Karrie gave me a wonderful thought… have you noticed how time is constantly pushed forward by retail and commercial enterprises? I mean, as soon as one holiday is done, the next holiday’s stuff is lined up on the shelves for purchase, as if time were always being pushed forward. In fact, they don’t always wait for the upcoming holiday to actually arrive.

For instance, I noticed that on February 15th, the Easter decorations show up. Sure Easter is early this year (arriving on April 11th), but that is still a two month jump forward. And I’m not the only person who complains that the Xmas shopping season starts earlier each year.

Does anybody really plan their holiday decorations so early that you need a few months jump start?

And with all that commercial planning, is it any wonder why people are disappointed with a holiday that last a single day.

Doesn’t this just feed the insatiable restlessness we feel? It is hard to be content with what we have with this unnatural manipulation of time just because we needed to buy a loaf of bread.

Granted, I don’t shop in stores that have lots of seasonal shit for sale, so I may fare better than others, but I’ve noticed a time skipping in my own life… based on the weather.

Everyone knows that it rains a lot in the Pacific Northwest area of North America, and we are in the middle of our 7-8 month raining season. But this season is punctuated by some truly lovely spells of fair weather and at least regular, but unpredictable sunbreaks.

Spring is the time to haul out the dead leaves and make room for new growth, but who wants to do that in the rain? So, the first sunny day in March, no one shows up for work, and instead stays home and does yard work.

Well, we’ve had almost a full week of fabulous weather which lasted into the weekend. So when I got up today and saw that I’d have some more nice weather, I was wondering what to do… I’d already got most of the critical yard work done, and even the critical fun-in-the-sun playing.

So we piled the kids in the car and bummed around all day. Went downtown and had some Thai food, then wandered around the Irish celebrations, then Saturday Market, then… it was the first day that we were in the moment, with no urgency and no plans.

Gotta remember that.