debsiobhan

08:44 pm: For a different reason than I thought, but stunning nonetheless.
 Yesterday as they have in so many years past, the midshipmen of Annapolis scaled the greased Herndon monument and replaced the plebe's cap perched there with an upperclassman's cap.  This year that cap was not the normal selection - it was the cap from a woman's uniform.  I saw this on the gym tv (no sound) and was stunned.  I checked the Post and they didn't even mention the cap.  Luckily the Baltimore Sun came through for me.  In the end it wasn't a statement on the sexes which is what I thought at first glance.  The cap actually belonged to a female mid found dead in her room May 5th from as yet unknown causes.  Knowing the tradition of the climb I find the use of her hat to be a stunning tribute from her classmates.

Tags: thoughts

04:58 pm: Sunnier
It is much, much easier to feel good about the boy's trip while the day is warm and the sun is shining.  Really I've been at that particular camp in the rain ( at Kingdom Crusades) and it's pretty grim. 

So I'm pretty much free until Thursday night, except for like work and stuff.  Of course my evening tomorrow got eaten immediately in a strange twist of fate.  I was hoping for dinner and a movie but the only part I'll be getting is the move.  Which is to say my nephew and his family are moving and they called looking for box loading help tomorrow.  Not what I planned, but what the heck.

Tags: life

08:50 pm: Be Prepared
My son is not a boy scout.  The last time my son went camping he was under the age of two.  I don't think he remembers it.

Tomorrow in their infinite wisdom the 6th grade of his suburban school is heading upstate to go camping.  Not roughing it by any stretch, there are cabins and lights and showers.  Still it is rustic.  And also involves tramping around outside in the weather - which today was cold and rainy.   For 3 days.  Oh and this will be the longest time he's been away from both of us at once.  He overnighted once before, but that was less than 24 hours.  Then again hubs is volunteering at the camp Wednesday so it won't be completely away.

We just finished packing.  Their packing list was not too bad.  The boy erred on the more prepared side of the spectrum.  In fact, after we got it together, the sum total of the goods did not fit in our originally selected pilots case.  We went with something slightly larger but lacking wheels.  He also has to carry a sleeping bag.  I bought one that has it's own carry case.  At this point we still have jackets and pillows to pack.  I fear we can not fit 2 jackets and 2 pillows.  This is causing much angst.  He needs the rain jacket, he wants the sweatshirt.  He's offered to wear both.  We have managed to stuff the big pillow into the bag but there's a little one too.  I think it is playing the roll of substitute blankie - because middle school boys are not cool with blankies but pillows are just pillows.  I'm just not sure a) if we can shove it in somewhere and b) if he'll be able to reassemble the whole mess to get it home again.  

Something will undoubtedly be left behind.  Probably both here and there.  Well, none of it's particularly expensive.

Tags: life

07:33 pm: Where Did We Leave Off?
I have no idea.  Not that I have any exciting or fabulous news to impart.  I mean there have certainly been things happening dinner guests, dinner out, errands and such but nothing big.  

Next week the boy has his big 6th grade field trip.  They go to a camp and do outdoor things.  Things I did as a girlscout.  Things he's never done because the husband really isn't into camping.  Suprisingly he's is most excited that they will do archery.  I had no idea he had any interest in archery.

Today he went out with his father to pick up a dvd of anime from a series recommended to him by Majesty.  There are no quotes there because apparently that is what her name is.  I asked him if Majesty was his anime connection and he giggled fiercely and asked what I meant.  As near as I can tell Majesty is a 6th grade anime/gamer geek's dream girl.

Tags: life

08:53 pm: so...
I took in flowers for the adopt-a-teacher.  I'll try and get her a restaurant gift card this week too.  It is teacher appreciation week, after all.  I have other suggestions too so as long as I don't spaz I should be able to take care of the June offering as well.  It's not like I've totally ignoring her.  I'm pretty sure I've only missed 2 months and really she got an excellent Christmas time gift (Macy's giftcard) and January gift (Office Depot for supply replenishment) and March was a real nice bag of snackies (things from her profile page).

Work was pleasantly busy today.  Other than having to make additional changes to every single thing I worked on it was good.  And really that wasn't even so bad.  I had a couple of tasks that challenged me and currently only one that is winning the battle.

So yeah, routine is not so terrible.  Although the non-routine parts of the day were pretty darn excellent.

Tags: life

07:48 pm: The Thing about Routine...
Is that it's fairly boring.  I could talk about work, but I can't imagine anyone would be interested in my efforts to get the stupid report writer to let me create the parameter query the way I want it to.  I could talk about home, but  really how exciting are bills and laundry and the ceramic tile floor that is always dirty?  If I talk about the boy's school then I'd have to confess how hard I'm finding it to come up with gifts for the adopt a teacher.  It's teacher appreciation week so I have flowers to take in tomorrow but really I'm gonna need something else - especially since I completely spaced last month and gave her nothing.  Sigh.  I used to be a fairly organized individual, but lately not so much.  Unfortunately I think I'm maxed out on something or maybe everything.  And telling myself I really need to get it together is about as effective as telling the grass to stop growing.   

Tags: life

07:19 pm: Napping away the afternoon.
 I'm sure there were things I should have been doing.  I could have gone for a walk or worked in the garden - the day was lovely after all.
Instead I took a nap.  Ahhh.  There are few more decadent pleasures than sleeping away a pleasant afternoon while the world is busy with their industry.

Tags: life

08:50 pm: Insufficient Attention to Detail
The day started damp and chilly in the morning.   I was peeved that I'd forgotten my jacket.  I was so chilled.  
Around 11 the sun started to break through and it felt good.  I was actually warming up.  By 1:30 I was headed home.  In that time it never occured to me that I was toasting.  I didn't even notice the burn until dinner time.  The bitch of it is that I had sunscreen with me, I just didn't think I was getting over exposed.

Tags: life

04:28 pm: The Joys of Capitalism
I had a space at a community yard sale today.  I'd been planning on it and kept an eye out for the information on the date and cost.  I had planned to do a complete sweep of the house for unused items.  As it was I only did a semi-complete sweep but I had plenty of goods.  As part of this sweep I asked the boy to assemble any items he was done with that he'd like sold.  He did it while I was out and I came home to a table mostly covered in little junky toys and all his little kid books.  After some discussion (he has a lot of toys he's outgrown) it came out that he wasn't ready to part with anything else right now.  That's fine it's his stuff after all and besides I ended up with 6 boxes of books to sell.  

I priced them cheaply and they sold like hotcakes.  A suprising number of junky little toys sold as well.  We ended up selling a couple hundred dollars worth  combined and at the end I came home and went through the money with him.  He pocketed over $100.  He was suddenly interested in when the next yard sale was.  I think he may be more ready to part with things now that he remembers the payoff.  A trip to the store was instantly required.  The game he'd been diligently saving for was acquired immediately.  I talked him out of an additional impulse purchase by imposing a cooling off period.  Essentially promising to bring him back to the store if he still wanted it tomorrow.

He's playing, I'm resting, life's good.

Tags: life

08:08 pm: Looking up
 I wish it were figuratively, but I mean literally.  It's funny I know I used to look at the sky but the combination of my job near the airport and the influence of a friend have me looking skyward more than I used to.  To the planes, of course, but also to the clouds and such.  The payoff is the occasional sundog and the feeling awe at of how diverse the landscape of the sky really is.

Tags: thoughts

07:06 pm: And I don't even like porridge!
I'm really feeling like a little spoiled brat.  My life is by most standards very good.  I try to recognize it.  I try to be suitably grateful.  Unfortunately I'm having a bad case of Goldilocks.  Sure, everything is good, but nothing is just right. I was pondering this very topic this morning and thinking that there wasn't one thing in my life that was getting "Meets Expectations" on the review.  Then I thought of one thing that was.  Of course that one thing managed to upend into a major ball of angst producing crap within 2 hours of the thought.  Sigh.

Tags: feelings

08:42 pm: Undercurrents
Work today was very tense.  The meeting with the CEO was very useless.  On one hand I totally see why he's doing what he's doing, he'd like to see his family's company endure.  On the other hand it's a tad silly to sit in a meeting with people whose pay you've just cut and tell them that you know that their skills are transferable but you hope they'll stay anyway.  There were many grim faces.

Strangely enough mine was not one of them.  A very dear friend gave me good reason to smile.  And smile I did, through most the day. 

Tags: life

07:45 pm: Not so sunny Sunday
I never noticed until it was pointed out to me how few sundays we seem to have sun on.  Today was like that cloudy and chilly and lazy.  Not much going on today.  I did some chores in the morning and spent the afternoon trying out some new Arbonne things with the family unit and petting the incredibly soft and sweet (though giant) Malcolm dog.  Everything else is plodding along at what passes for normal around here.

Tags: life

09:06 pm: Good Things

Sitting at the pub on the rooftop deck on a warm spring afternoon.  Bestest Babe, couple of drinks, couple of noshes, non stop talk.

Tags: me

10:17 am: Walk it off.
Yesterday qualifies as a terrible, horrible, not so good day.  Some of it unexpected, some inevitable.  This morning I decided to do what I do and go where I think best.  So I took a walk in the woods.  Took the medium length path by the river.  Up & back is 3 miles total.  

At first I thought that I should have brought my camera.  The wild flowers were plentiful.  The path edges were very liberally sprinkled with tiny gems of purple, pink, blue and white.  The new ferns were everywhere in various states of curl and uncurl looking like nothing so much as an alien invasion.  In reality my camera sucks on the tiny flower pictures so it's probably just as well.  My eyes saw and my mind holds the pictures.  And if I forget with all the chaos around, I know that at the least my heart will hold the beauty.

And that answer is that I have no answers.  So it comes down to the mantra - just keep swimming.

Tags: life

07:12 pm: The strange things in my head ...

It occurs to me to wonder - when they phase out incandescent light bulbs, how will one power an Easy Bake Oven?

Tags: thoughts

07:03 pm: That Crazy Relative
As I reflect on the weekend I think about a moment I had sitting on the couch at Hil's watching her girls tearing through the bag of stuff I had brought them.  It was my best villan prize pack which the boy was uninterested in when I brought it home.  I took it to give to the girls as I thought they might appreciate it.  As I watched them fight over the disk shooting gun, then fight over blowing up the inflateable hammer then beat each other with it while alternately sucking down the sugar from the giant pixie stick - It struck me that I was the equivalent of that horrible crazy relative who brings the kids completely inappropriate gifts.  ...Sorry Hil.  They did seem to like them, though.

Tags: thoughts

03:10 pm: Road Trip!
Spent my saturday and sunday morning happily roadtripping to Hil's place. We took a ride up to Bushkill Falls to meet up with the GoatBarnWitch for an afternoon in the park. We walked the paths around the falls (lots of steps - wheeze!), ate a picnic lunch and were very sad to find the paddle boats were not yet open for the season. Then back to Hil's for a splendid dinner or pasta and ice cream and a game of Trivial Pursuit. Fabulously good time!



More pictures are Here!

Tags: life

07:54 pm: Re-discovery
"When I kiss you I feel a thousand different feelings
the color of chills all over my body."

How wonderful a song lyric is that?

Tags: stuff

07:16 pm: ZZZZZ
Today was a very quiet day.  Very boring all day.  Except lunch!  Lunch was very nice.  I would have made lunch last all afternoon if I could have.

Tags: life