Happy St. Easter Spring!

Wow, I didn't realize how much had happened since the last time I posted. St. Patrick's Day, the first day of spring and Easter, all in a two week period of time. I suppose a recap is in order.

St. Patrick's Day
I vaguely remember St. Patrick's Day gatherings pre-Lauren. I think there was Guinness, maybe some corned beef, some goofy hats, and that's about all I can recollect. Probably too much Guinness. This year, we went a little more low key. I made corned beef and cabbage, which left a lovely smell in the house for nearly a week. The whole Thornburg clan came over, and we had a nice, relaxing dinner. There was still some Guinness involved, but nowhere near the quantities consumed in the past. Next year I'm going to try out a recipe for Guinness cupcakes I found. Yum!

First day of spring
It snowed. I shouldn't be surprised. Our weather guy always says it snows at least once after the forsythia blooms. It still hasn't bloomed yet, and it's March 27. I have a feeling I'll be posting snow pictures into May at the rate we're going. Grow, forsythia, grow!

Easter
Let's do a comparison, shall we?
Easter 2007

Note the lack of neck, scarcity of hair on her very round head, and the propped-up pose. She wasn't crawling yet, and she was at the heigh of her rotund-ness.

Easter 2008

Now she's eating ham and being a ham. This is her "so pretty" pose that Grandma Darke taught her, complete with hair all in her face. The girl hates hair clips. Or maybe it's that she likes them so much she wants to eat them. I haven't figured it out yet, but regardless, we end up pushing the mop of hair out of her face on a regular basis.


She also discovered the fun of putting olives on your fingers. Let's just say she ate a few too many olives and leave it at that.

We had a nice Easter dinner with Grandma, and that was about it. The Easter Bunny came and brought a few toys, but nothing over the top.

So that's about it. We're chugging right along, waiting for some nice weather...

UPDATE: Chris has mastered the ponytail!

Digging Out

As you probably heard, Columbus did end up getting over a foot of snow on Friday and Saturday. The final two-day total was 20.5", the largest single-storm snowfall in Ohio since 1863. As in the Civil War. I didn't realize that the Blizzard of 1978 only had about 4" of snow with it. It's the wind that really makes a blizzard. I learned more about snowstorms this weekend than I ever needed to know because all the local news stations pre-empted normal coverage on Saturday to talk over and over and over and over and over again about the weather. For about 8 hours. It was fun.

Here are some pics from outside out house at about 11:30 Saturday morning. We got about another 6" on top of this.




Needless to say I was glad I have a husband to shovel my driveway :) I'm an indepedent, liberated woman and all, but it's still nice to have a guy to do the heavy lifting. Literally. Chris shoveled on Friday night after about 6" fell, but then had another 14" to shovel once it all ended on Sunday morning. We ended up with some nice piles of snow which Lauren kind of slid down when we went out to play.



So what did we do while we were snowed in? We made Lauren's hair static-y.


And she rode her scooter.


Smooches!

Book Report #3

Well, I'm getting better. It didn't take me 6 months to read a book this time! Of course the flight to Las Vegas and back helped with that, as did sitting in the waiting room while my mom had her sinuses suctioned. Let's not talk about that.


So the latest of my literary conquests is Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World. Quite a title, and maybe a little bit overly dramatic. This is yet another non-fiction book, which made me realize that I really need to find a good novel to read. I'm taking suggestions!

Dr. Paul Farmer is an anthropolgist and doctor who founded Partners in Health, a group that focuses primarily on treating tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in areas of extreme poverty, like Haiti, Peru and Siberia. It's a fascinating biography of a fascinating man, but also a heartbreaking account of life and death in rural Haiti.

I learned more about turberculosis than I ever really wanted to know, but that's not the point of the book. What makes Farmer's pursuits so successful is that he uses his anthropological training to look at treating his patients holistically. Why do they have tuberculosis? Because they're poor, they live in horrible conditions, don't have clean drinking water, and no one to make sure they're taking their medication. So Farmer doesn't just treat the disease, he also treats the condition that makes it easier for the disease to take hold.


Farmer is also an extremely dedicated and passionate man, almost to a fault. As I read the book, and all the descriptions of his travels around the world, I couldn't help but feel sorry for his wife and daughter. His wife knew what she signed up for when she married him, but his daughter didn't have a choice. I guess becoming a parent makes you think about these things more.

After reading this book, I realized that I'm a slacker. Or maybe not. Maybe I just need more down time than Farmer does. It's amazing what he's been able to accomplish in a relatively short period of time. I think it's because he never pauses to think that something might not work. He just assumes it will, and so it does. That's a valuable lesson.

Next up: Chasing Daylight. I actually already finished it...in just 3 days!

A foot of snow in March?

Really? In Ohio? Bummer. Unfortunately, I'm going to look like one of those tools who runs to the grocery store to buy bread and milk as soon as a storm hits. I'm not really a freak, but we are almost out of milk and diapers and driving in 3 inches of snow is better than driving in 12 inches. Or running out of diapers because the stores decide not to open tomorrow morning. That's a nightmare I don't want to experience.

Did I mention it was 70 on Monday?

Voting is Cool!

So this morning I took a new step in my involvement in our country's politics: I voted in the primary election. Believe it or not, this was my first time voting in a primary, mostly due to misconceptions about what it meant for my future voting. I've been registered with the state as an independent, and now I'm technically registered as a Democrat, but I can change that each time I vote if I want to.

WARNING: PERSONAL POLITICAL VIEWS BELOW!



The main reason I decided to vote in this year's primary is because it's such a close race. And for once, I felt like I was actually voting for someone instead of against someone. I was blessed with the problem of choosing between two good candidates, each of them with their own chance to write a piece of American history. How awesome!



So what's a girl to do? Do some research. I don't trust political ads, and when I started my research, none were really running in Columbus. So I went to the candidates' websites and read through them extensively. I took into consideration their positions on my most important issues: education, the economy, and Iraq. I noted how their websites were organized, and who they were trying to reach out to. There are actually a lot of similarities between the two, but in the end, I found my winner: Barack Obama. Yes, I've jumped on the Obama train (if you couldn't tell by his campaign logo on the right side of this page).

Here's why:
--He's positive. He has a message of hope and change. And yes, I know that hope and a desire for change alone won't get anything done. Keep reading.

--He is less divisive than Hillary. I don't have a problem with Hillary, but there are a lot of people who do, both in the general population and on Capitol Hill. To get things done, you have to be able to build consensus, and I think Obama will do a better job of that.

--His website gave much more detail on how he's actually going to tackle the big issues. Hillary's gave broad generalizations, saying things like, "I'm going to fix No Child Left Behind," while Obama's actually laid out, step by step, how he would do it.

--He appeals to my generation. He gets us, and he doesn't discount our importance. We may not be rich, and we may not have a lot of influence in the "right" circles, but we're important, too. Just because many of us haven't voted in the past doesn't mean we won't. We just need to be inspired and know how to do it. All of Obama's advertising, in Columbus at least, includes information on what times polls are open and what ID to bring. The doorhanger left at my house yesterday even told me where my polling place was. I've never seen this from any political candidate.

--I have reservations about having a Clinton in the White House again. I was really too young to truly understand Bill Clinton's stances, and my strongest memory of him has to do with a blue dress and a cigar. I don't have any strong negative feelings against Bill. But I don't think our founding fathers wanted to have two families controlling the presidency for 24 years (at least). It just doesn't seem right. And I worry about how much influence Bill will have during Hillary's presidency. I want our first female president to stand strongly on her own two feet, and not constantly have people questioning whether it's really her making the decisions. I don't think Hillary's a pushover, but you can't tell me Bill won't chime in.

I could probably go on for another two pages, but that's pretty tedious and you all probably don't care that much.

One last thing: voting was soooooo much better this time around. Instead of 2 voting machines, there were 16. And they were the cool, touch-screen kind. There were also some very young volunteers at the polls, wearing shirts advertising "Youth at the Booth." I found this on the program:

In conjunction with the Franklin County Board of Elections, Kids Voting Central Ohio
is promoting Youth at the Booth to Franklin County high school seniors who are 17
years of age, students in good standing, and having permission from their parents
and their schools.

The goal of this project is to recruit and train at least 25 seniors from each
participating high school to work at the polls on Election Day. Students are required
to work from 5:30 a.m. until at least 8:30 p.m. on November 6, 2007,for the General
Election, and March 4, 2008, for the Presidential Primary Election. Students will earn
$110 for attending a mandatory training session and working on Election Day.

Pretty cool, if you ask me.