Stealing third and shameless flower photos

It's been a while. That's one of those downsides of being a writer for a living. I spend so much darned time writing for money, that I lose the enthusiasm for writing for fun. And honestly, it's not like there was nothing to write about either. My favorite of the stories I failed to blog in the last few weeks was about Smunch's T-ball game against the Rock Hounds. This was supposed to be a post called "Stealing Third".

Understand, of course, that 5-year-olds don't really know a whole lot about playing T-ball, so the games are always sort of a free-for-all of balls, bats, helmets, gloves and small, speeding children. Smunch had already hit and was on base (This is no signficant feat considering that all the kids get to hit until they hit the ball and then they automatically get to run to first. There are no outs.)

Also understand that moms who watch T-ball are only paying attention sporadically. I'm often commenting to a friend, fending off a comment from my mother, or taking Mam and her Sarah to the bathroom...together...again. So, I look up as Gavin is running from third base towards home plate. Something looks strange. He's running with one hand shoved up is shirt and I'm wondering what the heck is wrong.

As he crosses home plate, the hand comes out of the shirt...with half of third base. I guess the base was torn to begin with and Gavin thought he might as well take some of it with him!

Yeah. That's the whole story. Maybe you had to be there.

When I lamented recently that I hadn't updated my blog, a friend suggested I just put up some of my favorite recent pictures. This goes against my writerly brain in a big way...especially since the focus of my blog is funny stories about my kids. But, because I'm hopelessly in love with my house during the spring, I will now shamelessly post some of my favorite photos from the yard in the last month or so... tune in in a few minutes for more interesting, kid-related fare...

You can see a larger version of each of these if you click on them. I'm particularly fond of the pink rose after the rain and the snail on the purple iris. I'll bore you all with photos of our lovely un-ripe fruits next time I'm lacking for content.