It’s spring. The windows are open. The birds are waking up at 4:30 in the morning. The ducks are quacking outside my front door for their food. Kids are riding bikes, shooting baskets, calling to friends. Sweet sounds.

It’s spring. The neighbor across the street just mowed his lawn. Now he’s blowing every last little shred of mulched grass into the street with his infernally noisy leaf blower. It’s taking him longer to do this than it did to mow the lawn! I can’t hear any more sweet sounds.

Brooms are much quieter and just as effective.

And from the Department of What Were They Thinking comes this:

Why on earth would someone name their child “Felonee?”

Yes, this is a real name. There was a story in my local paper today about a child being honored for an heroic act. His mom’s first name is Felonee.

What does that say about her parents’ hopes and dreams for their child? Wouldn’t you think that a child growing up with such a name would be upset when she found out what it meant?

And on top of that, they couldn’t even spell it right.

Sheesh.

It’s my neighbor’s turn to get a new roof.

The birds at my feeder are not going to like this.

I’m not entirely sure I do, either. But in my case it’s not about the noise or even the mess. After all, we do need to keep our families warm and dry in our homes.

My problem is that there are 3 white vans with out-of-state tags parked in front of my house and in the neighbor’s driveway. There’s also a pickup truck with ladders on top. No vehicle has a logo or company name on it, and there’s no “picket” sign in the lawn, so I have no idea who’s next door.

And that makes me a little uneasy.

UPDATE: To my relief, the roofers have planted a sign in the front lawn. So now I know who’s in the neighborhood. That makes me feel a lot better.

My internal clock is always a little messed up whenever we “spring forward” or “fall back.”

Right now I should be cooking dinner, but nobody’s hungry yet. We all had our lunches after 2 PM EDT.

Getting Little Brother up and ready for school tomorrow should be quite a challenge.

Whose bright idea was this, anyway?

Little Brother’s classroom has once again been visited by the Food Police.

I honestly think that I pack him a reasonably healthy lunch and snack every day. Today he brought:
water to drink (he also buys grape juice at school each day)
turkey sandwich on a potato roll
yogurt
baby carrots
money to buy a soft pretzel
3 chocolate-covered pretzels (handmade with love by one of SFO Girl’s daughters)

It’s that last item that got him in trouble. 3 pretzels dipped in some melted chocolate chips. Big Brother wanted to take some to school too, but chose not to because he figured his friends would all steal them and he’d have none for himself.

Little Brother’s teacher told him that he should not bring chocolate pretzels to school. He came home with the bag of pretzels still in the lunchbox.

I wonder if they can’t bring those chocolate-covered granola bars. What about chocolate-chip cookies? Girl-Scout-cookie Thin Mints?

I bet if I sent him to school with a Capri Sun, Trix, a Lunchable, Twinkies and Cheez Doodles, no one would bat an eye.

I wouldn’t have to do all this fretting and packing if only the school would get a decent hot-lunch program, one that charges less than $3 a day for nothing but the entree and maybe some French fries or a bag of chips. (That’s right: $3 will get you a hoagie and chips, or cheesesteak and chips, or chicken nuggets and fries. No fruit. No salad. No vegetable. No dessert.) Needless to say, we don’t buy too many hot lunches.

As Little Brother would say, this is “ridiclious.”

Yesterday Little Brother walked in the front door after school and put down his schoolbag and lunchbox–just inside the door, blocking the entrance. If it’s a nice day, and fairly warm, we leave the main door open since there’s a storm door.

Shortly afterward, TheDad came home from work with his briefcase and a couple of bags from the sporting-goods store. He stepped over the schoolbag and lunchbox, came in and started packing things for a weekend Boy Scout camping trip.

Big Brother and TheDad went in and out the door, stepping over the schoolbag and lunchbox, as they loaded up the car for camping.

Finally they were ready to go. They said goodbye to me, Middle Sister, and Little Brother, stepped over the schoolbag and lunchbox, and headed out the door.

That’s when I realized that this had been going on all afternoon.

They had to see the things in the doorway, as they never tripped. But they never moved them.

If they hadn’t directly been blocking the main door, which we have to close and lock at night or whenever we leave the house, how long would those things have sat there?