Tales of a Shoebox Princess

I have to show you pictures of the marching band from tonight's high school football game. The band wore shorts and navy/gold t-shirts (most of them). Had they worn their marching band uniforms, giant flat bed trucks would have been needed to haul them in, and recordings would need to be played instead of live music, as they all would have fainted from the heat. (and actually, it's getting cooler. Sort of)   The trombones lead in through the crowd. One band member has his face covered up by the back end of his instrument. No matter. There will be plenty of opportunities to get pictures of that kid's face later. Like now. Oh, wait. Stupid lyre. How about now? Dang. Now? Ugh. This is beginning to be annoying. I spy eyes! Finally that kid got the trombone away from his face. And thus begins the first of several episodes in a new blog series, "Trying to take pictures of Matt in marching band." I teased Matt (very gently) because when I as...

at the MN State Fair. In fact I was so NOT lost. I was the opposite of lost. A less lost person you could not find at the fair today. I say this because there are people out there who equate me at the state fair with getting lost. I shall not deny that once upon a time, I did get separated, unintentionally, from the people I came to the fair with, which caused consternation and concern, especially on my part. Several times.  BUT no more! I can navigate up and down Dan Patch Ave, through the horticulture/agriculture building, and in and out of the creative arts building.  I can tell the arena from the cattle building and the sheep building, I can pick out the two end points of the sky ride. I know where several of the less disgusting bathrooms are, and I can steer through the crowds in the food building without becoming panicky, and I know which end to exit to get to certain roads. Jim did his annual stint volunteering at the Little Farm Hands booth with his company, and Ma...

But no picture of him in those until football season gets underway. Some notes on school schedules: Our high school seems to be having trouble putting together viable schedules for Hayley and Matt this year. Hayley has overlapping classes--First quarter Concert band goes from like 11-12 and AP Comp goes from 11:30 to 12:30. And she has an open period (unasked for) at the end of the day. Really, high school? Also, during quarter 2 and 4, Matt has concurrent classes. We really like quarter 4--Spanish and Science for first hour. We were thinking perhaps they are going to teach Science in the Spanish language. Also also, Matt has been put in the marching band for first quarter, hence the spats and a hat title. As long as I have had kids in this school district, freshmen aren't in marching band unless they are also in Wind Ensemble (like Paul). Matt is not in Wind Ensemble. So I thought, OK fine, they must need trombone players in marching band and then he'll be in the fre...

This morning I went for a walk with Hayley. It was surprisingly easy to get her to come with me. All I had to do was yell down the stairs, "Who wants to go on a walk with me?" It wasn't a very vigorous walk since both of us had our electronic devices with us. I took flower pictures and Hayley looked up geeky meme funnies. She didn't complain once or whine in any way. The only disturbing thing she said on the whole walk was "Mom you have a bug on your back." She didn't even laugh as I flailed and shuddered while trying to remove it. Aside from the bug, it was a nice walk. Here are some of my flower pictures. And a shoe picture. You'll have to guess whose shoes are whose.

Beware, I'm going to blog about the cats. This is what happens when 60% of the children are gone and the other 40% are sullen teenagers. OK, Matt and Hayley aren't sullen. They are quiet though. And mostly gone. Hayley works 5 days a week, and Matt has learned to have most of his conversations inside his own head. So I'm left to hang around the cats. Like today. For the past few months, I have been feeding them what I call "Daily Tuna," which is about 1/3 of a can of tuna every day around noon. The cats have come to expect it, and will start getting antsy for Daily Tuna around 10 a.m. Every time I go into the kitchen, they follow me, stare at me, and meow at me. Today, however, Jim was in the kitchen and he asked if I had given the cats their Daily Tuna yet. I said no. So he got the container out of the fridge and put some tuna on a plate. Usually, when I even open the cupboard door to get a little plate, Magic and Servo are right there at my feet, meowin...

This morning we were up early. Jim wanted to leave the house by 7:15 a.m. because of rush hour traffic and because we wanted Paul to be at the airport 2 hours before his flight, which was scheduled to leave at 9:55 a.m. But leaving early didn't happen. Some people are slow to get going, and Elder Evans 2.0 is one of them (I hope the CCM--Spanish for MTC--in Lima whips him into shape). We made sure he had his passport (after the scare on Monday, I felt like I should carry it around with me at all times but I didn't. I put it in a file box where I keep valuables) and he made sure he looked and smelled good. My stomach was churning as the minutes ticked by. I resisted the urge to nag and yell. Instead I sat on the couch and stared at my plants on the piano bench. Matt and Hayley came with us, and finally we were all ready to go at 7:50 a.m. Much later than anticipated. My stomach knottified further. Traffic was bad, but Jim was driving so I just had to make sure I didn...

Tomorrow morning around 8 a.m. we take Paul to the airport. He has spent most of the day packing and sorting through things. We got the last few things on his list, one which was a certain kind of insect repellant that is available only at a few places. Last night we had a collective near-heart-attack moment when Paul couldn't find his passport. Katie had wanted to look at it before she left for the airport, but it wasn't in all the places we thought it could be. My stomach was churning as I helped Paul search. Jim said he hadn't even seen it since we got it in the mail with Paul's travel plans. But he thought he would check his truck anyway, even though he KNEW it wasn't going to be there. And yet it was, in a manila envelope under some other papers. It's a good thing Katie asked to see it, otherwise we all would have assumed it was where it needed to be, and then tomorrow morning would have been even more hectic, scary, and panicky, with possible tears. ...