I hate to mention this, but it’s spring here.
And despite the fact that we’ve had no rain for a month, we’ve got a few flowers.
There’s nothing anyone can do about any of it.
We’re all discussing retirement in my office. Settling back in to work after the holidays is always a spur to planning. For years I came back after Christmas and made plans for a summer’s worth of children’s camps. In my office, some of us could leave tomorrow and some of us have got at least a decade. I’m in the middle, but close enough to start thinking with some specifity. There’s a benefit to staying till a certain mark (I’ll give you a hint — it’s an age), but after that it makes perfect sense to leave.
I might like to do something similar but slightly different — the current romantic idea is to run a small public library somewhere. For a few years. I’m also thinking about all the traveling I want to do — but it might be fun, and a good way to live somewhere I don’t currently live, just for a while.
Just for contrast, here’s a picture of my sister shoveling snow.
Reader's Guide to . . . 
We are doing the typical Kansas temperature swing. This morning it was 4F. Now it’s 24F. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be 51 and sunny. Wednesday? One to three inches of snow; Thursday looks to be still cold but sunny. Truly our weather is quite changeable.
That’s an amazing variation —
Sounds a bit like Virginia, actually. It was 58 this morning and windy and then the wind brought rain and now it’s freezing again. But not freezing enough for any winter precipitation. The rain disappeared and it’ll just be cold. I really do think we need a life swap in winter. You come here, I’ll go there. Like a wife swap show only…..not. 🙂 Life Swap! That’s a show that should exist.
I almost took a picture of the inch to two-inch thick ice and frozen slush on the sidewalk I was trying to navigate today, because sometimes it consoles me to send you a picture of the misery here this time of year. Today, though, I decided it wouldn’t help. And now I’ve gone and told you about it.
Spring has arrived early here as well. Paper whites and oxblood lilies pushing up in the yard, wild rose bush starting to bloom. We’ve had an atypically warm winter, and the things that normally die off in Dec/Jan just kept chugging along. I even had to mow the yard a few times in Dec. and January. Not complaining, mind you…
Happy for you.
Flowers blooming? Wow.
Still shoveling snow here.
Not sure while WordPress identified me as “faculty” in that last comment.
!