FYI, my sister Emily says that the woman pictured in this post is “fired” because her hat looks like a “dessert got stuck in a fan.”

Since I derive great pleasure from it and I don’t remember bringing it up here before, I thought I’d mention “Jeeves & Wooster.” It’s a comedic British TV series based on a set of novels written by P.G. Wodehouse back in the 1930s. As far as I know, it’s where the idea of calling butlers “Jeeves” comes from. Both the shows and the books are delightful.’

Colin and I discovered the show a few year back, but yesterday for the first time I acquired one of Wodehouse’s books, The Code of the Woosters. In the show, the main character, Bertie Wooster, is played brilliantly by a 20-year-old Hugh Laurie of current “House” fame (he’s British, by the way–I’m always impressed at his ability to change his accent).  Anyway, Wooster is a uselessly rich young man who goes around visiting friends and relations and getting himself into all sorts of hilarious trouble, while his wonderful manservant, Jeeves (played by the equally brilliant Stephen Fry), manages to gracefully extract him from it and pull together a happy ending.  And all this with silly, witty banter intertwined for the entertainment of all.  If you like dry-ish comedy, I recommend you check it out.  Oh, and Hugh Laurie singing “Minnie the Moocher” here is pleasantry itself.  Hee-de-he-de-he-de-he, sir.

It rains in the Spring.  I like rain because it smells good.  It makes everything feel clean and new.  It gives variety to my life.  I even like thunderstorms because it makes me humble and reminds me of the power of God.

Flowers!  The flowers start to come back and they smell good and help me to be cheerful.

Easter.  My birthday.  May parent’s birthdays.  Passover.

The sunshine comes back warm, but not too warm.  I always forget how much I missed the sunshine during the winter and it’s like a great surprise every year.

Green grass and leaves.

Strawberries!  I had strawberries for breakfast with a little whipped cream.  Who knew that two cups of strawberries has fewer grams of carbs than a cup of cereal?

Other spring fruits and veggies!  Asparagus, artichokes, apricots, avocados, and pineapple.  (I just found a list of fruits and vegetables by season–with pictures!!–here)

The farmer’s market starts up again and I can find good produce next month!

General Conference

Kites–I should bust out our kite and take the kids kite-flying with all the wind we’ve got right now.

Spring Cleaning.  I rarely actually do a whole huge Spring Cleaning, but I do get a little bug in my head helping me to get motivated to try to get things back in order.

Anticipation and planning of summer vacations.

Did I mention flowers and sunshine?  I really love those…

I like having time alone when I exercise.  I try to work out early in the morning, sometimes before even Colin gets up, and almost always before anyone else in our apartment complex is outside.  Walking the three minutes to our gym outside in the fresh air before dawn refreshes my soul.  I love sunrise–I’d forgotten how much.  And since it’s been about three years since I’ve even had the bathroom to myself on a regular basis, having a half-hour or more legitimately to myself gives me an emotional boost. I feel like God and I are the only ones awake and I find I can pray with more gratitude and focus.

Exercise is helping me lose weight!  I’ve lost 5 1/2 pounds and one fat percentage point since I started.

I have time to listen to music.  Right now it’s not great music, academically speaking, but I’m enjoying it and I’m sure I’ll discover more as I go along and get bored with the baby stuff.

I feel happy more of the day.  I find I don’t have to work so hard to be happy.  I don’t have to try so hard to be motivated to pick up the house because I’ve already done something good and feel great about it.  I don’t want to sit on the couch and watch TV so much of the time.

I have a reason to get up in the morning besides someone crying at me.  So much of the last couple of years I’ve woken up to crying babies, and it’s trained me to almost dread waking up.  Now I have an appointment with myself to do something for myself that makes me feel good.  I admit that I still defiantly stay in bed after the alarm rings, but I think that may gradually go away on its own.

I like to have a quantitative measure of what I’m doing.  Changing diapers and making dinner and folding laundry could be quantified, so maybe I should do it with those too.  But with a treadmill it calculates all the numbers for you and you can see as you work just how much work you’ve done and compare it to yesterday.  I like lifting weights, too, because I count as I lift and each time I finish a set it’s like I’ve made it to a goal.  I almost like weights better than cardio because I get to the “I successfully finished something!” point more often.