You have GOT to be kidding me!

So there are a few things that struck me as ridiculous today. The first is finding a seriously huge wrench sitting in the lab today. It's massive! And the comedic size was further emphasized by the itty bitty wrench that was sitting right next to it. Now, I don't know who uses this wrench, but it seems to move around periodically, so I'm assuming it is needed and loved. What I do know is that if I was the little 1/4 inch wrench, sitting next to this freakishly huge thing might just give me a complex. Luckily I'm not a wrench. Or really small. And with my appreciation of such moments, I whip out my camera and take a picture. Yes, I do carry around my camera. It's come in handy a few times, believe it or not. You wouldn't want a moment like this to pass me by without having photo documentation, would you? Now, it's really easy to see the huge wrench, but if you look closely you can see the itty-bitty wrench right next to it. Admittedly, it would be funnier if I had Andre the Giant (may he rest in peace) holding the little wrench with Warwick Davis sitting on his lap holding the big wrench. Now THAT would be funny. I guess I'll settle for holding the wrenches up to show that one is almost as big as my head. And it's heavy....

Ridiculousness no. 2 is me looking out the window to see this... Beautiful trees blooming pink in the wonderful spring... What the... is that snow? It is! It's snowing! I thought it was April 24th! In New Mexico it's already in the 80's for crying out loud! Aren't there a bajillion graduation ceremonies going on today? Whoever was assigned to order the weather today is FIRED. I mean it! I'm so incredibly sick of snow. Can't it be Spring already!?!?! Okay. Deep breath. Quit whining.

So what do I do next? Well, seeing as I have a camera in my hand, and a jacket on (it's always just a little chilly in the lab) I decide to go outside, braving the sprwinter weather to take some more pictures. Tree-lined walkway, with SNOW in the distance.

Beautiful Flower bed, with daffodils and such merrily blooming in springtime defiance of the stormy skies and freakishly crazy snow. And then there's me thinking come on people! Notice how I'm pretty much the only one silly enough to be out in the stuff. Everyone else has people to graduate or work to do or something. I selflessly sacrificed my warmth for the good of the blog! Something like this just really wouldn't be the same without pictures. And even though it's dumping wet white stuff from the skies, I still like to take any excuse to go outside for a few minutes in the day. And really, I'm not in the least bit surprised. It's not uncommon to have 2, 3 or even all 4 seasons hit in the space of a single day, so I should just suck it up and deal with it...

***sigh***

Things to be excited about!

Here are some things that have made me happy in the last week or so:

• My friend Elisa's new baby
• Owning a non-functional motorcycle with cool spikes on the fender
• Going to the Honda store to order motorcycle parts
• Winning ebay auctions for motorcycle parts
• Motorcycle parts arriving in the mail
• Boys helping me fix my motorcycle
• Buying leathers in anticipation of owning a functional motorcycle
• Daffodils and tulips blooming
• Being outside
• Sunny weather
• Re-connecting with old friends
• Connecting with new friends
• Random boys holding doors for you
• Girl scout cookies
• Baby tomato plants
• Being Pepe's 'godmother'
• Finding hidden treasures in my basement (as I pack up my stuff)
• Dwight Yoakam's twang
• Putting Diana Krall's version of 'Besame Mucho' on repeat on my ipod
• Good books
• Pinatas
• Sunday talks with Mom
• Brownies
• Playing tympani
• My weekly dose of British accents at UPB
• Eye candy
• Easter candy
• "Fixing" pajamas for Natanas
• Sleeping
• Daydreaming
• Being awake
• The Provo Temple
• Friends that care
• Learning from a real chef
• Sharing good food I helped a real chef make
• My little blue car
• J-dawgs
• Hanging with Major
• Putting ice-cream on my waffle in defiance of winter
• Birthday parties
• Flipping friends over couches
• Blogging

Traditional Snacks

I never buy fig newtons. I rarely buy orange-pineapple juice. But I get a fix of both of these snacks every time I give blood. Well, almost every time I give blood. Sometimes they don't have these exact snacks, and I invariably feel ripped off. Even if I get a free t-shirt, I'm a bit miffed if I've allowed some random stranger to poke holes in me and drain out a significant quantity of an important bodily fluid, but they don't have both fig newtons and pineapple-orange juice. I've had random colds most of the winter, so last week was the first time I had been able to give blood in 4 or 5 months. I went at the end of the day and was a bit worried that their snack supply was running low, but when I got done and they had wrapped my elbow in stylish neon green stretchy stuff to cover up the fresh hole in my arm, I found an abundant supply of both of my favorite post-arm-draining snacks. It was a beautiful spring day, so I whipped out a camera and took a celebratory picture when I got to my car. Some people donate blood to save a life, or to give back, or because they or someone they know has needed blood in the past. Some days these are my reasons, but some days I just do it for the Newtons.

Spring has Sprung!

So even though I live in a town-house kind of a setup, and even though I don't really have a yard, spring makes me feel like I should be trying to grow things. So I went online to tomatobob.com and ordered some heirloom tomato seeds. Now, those of you that have been around me in Provo know I made a cinderblock garden a few years ago, and all that really grew were the tomatoes. But that time around I just bought little tomato plants and just transplanted them. This year I decided to try and start my own little tomato plants. I was a little nervous because they need to be in a certain temperature range, and need to be kept moist to sprout, and so on and so forth... I planted them on Sunday the 6th and have been peeking at them every day since. When I checked them this previous Sunday I saw cute little plants growing! Almost every seed I planted has sprouted, and I've put them on my window sill to get some sun.

Sometime within the next month I'll get someone to help me build some planter boxes and make a square-foot garden for my patio. The only space I have doesn't get full sunlight, so I'm not sure how the tomatoes will do, but I'm going to try. It gets so hot in the summer anyways, so I figure maybe having little plants in a place that doesn't get full sunlight might be good. Right? I hope so. I have some fun tomato varieties that I'm trying out... Black Zebra, Eva's Purple Ball, Greek Domato, Isis Candy, Bloody Butcher. Great names, so I hope I get a few tomatoes from each so I can try them out. There's nothing like picking tomtatoes straight from the garden, and having fun colors and shapes of tomatoes should be fun. If I don't kill them all off, that is...