Ask Not for Whom the Alarms Rings

(This is an alarm clock that will run away from you when you try to hit the snooze button. I have one of those too. Her name is Mireya)


I’m not a big fan of this time change thing. I have absolutely no sympathy with the proponents for this crazy system. Nothing, not the hours of “extra” daylight, energy conservation equations, nor the theory that it impacts shopping patterns, none of this is enough to make me embrace “spring forward.”

The nerve of calling it “daylight savings.” I was saving mine just fine, thank you very much. I don’t need to “spring forward.”

Now “fall back,” that I absolutely love. Love, love, love. We can do that all year until we have gone back an entire day. (As long as we don't end up on February 9th. That was a shitty day.)

But “spring forward” is a horrible idea. And don’t give me that argument that you can’t have one without the other. This is America! We can buy 14 different types of toilet paper. Anything is possible.

My problem stems from my long-standing status as a night person, not a morning person. I did have the misfortune of marrying a morning person, but through sheer force of personality I have poisoned him with my cranky morning attitude.

I don’t know about most morning people, but the ones I know act as if the world would be better off if everyone was a morning person. I beg to differ. Frankly, I’ve long believed you can look at this “morning thing” one of two ways.

The early bird gets the worm.

The early worm gets eaten.

One guess where I stand on the issue.

I have to admit, though, that I’ve tried. For days at a time I have actually gotten up early with the idea that I’d get a lot more done. I’d exercise. I’d get lunches ready for the week. I’d learn Swahili so I could mutter to myself without the embarrassment of someone understanding me. It never lasts. By day three I’m operating with a dazed look suitable for a mug shot and begging for a triple espresso.

And I don’t even drink coffee.

As a result, I tend to think of this first three weeks of the dreaded spring time change as a Baatan death march of early mornings without any of the benefits of an hour’s earlier rise. Half the time I’m getting my cell phone out of the fridge and trying to get the dogs to get their socks on.

So if you catch me and my fellow night folk being a little extra cranky, remember, you’d be cranky too if your dog's socks didn’t match.

.

I swear it should be right... HERE!

Seek and ye shall find.


We spent the first day of 2009 doing something completely new. Something that tied into my sorta resolution - do more outside.

We found a letterbox.

Now we did try geocaching and frankly, we suck at it. I mean we were trying to find the ones rated for village idiots and couldn't find them. And these were in our neighborhood. And we were using my mom's GPS which kept saying "Hello. You're here already. STOP ASKING FOR DIRECTIONS."

But letterboxing has gone marketedly better. No GPS, just old fashion directions. The "walk to the sign" kind of directions.

Weird, right? Apparently if you involve a satellite, I have no clue. But give me paces and my inner pirate kicks into overdrive.

Here's the site we used to find our first Letter box.

And here's where we went.





Sierra was resistant to having a purpose for running around, but Adam and I thrive on goal oriented activities. We've never been good hikers. We like to get to the place we can rock climb, but hiking is just another word for schlepping.

Ironically, I schlepped most of my childhood since my dad loved to... schlep.

Mireya is good with the goal thing too, as long as it's not too far and if she can engage in a leaf fight somewhere along the way.

I plan on trying to have a full fledged Letter box outing once a month. After which we'll watch Sierra run all over - which is what she wants to do. Then everybody's happy.

Which is, of course, the goal.