Deviant Dispatches

As the weather gets nicer, the weekends get better and better. Kale egg bake The cats get full use out of all the windows (though Titania is still getting a bit too much use out of the basement ceiling, which leads to her getting stuck above the furnace and in the walls). Oberon gets terribly jealous that we're allowed outside and he isn't - he meows plaintively at the windows and follows us as we roam. I think he's loud enough for the neighbors to hear. So much bloomed this weekend. I now have tulips and poppies to go with my daffodils, hyacinths, and bleeding hearts. We mowed the lawn for the first time this weekend with our new electric mower - I'm quite fond of it, despite the cord. It's just like vacuuming, but more detrimental if you run over it. I mowed a lopsided half of the yard on Saturday, as we discovered that the 50-foot extension cord wasn't long enough. Rather than run back out immediately, we decided to finish the rest on ...

Over the weekend, I completed a whirlwind of important tasks. I visited my grandparents. I packed. I baked. I worried. I drank and spilled lots of tea and coffee. I drank lots of something that was not tea with my immediate family and cousins I've not seen in far too long. Important things, I tell you. I also got to see both of my nephews, which really shows the difference two months can make at a young age. Wee Axel Mr. Wyatt (Photo by Brooke) And I wrote. I'm now on page 133. I'll overshoot page 140 easily by end of the month, presuming I don't have to spend a crazy amount of time on the packing, which is going well. Tonight will feature vegetarian reubens, some angry saints , and pizza crust made in anticipation of moving day. Today is okay. Tomorrow will be okay too.

In December, I had not one, but two Christmases ... Baked dozens and dozens of cookies ... Visited my wonderful grandparents ... And other family ... Got to meet my nephew ... ... And watched my sister graduate. It was a lovely way to end the year. I have high expectations for 2014, which is going to beat the pants off of 2013 - and if it doesn't, I will beat the pants off of 2014.

Last weekend was good stuff. I cuddled my kitties. My mom came to town - we went shopping, had tea, and got crafty (and if you were wondering, this is where I get it from). We saw horribly, terribly, gaudily ugly Christmas sweaters by the pound, way too early in the season. We ate Cheeseburgers in Paradise  ... ... And crazy drinks to go with them. All Spousal Unit ordered was lemonade  and it came like this. Mom had a Mai Tai! We were all confused about their hiring tactics. Not sure what an "ass host" is. One of the best parts for Mom was seeing the huge tree lit up in Greenway Station. (But don't tell Neal.)

Over the weekend, I had to do relatively little, and it was wonderful. There was Star Trek to be watched (though not enough), a museum to visit, a devastating Packers game to watch, and a few errands to do. I got to read more than I have in quite a while, and when the TV was on, I managed to quell my desire to multitask - instead, I just sat and enjoyed. Unfortunately, at the end of yesterday night, I was thrown nearly into a panic and rushed around the house tidying like a cyclone in reverse. It was a feeling that if I woke up to a messy apartment, I would turn into a puddle of emotional goo; it was the proverbial straw ready to break my back (...okay, I guess I'm the camel in this metaphor. That's fun.). A clean apartment would keep me sane, and the cleaning process would calm my meltdown from Chernobyl levels to oh-crap-this-cheese-is-moldy levels. The thing is, the apartment wasn't even that messy, and at the end of it, I hadn't crossed off anything on my to-...

Today, I have a ridiculous headache and am totally exhausted. So it's another Monday full of pictures and little to no exposition. We went to Chicagoland over the weekend for Spousal Unit's grandma's 80th birthday party. At one point, she remarked to me that all her friends are younger than her, and not just by a couple of years - many of them are 60 or even younger. But if not for knowing Gram's age, I never would have guessed that they were younger than her - she has all the energy and spunk of a woman half her age.

Spousal Unit and I enjoyed a good, wholesome weekend with the family. Sorry, I mean a good, wholesome half hour. We were drunk for the rest of it. First things first: We went to Drammen Lutheran Church in Mondovi for a family reunion. I was excited to see some people I hadn't seen it a while. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the reunion was over. All that was left to see was the church. That still worked for me - my great-great-grandpa who came over from Norway built this church. Here I am being silly in front of it. (I doubt he would have approved.) Then came the less wholesome and more fun part of the weekend. It wasn't spent at the bottom of red Solo cups, but it was close enough. I saw a cool barn door while drinking. You are all shocked to know there are barn doors in Wisconsin. Amazing camera point: This was taken in pitch dark. You can almost see a face peeking out of that window, can't you? But from there on out, the night w...

Over the weekend, Spousal Unit and I took a brief trip to his parents' lake house. No one else was there, so it was a nice chance to just hang out and have a brief vacation without paying for a hotel room. We assembled a couch and didn't get divorced by the end of it. Win. (Also, it was 10 a.m., but that was a beer kind of moment.) We went for a walk and saw little bee butts. And pretty flowers. We found an adorable little bridge... ...over an adorable little ingress. This sign did not seem to be placed appropriately, but it was very new-looking. Strange. And we found a beached turtle sandbox devoid of sand. It seemed really sad to me. Poor dude.