Diego, on Claudia: "First comes the crying, then comes the screaming, then comes the head-banging."  He pretty much has her nailed.  

The girls and I did some gardening over at the new house today: pruning an enormous rhododendron, chopping away at a massive rose of sharon, yanking out about 5 miles of ivy and dumping 40 pounds of leaf compost all over everything.  The work on the house is coming along, although it seems slower now.  The walls have lost all of their faux-wood paneling and are nice and smooth.  The ceilings and trim (or 'trims' as our painter calls them) have all been painted.  The floors on the 2nd and 3rd floor have all been sanded, stained and coated with water-based polyurethane.  I think colors have been chosen for our bedroom, Claudia's room, the guest/sewing room, the living room and the dining room.  The big kids' room is still in process, although my talented friend Sarah has agreed to paint a tree and some pink flowers on the wall, as per their requests.  Al and I found a vintage Chambers stove on craigslist and snatched it up for the kitchen.  The kitchen cabinets have been ordered.  Things are definitely moving along.  

I'm feeling less and less settled here at our old house.  Somehow, once I get my mind around the idea of moving, all of a sudden our existing space, which has worked fine for the past 5 years, seems intolerable--too small, too cluttered, too wide open...I don't feel like doing any work in the garden here, which is a mess.  Luckily, since the weather turned this week to beautiful ephemeral Philadelphia spring, we are spending as much time as possible out: where cherry blossoms and daffodils and  forsythia are blooming, and Clark Park soccer has started again, and little vincas and buttercups are everywhere at Woodland Cemetery.  It's like the most perfect reward for surviving the long, snowy winter this year.