Time is a funny thing, especially in the Spring. The northern hemisphere is gearing up for Summer in an explosion of scents and colors. I've traded some of my night shifts for day shifts, gladly going back to hike with kids though the green blanketed hills. Newness awaits around every bend in every trail, and under every log and rock. The kids all have Spring fever, and the promise of summer hovers around us like a swarm of strangely appealing gnats.

This week I'm back working nights. I seem to get more done during the day when my weeks of night work are bracketed by weeks of daytime work. Limitless time lulls me into a kind of torpor. Switching up my schedule energizes me, mostly because daytime work really cuts into the time I have to get all of the little things done, like housework and errands. In a way, working nights has spoiled me. On the weeks I switch my schedule, I miss the free time made possible by my nocturnal work hours.

It has now been over three months since my mom died. I occasionally find myself thinking she's still alive. My dad has pretty much wrapped up her financial affairs, but the house is still very much full of decades of accumulated possessions. I feel like my initial momentum has sped off without me. There are lots of other things going on too, of course. Willow and I have been spending a lot of time with Jeanine and her daughter, and I couldn't be more happy with the way things are going. I also bought a new lizard, a Columbian Tegu, to use for reptile parties, and am doing another reptile party in the middle of the month.

I feel a need to reign myself in and plan for the future on all fronts. I've been in a bit of a free fall in that department, spending too much, eating more pizza than I should, and generally not acting in a disciplined way. For some reason, my personal life is cyclical, with bouts of excess offset by periods of responsibility. It's almost as if the changing seasons drive my every act. Wouldn't that be the ultimate cop-out? Blaming poor habits on the seasons. Ha!