The Wonderful Whirlwind

By Al Horn

It has come and gone. I'm referring to the month of April. It started off slow enough then came on like gangbusters. It swept through our house tossing us every which way. If I hadn't already known better, I would have thought we were living on farmland in Kansas.

If you follow the dates of these postings you may have noticed that it has been a month since the last one. I wish I could say that some nasty computer virus had knocked out all of the computers at our house or that the router in the basement exploded. It would be a lie to tell you that the power was off all month. There were no extended illnesses or near-death experiences. There was simply that much going on. It was all I could do to check e-mail.

In fact, there were days I checked my home e-mail from work because I didn't have time to turn my computer on much less wait for it to boot up and then actually do something. The barmaid faired only a little better than I. To be honest, I think the granddaughter spent more time on my computer than I did last month. I think she was sympathetic to its cries of silence. I wasn't jealous of her time, I was actually thankful. She probably helped to prevent any rusting of the hard drive plates.

I always thought April should have had a macho nickname. Look at March. With the changing of the seasons and all the sports rhetoric, it earned the moniker of March Madness. At our house, March went out like a Lamb while April came roaring in.

Wait until April 1st to really get down to the nitty gritty of your taxes and you know true madness. Drop in the Easter holiday and all that goes with it and the 'busy barometer' starts climbing. Get past tax day and spring-cleaning, grass growing, and golf seasons kick in. Did I forget to mention the granddaughter's soccer games and practices?

Spring-cleaning went a little further than normal because it was our turn to host a meal for our church dinner group. It's hard work making things look normal by the barmaids' standards. Cavemen must have had it a lot easier. "Hey, neighbor, pull up a rock and pull you off a chunk of meat from the spit over our fire!"

When the house came with a good portion of the yard sodded we optioned for additional sod. Big mistake! The small portion we had seeded has only had to be cut once. The rest takes twice as long as the old house. In hindsight, I wish we had gone for the desert look... sand and pebbles.

I hate to complain about golf because I love the game so much. Still, between two leagues and time at the practice range, it left that much less time at home. When I was at home the kids wanted me outside to watch the latest trick they had learned on their bikes and scooters. Wedge in a soccer game and practice each week and there you have it, no computer time. Until it rains.

This past week, rain knocked out a soccer match and one round of golf. I was able to update some material to place on our website. I have a new story in Entrees and new material in Sides and Dessert. I used the excuse of staying in to help potty train the two-year old all of one day on the weekend to get them posted. Of course, it would have went faster had I not stopped every twenty minutes to chase him down and force him into the bathroom. At some point I was wondering who was training whom. Ah, the bonds that never break.

With any luck, I will be able to post on a regular basis now.

What! The barmaid just informed me that we have another dinner to do and after all of my 'cute' remarks, I get to do the cooking. She also told me that I have to work out the details for our vacation next month.  It's beginning to look like Monster May will make life even more hectic.