...Has Sprung

Spring has officially arrived today, and I'd say just in time. I probably had about two weeks left before devolving into my "Jack Nicholson at the end of his stay at The Overlook Hotel" impression.

You think I'm kidding...

I wonder if I can take the several hundreds of pounds of salt out of my trunk now. Eh, better not. Mother Nature doesn't always cave gracefully to the calendar.

After lunch I had a couple of flights down at Sheridan, so I took the Citabria. I'm not sure how many months it has been since I flew something with the 3rd wheel in the back instead of the front. I ended up doing some maneuvers in the air on the way there, and did three takeoffs and landings to get legally passenger current in taildraggers again. And a few more because I felt like it. And because the Citabria makes it so easy to look good. ;) Then I had two lessons-one in the 180 and one in the 172 (for my logbook)-and finished up flying around 5:30. I took the Citabria home, my iPod in my ears as I wandered over the still-barren-looking landscape at about 1000' above the ground, just looking around and relaxing. I arrived back to a deserted Glenndale and put her away with a pat on the cowling. It's good to have her 'home'.

We're a little low on food around here right now, so I was scrounging in places I haven't visited in awhile looking for a snack. I found our basket of various nuts, opened a bag, took a bite of slivered almonds, and it was terribly bitter. I turned the bag over, and it said "Use by 07/02/04". Huh. So. I wonder if five years past the expiration date is really that bad? I told Steve that if I collapsed, to dig the almonds bag out of the trash to take to the ER with me. ;)

Kaylee got to go "Around the World" in a math showdown at school today, which means she "won" multiplication challenges. Does anyone else remember that? You stand next to a desk, the teacher flashes a math card, whoever says the right answer first moves to the next desk, and the goal is to get 'around the world'? Anyway, that was a good accomplishment for her, because she does well at math, but she's not fast at it. I was always good at that quick reaction stuff like Bible drills and Around the World. Kaylee is more deliberate. She just won't be pushed, and will sit and figure it out and make sure she's right, and if you try to get her to go faster, she'll say "Don't rush me!" So she was pretty pleased with herself to have gotten "around the world" today. :)

And so ends another week in Casa Kokomo...

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I always have liked Mark Twain:

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."~ Mark Twain

"Bringing up a family should be an adventure, not an anxious discipline in which everybody is constantly graded for performance." ~Milton R. Saperstein

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all." ~Helen Keller

And in the "boy isn't that the truth" category,

"The thoughtless are rarely wordless." ~Howard W. Newton