Festively enough for the fifth of May, huge, fluffy snowflakes are falling right now.  It’s kind of depressing.  The boys were slated to start a junior golf program this morning, but since there is a minor blizzard going on, we are all at home in our jammies. 

Speaking of sports, because of all the rain that has been falling over the past few weeks, Mark had his first soccer game of the season on Thursday night.  It was not raining, but it was cold, and I wore my giant winter parka and two pairs of mittens.  After the game, Mark was coughing a lot, which threw me into a state of despair and panic.  Last year Mark developed a cough during the freezing, wet soccer season, which eventually turned into pneumonia, which led to months of subsequent incessant coughing during the night and following any kind of physical activity.  Giving him his inhaler – which we haven’t had to use all winter – seemed to help.  I am not going to be sad in the least that this will be our last year playing soccer.  Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in a climate in which I wouldn’t get the shakes just thinking about outdoor spring activities. 

I had an epiphany this week.  I realized that extreme, overwhelming dissatisfaction with my appearance is one hundred percent correlated to my menstrual cycle.  This may seem obvious to the rest of you, but to me it was a relief.  The next time I find myself glaring at myself in the mirror, wondering if I could possibly avoid all contact with the outside world, I am going to take a look at the calendar.  If I tracked my expenditures on beauty products and makeup on a calendar, I would surely find a huge spike in the days leading up to my ladies’ holidays.  This should have been obvious when I found myself in buying a jar of special hair masque alongside three different kinds of dark chocolate.

Adding to my “look away, I’m hideous” attitude, there has been a visiting yoga teacher this week.  She’s fabulous, and I love it when she’s here, but I always get up a little bit earlier when she visits, to give me a little extra time with my practice, and to get as much instruction from her as I can.  Getting up ten or fifteen minutes earlier doesn’t seem like much, but by the end of the week I’m an hour short of sleep, which – I apologize to those of you new mamas who aren’t sleeping at all – makes me a little stabby.

But I had a couple of glasses of wine last night, ate some of the aforementioned dark chocolate and watched Grey’s Anatomy – did you see it?  That’s what happens when you have premarital sex, APRIL – I slept well, and now this morning all the stabbiness is gone.  The kids are busy playing Star Wars Wii, as they have been since yesterday – “It’s Star Wars Day, Mom!” – I can hang out in comfy yoga pants all day, and the snow will surely melt soon.  So life is good.