Endings and Beginnings

It's the last day of the school year.  Tate's last exam (English) is today and then, hooray!; it's summer.  McKenzie finished up her first year at college 3 weeks ago!  


As the kids have gotten older, gone are those long, warm (okay, hot) lazy summer days filled with trips to the library, swim meets, the coolness of the movie theatre on $1 movie day, VBS and endless trips to the pool. This summer will instead be filled with get-ahead summer school classes and part-time jobs.  Still, I think summer is my most favorite season - minus the 70+ days of 100 degree weather last year,mind you.  Here's to a great summer and a cooler June, July and August, too!  

Happy Mother's Day

M. Cassatt, “Maternal Kiss”

Hail to the Redskins

It's NFL Draft Day!  Hooray for that!  More importantly, it's the day Washington Redskins fans (me included) hope signifies a reversal of fortunes.  If things go as sports pundits predict, today is the day the Heisman trophy winner and Baylor University alum Robert Griffin III is the second pick in the draft.  And, he'll be headed to the nation's capital to (fingers crossed) rescue the ailing (5 - 11 in 2011) team.  

Sure, maybe Andrew Luck from Stanford has a more pro-team (i.e., Peyton Manning) style of play, but there's nothing like the excitement of watching RG3 spearhead an offense.  And since I've been cheering for the Redskins all my life (no haters, I spent a portion of my early years in northern Virginia and my life until I was 25 living in Virginia), I'm thrilled my childhood team is going to be the great benefactor of Robert Griffin's incredible skills.  Of course, we won't know until the fall how he fits into the scheme of things, but how can you not cheer for a guy who says things like this?

"The hotter the heat, the harder the steel
No pressure, no diamonds
We compete, we win. . . "

April 15th (er, 17th)*

*The traditional tax return filing deadline is April 15 of each year, but April 15, 2012 is a Sunday and April 16, 2012 falls on Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia.

Happy Easter!

The Easter Cross

Until we relocated to Texas last summer I had never seen this precious idea.

The Easter Cross appears in yards all over town (and not exclusively at Easter in some cases, either).  However, from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday, these lovely emblems of Christianity spring up all over town.  The idea is to place the blank-side cross in your yard during Lent 

and to turn the sign over on Easter Sunday for this special message.

The plumber who repaired our dishwasher last week, came by yesterday and gave me one of these (he also gave one to my neighbor - the woman who referred his company to me).  What can I say?  Texas is a hospitable place.  And definitely the buckle of the Bible belt.

Egg Tree, Texas-Style

I'm a bit late getting my egg tree up this year.  But I love this holiday tradition and was committed to making it happen this year, regardless.  


In the warmer climate of Texas, everything is in bloom and the leaves have eclipsed the fun and whimsy of my Egg Tree.  Still,  here it is.  

Two nine-year old neighborhood girls rang our doorbell Sunday afternoon to tell me how much they liked it.  That was awesome.  Just the kind of eggstraspecial (sorry, couldn't resist) response I was hoping for.  

Of course, my tree is nothing compared to this beautiful 10,000 egg tree in Germany.  

You can read about it, and the special man whose mission it has been for the past 47 years, here.  Don't know if I'll ever get there, but it's a happy aspiration.