1.13.2006

Peerless.

Anticipating a yesterday visit from Nan and Phil, I decided to give the kitchen floor a facelift after I awoke. Instead, crazy spring fever/unchecked nesting urges/mopwater fumes made me dust and vacuum the house, scrub the bathroom and kitchen, squeak some windows and cupboards, and wash a few months' worth of grubby, little hand smears from walls and doors for several hours. The more fumes I inhaled, the worse my cleaning sickness became.

Finally, around 3 o'clock, I was roused from my stupor by the fact that the sun was shining forth all of its soul, the temperature-- on the twelfth of January-- was in the fifties, and, most importantly, I didn't want to be cleaning a stupid, little apartment, which, by then, was clean, anyway.

The girls and I enjoyed real air for about 45 minutes before Nan and Phil arrived. Millie and Annie ran and screeched without bounds, and I returned with flushed cheeks and a feeling of verve that I thought had left me forever. What a waste, though! We should have been out from dawn 'til dusk, and I'll rue the twelfth of January until spring. (At least the house was clean for a day, though.)

We stayed up until 3:30 a.m., talking, playing board games, and generally snatching as much of two years worth of passed time as possible before they left for Houghton. And now, the girls having roused me awake just shy of seven, I'm primed for hibernation, and it's only 11 o'clock in the morning. If only Frog would hush his clamor....

Wake up, it's spring!

2 comments :

Rebecca said...

I posted a rather lengthy response to this easrlier and it got erased or SOMETHING so I wasn't going to retype the whole thing (especially since I touched on one of the topics in my blog). But I just have to ask you a question regarding the games you guys play. Now-you spoke before about loving to play Boggle. I have to ask. Do you play by the 'rules' or do you have 'family' rules? When looking through the paper, Matt discovered a rule that I HATE and that is...you can only use a letter once in any given word. Since implementing this rule, I find Boggle to be MUCH less challenging and thereby much less enjoyable. Three letter 'obvious' words are the majority where before, I was coming up with seven, eight, and nine letter words.

Just curious.

PS-Remember how you said I should shoot for your birthday? Well, I decided I would shoot for Annika's. She was born on April 1st, right? That would make me nine days 'early' supposedly so that would be perfect for me. ;-)

Abigail said...

Well, I talked it over with Annika, and we think that it's a satisfactory compromise. (Good thinking...)

We play by the official rules, I think, in that each letter on the board can only be played one time for each word. (This doesn't mean that if there are three e's on the board, though, that only one "e" can be used in any given word. All three could be used in the same word as long as you can find a way to do so.) We haven't played it in at least a year, though, and lately, we've been playing new Christmas games that have themes and more complexity. (It's about time for another Boggle tournament, though.)

It would be fun to play the way you describe; remind Matt that, as the head of the household, he can officially make "family rules" official. I bet he doesn't want to do that, though, because then you'd whup him more soundly! (I write that most respectfully, Mr. Newman.)