I have a very important question to ask.

Nearly every shirt that I own has a tiny little hole right near the bottom on the front. Sometimes its on the right or left side, sometimes its right in the middle, but always just a few inches from my waist.

I don't have a dog who jumps on me, or a cat or a child or anything that generally destroys clothing. I don't walk over my clothing with soccer cleats. The shirt I'm wearing today has two holes, right next to each other. It just makes no sense. And its rather frustrating. Its never a big enough hole to throw the whole shirt away, just enough to be annoying.

There's never a hole in the sleeve or the back or by the collar.

Am I the only one who has this problem? Or do they make special stores for people who can't take proper care of their clothes?

A new sound in our neighborhood:

Simple, high pitched tunes blasted from the speakers of the small truck which continually circles our parking loop. This is followed by the unmistakeable sounds of small flip flops and tennis shoes and skateboards and scooters and big wheels all headed down the sidewalk.

This particular ice cream truck has hit a gold mine. I wish I had thought of it myself.

You've probably heard someone laugh out loud while reading. I have a certain sister who makes this a daily habit, which I understand. Especially since she's usually reading some making-fun-of-twilight blog or a sci-fi book, of some other piece of fiction, which often is written to be humorous.

However, when was the last time you heard someone chuckle while reading a textbook. My most common reaction to textbook is to fall asleep. In fact, I've found over the years that some textbooks make good pillows--the paperback ones that is.

Now lets take this one step further. What about a law book, like contract law or torts (still not sure what that is)? Well just come on over to my house. If you sit quietly, patiently, you'll be rewarded with a little burst of a giggle in the middle of property law. Don't ask him to explain what's so funny though. It won't make any sense. I've learned to just enjoy the giggling and chuckling as they are without prying into the mind of a lawyer-to-be.

This is all connected, I promise.

First, as I was sitting here in my living room with my fan working its little heart out trying to blow in the tiny remnant of cool air that's left outside this morning, I suddenly realized that the normal chatter and yelling coming from the children on spring break had reduced to one single voice. I took a second to figure out what that child was screaming and I realized that it was "Help me!" So I instantly stood up and searched through my screen door to find out where she was and why she was screaming. This part wasn't too hard. In the middle of the sidewalk, I saw a little girl, maybe 5 or 6, sitting on a trike and yelling for all she's worth. However, there didn't seem to be a problem. She was just sitting there, yelling, "Mom, help me!" I stood watching her for a moment, trying to decide if she really was as desperate as she sounded. But sure enough after about another minute of this, she carefully and slowly climbed off her trike and peacefully walked back through her front door.

All of this made me consider that maybe sometimes the crisis that I may be facing doesn't always seem so big from the perspective of others. And sometimes it might be pretty easy to take care of myself it if I just try.

Second, I found my car covered by a layer of green dust yesterday. Thankfully, the cleanliness of my vehicle has never had a big effect on my life, but it did make me curious. The lawn had been mowed earlier in the day, so I thought it might have been from that. However, as I drove down the road I saw that nearly every car was covered in green. I was able to rein in my imagination, you know keeeping all those thoughts of nuclear waste, aliens, acid rain out of my head, but I still had the mystery of the green dust that kept accumulating on my windshield.

It turns out that its pollen, and it has plans of continuing to plaster itself all over everything for the next several weeks. goody. So far, there haven't been headaches, runny noses, itchy eyes or uncontrollable sneezing, so I'm desperately hoping that this pollen is the friendly kind.

What brings all of this together is the ridiculous heat wave that is threatening a long, hot summer. It honestly feels like August this week with the kids home from school, bees flying everywhere and windows open and fans blowing 24 hours a day (we just couldn't turn the AC on in good faith the first week of April). I'm starting to wonder if I should invest in a mini pool for my deck to keep me cool for the six-month-long August ahead.

Easter Gardens

We've had our house full the last couple weeks, which gave us a reason to explore places that we haven't had the time to visit ourselves. When we were blessed with gorgeous weather this weekend, we took our chance to visit some beautiful outdoor spaces.

I discovered my new favorite tree, the redbud. Unfortunately, I'm not the only one who loves these little purple flowers.

We also discovered an amazing climbing tree. If only I could have had this in my backyard when I was growing up. I could built a second bedroom up there.

And we enjoyed spending time with Ryan's aunt.

We're not sure if she was more excited to see us or the trees, but either way, we can be sure that she'll come back to visit us again.

But unfortunately, its back to work and back to studying for us and our visitors. After all, final exams are coming very quickly.