If there's anything more tedious than packing . . .

. . . it must be reading about packing. Sorry about that, but I have got our Florida trip on the brain and can think of little else. I got a remarkable amount of stuff accomplished today, up to and including getting a pedicure, so now my toenails will be cute in Florida.

Ginger will have sparkly clean teeth for her trip to Florida. She spent today at the vet getting that taken care of.

Look out, Florida, here we come (almost)!

Getting ready to get ready

I've been feeling rather antsy the past couple of days, wanting to get ready for our trip but having it be too early for most tasks. I can't clean the house too early, for example, or it will just be dirty again by the time we leave. I can't pack too soon, or I'll have nothing to wear for our last days at home. Last night I did work for several hours on the paper that is due at midnight on Friday for my class this week. I'll turn it in Wednesday night, and then all I'll have to do school-wise for the week that we're in Florida is keep up with the class discussion board.

Between the anticipation over the trip and the iced tea I had at Panera yesterday afternoon, I could NOT sleep last night. I finally turned off the computer at 1 a.m. and watched Mad Men. When that went off at 2, I STILL had trouble falling asleep.

I'm getting to bed early tonight though because tomorrow I can finally start DOING STUFF that will move me towards getting this show on the road!

Out on the town

Greetings from Panera! Annabelle is at an ice cream social with her youth theater peeps, and I'm here doing my homework . . . just as soon as I finish checking my email and catching up on my boards.

It was so sweet watching her reunite with her fellow castmembers. A couple of girls came running out and hugged her and swept her off with them. It's nice to see that she has found her tribe.

This and that

I started preparations for our trip today, although most of what I did could probably have stayed undone for another couple of weeks (like cleaning out my email). Still, it makes me feel better to know that things will be in order when I come home. It's too early to start really packing, but I'm trying to get stuff together a bit. I'm also trying to work ahead in my class so that I don't have to be too studious while on vacation.

I spent a while this afternoon downloading podcasts to amuse me on the drive down. Annabelle and I are going to Target tomorrow, and I'm going to get one of those adapters so that I can play my ipod through my car sound system. I hate listening to books on tape while I drive, but I do love me some NPR, so I have close to 20 hours of "Car Talk," "This American Life," and "Splendid Table," as well as a few other things that caught my eye (ear?).

Countdown

This time a week from now the kids and I will be in DeLand, FL, and we can't wait! This weekend the kids and I are going to be hard at work to get organized so that we can pull out of here in a timely fashion on Thursday (2-day drive). I spent today cleaning up some loose ends--turned in a freelance project and started working ahead in my class so that I won't have to spend much time studying over vacation. I also took Annabelle up to Louisville for a bassoon lesson and supper at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant. There's plenty still to be done, but right now I'm going to curl up in bed and watch the presidential debate!

Must see TV

Annabelle and I just got back from her youth orchestra rehearsal, and the season premiere of "The Office" is coming on in 5 minutes. Why don't you go here and find a nice LOLcat?

Telephone skit

[A telephone rings.]

ME: Hello?

CALLER: Hi, I'm George Soandso calling from Worldperks VISA. May I please speak to Annabelle Taylor?

ME: This is Annabelle's mother. Can I help you?

CALLER: Well, I'm calling to speak to Annabelle Taylor. Is she available?

ME: Well, yes, she is . . . because she's home sick today from EIGHTH GRADE!

CALLER: [sighing] That's kind of what I thought. OK, I'll make a note of that. Sorry to bother you. Have a good day. Goodbye.

ME: Goodbye.

[Annabelle, I think I just submarined your first credit card offer. You'll thank me for that one day.]

Where the wild things are

I took Ginger outside this morning at around 9 and was astounded to see a fox hanging out in the front yard of the house that is catty corner to us. I raced to grab my camera and zipped back outside just in time to see him take off:




I walked down the street and found him lurking in the backyard. Thanks to the shakiness of my hands from all the excitement and the excessive amount of zoom, this looks like a photograph of Bigfoot's dog, but I promise you that it is a fox:



On my way back in, I snapped a shot of our groundhog George:



We like to say that George is outstanding in his field.

Flamingo fest

Saturday night was a special occasion here at Fortress Knox. The whole neighborhood came together--flamingo and gnome lovers alike--to celebrate that magnificent pink bird. At first I was worried that I had nothing to wear that was worthy of such a momentous occasion, but I was fortunate to be able to borrow THE perfect dress from one of my new neighbors:



Annabelle and I were on a fairly short leash, as I had to get back to the school for the homecoming dance, but we set off down the road and found Canada House decked out in full splendor:



Pink was the official color of the evening, and everybody took part:



Here are our gracious host and hostess, our lovely neighbors from the north:



And here is a photographic feat that is rarer than a blue famingo--a triple-bunny-ears shot:



It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside to see these neighbors set aside their lawn-art weapons and come together for a night of fellowship. (Of course, you know we're all just DYING to see what happens next at that end of the street!)

Homecoming: extended version

Since I'm not going to make my meeting tonight, I figured I would take a little time and post the pictures from homecoming, which I know some of you have been anxiously awaiting.

When Brittany arrived, there was the exchanging of flowers:





Then, figuring that the inside of my front door just wasn't festive enough for such a special occasion, we went into the yard to get some pictures.

Mike and Brittany:



Brittany and her sister:



Mike, looking like he's giving new meaning to the phrase "double dating":



After the kids left, Annabelle and I made a brief appearance at a party of our own, which I shall tell you about tomorrow. I had to get back home by 7:30 to leave for the dance. The dance seemed to go over really well. We had about 250 kids there and a ton of free refreshments.

Remember my ill-fated effort to collect the bottles after the back-to-school dance? This time I was determined that come hell or high water we were not going to shove a lot of plastic into a landfill. I wound up stationing myself by the trash cans and grabbing the used cups as kids came up to throw them away (and occasionally digging around in the trash in the dark for those that made it past me). The teachers were a big help towards the end of the evening in collecting abandoned cups from the tables and adding them to the pile.

When all was said and done, this is what we had saved for recycling (that's about 600 plastic cups behind the water bottles):



It is now in my back yard, tucked away behind our grill to hide from the bulk pickup people and waiting for Thursday's recycling truck.

Political Monday

My parents got to see Barack Obama in Daytona Beach last Saturday. They said he was quite inspiring! Here's a photo that Dad took at the event:



Change? Yeah, I'll take some of that, please.

I left my name and number at the local Obama headquarters and got a call this afternoon informing me of a meeting tonight. So as soon as I heat up some soup for Annabelle (she's not feeling well), I'm out the door!

Edited to add: Well, it looks like I WON'T be going to the meeting after all. I just took Annabelle's temperature, and my crappy thermometer that refuses to register anything higher than 99 says her temp is 100.8. This after 2 Motrin over an hour ago! I'm thinking you might be getting an LOLcat on Annabelle's blog tonight.

Twins?

Back to the goofy, fun stuff . . .

Yesterday morning before the cross-country meet, I just had to laugh and snap a picture when Mike and Annabelle's friend Katie showed up looking like they had been dressed by the same blind designer:

Sad news

I got some rather upsetting news about halfway through the dance last night. One of Mike and Annabelle's teammates from last year's swim team was killed in an accident yesterday afternoon. We're waiting to find out details for the funeral, as I'm sure the coach will try to get some of the team together for that.

I have a lot of funny, silly, goofy stuff to post, and I'm going to try to get a jump on that this afternoon (once I take care of all the stuff I let slide in the lead up to homecoming--heck, I still have a lasagna pan full of now cold soapy water from Friday night's pasta dinner sitting on my kitchen counter). But I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge what has happened.

Homecoming 2008

I started my day by dropping Mike off at the high school to catch the bus for the cross-country meet and then going over to the middle school to decorate for tonight's homecoming dance. (Due to construction at the high school, the dance is being held at the middle school.) Then I ran out to E'town to watch him run (good run, too, especially given that this was his first one back after being injured), brought him home, and went back to finish the decorating.

Mike just left with his date and her sister to pick up more friends and go out to dinner before the dance. Now I'm going to stop by a neighborhood party for an hour or so before racing back to the middle school to work the refreshment table from 8 to midnight. I wanted to get a picture posted first though, with a promise of more to follow tomorrow:

Ah, sweet silence!

I just got into my jammies and crawled into bed with my computer. I have been living for this moment since about 3 this afternoon!

Today has been fun but crazy. I started off by going to the coffee for the International Group this morning. Then I hit the commissary and spent the afternoon cleaning and cooking for the pasta dinner for Mike's cross-country team, which we had here at 5 this evening. That kept me busy until just a few minutes ago with cleaning up, but I finally got the bulk of it put away and left the rest to soak. The kids are off at the homecoming game, the dog has been walked and put away, and the cat and I are enjoying a quiet moment together:

Fashion disaster day

Today was fashion disaster day at the high school as part of spirit week. I have plenty of fashion disasters, but they don't seem to lift my spirits! Then again, mine aren't generally QUITE as disastrous as this:

Long drive home

The kids and I journeyed up to Louisville this afternoon to get haircuts for them and a tie for Mike for Saturday night's homecoming dance. I was a little concerned, because the newspaper for the past couple of days has been all about the severe damage from Sunday's windstorm. It's really strange up there--you'll go along for several blocks and traffic lights are out and chain restaurants like MacDonalds are closed due to electrical outages. But then the next thing you know, the lights are working and stores are open and everything seems normal. Because of the places where the traffic signals are out though, traffic was pretty intense. It normally takes me an hour to get home from just about any place in Louisville; tonight it took an hour and a half.

Political (and musical) funny

Have you seen this yet? It cracked me up:

What not to wear?

Homecoming is frightfully early this year, and spirit week began today. Mike was a vision in pink in my Hello Kitty pajamas and Annabelle's cat slippers for jammie day:

Windblown

Perhaps it's in poor taste to mention our windy day when people elsewhere are still mucking out after a hurricane, but for us, we had quite the blustery day. At one point when I checked the weather, we had 45 MPH winds.

Mike reported that a friend of his on the other side of the neighborhood had a tree down, so I had to go check that out:



The people up the road from them had a good chunk of tree fall as well:



I'm afraid that those shots make our own "damage" look pretty paltry:



Mike was having his first official driving lesson in the middle of this storm. He has driven a lot with me and with Fred, but we wanted to have him get some real training by somebody who knows what he's doing. When the teacher came to pick Mike up, I asked if maybe we should cancel because of the wind, but he said no, Mike needs to learn in all sorts of conditions anyway. That made sense, so they went on with it.

Mike reported back that it was definitely worthwhile. This fellow had him driving down around E'town where there were traffic lights out and tree limbs down all over the place. He said he did get a little nervous when the teacher whipped out his cell phone and started canceling the rest of his lessons for the day because "it's too dangerous to be on the road right now." But he lived through it and got some good experience, and I didn't get to share that experience, so everybody is happy. Now if we can order up torrential rains for his lesson next Sunday and maybe a blizzard and total solar eclipse for the following one, he'll have gotten to practice in just about every stressful driving condition imaginable before he goes to take his driving test in Florida in October!