Rabbit

While it's still March 1, I'm throwing my hat in the ring for another round of March NaBloPoMo. Last year I started out strong, only to blow it on March 28 (I had a couple of good excuses). The November before that I completed it. And I've loved Amanda's daily postings for the past month.

This month's theme is "Giving (Up)," but according to the rules you don't have to stick to the theme, you just have to post daily. So I'm not going to promise it's always worth reading, but I'll do my best to write something every day this month.

Matt and I got back from our trip Saturday night. It was a good time; we hit about 50 towns in the four days we were gone. As we drove to church and lunch and the grocery store today I realized I was obsessively noticing dollar stores and auto-parts stores that I've driven by a billion times and never paid attention to. Matt said it will last a few days and then I'll be as oblivious as before.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love 1-800-Free411? You should stop right now and save that number in your phone. That's my free advice for the day. Real 411 is definitely not free and those charges add up fast. With Free 411 you have to listen to a short ad, but there are no hidden charges and it works perfectly.

For the first two nights of last week's trip, after we were done for the day, Matt drove toward the nearest "big" town while I used the GPS to find hotels there and Free 411'd them to compare prices. It worked but it took awhile. On the third night I finally realized that the GPS provides phone numbers for hotels. I'm not sure how I missed that in the first place, but once I noticed it, the whole process was a lot faster.

One of the highlights of the trip was visiting a small town with a mini-zoo featuring the typicals -- goats, roosters -- and buffalo! Or buffaloes? We were shocked! They seemed entirely out of place! I did not think buffalo(es) roamed around northeastern North Carolina, but there you go. Those might have been the first buffalo(es) I'd ever seen, but Matt had seen some in Yellowstone -- whole herds blocking the road. I took some pictures but the camera's in the car and I'm not going to get it because it's snowing right now, hooray!

This will be our third round of legitimate snow this year, which almost makes up for the fact that for the past three winters we have gotten no snow to speak of. It was 70 degrees Friday and is supposed to be that warm again by Wednesday, but in between, somehow, we might get 2-6 inches. I don't understand it, but I like it.

Tomorrow I'll post about Lent this year -- in keeping with the NaBloPoMo theme, and because I've been meaning to since Wednesday.