Not Enough Hours in a Day

  It is hard to imagine, but with the addition of the Census work, my life is even fuller than normal. Where I usually would manage to get the laundry done (even without a working dryer) somewhat consistently, I am yet again back to Mount Laundry expeditions. Where I would actually manage to drink a cup of tea sometime during the day, I now often find me microwaved again in the microwave just when I am going to bed. Where my grass used to be mowed at least in the front of the house, it now looks like an exotic jungle. That is, if you could call dandelions exotic I guess.

Things are very crazy, but I am amazed how calm I feel underneath it all. Even if the family justice system is rather a misnomer with the term justice in it. Even if it feels like I do not have any time for anything. I still have an inner calmness which has grown from all the turmoil in my life over the last few years. I am surrounded by many good friends, receive tons of love and help, but also still am able to give love and help to others.

Life is quite good, but I still would welcome another eight hours in the day. For a while I tried to stop sleeping but that didn't turn out to be the ideal solution either.

Playground Time

I wrote a long post and then picasa ate it. So now just enjoy playground pictures!

 

It has been way cold here.

 

But we still enjoy playgrounds because at least the snow is gone!

 

 

Spring!

I have been counting and counting people. It is an interesting job and it is fascinating to see the workings of the Census 'from the inside'.

 

Even better was getting my first paycheck yesterday. I celebrated by ordering a cordless electric lawnmower, since my old one is long past the age of usefulness and works in spurts of 5 seconds but only if the phase of the moon is the right one.

 

The white flowers are my plum trees, the yellow ones are my forsythia which a cousin gave to me a few years ago. It is doing so well. I love the flowers every spring.

 

My grass is in desperate need of mowing, but I selected super saver shipping since I was too cheap to pay the $61 for shipping and it will just have to wait a few more days. I am looking forward to trying out my new electric mower.

 

Helicopter Balloon II

Even although there were moments like this:

 

An awful lot of times the helicopter would make its way to the grass as soon as possible.

 

Providing photo opportunities where everyone is staring at the ground for no apparent reason.

 

Fun toy!

 

Helicopter Balloon

Sylvia got a 'helicopter balloon' which led to many hours of fun entertainment.

 

The concept is very simple. You blow up a balloon, put it on the 'helicopter' and let go. If you are lucky, the helicopter will go up with the balloon until the balloon is empty when it all crashes down.

 

It worked a lot better than I expected, even if it did not work all the time.

 

Sometimes it even went up higher than the roof of the house. One time it went up on one side and came back on the other side of the house. Another time it landed on the roof...

 

Crazy Hat Day

My girls had crazy hat day at school.

 

They were quite creative.

 

In other news, I am an enumerator now and ready to count everyone who didn't send in their census forms yet. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and so on.

 

We went from snow a few days ago to in the 80s (29 degrees Celsius for my non American readers) within a few days. Gottalove New England weather.

March 2020 Update: Got hired as an enumerator for the 2020 Census! I have a feeling of deja vu :D