Spring Break | Play Ball!

It's definitely Spring. And there's nothing like an afternoon of Husker Baseball at Haymarket Park to put the "spring" in spring break. Here are a few other indicators that winter is done:

• In a few weeks, our Horizons softball team will take the field on Friday nights. Good times.
• Horizons Egg Hunt, April 1 @ 4 p.m. Every year it's a blast. Don't miss it.
• Our DZ kids are practicing their songs for Palm Sunday, April 1.
• 80 degrees today -- incredible.

Go God!

LMF

Spring Break | Day 1

I'm calling Friday the first day of spring break for us since we'd finished all of our school-type business by Thursday. I won't give you the minute-by-minute Jack Bauer (24) type of drill-down or then my secret would be out: my life isn't that interesting.

Here's how we spent Day 1:

• Picked up Freakonomics at the library. It's been on my list for a year now. So far, pretty interesting reading and even enjoyable since there's no test on it.
• Mace and I spent two hours at the Lincoln Children's Museum with about 3000 other kiddos. Maybe it was only 300 but it felt like 3000.
• Read a paper on terrorism and the media while Mace played with the Thomas the Tank Engines at the Museum -- ok, that sort of qualifies as doing school work -- but there's no test on it and my margin notes were only marginally insightful.
• Watched General Hospital. (I've missed a week, who's this new guy Logan?)

Just wait until tomorrow when I tell you how we spent day 2.

LMF

Grey's Anatomy and big questions

I did some catching up with a month's worth of "Grey’s Anatomy" this week (!) and I’m still thinking about the theme “If I went missing, would anyone notice?”

• Would you notice if I didn't blog for a week?
• Would you notice if I weren't in church Sunday?
• Would anyone notice if I missed class one night?
• Would Pastor Steve notice if he didn't receive an email-a-day from me?
• Would Candie notice if she didn't receive two emails a day and a phone call from me on Fridays?

Fowler and I have a saying about particular chores or responsibilities that we don’t like to do ourselves that the other does, like tracking birthdays/anniversaries (my job) and changing light bulbs (his job) by saying, “hey, that’s why I got married.” It sounds as if we don’t take marriage seriously when of course we do. There’s a great monologue in the Richard Gere/Jennifer Lopez/Susan Sarandon movie, "Shall we Dance," about marriage:

**We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'.**

Fowler would notice. My mom would notice. Mace would notice. Friends, too. I’m connected. I’m OK with the question AND the answer.

Yet not everyone will be. A week or two ago, there was the story about the man who was found dead a year after he died. No one missed him. No one noticed. His wife was already gone. An entire year. Dead for 365 days before he was found sitting in his living room with his TV blaring.

I’m sure there are people who don’t want to ask the question because the answer would be too painful to realize there may not be another human being on this planet who would go looking for them and not give up until they are found.

What about you? If you went missing, would anyone notice?

LMF

How did you spend your snow day?

Six inches of snow was enough to shut down Lincoln, Nebraska today. All roads in, all roads out. Mace and I stayed home -- we could have run errands, but why? We watched a lot of PBS and stayed in pajamas all morning, but after lunch we got dressed to go outside and play.

Now, if you know me, you know two things: (1) I don't exercise or do anything that could be construed as exercise and (2) I'm not good in weather other than NICE. But there I am with a 3 year old who needs to run off all that snow day energy and every place I could sit is buried under snow/wet/cold. "Mace, let's build a snowman." But Mace isn't interested, he just wants to run and make footprints and roll around or throw snowballs at me.

I persevere. I get the shovel. I move snow, pack snow, massage snow, and repeat all that for an hour or so. I wanted a snowman at first, then I thought Mace would like Thomas the train, but I kept looking at my very tall, packed snow and I could see the Gnome. I could see his pointed hat, his large nose and his arms at his side. I figured it would be easier to make him what he is, than to try to make the blob into something it was not. I got a few tools from the kitchen and after two and a half hours, there he was, the Snow Gnome. (Mace wasn't impressed. "Let's knock him down and build a snowman.") But as far as I'm concerned (and I think Mace and I are very clear on this) the Snow Gnome stays until he melts.

Or loses his head.
LMF