It's Spring! (ish)

I know - I live in Illinois, where people will laugh at you if you EVER assume winter is over. Until July. And then it's like, "yeah, it's hot now, but it's going to be cold soon."

There could easily be snow for the next two months, so I probably shouldn't get ahead of myself, but... I'm going to, anyway. It's sunny, and I'm happy. It's beautiful outside today - sunny and not cold. True, it's definitely not even close to warm yet, but if I can say it's "not cold," that's a good thing.

Since spring is coming soon, and I'm so excited about it, here are a few happy things I'm looking forward to -

Tonight: March Madness begins! My pick to win it all is... Notre Dame. My reasoning? No idea. I literally just looked at the AP poll and picked them. An extra special reason to tune in this year will be the presence of hilarious NBA commentator and best-selling author Charles Barkley. YES.

April 2: ELTON JOHN ON SNL! I'm not confident about his acting skills... at all... But I am so excited to see him perform. Although, I often get excited by SNL guests/musical acts, only to waste 1.5 hours of my life watching them do a competely mediocre job, but, oh well. I'll keep my hopes high for Elton. In other SNL news, for anyone who didn't watch last night, please watch the hilarious monologue, but feel free to skip the rest of the show. You'll thank me.

April 6: Going to see David Sedaris! This was my Valentine's Day gift from Dave, and I must say, he did a great job. I would take this over flowers and candy or whatever else any day.

April 11: Going to see The Civil Wars downtown with Laura Leonard! Yes, that is a sentence that I wrote. The Civil Wars. Of course I'm going with Laura, because do you think I discovered this band on my own? Obviously not. Anyway, this outing includes a few of my favorite things: going downtown, going downtown without having to wear a coat, and live music. So, yay!

April 24. Easter! See my last post for more on this...

Week after Easter: Going on vacation (hopefully). Dave and I are most likely going somewhere warm and relaxing for a week, and I cannot wait for this. We haven't made definite plans yet, but are thinking maybe a cheap cruise. Not sure. Any recommendations? My only qualification for this trip is that we go somewhere warm, so I can wear the following...

this:

or this:

and this:

That's it for me. I went from "possibility of snow in the next two months" to bathing suits in one short blog post. I'm an idealist, what can I say.

Anyone else unusually psyched for late March and April this year?

EDIT: Right after I posted this, Dave read it and said: "OH MY GOSH. Lauren. You totally forgot to write about the most important part of April. Well, Easter's the most important part of April... (cricket, cricket) But right after that is we're Bulls season-ticket holders and the playoffs start in April!" So, yes, I'm excited to make back our initial investment by selling our playoff tickets to rich people through Chicagoland. And to go to some of the games, of course, to cheer on our favorite Bull, Derrick Rose: