four o'july or a post in which i can't decide whether to CAPitAliZe or NoT.

So, Yay! My computer and iphone decided to be friends again, and I have my fourth of july photos!

and that was written about 10 days ago. 

So, Boo! By the time I'd messed around with emailing them and uploading them and picasa-ing them and then finding out they were in iphoto the whole time, and picasa-ing them AGAIN, I wanted to shoot myself.

here we go with pictures and commentary. 

aka pics and commies.

oh my gosh. cutest kids ever, sans Luke; who was undoubtably honing his mad skills on the tramp. oline.

Look! It's a collage! 

I actually succeeded in making picasa work right (by work right I mean of course I didn't lose patience before I threw my computer against the wall.) (how could I do that to my one and only true friend aka macbaby?) (i just made up that name right now. great, huh?) 

AND now I have the 4 pic masterpiece which you behold. 

there's kristen and kristen & wes and potato salad & jello fluff & etc and cups of smurf juice with barbershop straws and a GIANT potato chip. 

it was so cute IRL

collages are hard. sigh. 

What's a four o'july celebration without a funnel cake? Or at the very least a picture of a funnel cake making truck. 

try saying that 5 times real fast. thatthatthatthatthat Oh, I am on one. 

i should delete that last paragraph. 

Honestly, though, without someone goading me on to actually purchase a funnel cake all I got was a pic. Honestly, though, funnel cakes are so gross. 

Beauties at the fireworks. aka Tracy and Kristen. 

hahahahaha. me took a pic of them taking a pic. 

(I do not know why I do not have more friends.)

Be still my heart............

my attempt to dress patriotically- apparently pink and gray are not actually our country's colors. 

NEXT YEAR. 

Shawn looking Sharp. hahahaha.

what wes did after carrying 4 camp chairs for approximately 10 miles. 

what. a. stud. 

yes, i offered to help 10,000 times. 

i am seriously IN LOVE with this girl. 

you cannot blame me. 

the mass of humanity surrounding us waiting for darkness to fall. 

and it explains some of the panic i was feeling.

bye bye 

:)

Spring Has Sprung

Okay. Firstly, this blog design I got going on now is quite possibly the most ugliest blog composition ever. That makes me sad. So there.

Spring seems to have arrived! I'm totally crossing my fingers that it's here to stay, and it was with great joy that yesterday I took myself to the local nursery where I purchased vegetable & herb plants and a beautimous pot of flowers. Gotta be one of my most, if not THE most, favorite time of the year. Which is more than a little bit surprising considering how much I loathed, detested, abhorred, etc., etc, gardening in all its forms when I was younger. Yeah, yeah, I know, that was a LONG time ago. But you wait and see... You too will get old, (unless of course you already are old. If so, you know what I'm talking 'bout), and some kind of weird evolutionary thing kicks in and a desire builds up within you and you feel a burning need to get your hands dirty and grow your OWN FOOD. Too much? Someone a long time ago told me the same thing and I didn't believe them. Oh, the rich irony of life.

And this year I have been so extremely anxious for spring to get its butt into town. Into Highlandia. Which is what I'm going to call Highland from now on, ever since Jake coined the term. The other day I said Highland, only I said it like HighLAND, instead of HIGHland, and I had a good chuckle with myself. Those are the best kind, am I right?

Beautiful, no?, didn't I tell ya? (btw, do you ever wonder who the heck I think I'm talking to?). (Me too.)

Over the years my moods have more and more begun to reflect the weather. I didn't even believe the whole SAD thing. I rather liked rainy days, I LIKED the way they made me feel. Cozy, safe, with an inexplicable urge to bake cookies. NOW though, I feel a weight pressing me down and my thoughts become dreary and hopeless. Doesn't help that this winter has been one cheerless day after another. In other words it's been raining and/or snowing almost every day. Lit-ra-ly.

So is it any WONDER that I am excited to see the SUN? Even if I don't go outside, I feel the effects of it's magic charmedness on my heart and soul.

Oddly though, I don't like to be hot. So I need all the warmth of the sun I can soak in, with temps in the low '70's. Is that too much to ask?

Today was an outside day for sure. I'd say perfect. PERFECT. That's what I'm blogging about foo.

When our yard was landscaped we had 3 grow boxes put in. The yard. "Grow Boxes" is a fancy term to describe a garden. It just has tiny walls surrounding its perimeter. I've been excited about those boxes for months. We had no garden, let alone grow boxes, at our last house. (5 years) I had one grow box at the house on Ridge Rd. LOVED it. But all we planted in the one box were tomatoes and zucchini, with an occasional pumpkin. While those remain my two top picks, and of course I'm planting them, but I also picked up a watermelon plant, some hot peppers, some other stuff I'm forgetting now, and on top of all that I will be planting a HERB GARDEN. I don't care if I use one single herb; I'll just go out and smell them once in a while. Heavenly.

SO... today I prepped the soil. Can you tell this made me happy? Equal parts peat moss, manure, and vermiculite added to the boxes equaled sheer joy. A lot of sweat too, but that's half the therapy I suppose. Will be planting the actual factual plants soon.

Pictures? OF COURSE.  Rule of thirds? Shut it.

Too happy? You decide. And then tell me how to get some people to be readin' this blog.

Le Restaurante

In the interest of meeting the needs and requests of my readership 

I present our evening of dining at Ruth's Chris.

Is that the dumbest name for a restaurant or not?

Think about it.

Mary's Kevin?

(Sean Hannity explained the meaning behind the name numerous times. I still think it's strange.)

(Even stranger is the fact that I listened to his radio show at all.)
(All he did for me was to send me into an apoplectic fit.)

There's not much I can say about these photos.

And trust me, you will not understand them either.

ps The lighting was too weird for me and the camera to work with. I blame the camera.

FYI I do not have a fetish for salt and pepper.
you'll understand

Chipmunk Mouth

It's hard to choose a favorite. Sorry.

This was the last night we were in the land of Disney. Ruth's Chris just happened to be in our hotel parking lot, a fact that Kevin noticed immediately upon our arrival and since he really never had a birthday dinner he decided that was where we'd celebrate. Well, his birthday had nothing to do with anything, other than making us all feel a little less guilty. 

We were plumb tuckered out after our LONG day of speeding through the Park, (something maybe I'll talk about at another time), and I thought we'd just eat in our hotel room. I wasn't especially hungry since I'd just devoured a bag of kettle corn. Something I despaired at finding in the Park and at the last minute did, and also something that tastes much better in theory than reality.

But when the subject of dinner came out Kevin and Jess got all excited about going to Ruth's Chris. (I don't think I can type that name even one more time, so I'll just call it the restaurant from now on.)  I, however, balked at the idea cuz I had kernels coming out my ears, haha, pun intended, and of course all Wes wanted to eat was a Subway Sandwich. Besides I was wearing my crap Disneyland clothes and looked and felt gross and definitely didn't feel like changing. Like any other day, really.

I protested on the grounds that what I was wearing was too casual, but no, K & J were all like, oh, you look fine. Whatever. I didn't change my clothes, but they did. The sneaky little buggers. And I looked like a frazzled bumpkin. And YES it did matter. Maybe in Hickville Utah you can get away with wearing capris and flip flops every single place you go, including the ballet, (not that I would even do that which is surprising considering my low standards), but in real cities, not so much. 

But our money is as good as anyone else's so we were allowed to eat. Thankfully the restaurant was very dimly lit, and I sorta covered myself with the tablecloth once we sat down. 

I am SOOOOOOOOO NOOOOTTTT a steak person so I totally don't get what's so great about The Restaurant... but apparently it was good stuff. No worries, I ate more than my fair share of other yummy food. So much so that I thought my intestines were going to implode.

Now that would've been a pretty picture.