Welcome Spring!

Here comes spring and I am so excited! 

I know in the past I have stated that I love January (you know, that whole "new start" stuff) and I still do...but considering how stinking cold it's been this year, I am very anxious to say goodbye to winter.  The warm weather of the last couple of days has put me in the mood to do all kinds of spring stuff (like clean, if you can actually believe it).

[Now...before I expound on that, I have to make an observation.  Since the beginning of my whole "fitness pal" experience, I have lost thirty pounds.  (It's super awesome, but unfortunately I still have a ways to go before I'll be satisfied...)  I have discovered, after a decade of being overweight, something sort of semi-important.  Since shedding a portion of my blanket of fat, (and also probably because I am getting old-er) I am COLD all the time.  I can't stay warm to save me.  Some days I feel like I should take a page from my cat's life and go find a patch of sun on the floor and lay in it.  The last few days as it has warmed up, I find my family all complaining about how hot it is in the house and I'm walking around with slippers and a sweatshirt on yelling "No it isn't!  Don't you dare open the windows!"  Maybe I should be a little worried about losing more weight, as the fat I am hauling around is the only thing standing between me and hypothermia.  When you see me in the middle of summer with my snowsuit on you'll know I've passed that point and it's time to start eating again.]

Anywho...as I said, I'm in the mood to start some spring activities.

First of all, it's time to start getting the garden ready.  Unfortunately, walking through the backyard is sort of like navigating a minefield.  There is so much deer crap on the lawn you'd think I had hosted a birthday bash for Bambi.  The sneaky buggers must spend the entire night in my yard, laughing it up, as they do their business over and over and OVER again.  We knew they'd been back there because of all the prints in the snow, but until it started to melt we weren't really aware of just how many deer poop bombs had gone off.  In addition to all the poop, there is no way I can plant anything until I come up with a plan to keep these munch mouths out of here.  Last year they managed to polish off more than half my tomatoes and peppers before we discovered they had been coming around.  (News must travel the deer grapevine pretty fast because I swear every night there were more and more of them...pretty soon there was an entire herd in the yard!)

Next order of business: organizing!  I am an organizing junkie, but unfortunately I still haven't managed to perfect my system for most of my stuff... Now, thanks to Pinterest and all the organizing ideas I've found, I'm ready to go!  I'm gonna need a moving van to haul home all the boxes, bins and baskets I'm gonna need, and I'll probably have to send Patrick out to get a second job to pay for them all, but, hey...if I can make my house as organized as some of these houses I see on Pinterest, no one will even know we live here!  It will be an amazing organizing feat!  (For the record, I found some organizing ideas for my scrapbook room that I recently put into place and WOW is it awesome!  I have been scrapbooking a lot over the last month and the new system is working wonders...maybe sometime soon I will post some pictures and details.)

And last but not least, it's time to Spring Clean.  I usually dread this, but for some reason I really have the bug this year.  Maybe it's all part of that "get organized" fever I have, but whatever it is, it's time to get it done!  I've been contemplating moving my family out into the yard for awhile just so we can maintain the "clean and organized" feel for just a bit longer than normal this year, but I suppose they would have to clean up the deer poop before pitching the tent.

The one thing spring is bringing with it this year for me is High School Graduation.  I will actually have my first graduate this year...and that part is making me sad.  I'm not sure when I got old enough to have a kid this age (technically, I have one that's older, but it just doesn't seem like it, all things considered...)  I really miss Colby as a little kid.  I remember the days of trying to make him take a nap and I'd peek in his room and he'd be driving hot wheels along the edge of his bed instead...and the night before his first day of Kindergarten when he took his new shoes and backpack into bed with him because he was so excited.  It seems like just yesterday.  Now he's graduating and it's just a matter of time before he will be gone from my house.  Sad...but happy and hopeful that he will go on to something new and amazing.

I guess that's what Spring is all about...hope for the future.