april showers bring...more showers!

well, i haven't been blogging lately, because i've been too busy reading. i have this problem when i discover a good book, and that is: i don't want to put it down. i also don't want to do anything that intereferes with the reading, like cleaning my house, or feeding my family!

however, these past few weeks have been good for reading, because, after that bizarre day of heat and sunshine we had, (april the 12th to be exact) it has been a cold and wet mess for days on end. we've had hail! we've had snow! we've had pouring rain! the weather just can't seem to make up it's mind. or remember what season it's supposed to be...







so i've been weathering out the storms of april, curled up on my couch.

i started reading the Lord of the Rings for the very first time, and i am still going. it took me all last week to complete the Fellowship of the Ring, and this week, i am almost done with the Two Towers.

it started like this:

a few weeks ago, on tv, all three movies were playing back to back. i decided to record them, for francis, because he hasn't seen them yet, and i thought the edited tv version might be less scary. but then, after he went to bed, we decided to watch what was left, and decided: hmmm. still scary!! he found out we had recorded them, and was begging to watch them. he said all his friends have seen it. so what were we to do? when the movies first came out in the theatre, we couldn't wait for francis to be old enough to get to see them with us. so now he's 10, and he's seen many of the superhero movies that are PG-13, so why not this? but something in me, and greg, still wanted to wait. we changed our minds. we deleted the movies from our dvr (what was i thinking? we'll want to have a party! we'll want to rent it in widescreen! when francis is finally allowed to see it, it will be a movie event!) we told francis we weren't ready for him to see it. he was bummed, but he accepted our answer without a big fuss. we told him that he was more than welcome to read the books, and that, in fact, the books are classics, and many many people count them among their favorites. he instantly bit: do we have the books? i seemed to remember acquiring the first book after the first movie came out, but somehow, even tho i got high recommendations, i never picked it up. (somehow, i never read these books in childhood, i don't know why...) so i hunted a bit, and found it, among one of our many piles of books. isn't it funny how something that is great, can sit unappreciated in your possession, waiting for you to discover it? maybe it's all in the timing. i am ready to read this book now. and so is francis. i started reading it, to get ahead of francis, to see if the language would be difficult for him, and once i got going, i couldn't put it down. then i went to half-price books, to get the rest of the them, and also the Hobbit. (i have already read the Hobbit, but my copy is old, from childhood, and i wanted to get francis his own copy.) once he saw the Hobbit, he said: wait! which one comes first? (you see, he likes to do things in order.) so he has decided to read the Hobbit on his own, for his school reading, and we have started reading the Fellowship of the Ring to him, for his evening story-time. so it's all good. he's got time, the movie can wait...

but i haven't been completely useless:

i still walk the boy to school, rain or shine...



and to us, our first signs of spring, are snail tracks!






i even got a hunkerin' for rice pudding,(or was it to make up for all my lame dinners this past week?) but i only know how to make a restaurant-sized batch (from my days at georgia's) so we had plenty to spare, and share:







francis' baseball game was cancelled (due to the snow) but it didn't stop karen's suprise birthday party down at the arcade on pier 57!









so, longer post than i meant to write, gotta get back to my book!

but i will end with another quote from francis: last saturday, with our day booked from morning til night, at 9pm we still had two more destinations. as we were driving into ballard, francis said: "what is it we have to do now?" and i explained we had to pop in on a friend's art show, and then hit another friend's going-away party, and said: " why? are you tired? cause i'm tired..."

and he said: "oh no! i'm not tired at all! i used my da's energizing face scrub in the shower, and i feel totally energized!"

however, by the end of the night...