Hoping for some more inspiration blog-wise. Twitter has been getting most of my updates.

The possibility of languishing in the office on a pre-holiday Friday spurred me to furious work today, skipping, or at least postponing lunch until I departed just after 2pm. Traffic was awful, but I'm home, in the bosom of my family, fed and casting about for entertainment.

Happy Weekend, Now With 50% More Leisure!

My Saturday, by the numbers:

• 3,214: Number of dandelions mowed down (approx)
• 47: The cost ($) to fill up my Subaru with gas today
• 46: Pictures taken today with the D-80
• 21: Seconds that it takes my 5-year old to circle the house
• 17: Seconds that it takes my 8-year old to circle the house
• 12: Start time of the wedding we'll attend tomorrow
• 8/10: Pollen severity for today
• 8:38: Time we bought the wedding gift tonight, online of course
• 7: Teenagers happening by in the road, all loud and silly, as I shoveled rocks on the driveway
• 6: Months of grime washed off the Subaru
• 4: Feet of kielbasa cooked on the grill
• 3: Girls demonstrating horse manuevers, including jumps, canter, and trot
• 2: Shirts retrieved from the cleaners
• 2: Cars washed
• 1: Cars sitting out in the rain now
• 1: White vans that ventured down our 300' driveway by mistake.
• 1: Former co-workers carrying pizza boxes outside cleaners avoided

I was curious when I read the weather forecast for today: "61F, 100% chance of precipitation." Today, it seems that meant it would rain 100% of the day. Things were soaked and dark when we rose, and here in the dark 12 hours later, the rain has redoubled its efforts.

We're watching the newly planted grass warily, hoping it doesn't wash away, but the rain has been mostly steady and lacking in any torrential qualities. Laura cooked on the grill, as was her plan, rain be damned, and tended the tasty chicken under my grandmother's umbrella, the one emblazoned with giraffes. That's the picture I should have gotten.

In the house all day, of course, doing some work-for-work (new team, new boss, increased responsibilities, better buckle down, don't be a slacker, they're gonna know what a fake you really are, angst, sigh...), some laundry, some sorting, some replacing of lightbulbs. All in all, pretty relaxing.

Oh, and I'm trying to see exactly how many pictures one can fit onto a 4GB SD card. We're up to 1,062 (@10MP) so far, and the camera says she can take 4 more. Wow, what an exciting life. Ahem, right.

Finished The Dreaming Void. Meh.

Prepare to be h4x0r3d, it starts tomorrow.

This evening we were treated to a variety show by the girls. The experience included tickets (above) and a souvenir golden rock.

The show began with a demonstration of trash can dumping and transport of the waste away in a dump truck. Next, a refrigerator that housed dancing orange juice and milk cartons released its freewheeling occupants. Then a mummified animal was passed around for our tactile enjoyment.

The show briskly moved into ghostly apparitions and the display of a giant, bloodshot eyeball on the ceiling. Abby then gave a short astronomy demonstration that showed the motion of the sun and moon over four days.

Then a dog howled. The roof and silo of the Fisher-Price Barn were pounded repeatedly.

Then Stephanie tripped over the dump truck and fell down. Then there was dancing and stumbling over the barn.

All of this was conducted in a dark room by the light of a flashlight.

It's Texas Independence Day! The Convention of 1836, at Washington-on-the-Brazos, produced the Texas Declaration of Independence, as Texas pulled itself from Mexico.

Read about the Declaration or the full text:

Here's a taste:

When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression.

When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted federative republic, composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood, both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the everready minions of power, and the usual instruments of tyrants.

Wikipedia has this timeline of events.

We finally have some real snow here in NoVa, about 6.5" of it here on the mountain. We had to drag the girls in from it, since it was dark and raining, but they didn't come willingly.

We're now getting an icy treat tonight, with rain misting down on top of this. Imagine my joy.

Share my prayers for school closures on Friday, won't you? Daddy needs a four-day weekend.