of Plum Creek this week and so we headed for the bookstore on Thursday afternoon to get the next book in Wilder's series.  On the way home I overheard this conversation between the girls after Olivia extolled the virtues of all things Laura Ingalls Wilder:

Savannah:  Why are you talking "western"?

Olivia:  Maybe I am a western girl.  (and then very wistfully)  Someday I'm going to go out west, like to Kansas or Wisconsin and be a western girl.

We are almost as far west as you can get, but apparently geography is not Olivia's strong suit.  However, wistfulness definitely is.

wistful  /adj./  3.  There is just about nothing that makes me so happy as to see my children consumed by great literature.  I have nothing but wistful, sentimental feelings towards my own travels through the books of my childhood.  And so this scene brought me nothing but exquisite joy:

In my defense, I did do Olivia's hair this morning, but then what we laughingly refer to as "The Ranch Incident" happened at lunch...

We arrived home from the bookstore, but the girls were so engrossed in their new books they were completely unaware and uncaring that the car had stopped.  I finally fetched them out 10 minutes later when I was sure they would die of heat stroke.

wistfully  /adj./  4.  This weekend was our ward's Fathers and Sons Outing.  The boys had a great time camping and hiking with David, but especially loved shooting bb guns.  David reported that Caleb is a terrific shot and almost the first thing out of his mouth when they arrived home was that maybe we should get Caleb a gun for his birthday.  What in the world?  That was definitely on my list of sentences I never thought I would hear.  I immediately protested.  ("He'll shoot his eye out.")  Even more concerning, Ethan has already started wistfully campaigning for a bb gun of his own for his birthday.  Somehow I don't think this will end well.

My little warrior looks a little too comfortable with this Red Ryder bb gun.

wistfully  /adv./  5.  After wistfully longing for summer vacation since last September, we are down to single digits...only 9 days left.  I can hardly stand it.  I have big plans for nothing, and all of it spent together.  My idea of heaven.

wistfully  /adv./  6.  I spent much of the week sewing quilts for my five laurels who are graduating in less than two weeks.   This has meant quite a few hours in front of my sewing machine and, unfortunately, even a couple hours of one-on-one time with my handy dandy seam ripper.  I started the quilting on this one, but hated the design and ended up pulling it all out and trying something else.  I am thrilled with the final result, but wistfully wish I had those unpicking hours back.

The pattern is ridiculously simple (a must when you're mass-producing 5 quilts in a week), but aren't the fabrics just yum?

Word of the Week: Chimera

chimera /n. /  a fanciful mental illusion or fabrication.  any imaginary monster made up of grotesquely incongruous parts.  a dream, fantasy, or delusion.  a fantastic, impracticable plan or desire.  pipe dream.

chimera  /n./  1.  My plans and goals this week to write more posts between my word-of-the-week posts were apparently only a wistful chimera, made (no doubt) in a moment of supreme delusion.

This was my SPT for "Green Week."  Eating (and loving) hummus are about as green and granola as I get.  When David saw this picture in my camera he said, incredulously, "Did you really take a picture of yourself with hummus?"

chimera  /n./  2.  Savannah faced off against the Terra Nova tests (our state's test for 1st graders) this week.  Her anxiety and terror had turned these into a chimera of unbelievably difficult and horrendous proportions.   She was just sure that she would never be able to go to second grade.  She was literally coming apart when I sent her to school on Monday morning.  We did a few breathing exercises, said a prayer, and went through all the "worst scenarios" possible...all to no avail.  She could not be mollified or comforted.   I finally gave up and sent her off anyway, tears still streaming down her cheeks.   She came home with a bashful smile.

chimera  /n./  3.  The kids had a rare Friday off school and so we took full advantage of it and headed up to the mountains to camp.  It has been steadily getting warmer and warmer here and I was under some kind of delusion that it is, therefore, hot everywhere.  This turned out to be more chimera than reality.  We froze the first night and so the next day, I sent David into the nearest town with instructions to spend enough money at Walmart to keep us warm.   He did.  And commented that we could have stayed at the Best Western for cheaper.  Well.  At least I remembered to pack the swimsuits.  Yes, really.  Hey, there was a pond nearby.  And the kids may have wanted to swim once the thin crust of ice melted.

S'mor-ing it with my boys. 

chimera  /n./  4.  Ethan is completely in his element while camping.  We almost didn't go, due to the length of my current to-do list, but then while I was madly trying to cross a few things off it, Ethan said, "Mom, this is the best day of my life.  We're going camping today."  New list:  "Things to pack for camping."  (Somehow swimsuits instead of sweatshirts made it onto this list, but I digress.)  We went camping with "friends-with-toys" and Ethan was in all kinds of bliss riding quads and playing in the woods.  At one point he went flying off one of the quads (driven by a five-year-old) and after landing face down in the dirt shouted, "That was AWESOME!"  He turned into quite the chimera of dirt, popsicle, and campfire smoke.  Like I said, completely in his element.

chimera  /n./  5.  My kids rode quads for the first time this past weekend.  I was beyond nervous about this, but somehow they miraculously escaped injury and catastrophe.  (This even despite Olivia's uncanny tendency to turn her handlebars the exact opposite way she wanted to go.  I explained that you turn it just like a bike, but somehow the motor confused the whole situation.  I had a brief view of an inevitable moment coming during Driver's Ed. training.)  They had such a riot riding around, but their dreams of actually owning one of our own is simply a lovely chimera.

Museuming

On Wednesday night we had David's brother, Greg, and his wife, Becca, come for a short spring break visit.  Thursday morning Greg went to the hospital to find out more about what it is that David actually does at work every day.  (He received a tour of the hospital at no extra charge.  Shocking, no?)

Anyway, Ethan and I had the pleasure of entertaining Becca for the morning, and wanted to go down to the Phoenix Art Musuem to see their Monet, Matisse & More exhibit, but thought it might take most of the day, so we opted for the children's museum right nearby.  They are having two very fun exhibits: one on the making of a book from start to finish (love that!) and the other called "Table Manners" which explored food and tables and dishes and utensils of every sort.  Both fabulous exhibit ideas, I say.

I love this picture.  I need to do more of this.  We're doing Matisse next week for sure.

The exhibit included lots of hands-on activities.  We designed our own china, created still-lifes, learned napkin folding, set tables, and even practiced our chopsticks at the Japanese table.  (We got to sit on the floor and practice picking up plastic sushi.  So fun.)

Ethan added a little silliness to his still life.

And hogged most of the sushi at our table.

This was one of my favorite pictures from the exhibit:

Ethan spent quite a bit of time looking at it.  It was called "Kitchen Contemplation."  I asked Ethan what he thought the woman was thinking about.  He said she was thinking, "How am I going to get these birds out of here?"  I thought she was most certaining thinking, "What in the world should I make for dinner?" 

(When Savannah saw it later she said she must be thinking, "More cleaning, less parrots!")

Fabulous.  I must leave my house more.

Word of the Week: Assiduously

assiduously  /adv. /  constant in application or attention, completely.  comprehensively, from A to Z, from top to bottom.  fully.  in and out.  thoroughly, through and through.  backwards and forwards.  whole hog.

assiduously  /adv./  1.  My efforts to assiduously document and record my life, my thoughts and my feelings on this blog, have definitely been stymied this week by the demands of my ACTUAL life.  I noticed that I posted 22 times in March (not counting my blessing log) and only twice so far in April.  The truth is that from now until mid-June my life is not my own and my lists are longer than my days.

assiduously  /adv./  2.  I really tried this year to assiduously use the orange crop from the "mini-orchard" in our yard.  Despite my efforts to eat and drink and give away my citrusy goodness...my trees were still full.  Yesterday the "professional" orange pickers cleaned us out and left my trees nothing but green.  It leaves me with that same feeling as when I take the Christmas decorations down...a bit forlorn and a bit relieved all at the same time.

assiduously  /adv./  3.  This past week was testing week for my kids.  Caleb and Olivia both had AIMS tests all week and this created quite a bit of anxiety especially for Olivia.  Caleb was a bit worried until the  first day when he figured out that the tests were going to be very easy.  Olivia, however, assiduously maintained her nervousness throughout the week and even when David congratulated her on "it being over" she said, "Well, now I'm nervous about my scores."  I was in charge of making sure we all ate hot, healthy breakfasts with plenty of protein and "brain foods," which I assiduously performed, surprising even myself. 

assiduously  /adv./  4.  David gave me a "night away" for my birthday and so my sister, Emily, came and played all-around-wonder-aunt to my kids on Friday night.  On Saturday morning she took the kids down to the church building for our ward's "Pancake Games," which eventually dissolved into a pancake food fight, but also involved all kinds of pancake competition, including hanging from the "pancake gallows."  Ethan (who doesn't like to lose at anything) assiduously hung on for dear life, but in the end was bested by a three-year-old little girl.  Much to his consternation.  This disappointment has not prevented him from proudly wearing his pancake medal (think an actual schellacked pancake) around his neck full-time since then.

assiduously  /adv./  5.  Since Easter, my girls have devoted themselves assiduously to all things "craft."  This week they took up knitting on round looms.  Olivia is making a hat for a woman in our ward who has cancer and Savannah took the small loom and made a hat for her American Girl doll.  She was nothing but absolutely delighted with the result.  The girls informed me that they are going to knit all summer long, to which Caleb remarked, "That's just what people need.  Hats and scarves for summer."  Olivia superciliously replied that they were "stocking up for winter." 

assiduously  /adv./  6.  After being "at the breaking point" for some time, David and I assiduously applied ourselves to R&R this past weekend.  We spent a night and day at the Sanctuary resort in Paradise Valley (aptly named, by the way).  The resort was spectacular and the get-away was wonderful, even if it was only 28 hours long, not that I was counting.  This is my idea of the perfect birthday present.  Alone time with my one-and-only.  Just what I needed.

I know David will want me to post these pictures of our incredible room(s).  This is for you babe.

Word of the Week: Noodge

noodge  /vt. /  to keep urging, asking in an annoying way.  nag.  to annoy persistently, pester.  agitate.  beleaguer.  disturb.  harass.  plague.  bother.  henpeck.  bedevil.

noodge  /vt./  1.  My to-do's noodged me all week, dogging me night and day with thoughts of "Oh, I need to remember...", until I finally relented and actually wrote them down.  This proved to be a fantastic idea (making me significantly more efficient) until Friday afternoon when I misplaced my list.  An unfortunate turn of events, and yet, I muddled through with only a few moments of complete stupor.

noodge  /vt./  2.  Ethan complained all week that his ears hurt when he swallowed.  After days of noodging me to "go see Dr. James" I called the pediatrician and we showed up just before lunch on Thursday morning.  We waited to see him for about an hour and when we finally did, Ethan got a clean bill of health.  No ear infection.  No strep throat.  Somehow this didn't make me happy.  Dr. James suggested that Ethan stop swallowing (since that's the only time his ears hurt) to which Ethan replied, "When I don't swallow my tummy hurts."  Ethan, of course, giggled through the entire exam and Dr. James noted that he must be feeling "really bad" to be this cheerful, and I grudgingly played the part of the insane mother.  By the by, Ethan's ears are still noodging him when he swallows.  Grrr.

noodge  /vt./  3.  This week was the Pine Wood Derby.  My personal idea of the 7th circle of hell.  I noodged David all week to help Caleb with his car.  The weigh-in was Thursday night anytime from 7 til 9, (you had to have your car ready and weighed in by then to compete on Saturday).  My boys showed up with their car at ten minutes to 9.  Sounds about right.  Caleb won 4 out of 6 of his races, a decent showing for a boy whose dad does not own a saw of any kind.

(Here is one of his wins...his car is in the far lane...)

noodge  /vt./  4.   Friday night David and Olivia had date night.  Olivia's Achievement Days class had a daddy-daughter bowling and pizza night and, as you can imagine, she was in 7th heaven.  The event started at 5:30, but Olivia was so worried they would miss even one single moment of fun, she started her campaign early, calling David every five minutes starting at 4:30 and noodging him home. 

noodge  /vt./  5.  David's colorectal screening event went about like you'd expect.  Apparently it takes more noodging than a postcard (he sent 1200 out to the community) to get people to come in and get their colons screened.  David said, "It's a free service.  You'd think people would want a free test."  Um.  No.  People don't want their colons screened even for free.  Surprising.  Seriously though, despite a few technical problems, he was happy to say that the were able to give out 150 tests and maybe most importantly, David decided it was time to get his own examined.  I was happy to hear that my last 6 months of not-so-gentle noodging is finally going to pay off.

noodge  /vt./  6.  My list was long this week and so this spilled over a bit into David's life as well.  The yard was especially atrocious by Friday afternoon and we had about 40 people coming for dinner on Saturday afternoon, with no time or way to do anything about it.  I felt like I had noodged David all week about so many other things that I calmly accepted the state of my yard "as is" and prepared to just serve such good food that no one would care about the state of my weeds.  And then.  A friend in my ward quietly and secretly mowed my lawn and pulled my weeds while David and I were sleeping early Saturday morning.  When I discovered her, she simply shrugged and explained that no matter how much she noodged, I would never let her help me, so she just decided to do something without asking.  An angel with a lawn mower.

noodge  /vt./  7.  No matter how I try to resist it, the milestones in my darlings' lives noodge me to realize that time is passing and my babies are not actually babies anymore.  Savannah had her baptism preview tonight.  When they handed me the invitation I thought, "I don't have an eight-year-old."  And had to turn it over to see Savannah's name on it before I connected the dots.  This is a "noodging" I would prefer to avoid all-together.  Another accountable child.  It's a bit hard to swallow past the lump in my throat.

My tender feelings about Savannah reminded me of a poem I love.  Says it perfectly...

Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road?

by Robert Hershon

Don't fill up on bread
I say absent-mindedly
The servings here are huge

My son, whose hair may be
receding a bit, says
Did you really just
say that to me?

What he doesn't know
is that when we're walking
together, when we get
to the curb
I sometimes start to reach
for his hand

Word of the Week: Ebullient

ebullient  /adj. /  overflowing with enthusiasm and high spirits.  bubbling. boiling with emotion.  full of joyful, unrestrained high spirits.  energetic.  lively.  very positive or happy.

ebullient  /adj./  1.  Caleb won first place in the "Health and Medical Sciences" category in his science fair on Friday night.  Ebullient almost doesn't describe the extent of his joy.  When they called his name his surprise turned to utter joy, his face flushed, and he ran for the stage.  I think all he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears because he couldn't seem to hear or speak for quite some time.

 

ebullient  /adj./  2.  The most ebullient moment for me at the science fair came at this moment:

I was proud-to-bursting watching him explain his project to the interested crowds.  I just stood there wondering how this could be my grown child, so old, so smart, so independent, and how I got to this stage of life without knowing it. 

ebullient  /adj./  3.  Thursday night, in the midst of everything else, Savannah and two of her friends performed a gymnastics number at the school talent show.  (They choreographed it themselves.)  She has never actually taken a gymnastics class, but this was not a deterrent.  She was absolutely ebullient, and out-of-breath, after her performance, and I (chagrined at my former reluctance) told her that she could take gymnastics in the fall.  After begging for years, she was beyond ebullient at this concession. 

ebullient  /adj./  4.  Saturday was the annual Lehi Days Rodeo, held just down the hill from our neighborhood.  My kids look forward to it every year, and they were utterly ebullient to be out in the sunshine, enjoying the rodeo events, the food, the concession stand (!), the petting zoo, and the free-roaming that comes along so rarely in 21st century childhood.

   

ebulliently  /adv./  5.  One of the events of the rodeo is the "Chicken Chase," where they let the kids line up (according to age) and chase chickens.  If you catch the chicken, you get to keep it.  Ethan lined up with the other four-year-olds and ran his legs off chasing down a chick.  He made a one-handed grab and snagged this chick, and then ebulliently raised it in the air in triumph.  My kids have done the chicken chase every year but this is the first year that Ethan competed and the first year we've ever caught a chicken.  When Caleb saw him running all-out, and knowing our little warrior, he said, "I knew he'd be just like that."

ebullient  /adj./  6.  At Lehi Days last year, Olivia talked us into buying a little chick, since no one caught one in the chicken chase.  She raised it for about four months before I decided we were a no-live-chicken house and we found a farm for her.  This year she brought her own money and bought a bunny.  She could not be any more ebullient about her new charge. 

ebullient  /adj./  7.   Lest you think our entire week was one ebullient moment after another, I offer this aggravation as evidence to the contrary.  I am less than ebullient over the spike in our temperatures this week.  This was my thermostat reading on Friday afternoon.  Yeah, that's right...that's how hot it was inside my house because running the air conditioning in February seems just wrong.  I skipped right over the first stage of grief and went straight to "Anger."  Our winter is over.  Argh!!