Zumba kicked my ass last night. I came home sweaty and damp, red faced and stiff, tired and satisfied. I showered and went to bed early, falling asleep to the warm glow of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi from the TV beckoning me to dreamland. (Dream?: I was Yoda, giving Luke Skywalker advice- "Call your mother you must, worry she does. A Jedi uses the force...to put dirty clothes in hamper he will." Weird eh?)
Today I had subtle indications everywhere that today is the first day of Spring. Yes, I realize that the calender says its not until March 20th...but it is wrong. Spring starts today for me. All morning long I found myself catching the dog licking random things: the arms of the couches, the back leg of the storage ottoman, the front of the dishwasher, one of the cupboard doors. My morning was a symphony of "Saku! Stop!", "Saku- bad!, "Hey Bonehead, cut it out". Our dog is slightly dim. He's an enormous Golden Doodle with an affectionate heart, a hilarious personality, and an extremely tiny brain. So I just kept shooing him away from slobbering on every surface in my home, thinking that he was just being strange. It wasn't until after lunch that I took a closer look and realized that he is a canine genius. He was going around licking sticky peanut butter finger prints from the door frames, cheesie encrusted smudges off the laundry room walls, trails of dried milk off all the leather ottomans, and hunting rock solid raisins from under the rocking chair. He was helping me spring clean! I patted him on the head and gave him a treat. Maybe not so dumb after all...even the dog is telling me its time to give the house a thorough once over.
Another clue that today is Spring? I let the dog out to play while I put the kids down for their nap. Normally, if it were still winter, he'd already be waiting at the door for me to let him back in by the time I came back downstairs (although he's hairy, hearty he is not). Today, however, he suntanned on the back porch all afternoon. Any time I opened the door to entice him back inside, he simply lifted his head, glanced my way, snorted in my general direction, and went back to sleep- stretching and rolling over to tan his belly.
My most obvious indication that Spring has arrived was the cabin fever that quickly, and quietly snuck up behind me and maliciously goosed my ass. I'm a hibernator in the winter. I have to leave the house quite frequently for Noelle's various appointments, but asides from that, I am usually content to stay inside. Today, every cell in my body was screaming and yearning to go outside, to just...GO! I'm officially ready to shed the layers that have insulated me for the winter (figuratively, and literally) and get outside- to visit, to garden, to walk, to start putting into place some of the actions and steps that I have challenged myself with in order to become the better version of "me" that I am striving for.
For the next hour though, I'm going to flip through my gardening magazines (its never too early to plan a new flower bed or to mentally map out of veggie garden) while I watch the dog finish his spring cleaning. "Hey Saku, there is a splash of spaghetti sauce on the bottom left hand corner of the fridge....yup, right there. Good dog!)
No comments:
Post a Comment