Beautiful Day

It was a gorgeous day here today. I was inside studying most of the time, but my desk is right in front of a window so I could enjoy the view. My desk looks out the front window onto the street, but our street is not very busy. More people walked by than cars drove by I think. So I enjoy looking up and seeing who is walking their dog, or kids running remote control cars in the street, etc. Also with all the rain we’ve been having everything is very lush and green. The neighbors across the street have four rosebushes that are blooming. All the trees have green leaves. The houses across the street are one-story so all I see are trees towering above the houses. Now I have the window open and can hear (and smell!) someone cutting grass.

I took Pepper for a walk this afternoon to pick up the girls from school. I noticed them walking towards us before she did (the girls start walking partway and we usually meet them either in the car or on foot partway). I could tell when Pepper saw them, they were still a block away but she started wiggling all over. People who write about Boxers say they do a "kidney bean" – they wag the whole back half of their body, and as it curves around it looks like a kidney bean.

I signed up a while ago to do "Career Day" at school. I got the letter today confirming when it is. I only got put with one class of sixth graders. (I’m sure the people organizing it did not think "actuary" sounded very exciting). David had signed up too, and he got assigned 3 groups of 4th, 5th and 6th graders. Now he says he doesn’t want to do it anymore and he’s going to call and cancel. (He didn’t want to talk about being a teacher for 3 45-minute sessions). I told him to see if he could just do one session. I’m looking forward to it, except it’s on May 3, otherwise known as DAY 3, from 1:45 – 2:30. I guess I will have to take a late lunch and leave work around 1 and get back by a little after 3. It shouldn’t be a problem.

Benjamin and I (!) were watching Dora the Explorer this morning, and Backpack had a donut in it. Benjamin said "I want a donut" and I said "Me too!" So we went out to run errands. I had to run by the dry cleaner, then we went to the donut shop but alas it was closed already. Then we got sandwiches at Subway. The little shopping center that has the dry cleaner, donut shop, Subway, and Pizza Hut was next to an empty IGA grocery store. For over a year, there has been a sign on the grocery store saying "Future home of Neighborhood Wal-Mart". Finally, the last couple of days, they have demolished the old grocery store, so it looks like progress is being made. It will be in walking distance from our house & nice to have a grocery store nearby instead of resorting to Walgreens for things like milk at 11:00 pm.

Later they were watching Shrek 2 which we have seen thousands of times, but I heard a line that just struck me as so funny. Fiona’s parents sent the heralds or whatever to invite them to the kingdom, and Shrek doesn’t want to go, and Fiona says something about needing their approval. Shrek says he doesn’t need their approval, and Fiona says "If you want to be part of this family, you do." He says "Who said I want to be part of this family?" She siad "Uh, you did, when you married me." And he says "Talk about your fine print!" It just cracked me up for some reason. Oh maybe because I had 3 phone calls today from MIL asking where her money was and if she has to watch Benjamin next Friday, and a call yesterday from Sallie Mae looking for Bruce (which must mean he’s defaulting on his student loan although who knows how they got my number). In-laws.

I baked a Wacky Cake earlier and it smells so good. I need to go frost it.