A busy weekend and a party

Aaron called us on Friday. They were coming down this way for a wedding and wanted to hang with us after, spend the rest of the weekend with us as it were... Back Labor Day weekend they were supposed to come by, but it turned out they didn't even come down after all.

We were psyched. Always nice to see them... so they got here Saturday afternoon while I was out at Dan and Honey's babyshower. Doug stayed home to wait for Aaron and Michelle. I didn't want to take Geoff, he usually isn't well behaved at social events where he isn't the star. I should have brought him -- Ben played with all the kids (I bet his new girlfriend absolutely loved watching that. He's so cute when he's with them...) and the kids got all good and worn out. But if I had, then he may not have made it through the evening with our visitors. Here are some quick pics from the shower:

Here's Dan doing some last second cleaning up in the yard. He missed a few doggie deposits. We made a lot of fun of him -- not only is he colorblind, he's dogshit blind.	The lovely expectant parents...
My buddy Brian's daughter riding one of the gifts the baby received -- an elephant rocking "horse". In Thailand, elephants are lucky. This made Honey almost cry...	Another shot of Brian's girl, showing me her manicure. She's a hot ticket, this one...
	Me and Jessie at one of those armlength picture shots.

Jessie and I had a great time with the whole gang. We left a half hour later than I'd wanted to, mostly due to Honey not getting to the party on time. When we pulled in the driveway, Doug, Aaron, Geoff and Michelle were heading out to Pedro Diego's, a mexican joint in Haverhill. So we all went along, had a great dinner, drank WAY too much sangria (it all hit me hard when I got home, I barely made it to bed).

We had a lot of good laughs. Aaron picked on Geoff and it was fun. It's always fun to be with Aaron and Michelle and I hate that we don't see them often enough.

Aaron was in rare form... made all kinds of crazy suggestions to Geoff, like make a scary face for mom! This was the result.	Geoff actually looks great in this picture, but Aaron is a mental case! Too bad he didn't smile nice.
Doug and Michelle sat on the other side from us (Doug and I are flanking the kids, so we didn't sit together). They behaved quite normally through the meal, instead of like weirdos. Like Aaron.	Aren't they the loveliest couple. Especially with this wall paper! Ewwww!
Jessie took this one -- too bad Geoff is hiding.
And we got the waitress to take this one... she was really interested in the camera, we spent about 20 minutes yakkin' with her about digital photography.

Next morning we decided a little Geocaching would take the edge of the hangover off of us. We had a light breakfast of toast and coffee, lots and lots of water, and went and did two geocaches right near our house. One of them is at Winnekenni Castle, where Doug and I were going to put one! So we are kinda disappointed that it's there... we still may put one in there but way back on the trail on the far side of the pond. People can do them in tandem.

The other one was on the north side of the Merrimack River in the Meadowbrook conservation area. We were home by 3, and Aaron and Michelle hit the road. They are still in the process of moving stuff out of their old apartment, and Aaron had homework to do. So they figured they'd better hightail it out of there.

When we told Geoff where we were headed, he got his knight's helmet out. He loves to come up here, and he decided he was going to save the princess. So here he is guarding the castle... watch out!
This was Michelle's very first geocache. Doug gave her the GPS... she lead us right to it.	I am MOJO JOJO! Mojo came home with Michelle as her take from the cache.
	Mojo also got to hang out on the Dudley Porter fountain, which we'd never seen before. It was pretty cool.

I felt great after geocaching -- no longer hung over, and quite happy. Doug on the other hand passed out and was down for the afternoon.

The rest of my Sunday was spent at another social gathering without my husband, this time at a neighbor's house. Our friends Shelley and Steve hosted a little neighborhood cook out. We live around the corner from them, but most of the people there are from over beyond their house, I didn't know hardly any of them.

I met some wonderfully nice new people -- very funny and intelligent. Lots of little kids. Good beer and wine, good chicken divan.

I amused them with my wit, entertained them with my parenting skills (Geoff was picking on a girl named Devon who goes to our church and the two of them have a history. She doesn't deal well with being picked on, and he loves to get a reaction... fuel to a fire).

The rain held off and when it did start raining we sat under a really nice tree in their yard, mostly sheltered but for a few drops.

Shelley has the most amazing garden. And I love sitting in their yard. So the rain didn't bother me in the least. Football last night... it wasn't exciting enough to hold my attention. I was painfully exhausted and fell asleep 5 minutes into the Steelers' game. I woke up at halftime, crawled to bed.

Maddie and her new kitten, Jigsaw. Their old cat, Uncle Bobby, doesn't really care for this young upstart. I love Uncle Bobby. He's the best cat. He meows to me when I walk down the street, and if I say hello to him, he comes running. This one is still too wild to get to know well.

Another example of Shelley's garden work. It was too dark out, with the storm coming, to take good pictures of the garden. Notice all the leaves on the ground behind the table there... I'm not ready for it to be fall yet. These sunflowers are all over the place right now, thanks to Shelley. Our church front yard, her yard -- the street is filled with happy little faces dancing in the breeze...

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When I got up this morning I noticed that I had hit something yesterday with the car. The bottom fender on the front passenger's side is all caved in. I pulled a U turn at a wrong entrance for Meadowbrook, and must have hit a rock. I didn't feel it when it happened, sort of aware of running over something but I thought it was a sandbar in the parking lot.

Doug was pissed at me when he saw it. I hope it can get fixed. We've had that car 2 years almost and hadn't gotten a ding or a scratch on it.

Today I've been busting my ass on Professor CM projects. He's got a meeting this afternoon with one of the people he was hired by to do a website for... he had me do most of the work while he gathered the content. I had the text and layout of the site put together, but no graphics... so when I got email this morning saying they were on for a 3pm meeting, I panicked... I slammed as much together as quickly as possible. I was so busy that I didn't notice it had started pouring like mad, and the dogs were out in the pen in the yard... I heard the rain finally as it was hitting Jessica's airconditioner, making that artillery sound rain makes when hitting hollow metal. I ran out to get them. They were drenched and sad.

Oh did I feel awful. Nothing worse than the look on a dog's face when you've forgotten them in the rain.

They're sleeping now... I need to get a shower and do some housework. I already feel like this week is getting pissed away and it isn't even started yet.

Friday night I'm supposed to work for Cateringman at a function. They are doing a big event for Ducks Unlimited, over 500 people are going to be there, so all the staff is on call. I just remembered that -- and we were going to go to NY for the weekend to see my sister. I have no idea how we are going to work this one. I have to talk to Doug and figure it all out.

I hate my life when it's busy.

Alright -- to care for my house and my body now. More later.

Food Drive, band concert

The weather report last night indicated that between now and Saturday Thursday is the only day anticipated to be sunny in any way. Well, the sun will make its attempt to burn through the spring showers on Wednesday for sure, maybe Tuesday... but for the foreseen future by the weather prognosticators, it'll be a stormy Monday and rest of the week.

The rain started yesterday afternoon, monkeywrenching any wistful thoughts I'd had for a nice hike for Mother's Day. We sat around the house and Geoff was noisy. Doug made lunch. I made dinner. We all went to bed.

It was kind of a downer.

The rest of the weekend before it was great though. Aaron and Michelle's presence always improves the fun ratio. The can drive went great. It was a Godsend having Aaron there though, he made it his personal mission to out carry all the trash talkin' braggarts in the line saying that last year they carried 100 pounds and 110 pounds.

Aaron carried 104 pounds on his first heft. Subsequent trips to the trucks brought back 134 pounds.

Some of the trash talkin' braggarts in the line were getting pissed.

"Well, it's his FIRST year doin' this. I've been doin' it for seven!"

Like it matters whether or not its your first or fiftieth. Aaron rocked the party. When he'd get to the weigh table, the postal service dude would weigh his stuff and then yell, "YOU DA MAN!!!" It had me in stitches.

We didn't get nearly as much food as in years past, because only two people from our own congregation showed up to help. It's that way with our church. People don't get into things, and that is okay... I'd rather have people who show up willingly than people who groaningly feel obligated to help.

Next week after church is when they will get their opportunity to help when they go down to sort all the food out onto the tables.

I worked with the professor at the college on Saturday night for about 2 hours. It went really well. I always moan about having to go down there and work with her but I always have a great time... I should just learn not to moan about it and just go with a willing heart.

She has 1000 in grant money that she is giving me and has to use it by the end of May. I'm pretty psyched. I need to figure out how to do the whole paying taxes thing. I think I'm supposed to pay quarterly taxes on the stuff I'm making, but it really isn't that much. I don't know who to even talk to where it isn't going to cost me a lot of money. Sigh.

I'm clueless.

Well, I'm going to sign off. Geoff has been pretty much an angel for the last several days. He was the best kid ever at the can drive. Lucky for us our table was right in front of the Kindergarten Sunday school classroom. That kept him busy for 6 hours. And yesterday he was cooped up all day.

He allowed me to rest and snooze all morning, without trying to mix chocolate milk or writing on the walls. I got out of bed when the first of my three UPS deliveries showed up.

I may just let him go out to play today in the pouring rain. It doesn't seem to bother him, and he has a great imagination. I told him we'd bake cookies because he's been so good. And I have to swing by the church to pick up the box of donations for the local women's care center. So we have errands to do. I also have pictures to post, but I think that Jessica accidentally took my camera to school. This morning she was wearing the jacket I wore yesterday. My camera was in the front pocket. I'll crap my literal and metaphorical pants if she loses it. I have to go check the dining table to see if she was conscientious enough to remove it from the pocket.

2:24pm - addendum

Jessica did indeed have the sense that God gave geese and left my camera home. I found it in the kitchen after I posted this entry. God love her. Sometimes she is without a clue, other times, she's on top of it and then some.

Here are some recent pictures. Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera during the can drive. Don't know what I was thinking, but... here are some other pictures nonetheless.

	Last Wednesday night I'd mentioned that Jessie had a beginner band concert. I didn't get to mention my thoughts on it yet. Suffice to say, she's a cutie with her dad's saxophone. She wanted to take violin, but I told her she could take flute or sax, because we already owned the instruments. She's the only girl taking sax. She does a good job... hopefully someday she'll be as good as her daddy was!
After Church on Sunday I went down to assess the basement and Jess and M. came with me. M. is the one who got bit by Missy back last year... she and Jessie are still really good friends. And her dad and mom are people I love dearly and fully appreciate for being in our lives. Here, the pals show off with boxes of goods. All the tables down there are covered with boxes of food right now. Before, just the blue shelves in the way back. We've got a lot of work ahead of us to organize!
Michelle found some rather bizarre items in the food sort at the can drive. Here she models a can of Sprats, a product of Estonia. She also found duck pate, and some other wacky shit. We laughed and laughed. I've renamed her "Mischprat." We laughed and laughed...
We actually had to look up online what sprats are. It was a mystery to the four of us. Are they like sardines? Smelts? What? ... Notice that they are imported from Estonia by a company in Ft. Lauderdale. Linda, if you're interested, I'll mail you their address and you can maybe get a good sprat related career going there!
After church got out, we noticed a parade going up the street of First Communioners on their way to the Catholic church's hall, which is up around the corner from our church. The kids had to walk 2 blocks in their dresses and suits up through the neighborhood. I'm sure some felt like tools. Some of the boys were wearing sneakers, which cracked me up... but the girls looked lovely in their dresses. We waved at them... I stood with Jessie and M. and watched them walk by. We had a long talk about differences in faith between the Catholic church and the Episcopal/Protestant Churches... how at age 7 in the Catholic church sees your first communion, but most protestant churches want you to be in 7th grade or so before making the committment, because you should be making an adult choice... It was a good discussion. The girls were interested in learning, because both wondered why they didn't get to do this. M. said her cousin gets to do this in two weeks... most of her family is Catholic, but her parents started attending our church because it was across the street from their house. Jessica said she is relieved that we are not catholic. She said she'd hate to have to wear a dress like that. I thought it was really sweet to have First Communion Sunday on Mother's day. And this was kind of nice to see. Children so sweet, innocent and refreshing, in light of all that the Boston Media puts forth on the Catholic church right now. There's a lot of bad about it, but here you've got some sweetness. And I hope they continue to grow in fellowship and faith, and don't do what most of my catholic friends did when they were little -- quit going next Sunday.
Here's a picture I took in M.'s parents' yard. We dropped in to wish her mom a happy mother's day. They had spent the whole weekend prepping the yard for the mother's day festivities which are held annually at their home. The yard looks spectacular. I thought this was a pretty sight. She's a killer gardener, and makes my leaves droop with envy. I want to go through later in the summer and take more pictures of her yard for her. And for me. She gave me the bleeding hearts that I took a picture of a few days ago and used in the top left corner. She gives me cast offs from her garden sometimes. The bleeding hearts are the only things that seem to be doing well. She's awesome. Alright. That's my little picture show. Addendum fini!