Spring. No, Winter. Wait, Spring...

This morning we had two inches of snow on the ground at 8 a.m.

By 11 a.m. it was 55 degrees.

I love Boulder County weather. Truly, I do. It doesn't usually hang around long enough to complain about it when it's bad, and most days have at least an hour of sunshine. And even a late April snow doesn't stay cold enough for long enough to kill the new blooms in our backyard:

Blistering new study on marriage...

I came across this new research this morning:

Is Marriage Good For Your Health?

To save those of you with only a few moments of time: Yes, sort of, depending on how viciously you fight. Husbands, hold your wives' hands or maintain another form of affectionate non-sexual touch, and stay on topic. Women, don't try to control (in the sense of micro-manage) the situation at hand. Couples who observed these rules during disagreements had some interesting and apparently statistically significant health benefits. And the more hostile the fight, the longer it took for simple infections and wounds to heal. An interesting piece suggesting that physical health is dependent on emotional health in relationships, with some novel ways of studying that hypothesis. Looking forward to the next generation of results.

Storytime, or: readers and protoreaders.

A rare moment of family Zen.

Going vertical.

After much dithering and deliberation, I've got a new direction toward fitness goals. I've been trying to make up my mind between running, doing a sprint triathlon in late summer, keeping my aerial fabric classes going...Boulder is a place with far too many interesting choices for ways to keep healthy.

I spent early spring training for a half-marathon but had to scale back due to injury to a 10K, and even after several weeks off I'm still not feeling 100% after any runs longer than 4-5 miles. I love fabric and hope to go back to those classes someday, but to move from ultra-beginner to intermediate, I need more upper-body and core strength than I've got. (I was the oldest one in my class by at least five years, and probably the only mother, which says something else about the optimal body type, but I haven't given up the idea completely just yet.) And the biggest problem with fabric is that I can only do it once a week with no practice outside class, so it's not a very practical fitness pursuit (although someday I'd like to incorporate it into theatre performance).

Then a few weeks ago I visited a local indoor climbing gym, and I was hooked. I signed up today. The gym has all the usual gymmy things--weight room, treadmills and other indoor torture machines, yoga classroom, spinning classes--plus many, many opportunities to rock-climb indoors on routes ranging from "My four-year-old finished this!" to "Um, are you sure that's physically possible?" It also has a childcare room, on the off chance that I can get to the gym during one of Matt's extended rocket absences. Plus, there are aeroyoga classes--I will blog more about them after I get to go to one but I am very excited about that too.

If you're curious, check it out at: Movement.

A typical afternoon: dialogue.

"I'm going to play a game called Be Mad at Mama."

"And how do you play?"

"You have to punish Mama for things she did that were bad."

"What did she do that was bad?"

"Things like telling me to eat my bread ALL the TIME."

"And how do you punish her?"

"By making her go outside."

"And do what?"

"Play with us."

"That doesn't sound like much of a punishment."

"Well, it's not a punishment for US. It's a punishment for you."

[Note: it is currently 69 degrees and brilliantly sunny out.]

"What do I have to play outside?"

"Whatever I want to play."

"What about Tucker? That sounds like a punishment for him."

"Then he can pick. As long as you don't get to pick. You're not getting punished anymore if you get to pick the game."

"What do you think he wants to play?"

"Tucker wants to play babies." (Tucker: "Dah!" or, roughly, "That!")

"How do we play that?"

"We sit around and scribble and drink milk and bite a lot. But not too hard."