Out Like a What-Now?

*Disclaimer - If you follow my links in today's post, you may learn something and/or laugh. You have been warned*

How is it possible for a month to both draaaaaagg and fly by?

I was just complaining about how this March seemed to feel about two months long. Then, as we finally approach the end of it, I'm don't quite remember what all those days contained; it now feels like they went by in a quick blur.

March is one of those transitional months when we travel from the stormy, chilly and sometimes downright cold morning and evenings (In like a lion) to somewhat more calm, springtime temperatures (out like a lamb) . After we roll the clocks back (and loose that precious hour) we awake again, in the darkness waiting for the sun, who comes up late and stays up longer. We eat dinner with the sun shining and the dining room lights off. The trees start to send out some leaf buds (cherry blossoms!) and random pieces of grass grow tall and green.

We started to prepare our outdoor living space for the coming summer. On a random 75 degree day, we leveled out our tiny yard and planted some grass and purchased a brand new grill! Since it's just the two of us we decided to get an LP grill. I'm a firm believer that food cooked over charcoal tastes WORLDS better than gas, but with all the work and time charcoal takes, I doubt we'd ever use it to cook our quick, measly meats for two people. It was warm the day we (FINALLY) finished putting it together and after having to return the first scary (and now we know it was DEFECTIVE, which is scarier) propane tank, we were "cooking with gas" as they say. We enjoyed some awesome Bubba burgers (they're shaped like Texas!) on the deck outside, savoring the fresh, crisp evening air!

[Side note: if you have a vehicle big enough and can purchase your own grill pre-assembled, DO IT. No matter how awesome those burgers tasted, it was not, I repeat, NOT worth the literal blood, sweat and tears that I shed putting this together. Not to mention the metal shard splinters, they were my favorite]

I've had it in my mind to tackle the front "yard" of our house for a while now. Last summer the ideas came to me, but it was 105 degrees and let's be honest, I don't function outside above 83 degrees. So I waited until Spring! I had to wait until it got a bit warmer and the ground thawed out before I start to disassemble the horrid rock garden the previous owners installed. I don't know what made them think that the six uber-ugly short shrubs they planted would be a beautiful addition to the pile of rocks and mulch they deemed "easy to care for". And by "easy to care for" I mean that the kids next door pick up said rocks and when they aren't hurling them at each other, they're running through them. So, I'm going to rip all those horrid plant-things out, rake up all these annoying pebbles and rocks, install a sharp little garden fence and plant some pretty flowers. I was planning on doing that this week while the fucking annoying darling gang of neighborhood kids were still in school so I didn't have to suffer through the incessant questions ("What are you doing? Why are you doing that? Can I help? My mom said I could help. What's this? Can I pet your dog?") and so I didn't have to keep watching over my shoulder in order to have enough time to dodge a bicycle or basketball.

Regardless, it's POURING, and the rain is expected to stick around for the week with a possible thunderstorm here and there, and it's chilly. No, we aren't getting the snow that some of you Yankees back home are, but this precipitation is still annoying, especially since our grass hasn't fully taken yet and our backyard is 72.4% mud.

Have I mentioned that we have a cream-colored dog and a cream-colored carpet?

CORRECTION: We DID have a cream-colored dog and we DID have a cream-colored carpet.

So, thanks March... feel free to take all this chilly, wet, muddiness with you when you finally exit tomorrow.

Lamb, my ass.