Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

Tired of cherry blossoms yet?  Oh good, because here are a few more:     These are from just a few hours ago...the cherry blossom or sakura, is truly ephemeral.  The blossoms appear almost overnight and won't last more than a few days, depending on weather.  It's important to get out and appreciate them while you can.  The Japanese actually have a term, hanami, for the "sport" of viewing sakura and there are many, many places in Japan where people flock to see sakura in breathtaking settings.   I'll settle for CFAY, since I'm still single parenting and the Japanese school children are on spring holiday, so the crush would be intense anywhere we would go.  If you saw my last post, you know I had to bribe the kids with ice cream for a two hour trip down to Miurakaigan to view the blossoms a couple of weekends ago.   It's been a busy couple of weeks.  I had a new class start up, just the other half o...

Yesterday, I forced the kids at knifepoint to go see early cherry blossoms at Miurakaigan.  There was moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth, but I decided we were going.  My parents, God love them, used to drag us places that weren't exactly on our "wish list" and dang, except for EROS Data Center, I'm really glad that we went to those places! Even though I didn't want to go to EROS, see how I still remember it so fondly Dad?  Ha! Had a bit of a snafu with the train, but otherwise arrived safely, along with 1.6 billion other Japanese people wanting to enjoy the sakura.  Sigh.  Hans and I don't enjoy crowds.  Maybe that's putting it mildly.  Hans and I hate crowds...crowded places bring out the worst in us.  Let's just say that I would say that random crowds have witnessed many of the more beautiful, touching moments of my marriage.  No big surprise because we are homebodies and get anxious in crowds and social settings...now Josia...