Because it's that time of year

... and because I'm an old maid... this is how I feel about all the love in the air right now.

But really, I'm happy you guys found love. Good for you! YAY! I'll be over here with the grumpy cat, eating cake instead of dancing the chicken dance. That's cool, right?

 Oh and that gift with no gift tag on it? That one's from me.

Wednesday Thoughts

I'm terrible at playing air instruments. After seeing me play the air guitar for the millionth time, my sister, Katherine, asked me, "have you ever seen a guitar being played?" I like to strum mine all the way up the guitar instead of the confined area over the hole in the guitar (technical term). My air piano looks like I'm inputting information on a computer from the 1960's. It's multilevel. My air organ is the same. You should see me play the opening song from the Phantom of the Opera. It's a sight to behold, I am told!

I am to air instruments what the Bluths are to chickens.


And I never want to learn the correct way. I've tried it and it's way too restrictive. The majority of you will never see this since I openly acknowledge it's embarrassing. Not to those closest to me, of course (much to their dismay). But anyone else would have to pretend they never knew me after they saw me "rocking out."

In unrelated thoughts, have you guys seen the pictures that photographer took of her five year old for her birthday? She dressed her daughter to look like her historical heroines, and the pictures are awesome. Here is a link to her website where the pictures are. And here is one of the pictures from that website:

As Helen Keller, one of my favorites

In other thoughts, I'm still loving the spring weather. I can't help but take pictures of the beautiful flowers and buds. Here are a few:

 

I am so happy it's finally warm out. I sometimes can't help but lift my face up to the sun and close my eyes. Not the best idea when I'm out on a walk, but it can't be helped. It feels so good to feel the warmth of the sun again! It had been way too long.

Happy Wednesday!

Spring. Finally.

I don't even care that this post has 15 pictures.

 

Wednesday Thoughts

In the past several days THREE different men have told me that they think men are logical and women are irrational. (Only one of them was referring to me.) This is obviously something I've heard before but the mere frequency with which I heard it took me back. In all three cases, it seemed to me that the problem was simply that the two people weren't understanding each other. Plain and simple. Not that one was crazy and the other was sane.

Do men really think this? By which I mean, do they really think they're always logical and women are always illogical? Do they think that just because they can't always understand us (even when we think we made things crystal clear), we're the ones who are "crazy"? This image of men always being calm, cool, and logical, while we women are emotionally reacting all over the place just makes me laugh.

Like this is how (some) men see the world:

Ha! Again I say: ha!!

Women, have you heard this before? How do you deal with it?

Do we women have emotional reactions? Yes.
Do men have emotional reactions? Yes. Heck yes.

Anyway, enough about that. If I keep writing about it, I walk a dangerous line of seeming too emotional. So, on to logical things.

Math. Good stuff, am I right?

In other Wednesday Thoughts, the weather is absolutely perfect lately and I can't get enough of it. I want to be outside all. the. time. Biking, walking, jogging, hula hooping, whatever. Just soaking in the sunshine (I almost forgot the sun even existed). It is glorious! It's amazing how cheerful I feel when I'm leaving work and it's nice outside as opposed to the way I used to feel walking out to icy sidewalks and gray skies.

Let's never speak of that again. (Winter, that is.)

What is your favorite thing about warmer weather?

Happy Wednesday!

Weekend Update

This weekend I went to a going away party for a close friend who is moving to Utah. I made cupcakes for the party and each cupcake represented something about her.

From top to bottom, left to right:

her hair, she loves snakes, she's from Palestine, she has to wax her mustache

she likes to "choose the right", her initials, Michigan, Utah

she served her mission in New Zealand, she loves poop, we love her, she went to BYU

Yesterday, I got to spend time with my family for a little Cinco de Mayo dinner. Here are some pictures of my nieces and nephew wearing a sombrero and showing off their mustaches. They spent most of the afternoon picking dandelions and giving bouquet after bouquet to their mom.

This weekend the weather was the definition of perfection. Sunny and in the 70's. I went on many bike rides and walks and basked in the perfect weather! How was your weekend?

Tree Hugging

When I was in high school, I wasn't in too many clubs. Between band, marching band (cough *nerd!* cough), church activities, and homework, I wasn't that keen on making my schedule even more busy than it was.

But there were two clubs I did join. The first was the Future Farmers of America. I joined this club because there was a cute boy in it who I had a huge crush on for about a month or so. Sitting in that club meeting, I stunk of fraud. Because of course, I was a fraud. I didn't own a carhart jacket, I'd never even ridden on a tractor, I wasn't that into country music, and having a best friend who lived on a farm just wasn't the same as living on one myself. And they all knew it. They were nice and welcoming,  but it was clear I wasn't one of them. I only went to one meeting of that club.

The other club I was a member of was called H.O.P.E., which stood for "Helping our planet's environment." This club was run by a super zany and passionate science teacher, who once confessed to vacuuming her lawn after accidentally spilling something toxic on it. I don't remember what all we did in the club, though I know we planted some trees and we all got t-shirts that had this poem on them:

I think that I shall never see
a poem lovely as a tree.

The rest of the poem can be found here, and is by Joyce Kilmer.

It's embarrassing but writing even just that short stanza made my eyes begin to well up because I love trees so much. My favorite tree is the weeping willow, because it is so enchanting. One time, as a missionary, my native-Spanish speaking companion asked me what the name of that tree was in English. When I told her "weeping willow," she repeated it slowly in Spanish and said, "What a beautiful name."

Under a willow tree: the most romantic place to "kees"

I also love apple blossom trees, and just a little fyi, the apple blossom is Michigan's state flower.

source

Ok, enough about trees. The whole point in telling you all of that was to explain that I love nature. ESPECIALLY non-winter nature. And now that the earth here is going from gray and white and brown to green and all colors of the rainbow, I can't stop taking pictures of it. So please don't hate me for sharing some of them now. I can't help it.

I'll calm down soon. (Maybe.)

Kampaign

If you were going to run for president, what platform would you run on? I don't mean the "serious" issues like gun control, equal rights, education, the military, moral values, etc. No, I'm talking about the issues underneath the surface. The ones no one is willing to talk about. I'm talking about how people are getting tired of all the confusion that comes with having these three letters when only two are really required: K, C, and S. I'm sorry, but C has got to go.

Oh!! But what about the "soft c!?" you ask? Ever heard of an "s"? We got that covered. And the "hard c"? Um. We have "k" for that. We don't need all three. Frankly, I'm fed up with the confusion having an exsess (see what I did there?) letter kreates.

So here's the thing. I get that we need a "c" for the "ch" sound, right? I won't deny that. But in Spanish, they have "ch" as an extra letter in their alphabet. So let's just do that. C is allowed, but only in "ch" situations. So there's still 26 letters, one is just a duo. Twins, if you will. Conjoined twins.

See how simple it is?

We just have to re-learn everything we ever learned. No big.

Get used to seeing these posters plastered all over town during the next election:

What would be the one (under the surface, non serious) platform you would run on?