I'm going to go ahead and admit it, this is the first time I've driven from Athens to Dayton to visit my parents all year. I went home for Christmas for a week, and met up with my parents once in Columbus after my mom's marathon in October, and once again in Columbus in February. The 2.5 hours from Athens to Dayton is much more daunting than the 70 minutes from Columbus to Dayton when I was in college.

What I'm getting at is that it took a lot of self-convincing to go home for Easter, but I'm glad that I did. If I didn't I would have missed my mom's awesome coconut-pineapple cake and a head-scratching Easter sermon (Top three things that seek to squash your Easter joy!: 1. Terrorism 2. Addiction 3."Difficult people". Really.)

You guys, I wished on the Easter bunny that I would get a job or an internship this summer, then I wished for the Easter bunny to grant me the wisdom to seize the looming uncertainty in my life and rebrand it "adventure". Then I wished for the discipline to get a passable thesis proposal finished in eight weeks.

The Easter bunny helps those who help themselves. Anyone up for some adventure?

My parents moved when I was a freshman in college, so I have never "lived" in the house they live in now. I don't know where anything is kept, so sometimes when I am looking for a suit for an imaginary interview, I come across weird artifacts of my past and it's like stepping on a landmine. In my room in Athens, I know exactly where old journals and pictures are kept and I usually don't go looking for trouble. But here, I'll open a drawer and there will be a friendly note from my ex-boyfriend's mom, a birthday card from a friend I've lost touch with, a goofy photograph and I don't know why - these are not sad things - but that shit knocks the wind out of me.

And every once in a while, I'll come across something tangentially from my past, but that I haven't seen before, like my sister's elementary school scrapbook-cum-sketchbook. And I'll smile.

Nick's brother and sister-in-law, who don't usually embrace on the beach in matching clothes, hence why they needed direction.

Nick visited his mom and stepdad in Florida last week, which means I got lots of picture and text messages documenting (affectionately) how strange it is sometimes to visit your parents. The chain restaurants, the board games, figuring out what to do for the four hours between everyone else going to bed and you getting tired.

His mom signed them up to get family beach portraits, which are those ubiquitous vacation photos where everyone wears white Oxfords and khakis and kneels in the sand, all stifled and tense in their "casual" poses. I sort of feel bad because, in my family, this idea would have never even gotten off the ground. I can just hear my mom trying to suggest it, and the three of us getting in our simultaneous 'no's before she could even finish. We're just awful. Maybe when/if the three of us start having babies, there can be costumed beach pictures. But just of the babies.

Before I could stop myself from writing a passive aggressive memo, the damage was done.

My street has "24 hour parking". This means that every day a very short, toad-like woman (dead ringer for Officer Shrift from the Phantom Tollboth) cruises the length of my street in a slow-moving Jeep, holding a device that basically amounts to a very long stick with a piece of yellow chalk at the end. Leaning out the window, she chalks the tread of each car's front driver's side tire. The next day, when this ritual happens again, cars with chalked tires will be ticketed. It sort of looks like an incredibly slow-moving, shitty version of polo. I rarely drive, and to avoid tickets I have to move my car every night, even if it's just eight inches forward to get rid of the condemning blemish on the tread. Each transgression is a $20 fine and I've probably coughed up around $120 since I moved here for my parking sins. Infuriating.

When I found this ticket on my windshield today, I threw my keys on the road and dramatically kicked my tire. Something that will make you feel even worse about your stupid parking ticket is kicking a well-inflated tire. It's not quite punching through dry wall or breaking a mirror. Your shoe just sort of soundlessly bounces away, like the tire is whispering, "stop".

I used Michelle's mom's pancake recipe to throw together some breakfast for me and Sjanneke this morning. I am a little embarrassed to admit this is the first time I've ever made pancakes that weren't from a mix.

Oh, I didn't get the internship I applied for. It's okay. Life is long and there is lots of coffee in it.

How are the resolutions I brought back from LA going? Well, I haven't made it to the Athens farmer's market yet, and thus, have purchased no flowers to keep in the house. I guess a small-scale massacre of the front yard could mean hyacinths and tulips in the kitchen and at my desk, but I like 'em right where they are - lined up like tin soldiers guarding the porch, surprising me on my walk home from class with new petals unfolded and smears of bright color.

I have, however, been successful in laying off nearly a third of my wardrobe. Oversized jeans with holes in the crotch? Too-small sports bra dyed pink in the wash? Sweater that hasn't been worn since high school? Your service to this company over the past few years has been invaluable but I'm afraid there isn't a place for you here anymore.

On the first marginally warm day of the year, everyone loses their shit, including me.

In an uncharacteristic fit of spring-weather-inspired domesticity, I line-dried all my linens yesterday, pee-my-pants excited about how starchy and fresh-smelling they would be. I admit that before I got a hold of myself, I stood with a mug of coffee in the backyard, more or less watching them dry.

After the sun got my towels all good and unwet, I brought them in.

I missed one though. And then it got rained on. And then it froze stiff.

This is why the midwest is the home of people who constantly say "if you don't like the weather, wait a minute!". Also the home of frozen bath towels.