Spring in Our Step

Throwback Thursday, CJ circa spring 2004

SPRINGING INTO SPRING: Helloooooooo, spring! 

Today marked the vernal equinox, that special moment the sun crosses Earth's equator from south to north. That's right, we're in spring and inching toward summer now. Yahoo!

Today's equinox came at 10:57 a.m. our time. I told the kids they would literally be springing into spring and dragged the mini trampoline out into the front  yard. They thought I was a little crazy, but the good kind of crazy, I think.Te

The ground was so wet from recent rains, by the time they both got their spring on, the trampoline was darn near flush with the ground. I had to dig it out with a shovel and hose it off. Oh well. Worth it. :)

We each read a really great article "Everything you need to know: Vernal or spring equinox 2014,' by EarthSky, wonderful Web site I get daily email updates from. 

After the jumping and reading, I asked the kids to each write a cinquain poem about spring. (Scholastic's Poetry Idea Engine helped remind me that the form is:

Line 1 = 2 syllables telling the subject of the poem.
Line 2 = 4 syllables describing the subject.
Line 3 = 6 syllables telling about the subject.
Line 4 = 8 syllables about the subject.

Here's what they came up with:

This afternoon, we went for a nice long walk along the waterfront, from our 'secret' parking lot south into Belltown.

 We started in about the grain terminal. Annabelle noted a different ship was there today than during our last visit. The Aspasia Luck was flying under a Liberian flag. We looked it up on Marine Traffic, a really cool Web site where you can find the specs and whereabouts for ships all over the world.

Meanwhile, out on the bay, this ship awaited a port, we presumed.

We stopped to do a bit of ferry spotting.

And we saw a lone sailboat drift by.

We visited The Best Health Club in all of Seattle. What a view - and membership is free!

We checked out the salmon net pens in the bay. It's a transitional home for hatchery salmon. They just arrived and will hang out here, getting bigger and stronger, before being released for their journey home. 

Our turnaround point was an art installation made up of a trio of superbig boulders.

 The kids had no trouble scaling the largest one. They've grown since our visit last summer. :)

A BETTER BREAKFAST: I decided the kids wouldn't start the day off with breakfast, er, a bowl of sugary cereal, this morning, our fourth day of Hunger Action Week, where we're living off the 'basic food' allotment, $21 a day for our family of four.

Breakfast today was an apple apiece and one ounce of cheese. Cost: . Christian had yogurt and a Cutie for a total of 87 cents. The kids each had an apple (.42 times two) and one ounce of cheese (.16 each, for .32). Plus, our standard pot of coffee (.41). Breakfast total: $4.88

Lunch, Christian had already expensed home-made chicken nuggets and green beans. Sweet! The kids had what has become the standard mac-and-cheese - .56 cents. I had pepperoni, .25. Lunch total = 81 cents.

Dinner was kale (1.68 ) cooked with a bit of bacon (1.60) and non-bacon pork (2.35). Regarding the pork, I had a cheap Winco pork loin-ish roast which I cut into thin cutlets, dredged them in brown sugar and mustard (.20) and fried them up. They were a hit!

I took CJ, coupon in hand, to the store tonight after dinner to buy dessert. We got a great deal on ice cream, so they each enjoyed 5 ounces of Umpqua for a total of 52 cents.

Daily damage: $12.04 for food. Pretty frugal! Good thing, because when we were at the store this afternoon, the kids asked if they could have a soda. I asked them if they were willing to skip lunch for it.  The looks on their faces were priceless. Good news is, they didn't have to skip lunch. Bad news is, that was a $2.80 hit. So for the day, we're down to a $9.24 surplus. Still, not too shabby.