Spring steals my heart

Today has been magnificent: sunny and warm, with just the right bit of breeze, and birds chirping their little hearts out all the live long day. It's the sort of day in which my responsible side starts to pester the rest of me about lawn mowing and weeding and blah blah blah.

Without really any effort at all, I soundly ignored my responsible side. Instead, I went shopping for cute cupcake papers and flip-flops, ate a small - but entire - loaf of sourdough while I zipped between shops, tucked my ill husband in for nap, and took a slow, meandering walk down the trail.

 Can you believe that sometimes I don't appreciate spring as well as I should because I'm waiting on pins and needles for summer to arrive already? Shame, shame on me because this is what I miss when I only give spring a passing glance:

This old house

Actually, no. Our house is about a decade younger than we are, and since I most emphatically do not consider the two of us to be in our twilight years, I suppose our house isn't, either.

Even things (and people, ahem) in their prime need a good sprucing up now and again, though, don't you think? We've been eyeing our interior doors for awhile now, all of which are far past a surface sprucing. They're so far past that we've decided to rip them all out and replace them with new, beautiful, 5-panel cherry doors.

We're going to be super happy with the end result (and really, we're thrilled already!), but in the meantime, there's a lot of demolition and staining going on (3 coats on each side of each of the 9 doors, but who's counting?....ME!!) and piles of tools lying all over the place.

Anyone popping in for a visit over the next few weeks will be greeted by this:
You know it's a serious project when my overalls make an appearance :)



Storing a door at the foot of the bed works best if you can remember it's there before stumbling around in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom :)

Caine's arcade

If you're having a less-than-cheery sort of day, I bet this will perk you right up :)

Two of my favorites with two of our favorites

Oh, and one beautiful Easter morning sunrise:

Sweet days

Two years ago next month, our youngest brother Ryan packed up and moved across the mountains. Until last Saturday, I'd laid eyes on him only once, for a measly 2 or 3 hours, and Jan Michael had not seen him at all. Phone calls are nice, but they do not cut it where brothers and sisters are concerned, and believe me when I say we will not allow such a thing to happen again.

On Saturday we zipped across the pass to finally (finally!!) spend the night with our long-lost, desperately missed brother. We brought him back with us on Sunday and spent two wonderful days lying around, just being together. He's spending the week with our Dad in Augusta, rubbing elbows with Vijay Singh and Fred Couples at a practice round of the Masters, and then we'll see him again on Friday for a little while when they fly back into town, just before he leaves again to go home.

I've loved our time together, the three of us yakking and laughing and sitting side by side. It's been so precious and I've tucked it all away in the memory box of my heart; it will help make waiting to do it again a little easier.