Busy update . . .

Right now I am avoiding working on some stuff, which is the only reason I have time to post! I had yet another interview. How did it go? Let's just say that if I get this, it is well and truly the hand of God! I was running late, and then got lost . . . it spiraled from there. It was a very long drive, and I was so exhausted after . . .

I am in my last week of summer school. 2 more days and we're done. Free, well, kind of- until the last week of August. Yippee! I'm in a storm cloud of busy. Having friends over, house sitting, coffeehouse, roofing our church, insurance trainings, insurance meetings, interviews and cleaning my ever-dirtying house. Oh, and a family reunion and taking my dad to the airport(I'm picking him up again Saturday). I am looking forward to cleaning my house. I spent Friday rearranging my living room, after seeing just how congested it was Thursday night when I had more than the usual company(2). I'm excited about the new arrangement. Only slightly different, but more things have a place. I like that. My laptop now has a home, one that I can see and fiddle with while watching TV. My speakers are now hooked up for the first time since I moved in November. (An apology to my neighbors for the loudness, in advance!) My guinea pig is in his new cage, I have plants in my living room, not just in my kitchen. I'm excited! Now if only I could get the piles off the floor . . . It just shows me how much stuff I need to get rid of.

It seems like the busyness of summer is dictating that bloggerland shuts down, or at least slows down, and I'm no exception. (I'll try to hang in there, Lynnette, so you have something to read in the dead of winter over yonder in Australia!) My Blog Friend Babzy gave up and joined the ranks in taking a little vacation. Perhaps we should all just plan to blog half-arsed for now, and hit it hard again when the leaves turn? (pardon my french, there just aren't any phrases that say what I want to say so succinctly!) I hope that you are all having a great summer, getting some rest and doing all those fun things that only summer can bring! The leaves will be turning soon . . . enjoy.

A weight has lifted. The work that I'm putting off because I'm so busy isn't due quite yet! I didn't get a deadline for this project, but haven't had time to work on it. I finally checked in with the Advertising Master for this task and found that I can breath easier, at least until this weekend. For now? I still have 2 more days of summer school to plan. And sleep . . .

A

Uber busy.

Liked this enough to take a very precious minute to repeat it:

The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.
Muhammad Ali

I earned a D.

I found this from a link from I don't remember who's blog. Kind of funny. I'm a D-list blogger. Not too much to live up to, hmm? Only room for improvement, I guess. I've checked many of your blogs, too, and y'all aren't all that much better! I feel better about myself, knowing that I'm in good company! If you want to check it out, look here!

Stuff . . .

My goal this week is to get my house in order(seems to always be that damnable illusive goal, hanging out front like a carrot). I must clean and purge some of my stuff. I must organize. If you don't hear from me for a bit, I may be buried in an avalanche of stuff. I will still be lurking around, though, so post something interesting, mmmkay?

A

birdies!

my little pets . . . and here's a video, my FIRST ever posted on youtube. We'll see how that worked for me!

I kept watering . . .

. . . and they hatched! We went from 5 to 3 eggs, although I don't know how. I have to water the plant, though, or these little guys will have no protection from the elements. I take the hanging planter down and oh-so-carefully water it around the edge. They are so little! I can see them breathing , but they're just a little heap of fur/feathers right now. They live about 30 feet from a busy highway. Not a location I would have chosen!

Conservation of Happiness

During our college years, my BF Sarah had a theory. She called it "The Law of the Conservation of Happiness". There was only a limited amount of happiness in this world to go around. This explains why, in a group of friends, family, work setting, etc., whenever one person is having a great day, someone else is having a crummy one. Don't like it? Don't worry, give it a day or so- it'll change! This theory seems to have proven itself out time and again.

I have a new theory, inspired by my blogging pal, Dorky Dad, creatively titled "The Law of the Conservation of Blogging Happiness". Almost immediately after I made some wicked cool changes to my blog template and settings(although I'm sure I'm not cool enough to have many readers who noticed!) DD began having issues with his. He is still unable to get it back to a relative "normal". My theory is that there is only so much blogger happiness to go around. I inadvertently stole DD's blogging happiness! I guess I'm sorry . . . but I'm not giving it back. I've finally got mine, for now any way!

DD is going to make some changes to his blog, so consider yourselves warned- his happiness must come from some where! Hold on to your blogging shoes!

Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

When Gary told me he had found Jesus, I thought, Yahoo! We're rich! But it turned out to be something different.
– Jack Handey

Camping . . .

was great. It was our annual all-church campout! I had a blast! It's always fun to go camping with a hundred or so of your closest friends. I must admit, however, that I'm not a people person by nature and it really is quite a task to not kill anyone after being with them for 3 days! Okay, killing really was never an option, but I sure get cranky! The mosquitoes were pretty calm, but it did rain for hours Friday night. We stayed dry for the most part, simply going to bed a little earlier than we would have normally. I'm thankful for the rain, though, as it apparently kept the drunks across the lake from firing high-powered fireworks starting at 11:30 pm both nights! They seem to have missed the Fourth and are trying to make up for it now? It wouldn't have been too bad, except that they didn't start until 11:00pm. Had they started earlier, we might have even enjoyed them . . .

I do have to confess that I rode back into town Saturday morning to take a shower. Some friends were coming anyway . . . and I didn't want them to have to go alone . . . and okay, I JUST PLAIN HATE NOT SHOWERING! OKAY? If I CAN avoid it, I do. Hey, we all have choices . . .

I have to get ready to teach a new summer school class tomorrow. I'd better get going.

Thanks for checking in on me.

A

Weekend plans . . .

I am going camping this weekend . . . see you when I get back!

I got distracted . . .

I got a little distracted today. I started digging around in Blogger and got a little lost. I changed some settings with my feed, whatever that really means. I'm so ignorant and hope I didn't screw anything up! I'm fairly techy, but apparently not in the blog respect! It's new . . .

I'm excited to play with it . . .

Busy bee.

What a busy day! My housework has completely gone to the wayside, so this week is a time to take back my house! I've been tackling my kitchen, beginning Thursday when I dumped a half gallon of iced tea on the floor. Mopping the whole floor inspires me to make the rest sparkle, too! I cleaned my guinea pig cage, did dishes, watered my birds because the plant was wilting, forgot the water on in my garden, added a shelf to my closet area, patched the holes I put in the wall while doing it(oops!), folded and put away the last couple of weeks worth of laundry, and went on an overall organizing bender! Now I must slow my brain, read my Bible for a bit and hit the hay! I've seriously not sat down for hours . . .

The weather here is fantastic right now! A cool front went through, lowering the temps to mid to upper 70s for the next couple of days. My absolute ideal weather! "They" say it should get down to upper 50s lower 60s tonight. Prime sleeping weather, if only I would get to it!

Today I had a student slip and get mildly injured at school. As I was trying to figure out what was wrong with him and if he was okay, a little girl came up to inspect the situation (both are 7 or 8 years old) when he announced he was okay, she paused, and decided the situation warranted a comment. Apparently lacking any thing in depth, she let out "Uff da!!", paused again and then ran off to rejoin the game! OMG! I laughed so hard!

My second story involved a little boy who took on the coach role of a student organized soccer game. We were taking a break and they wanted to play, so Coach began organizing. When two kids grid locked on the goalie position, he announced that he'd do a coin toss. I'd heard him do a coin toss to decide who went first, and only vaguely wondered where this 7 year old had come up with a coin. He promptly dictated the toss. "Heads or tails?" he asked the kids. The first kid responded "heads" and the second child also echoed "heads". Ha! After explaining the nature of the toss(if he chooses heads, you have to be tails!) he repeated "Heads or tails?" to which the kids responded appropriately "heads, tails". Coach then responded "It was Tails. You're goalie." He then turned to me and explained in an aside that he doesn't really have a coin, he used his imaginary one, and he just chose one! Again, I really was laughing my backside off! I guess the funniest part is that neither of the other kids had a problem with his imaginary coin toss! One went to the goal, and the other promptly returned to the field! I wonder at what age kids get that they've been bamboozled? When they walk away thinking "Hey!!" as the light turns on?

A good day . . .

Today was a good day. My Bible study tonight was great, with some darn good hang out time afterwards. I'm teaching summer school and we started back after having last week off. Only 3 more days of "Fun in the Sun" which involves spending all morning out in the sun running little kids around. Next week starts Math class. Both are fun, and FitS tried to make my arms more tan. (more tan that lily white, not bad!) I've almost got a tan line from my sandals. Except for the mandatory "farmer's tan", I haven't had any sort of tan line since the 1980's. Not too bad!

Hope your day went swell. Neato, even!

A

I take drugs . . .

. . . in my sleep. Every night I gather up my medications for the night and the first thing in the morning, placing the morning dose in an easily opened container beside my bed. I began this practice when I first began taking my thyroid medication. Our thyroid gland is a remarkable gland, affecting parts of your body too numerous to list. For me, one of the symptoms, other than INCREDIBLE severe fatigue, was that my feet and hands hurt terribly, especially in the morning. It was impossible for me to open those damnable childproof bottles, especially in the morning when the pain was at it's worst. That being said, sometimes during the night while I'm apparently sound asleep, I empty the contents of my little easily opened container, with out having a clue that I've done so. How weird is that? I've never found any pills scattered around, and no open windows to indicate a repeat intruder. I have no pets(that aren't in a cage or aquarium), no children and now I live by myself. It seems to happen on those nights when I'm more exhausted than normal, like last night. Unless my alter-self is actually rebelling against the lifetime sentence to medication and staggers to the toilet to flush them at some god-forsaken hour without me knowing or waking up- I take drugs in my sleep. Please, if you ever encounter me on a corner dealing the stuff, please, please wake me up and send me home.

A

It's just water . . . right?

It rained Tuesday afternoon. Quite hard, torrential downpours, I'd say. I have a plant that a friend bestowed upon me hanging on my front porch(said the porch needed something that I just wasn't giving it, or something to that effect). Tuesday. For a timeline for this story, today is Friday. On Tuesday, getting back to the story, I sat the coleus plant down where the water ran off the roof to get watered. Looked fairly normal. Friday afternoon I went outside and began watering the plant with a little watering can. Much to my surprise, a bird flew out of the plant and continued flying around the area. After watering the plant with almost half of the small can, I began to wonder why the bird was flying around. Uh-oh. I carefully took the plant down off it's hook and peered inside. My suspicions were confirmed. Said bird had built a nest and deposited 4 small eggs, since Tuesday. Jeepers, I haven't even been able to finish my dishes since then. Busy little guy, er gal.

Now, I guess I'll have to carefully water around the eggs. I watered them well today, but it was fortunately just water. They should be fine with that, right? On the other hand, it is MY plant, and not a very good place to build a family! We'll see what the summer holds for these little guys. I didn't volunteer for more pets! :) Will they grow more quickly with a little Miracle Grow?

A

Memorable moment.

A memorable post-fireworks highlight.

I was driving in my car with my friend and her 7 year old man child. It unfolds as follows . . .

Adult chatter,

Child pipes up: I thought I might have got a bug in my mouth. Silence. (deep in thought, maybe?)

Me: Oh yeah? But now you don't think so? Silence.

Adult chatter resumes.

Child: I DID get a bug in my mouth. Blech! Sputter! Yuck!

Friend/Mom: At least you didn't swallow it, then there is no way to get rid of it!

Continued chatter about ways to get rid of it, not to be described here . . .

Child: It could be my body pet.

"It's not ringworm, it's my pet fungus, Ralph!"
"It's Terry the tapeworm!"

I think I'll avoid body pets.

I am older . . .

than Saturday Night Live. I was born eight days before it's original air date of October 11, 1975. The fact that I now know this explains in part why my promised post has yet to materialize. I watched the first 3 episodes tonight with a friend, and discovered that people in 1975 had a much longer attention span than we do now. 5 minute skits would simply not fly nowadays! The Weekend Update is my favorite, irregardless of decade.

Happy fourth of July to you all. Have a safe one!

She's right.

I was talking on the phone to my friend, Jen tonight and I must confess, she's right, I need to update my blog more often. How can I hope that people will stop by and set a spell when I've given them nothing to read? I'll work on that. I've given Jen an outline for a post I'm going to do and she'll hold my feet to the fire, I'm sure! Until then, I just wanted to do a quick mini-post! The post involves finding old pictures and scanning them in and narrating them! Here is a picture of Jen back when we were roommates(the first time). She was instrumental in my salvation, and especially in my early Christian discipleship. She is greatly appreciated. Two nights of our recent vacation were spent at her and her hubby, Seth's house in Utah. The second picture is of her and Seth decorating for Christmas in the house Jen and Sarah and I shared for a short while in 1999.

Stay tuned for more . . .
A