how mom celebrates spring:

watching tulips fight through the snow;
cutting and soldering glass - small and doinky, but the first projects I've done in a couple years!
chocolate experiments with liquid centers - YUMMMMM! (bad photography, but good mint and caramel centers!);

expanding the sandbox - well, the handyman actually got up from a nap and built this, since he knows of my irrational fear of cutting off my leg with the SkilSaw;
from this:

to THIS!
and, just a side note, 1 cubic yard = 27 cubic feet - just in case you were going to be off by a factor of 3 like someone who no longer uses any math.

hopefully, the peas will also make it into the ground before May.

vindication

Well, lest you were worried that the white chocolate emerged victorious overall, a night's rest brought new resolve - and patience - and I did get those silly centers dipped. The extra white chocolate added to the key lime pie centers did the trick, and they dipped fairly nicely. The key to the strawberry centers was to take them out of the freezer in small batches. 5 centers turned out to be the optimal number before they warmed up and became too ridiculous to work with. The other key was to keep the dipping tool moving.

Moral of this little adventure: I really prefer caramel, mint, and nut centers anyways. I was going for a different taste here, but the fruity centers just don't really do it for me.

I did freeze some for Margaret for July, just in case they work for her. :)

firsts

Sunday Alex scored the honor of being the first Young child to get a hair cut. His cute curls in the back were looking too much like a mullet for his hyper mother, so she grabbed the scissors and cut the rat's nest off. She is now regretting that decision, and wishing she had just grabbed a squirt bottle and tried a little more humidity instead.

Also, over the weekend I did my first chocolate party. Margaret 2 was put to work showing off her tempering skills. No big revelation, but I have no problem talking to a group of strangers, especially about chocolate. I just don't like being pushy about getting people to play hostess and set up more tastings. Luckily I have no illusions about making a million dollars pushing chocolate - just enough to cover my own habit. I should be able to swing that without too much pain. Anyone want to justify a trip to Utah? or California? . . .