To Do List

• Get a new lawyer
• Call the lady at the chapel
• Make vet appt for Lewis
• Make hair appt for me
• Start Pre Algerbra class
• Return black flats
• Plant Rikki's rose bush
• Plant the jalapeno, verbena, tomato and moss roses
• Buy cilantro to plant
• Call Caterer with final numbers
• Do more laundry
• Track down funky smell in bathroom
• Plant seed packets
• Balance check book
• Clean out fridge

Again with the Insomnia

Kurt has it too though. I'd much rather be asleep. Wedding details are starting to keep my up. I have a lot I haven't done. It's all little stuff, but it's stuff that matters.

We went to the Memorial Day service at the park. It was very nice. I'm not sure I've been to one before. The band played, flowers were laid, and a wreath floated in the river.

From there we went an laid pink carnations on family graves. Kurt's family plots are too far away for impromptu planning to work so we toured NE Iowa hitting (and missing) mine.

We ended up having a picnic at backbone featuring Wonder Roast chicken, potato and macaroni salads, and molasses cookies. We must have looked like savages tearing into the chicken. It was OMG delicious!

Happy Birthday to my Wonderful Husband!

Yesterday was Kurt's birthday. It was also his first day of unemployment. (He starts the new job on Monday). I had to work so he was going to spend the day watching Sci-Fi. Sunday we are having his family party since I have the day off.

Thursday night was his going away party from RSM. I went down for it. We had a fantastically fun time and then went to Texas Roadhouse. Delish! Neither of us slept well when we got home. We were both up around 4:15 am so I asked if he wanted to open his birthday presents. He did. He liked them. I got him Freakonomics by Stephen Levy and the 2006 Commerative Stamp Collection book.

I went to work. He came up and got me for supper and then we went to the DaVinci Code. I thought it was fun and thrilling in spots. The theater has been redone. The seats are AWFUL. They are like those video recliners you see in the stores. We were so very uncomfortable.

Happy birthday honey bunny. I love you.

The end is near

We bought a scientific calculator for me so I can do my Beginning Algerbra class. It starts next week. The calculator has lots of buttons, symbols I've never seen, and a cover. It's scary. I wanted to put it in the freezer.

Grades

Three classes. Three grades. A B C. My GPA is 3.19 overall. Not fantastic but not terrible either.

Too much going on

I am too busy and distracted and I'm missing the details of life.
Two things:

1) If you got a wedding invitation the ceremony is at 6 o'clock in the evening.

2) If you got a picnic invite it's being held in Independence.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Cedar Rock 

Alex and Christy on Cedar Rock 

Nick and the Pikman 

Tickled Pink 

Spring Time  

A Passing

Sunday night brought at phone call from my dad. That's pretty unusual as he is anti-phone. I had an "Oh No" moment when I saw his name on the caller id. Turns out my Aunt Doris had passed away sometime between Friday and Sunday. It appears to have been a heart attack. I feel immense sympathy for my 4 cousins who are my age and older. Their dad passed when we were very young. Now their mom is gone. I feel bad that they have no parents.

I'm not close with her. However, she was a permanent fixture of my childhood. My cousins Jean and Wade are the same age as me. The three of us would ride bikes back and forth between our farms. They lived just around the square from us. We'd have week long monopoly games and Aunt Doris would give us cookies and kool aid. We'd camp out in the living rooms and fall asleep to the sounds of her distinctive laughter as she and my Aunt Merry did cross word puzzles and smoked cigarettes. Aunt Doris loved game shows and would have them on TV always. It felt wild and forbidden because my mom didn't believe in day time TV. She had an old green car with vinyl seats and no A/C that we'd all pile into for swimming lessons or when she'd pick us up from practice. If we went somewhere and Jean and I lost track of her, we'd just wait for the cackle and we'd be able to find her right away. She collected red glassware from Avon. She was my Aunt Doris.

The funeral is Thursday.

Crash

Kurt and I watched CRASH last night. I really thought it was good. Everything tied together a little too nicely, but I liked it overall. Kurt was saying how it wasn't really entertaining. I said most Oscar winning movies aren't usually entertaining. It was thought provoking though. I've thought about it several times today. The opening lines of the movie really struck a cord with me.

Tuesday night we went to my book club. I've missed not being able to go. I'm going to arrange work so that I can go from now on. The club started out with a bunch of ladies from church starting at my mom's age (60's) and going up to the middle 80's. Overall it's a pretty conservative bunch. Also a pretty Danielle Steele bunch with a few exceptions. Book club has always been more about the snacks than the books. One of the main problems with it is no one reads the books! I haven't been able to attend for a couple of years. Mom left for Europe that morning so I figured I should go so there would be one more persin that had read the book. This month's selection was Big Thaw by Donald Harstad.

Donald is a former deputy sheriff from Clayton County, Iowa. I lived in Clayton county for 7 years. His first novel 11 Days is a thinly disguised story about life in the county. When I read it several places and people were easily identifiable. It's pretty hard not to work in a convenience store that sells guns and not know the criminal element! The author was at book club and told many great stories about being a deputy and how the publishing industry works. Both aspects of his life were very interesting. Kurt now wants to read the novels, but I can't find them. They must be in one of our overstuffed rubbermaids in the basement. Next month we're reading a book from a series about a town called Mitford. I'm supposed to be studying for finals so I haven't picked it up yet.

Oh yes! The snacks were awesome! There was pre cheesed crackers, fresh asparagus roll ups, mini reuben toasts, cookies, crackers and dip.

Anticipation

Tomorrow is my day off! I am so very excited about it. It's supposed to be 80 degrees and sunny. I might take the pupper for a walk along the River. We both need the exercise. I made big list of to do items today during class. The teacher is awful. She's retyped the textbook onto note cards and lectures from there. She says "one might say" and "quote" constantly. She'd said "quote" 9 times in the first 10 minutes of class. She had a new word of the day today. It was "provocative". She used it 7 times (I didn't start counting until she'd uttered it at least 3x)(plus I bolted at 3:30 - I wasn't even there for the last 45 minutes). She told me the paper I wrote was ...."Provocative." We had to interview a resident of who lived in age segregated housing. It started out:

"Sunlight streams in the lace curtained east facing window. A white haired woman in a pink quilted house coat looks out at the birds feeding on seed scattered on the ground in front of the Redwood gazebo. She spends her mornings in front of this window enjoying the view. She is Zelma Crowden".

Of course I put it off so I had to make the entire thing up at the last minute. Got an A on it. The teacher said it was "visceral" and "I can see Zelma clearly." Egads. Fake it til you make it. That's what I learned in photography school. Looks like that is a life lesson that carries over.

Kurt is exhausted. He was too tired to do Astronomy homework tonite. We took the quiz over Mars, Mercury, and Venus. I read the material and he did not. I told him I thought we could manage because there was NO MATH in this week's lesson. We can take the quiz 2x anyway. So if we did badly the first round he could read it before we went again. 1o/10 baby! Perfect score first time in under 6 minutes!

The Tally

In case anyone was wondering...In 9 days it was 19 loads of laundry and 15 diswashers full.

Sunday night blahs

• I wish I had a job that I didn't have to work at night or on the weekend.
• I wish I didn't have this awful cold/whatever and I could cough without peeing and talk with out croaking
• I wish it didn't cost so much to go to the theatre. Mom, Marn, and I went to the LION KING on Friday night. The costumes/staging was spectacular! The music...not so much. There are so many cool shows I'd like to see but it's not like I have the time or money to go to Chicago/Minneapolis/New York to see them.
• I wish I were nicer to my husband.
• I wish I wouldn't let people's offhand comments/tones/inflections get to me.
• I wish my brave little tulips would continue to brave the unpredictable Iowa weather & the rat-fink squirrel and bloom already!
• I wish we'd hurry up and buy the house so I could rip the hideous, peeling wall paper out of our bedroom.
• I wish it were the weekend already.

Busy Busy

We've had a pretty decent weekend. Saturday, while Alex was at his girlfriend's band solo contest, Kurt, Nicky, Christy, and I went to Spillville to the Bily Clocks www.bilyclocks.org. It's a museum I'd gone to as a kid. My family was always big on educational day trips. It was cooler than I remember. Dvorak spent a summer there so the upstairs has an exhibit about him that I didn't recall. The museum has various collections of stuff like Indian artifacts, rocks, and other clocks. We got in for a family rate and got a guided tour!

As long as we were in the area we drove down to see Ft Atkinson. It was a fort helping to protect the Indians from 1840-1849. It was a bit chilly but the kids got to run around for a while.

The next stop was the world's smallest church in Festina. St. Anthony of Padua was built in gratitude after a mother's son returned from the Napoleonic Wars unharmed. The brochure said the son was the only veteran of those wars in Iowa. (I found that hilarious).

Our next stop was to a Fish Fry. It was worth the wait! They had that yummy sweet colesaw with poppyseeds. I love that stuff! However, I think fish frys are going to be an activity we pursue once we are childless.

Sunday, Christy and I went to the Taste of Grace Tea at my home church. Mom had invited us. She emceed and did a great job. The had 50 different sweets and savories for us to load up on our snack trays. The accordion Club of Iowa was part of the entertainment. They were pretty good, but 2 hours of on and off accordion music is more than enough. While we were there the boys had some male bonding time. They did archery in the side yard and some yard clean up.

We got everyone to and from their first day of school with us. Nick has a 50 pt project due on Wednesday. He wasn't going to do it because he didn't have any money for tagboard. GRRR. Kurt and I have been working with him on that.

In order to amuse myself I'm keeping track of the number of loads of laundry and dishes during our week with the kids. It's for 9 days. Any guesses??

Heading out to Mother - Daughter Tea 

The Spread 

The goofballs at the Bily Clocks museum