Spring? Are you kidding?

This morning, FCC had what they call the "Spring Scramble"... basically a community-wide candy/goody dash for kids up to 5th grade. It's been so mild this week, weather-wise, but of course this morning the frigid Blue Norther would decide to blooooowwwwwww in, so the kids and Rick & I along with several hundred others huddled shivering in the raw zero-degree wind. I was glad that at least it was dry out, though; there had been a prediction of snow earlier in the week. I think it was probably the fastest Spring Scramble ever on record; they blew the air horn at 10:08 AM and by 10:15, we were already in our cars and leaving the parking lot.

SoulFire led worship at Ignite, a youth leaders conference held at one of the larger evangelical churches in the Des Moines metro. I saw a few people I used to rub elbows with through my former church's denomination, which was honestly a little surreal. I feel like for the past several months I've dropped off the face of the known world into a completely new one, and it's an odd feeling when the two worlds commingle a little bit.

Martha is in a snit at the moment. This is not an unusual occurrence around here. The snit of the moment is because she is on a web site that requires a username and password, and can't understand why it has to be typed exactly the same way every time. She calls us in to help, but refuses to listen and kicks the floor. So we quit helping; I explained that if she wanted us to come help her, she would actually have to DO what we were suggesting. If she didn't want to do that, we weren't going to continue wasting our breath on it. Stamp! Stamp! [violent head toss, loud impatient sigh] She's getting perilously close to being banished to her room for the rest of the evening. For her, that's absolutely the worst punishment we can dispense, because she can't stand being away from the "action" and knowing what everyone else is up to.

We drove by a couple of houses for sale in Norwalk this morning after the Spring Scramble. I think we're thinking fairly seriously about making the move at some point in the near future, but Rick brought up a valid point -- do they offer high-speed internet in those parts of Norwalk? I'm going to ask someone at church tomorrow; if they don't, that would be a pretty major NO for us. Particularly if I'm doing my master's online; I can't rely on a dialup for e-mailing research papers and Powerpoint presentations.

I just had the discussion with Martha; sometimes it's better to wait five minutes or so until her vitriol has finished spewing, and she can actually listen to reason. I explained her options to her. She stood listening to me and doing some waggly motion with her hips; I asked her to stop. She said, "Which one? The attitude? Or this? [waggle motion]"

"BOTH."

"Oh, okay."