exhausted by relief

So tired today for several reasons. Work, house, school, husband, life, etc. Just when I am at the end of my energy along comes a really big weekend. I drove up to my parents' on Friday just in time to get into the car rider line at my old elementary school to pick up my nephews. Then off to the Michiana Mennonite Relief Sale.
This is a yearly tradition for us and this year I really did it up right. On Friday night I helped serve Haystacks. Here is a brief explanation of Haystacks minus the peanuts. I was in charge of serving the onions and tomatoes and may be solely responsible for the shortage in tomatoes for the last half of the dinner because I apparently lack rationing skills. Saturday morning it was up at 6:30 to Run for Relief. Megan and I did the 5k. Megan left me after the first 1/2 mile but I still thought I was awesome because I ran the whole thing, kicked at the end, and finished in 33 minutes which is fast for me because I am slow. High/low lights of running for relief are when you lose the course and are just running randomly around a fair grounds. After that was the big pancake breakfast. Yum. Then a little bit of relief sale shopping during which I purchased some non-sugar free apple butter.

I also tail gated the Notre Dame game but that is another story for another day. Now I am back in Indy and exhausted. Oh and Buckley went with me to all of those things so he is exhuasted too.

collage gone awry

To set up the next two situations here is a little background. I asked 1st graders to draw a self portrait of themselves. Then I gave them magazines and asked them to cut out pictures to collage in the background. To give the collage a little more focus I put out two guidelines. 1) It has to be something you like- self portrait should be about you 2) Make it a category i.e. I like puppies so I cut out all pictures of puppies.


Story #1- I see a group of boys huddles around a magazine sniffing one of those enclosed scent flaps. Everyone is agreeing that it smells "so good." Upon closer investigation I realize they are all smelling the new tampax scent. Awesome.

Story #2- Someone chose for their category- soldiers. But not just your friendly neighborhood army reserves. These were soldiers with huge automatic weapons, black face masks, and a will to do evil. Horrified.

Examples of other categories chosen by random 1st graders. round things, raw meat, flowers, playground equipment, ipods, sofas

angry painting

The bottom picture is of my painting when I went in to class tonight and the top pic is how it looked when I left. I was absolutely so mad and just in a bad mood. Ordinarily I tend to be a pretty productive person. I am really good at multitasking and getting about 3 days work done a day. But...when I am provoked to anger my productivity takes on superhuman qualities. I just painted away furiously for the entire three hours. I know from the photographs it may not look like huge leaps were made but it's there. I like taking pictures of my paintings each time I paint on them and then later I look through them all at once and watch how the painting takes shape. It also helps me somehow see the painting better when I look at the picture of it instead of standing right in front of it. Anyway, bottom line....if you really want to get me workin just make me mad enough.

This is a picture of Buckley all grouchy because he is going to lose his man parts tomorrow. Just kidding. He doesn't know. He is just generally grouchy. Anyway this is going to be the official pre losing man parts picture and tomorrow I will post a post losing man parts pic to so we can all see the significant change.

This is Buckley thinking he is an ultra cool dog on his way to the dog park. And me doing some risky driving/picture taking/holding dog on my lap in Jon's car.

Every time I try to get Buckley to go to the bathroom he stands at the top of the stairs like this and questions my judgment. He looks down at me, cocks his head to the side, and says, "I just don't know about this. Doesn't seem like a good idea." I try to make it sound like it's gonna be a total blast but Buckley is unconvinced. Oh Buckley say goodbye to your man parts.

Doggy Day Care

Jon left for Minneapolis this morning and will be gone for a couple of days so it's just me and Buckles holdin down fort Lockerbie. The big problem is what to do with Buckley while I am at work.

So this is Buckley after spending all day at doggy day care. What you can't see is the blood shot eyes. Turns out he just played all day and forgot to take a doggy nap. they said he was too much for the little dogs so they put him in with the big dogs. I guess he had a real party of a time.

I can't wait till this blog turns out to be mostly about my dog.

Oh and I am totally taking a half day from work tomorrow to be home with Buckley.

commitment

So I decided to start a real blog and really be commited this time. Hopefully this will be a good way of filling in family and friends on the day to day happenings in this family. I will try to add pictures because I know that makes it more intersting but the real hang up is that Jon and I both have either temporarily or permanently misplace our cameras. We are holding out on the permanent verdict as of yet. My personal suspicion is that Jon was cleaning and put them in his special hiding place for things that he wants to go missing and then hit his erase my memory button and there you have it....no more cameras. But here are some random pix just for the time being.

Me and my niece Kimmy 80's style

Me and my sista with a couple of brotha's

My Buckley Boo

Meggie and cousins=Rudy and Buckley

Emilie and Lil Joe-famous for only one of them ever looking good in a pic. this time it's Emilie's turn