Ten signs that the apocalypse* is upon us

1. Liza is at a play date with the girl down the street. I'm at home. By myself. Getting work done. By myself. Did I mention there's no one else home besides me? (cue choir of angels)
2. Last week Liza volunteered to go to the kid's club at the grocery store to hang out while I did the grocery shopping. She stayed there the whole time and was sad to go when I was done. (cue a larger choir of angels)
3. I'm typing a blog post while sitting in the sun on my couch. So THIS is why I paid the extra to avoid getting another desktop machine ...
4. I successfully gave my daughter a French braid yesterday. This is notable because a) her hair is long enough, b) she stood still while I tugged on her hair for 10 minutes, c) it stayed in all day and gave her beautiful waves when we took it out last night, and d) before yesterday I'd never managed to French braid anyone's hair but my own and have it stay in for more than 3 seconds.
5. My daughter managed to embroider this with only minor assistance from me. You can read more about it here.
   
   
6. I bought seed-starting supplies this weekend. I guess I need to sit down and calculate the best planting date based on our last frost prediction (May! We have the chance of hard frosts until May!), lest I end up with an egg carton full of seedlings and a glacier in the back yard.
7. I've finally started stocking my new etsy store, G Sees. Go forth and buy 5x7s!
8. We bought a weeping pussy willow tree from the grocery store last week, and we haven't managed to knock it over, pull off all the catkins, drown it, starve it, or otherwise permanently damage it (yet). It's happy and leafy and weepy and fuzzy and pollen-y and I lurrrrrrve it.
9. The snow in our front yard is almost entirely gone. There is, however, still a solid 6" of snow on our entire back yard, should we decide it's necessary to make another snowman.
10. We have the first flowers of anyone in our neighborhood. I cannot tell you how happy these make me every time I see them.

* or spring, it could be spring instead of the apocalypse. Hard to tell, really.