Pictures and invitations.

Today is Picture Day at A.J.'s school. As such, I had planned to take Jack in as a visitor and have his picture taken as well. I had to wake up both boys 10 minutes earlier than usual, and I had to comb Jack's hair with a wet brush, too. (A.J.'s was fine straight out of bed - it usually is.) We arrived at the school at 7:52am and went inside right then. Normally, the doors don't open until 8:05, but the visitors were supposed to be photographed between 8-8:15. When we walked in, they were already set up, but there was no one in line at all! Jack was done in no time, and since there was no one else around, the photographer took 4 shots of him and let me choose the one I liked best from their computer - neat!

A.J. left us when the bell rang for him to head to class, and Jack and I were out of there by 8am ourselves. We drove over to Heather's house to feed the kitties, and then we went to Wal*Mart to pick up some more invitations. We then had breakfast at Vidlak's Cafe, and we were back home by 9am. Jack played on the swingset while I sat at the picnic table and filled out invitations. We were outside for an hour. There was a cool breeze blowing this morning, and I finally had to move to the "shelter" of our swing and finish the rest. Then Jack helped me stamp all the envelopes - I'd found a cute set of three roller stamps: a lion, zebra and elephant, and they left pawprint tracks across the envelope. Jack thought that was so neat, and he experimented with curving the tracks and running the colors together.

Now we just have to wait until 11am to drop the invitations off to A.J.'s teacher during lunchtime. :-)

Raining cats and dogs.

Crazy weather today, folks. I was glad to have run all the errands and played outside this morning because it was very cool and quite overcast - setting the day up for perfect afternoon naps. As I was finishing up at the computer by noon, the thunder was coming pretty quick. By the time I snuggled under the covers for a nap, it was raining pretty hard. When the alarm went off to wake me up, it was bright and sunshine-y again!

Crazy.

As for the seasons, my pal Jamie is dying for fall to arrive. On the other hand, I talked to my friend Ann on the phone this morning, and she isn't yet ready to let go of summer. As for me, I'm certainly ready for it to "look" like fall, but I'm not entirely sure I'm wanting the cooler temperatures just yet. I'm perfectly happy right now with fall coming in slowly. :-)

Yesterday morning when we left to drop Jack off at preschool, there was an orange-colored cat walking along the top of our courtyard fence. It looked pretty thin, and it mewed at me in a scared tone. Jack continued to buckle into his carseat, and I ran back in the house and filled a dish with kitty kibble and placed it under the carport dividing wall. Hours later, all I could see that had changed was that the food was then covered with ants. This morning, however, the food dish was completely empty - not ONE tiny morsel remained. Hmmm...

We dropped off the invitations with A.J.'s teacher promptly at 11am and then came straight back home. As I was driving down 34th street, a little weiner dog was walking slowly in the middle of the road. I came to a full stop and allowed it time to get to one side or the other, but it just wasn't interested in going anywhere. I thought it might be a dog I knew, so I turned on my hazard lights, got out of the car and called to it. As soon as I opened the door, though, the little dog sped off down Grand Forks avenue. I kept calling it, but all it did was bark and run further away every time I tried to speak to it, so I finally just got back in the car and came the last few blocks home. I looked up the folks in the phone book and called them to let them know, but there was no answer, so I left messages. :-/

And that's about when it started raining, too. A full-circle post, this is! :-D

The moon.

I have such a fascination with the moon. It probably borders on "freakish," to be honest, but I embrace that. I've tried for months now - MONTHS - to get a good picture of the full moon during my monthly binocular-spectacled night viewings. Without having a tripod, I just am unable to hold still enough to focus my small camera on an object so very far away, and the images always come out less-than-satisfactory.

Until now, that is. Just a few nights ago, I took this shot of the moon. It was really a spur-of-the-moment decision to try and capture the moon not at its peak, and it's the first time I tried taking a picture before 11pm or so (I usually try to photograph only the full moon, and I do it in the wee hours of the morning, when it is high and mighty in the sky). This shot, though, was taken at about 7pm, and I played with the settings on my camera for a bit before taking it.

I am in love, I tell you. May I present to you... my other lover... THE MOON.


THE MOON.

Edit: And, oh yeah - I've already made the photo into a square shape because - obviously - this is soooo going to be used for an icon! :-D

Mosquito hair.

And on the other hand, I sometimes love mosquito bites. They scab and re-scab much faster, and they make those nifty orangey-yellow clear scabs. They're so much fun to scratch off every 20 minutes or so... so I do!

Until they finally bleed, that is. Then they are fun no more.

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My hair feels red today. Dunno why. It never looks that way to me.