Now that we are nearly a month past the vernal equinox, it seems that spring really is here. Let's look at the local spring flair in a Monday Morning Bullet Post.
- Pollen counts are up...so are the allergy symptoms.
Tree pollen counts are very high right now. Red zone high.
Expecting a bit of rain
Tuesday and Wednesday...
Neatnik's teacher continues to send home pleas for donations of additional boxes of Kleenex.I sent in a 200-count box on the first day of school, another at the beginning of flu season, and a third last week. Now, if every parent in the class sent the same number of boxes, the class would have had over 100 boxes of tissues.
Either some people are not stepping up to the plate or the third grade suffers from incessant colds, flu, and allergy symptoms on a continuous basis. Yes, I know: it is the former. I still refuse to send a fourth box of tissues this year.
A significant fraction of my own students come to school sniffling and sneezing. Those are the ones who don't bother with the anti-allergy medications. The ones who, like me, believe in better living through pharmaceuticals shamble into class a lá Shaun of the Dead.Teaching is tough right now.
- Everything all of a sudden is yellow.
I would almost be inclined to suspect that somebody has been slipping some digitalis tablets in with my daily vitamins if not for the fact that I am generally the designated assembler of the morning vitamins. I think I would have noticed an extra little round white tablet trying to masquerade as an antihistamine. Besides, the generic Claritinwe purchase is kind of football shaped, not round. Trust me: a retired pharmacist would notice that.
Besides that, I can count. I'd notice an increase in the pill population.
Since I am not digitalis toxic, I must accept the evidence of mine eyeballs and report that stuff is all turning yellow here. You can't swing a dead cat locally without hitting one of these three yellow things.
- Lots of houses are being put on the market.
It is a formula: put your house on the market in early spring so that you can sell it and buy a new one and get moved between the end of the current school year and the beginning of the next one.
Yesterday we noticed several Realtor's Open House signs. Just for fun, we visited three of them. The first one was a new construction. Four bedrooms in over 3500 square feet. Full basement. Two car garage. Lots of closets with built-in shelves. Kitchen hosted at least twice the cupboards and drawers of our house and you could easily have converted each of the master bedroom's walk-in closets into bedrooms in their own right. Ticket price? Just under a million. Next house.
The second house was very different. Built in the late 70s on a slab. Again, four bedrooms but these rooms were tiny and rather dark. If someone was cooking dinner and you wanted something from the fridge, you'd have to ask the chef to stop cooking so that you could open the refrigerator door. The back half of the garage had been repossessed as a home office effectively creating an attached shed with one-car garage door access. Price tag in the $320s.
House number three was very interesting. Ostensibly a four bedroom split-level, the master bedroom was on the uppermost floor in what would originally have been termed the "bonus" room by the builder. Large and with slightly sloped ceilings. The smallest bedroom would work fine as a storage area - maybe as a pantry - albeit a pantry half a flight of stairs up from the kitchen. Huge fenced yard and a completely dry basement. Owners asking $435k.
It may sound a bit strange, but it was a fun way to spend a few hours on a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon. - Taxes are due.
If you are an American and you haven't yet filed, today is the deadline. In order to make today a little less stressful, some merchants are offering free or discounted stuff. According to a news article I found on Yahoo, you can score a pair of Cinnabon minis this evening and a free kids meal at IHOP at dinner time. Don't like pancakes? I got an email from Chili's offering a free appetizer or dessert today. Can't do dinner today? Swing by Mickey D's for breakfast or lunch and score on their 2-for-1 offers. DirecTV subscribers get free HBO today.
I hope you are getting a refund from your favorite uncle this year instead of writing him a fat check. If you know of a tax day special, please post it in the comments and tell us what other signs of spring have you observed lately?
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4 yarns:
I hear you on the allergies! We've been in the upper 11's on a 12 point scale most of the past 4 days or so. It has DH's nose bleeding and I'm thinking the Alavert that worked really well for me last year is giving me nausea as it is better the mornings I forgot to take the pill before bed... I'm allergic to Claritin and Zyrtec, once over the counter seemed to not work for me, though it had been what I was prescribed for years. *sigh*
This too shall pass, right? :-)
The pet shop where I buy rat food had 10% off food and 25% off all non-food items all weekend. But that's over now. I did manage to score 10 pounds of food for only $7.77. I guess that's lucky in more ways than one.
Pretty flower pictures!
Allergies, the miserable downside to spring. Thankfully Uncle Sam was kind to us this year. I'm not looking forward to paying state taxes again when hubby retires from the military but that's a small price to pay for retirement. :)
Even though we're supposed to have 6" of snow tomorrow night *pauses to whimper a bit*, my allergies are kicking in. I haven't checked the pollen counts, but my post-nasal drip tells me they're on the way up.
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