Chapped books and picnics in the park.

I finished Deception Point last night. It was a very good read, as all Dan Brown novels are, though it did take probably an extra 80 pages or so for me to get "hooked" into this one.

I went to bed last night with chapped lips, forgetting to put any Carmex on. I so wish I hadn't forgotten, as now my lips are really burning. I slathered some on today, but somehow chapstick just doesn't "heal" as well when I'm awake. (jakflak, you need to make a 'medicated' version of Spazzstick, one that will help heal already chapped lips.)

Philip took A.J. to school this morning, but then he forgot to reset the alarm for Jack and I to wake up for Parents at Home. Jack woke up and came in our room close to 9:45, and then it was too late to get there for the meeting (it starts at 9am). Jack was sad, telling me, "But today is my favorite day, and now I'm going to miss the picnic!"

Picnic! I'd really forgotten about it! I'd just told Jack yesterday that after the Parents at Home meeting, we were going to head out to the park with a bunch of the other moms and kids for lunch and some playtime. I told him not to worry, that we still had plenty of time to make it to the picnic at 11:30. So we dropped off Philip at Runza at 11am, came home and packed picnic lunches, and then we were off to the park. It was a perfect day (though a bit blustery, which didn't help my lips any), and Jack ran and played until just after 1pm. We had sandwiches, popcorn, juice, apples, cherry tomatoes and marshmallows (Jack picked the dessert). It was a nice afternoon.

It really is a gorgeous day today. Jack wants to fly his kite some, so it looks like we might be doing that after A.J. gets out of school in a bit.

It's seldom that I do these, but...

As per the meme rules, I'm to disable comments and not tell you where I've gakked this from, but I am to post the following if it is true (which is very much is, by the way):

"There's someone who makes me happy just thinking about them."

*knocks so hard on so much wood*

For the moment, it appears I've fixed my iTunes.

*is afraid to breathe*

I downloaded a newer version of NVIDIA drivers, even though my current one was up-to-date. I changed my settings to 24 bitrate audio, at 96Hz, and I closed and restarted the application. And this combination seems to be working...

for the moment.

...

Also, Diet Pepsi Jazz Strawberries 'n Cream? Tastes exactly as if I'm sucking on a strawberry Starburst. My very favorite flavor, so it is yummy. :-)

Wash me.

Someone push me into the shower.

I spent over two hours of quality time with my tomatoes tonight, pruning them back in the hopes that they would not topple into the zucchini. And speaking of zucchini, we found a herd (pack? gaggle? bunch?) of baby squash bugs in the front zucchini this afternoon, and it was disgusting. Philip took care of that before he left for work, and I was ever-so-grateful.

After coming inside for almost an hour, I had a strange desire to stroll out and look at my pumpkins again. I'm so glad I did, for I found another disgusting group of squash bugs ALL over one ripe pumpkin and the surrounding leaves. Ewwww! I tried to get at them wearing my gloves, but I was utterly grossed out - it was like a moving wall of bugs, almost as if a spider sac of babies had burst forth! I ran into the house to get the DustBuster (I figured it would be the quickest way to round them up), and I called over Heather2's husband Andy to see if he would come help me with the squicky bugs. He and Josie came right over, and he helped me to toss the many, many bugs into a cupful of vinegar to kill them.

It was awful. *shudders* But I'm so glad he came to help.

Afterwards, I decided to just cut the ripe pumpkins and get them out of the garden. I cut all the ripe Jack o' Lantern pumpkins, and he helped me to pull off the ripe Jack Be Littles. As I was pulling off one of those on the bottom of the bush, I felt my glove become sickly damp, and I pulled my hand out to find that the entire bottom of that one little pumpkin had rotted and was wide open, orange-yellow goo. It smelled soooo nasty, and it was all I could do not to barf right there. I threw away the glove, grabbed another, and we continued pulling the Jack Be Littles. Thankfully, we didn't find anymore rotten pumpkins.

*squick*

It was dark by the time I finished loading the picked pumpkins onto the picnic table, so I'll take a picture of them tomorrow. There will still be many more to come, but in case these don't last until Halloween, I want to have a photo of them all.

But yeah, I need a shower... and HOW. I'm totally unmotivated though, so I need someone to push me into the shower.