April Capers

Today’s blog post is a roundup of some of my doings in the last few weeks. 
My April Capers (kind of rhymes). (PS  Capers as in antics—not the pickled flower buds).

Alternate title ideas for this post:

·         * Nothing Rhymes with April

·         * Wake me when it’s mid-June

My three kids had spring breaks on different weeks (again), which is fine by me. This means I had half as much school juggling each of those two weeks, and I could feel the difference. Spring break came not a second too soon. The kids were exhausted and so was I. By the time the last week of March limped into view, we were seven months into the nine-month sprint that is the school year. I’m worn out! We’ll make it to June, but I won’t be running any marathons the day after graduation. I’ll be taking naps.

And so here are the joys and a few surprises that made up our spring break:

…Relaxing at home, reading good books…

…A few local outings (a hike, a picnic, playing at the park with school friends)…

…Dental surgery for me. (I said accusingly to the dentist, “How come there’s no good dental news after 40?!” He laughed, and agreed…)

…Noticing a zillion flowers in bloom…

…Dying eggs with my daughters…

…Decorating Easter eggs with origami and tissue paper…

…Digging a painting out of the pile and working on it for the first time in ten plus years. (Yes, I know it’s crazy not to have finished it years ago but hey, I’ve been a little busy…)

…Crafternoons, crafter-mornings and art projects I’ve been wanting to do for months…For instance, in case you have dozens of caps from dried out permanent markers, you can upcycle them into a necklace and sunglasses.

…My accidentally spilling hundreds of grains of sugar into the silverware drawer because there weren’t nearly enough messes already…

…Listening to happy laughter as my teen aged son chats with his friend…

…Noticing that the weeds are quadrupling in size overnight—whereas my flower bulbs seem to be on a glacially slow schedule for budding…

…My youngest daughter looking in the mirror a few days ago, and saying, “Wow—I’m really growing up!”

…Becoming accidental bee keepers last weekend when hundreds of bees swarmed in our back yard. Eventually they congregated on the fabric cover over our grill. The next day only a few remained and so we thought they had found another permanent home far away. But on the third day Hubby opened the grill and saw that they were actually inside the lid! We decided to keep the lid open so they would feel like it wasn’t private enough, and would move on. But by day four, they had made three rows of flat honeycombs. As of today, there are not many bees around so they may have found a new home (with a closed door). It’s been pretty cool to watch the busiest workers around and their live nature show.

…And maybe best of all during those two (half) break weeks: not having to rush rush RUSH as much as usual.

Until next time: I hope you’re enjoying the start of spring as much as I am. Talk to you soon…