Shades of Lavender

Springtime is here in earnest, with interesting clouds swirling through the sky, and days reaching to the 80s. The yellow and white phase of the early season is gone: pear trees, forsythia bushes, and jonquils have had their time in the new sun. We've moved on to shades of lavender: redbuds, flox, wysteria and my personal favorite, lilacs. Throw in a few hycinths and the area is just lovely.

Of course along with the beauty there is that proverbial thorn. The Oklahoma wind. It is quiet today, for the first time in many days. By quiet I mean under 15 mph. It was absolutely still last night when we got home at 10 PM. Sheer relief!

I think you have to live on the Plains before you can understand how the wind is an entity all to itself. Historians complained about it (Washington Irving) and I still remember my father writing home about how it howled around the corners of the house. It's a struggle to keep a skirt respectable, and forget trying to maintain groomed hair. The only people in OKC who could keep their style intact from house to car or car to building were the lucky bald folks. Doors will either close on you or take you for a wild ride, if they happen to open the wrong way. Plus there's all the stuff in the air: pollen, dust, leaves, blossoms, small pets, skinny children. It can be a real nuisance after awhile. Our tenant called and complained about the wind blowing out the pilot light on her water heater--six times in the last two days. Of course I was worried about R being up there on that roof. The pitch is so steep. But he decided to put baffles on the stack, even though he doesn't think the wind is necessarily the problem. No calls today, so hopefully that was it.

I am in a rut. My website has completely lost it's zing for me, so I'm imagining that's true for others as well. I keep forgetting to update it before the months change anyway. I'm thinking about doing two month's worth of prompts and not featuring them on the main page, but turning that page into a link. Can't decide what might interest people that isn't already out there. There are so many websites, so much information. I think I'm experiencing overload bigtime. I've stopped my subscriptions to most of my magazines, and only read portions of the newspaper. I find myself hoarding less information, knowing I'll be able to find it again when I need it, instead of keeping it "just in case."

Right now I'm researching metabolism, because I'm convinced that losing weight isn't just a simple matter of less calories in than what goes out. I found myself in the middle of the grocery store this morning--about 10:00 am--feeling rather lightheaded, because I'd forgotten to eat. I'd had a cup of coffee at 8:00, and dashed out the door to take ds to school. My intent was to drop by the house and grab a cup of yogurt before heading to the store, but once I was on my way back to MWC, auto-pilot kicked in and I drove right to the grocery store without giving breakfast another thought.

This is not an unusual thing for me to do. I do not obsess about food and what my next meal is going to be. It's more of a job than an adventure. I think that's why I don't pay enough attention to it, and why I have a tendency to rush through meals to get on to "the good stuff." Neither of which is good. At any rate, I've been doing some research at the library and online, and of course my first reaction is "This is neat stuff! Have to have a copy of this!" But the part of me that is clearning out all the school room paper is having a stronger voice these days. "Let it clutter up their server and not your files! If it ever makes it to a file...," the voice tells me. So there you have it--a budding new habit??? I hope so!