It drizzled sleet all weekend. Not strong enough to be snow, but too thick for rain, it's been a continual gray curtain for two days. If you could stay curled by the fire with a good book, it wouldn't seem so onerous, perhaps. But I had to accomplish some rearranging of rooms and organization of my office. DH rose admirably to the occasion, though I know he hates these sudden projects being sprung upon him. I started taking all the books off the shelves in my office. He asked, "What are you doing?" I told him I was planning on moving the bookshelves from my office to the front bedroom, recently vacated by my married daughter and her little family. I'm turning it into a library-guestroom-play-TigerWoods-golf-on-the-X-box room. Right now my office, the guest room and the front room are in disarray as I move things from one to the other. DH installed another desktop (a counter top piece) in my office to complete a U-shape around the room. It wasn't easy. We couldn't get a piece from the factory that had 45-degree angles on both ends, so he cut it himself. Took some sanding and finessing to get it right...not perfect joins, but very close. I can live with that. At least I have a lot of space on which to spread my scrapbook projects out...and I can leave them in partially finished states without disrupting the flow of the rest of the household. I've got the room about 70% sorted and organized and I've been working on it for four hours. But when it's done, I'll be able to share my scrapbooking / office space with Chrissy. As it is, only one of us can work in here at a time.

I even think I'll have room in the corner for the overstuffed chair I fantasize about, with a reading light and a window to gaze out. That will be a good day.

It snowed 13 inches Tuesday morning. Gack. I hurt my shoulder over the weekend and so can do very little. Shoveling the wet mess was left to DH, who did it with grace and no grumbling. Of course this means that the crocus, daffodils and other brave flowers just beginning to show their colors are now mashed to the ground under the load of snow. It's always inspiring to see how quickly they regain their composure after being dumped on and flattened into the mud. Wish I could learn to do the same. It is supposed to snow over the weekend again.

Spring is teasing us in Utah. One day it will be 60 degrees and the next it snows. The sunny days are all during the work week and the storms seem to fall on the weekends. It's painful for a gardener who also works full time. In fact, not able to stand it a moment longer, I spent a few hours this afternoon puttering in my garden. It took until late Sunday afternoon for the temperatures to climb back to 50 degrees.

I was suduced, as I so often am. I noticed ten or so bright yellow crocuses near the driveway, fighting their way through a mat of dead alyssum. I stooped to clear the alyssum away, got tangled in a pansy and noticed a sprig of lamb's ear that sowed itself in an entirely inappropriate place. So I cut back the pansy, pulled out the lambs ear along with dead the alyssum and stooped closer trying to remember what the small-leafed perennial was I planted beneath the America rose. A pile of dead foliage was forming on the driveway, so of course I had to go find my yard cart--back behind the compost pile. I piled the leaves and tangles of dead perennials in the cart. But wait--a little more raking back of dead leaves and the yellow-gold striped blades of "Harkonen" grass can catch the light.

Then suddenly, two hours had gone by and I had pruned back two of my eight climbing roses and cleaned up two of the entry way beds by my front gate. My back hurts a little and when I think of the rest of the garden that needs attention I feel overwhelmed--yet somehow strangely peaceful with the smell of dirt in my nostrils. Spring is here in all her fickleness.

The weatherman says four storms in the next fourteen days, and if it holds true to the recent pattern, they'll fall on the weekends. So I'll keep on, squeezing some puttering time in the cracks of sunshine.