Photo Dump

We went on a field trip today with Mattie’s class.  It was day one of a back to back field trip extravaganza.  Mattie’s crew today and Reese’s gang tomorrow.  I am worn out, to say the least, and should probably go to bed right now.  But I was going through the pictures on my phone and came across these from last week.  This particular one makes me smile.

Alot.

I think this is the first and only “selfie” that I have ever taken.  I have a double chin in it, but I was so in love with the moment that I let vanity slide.  I remember, vividly, sitting in my mom’s bathroom while she would get ready for church or work.  She used to work nights when I was very little and it was almost part of my bedtime routine to watch her get ready.  I remember how she used to flip her head over and tease it (that still happens), fluff it into place and spray, spray, spray….the whole while scrunching her face all up, hair spray gets in your eyes you know.

I remember sneaking a swipe of blush, scaring myself with her eyelash curler and being absolutely fascinated with her different lipstick colors.  I also loved/ still love the way she smelled…this wonderful mix of hairspray and her Ombre’ Rose perfume.  So the other morning, when Lila was sitting perched on the bathroom counter beside me, digging through my make-up bag I realized that I was watching a memory from the opposite set of eyes.

And I took the opportunity to take a picture.

I love that picture.

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Later that day, this being my second full day of being 35, I felt nostalgic. While sitting outside of my favorite bakery yet, enjoying our Friday treat with my little people – I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window.  And it too was a photo that I couldn’t pass up.  It isn’t particularly clear, and we are rather shadowy.  But this is forever how I will remember the Friday afternoons of their childhood…my favorite Fridays yet.

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And one last little thing before I go and try to get rested up before my day of fun at the Gardens with lots and lots of little kindergarteners.  Mattie and I were at the grocery store Monday night to fetch a few things, one being some more apples. We are big apple people around here.  Which is good because Kroger is currently stocked with some GINORMOUS Honey Crisp Apples.  These puppies are the size of a grapefruit.  We took a side by side photo with a hearty Fuji apple for comparison.  We have yet to actually cut into and eat one of these bad boys, because we aren’t quite done admiring them.  So it’s highly possible that though they look amazing, they could be terrible.  But for now, we are captivated with them and think they are the best thing ever.  Friends and loved ones, don’t be surprised if you receive one of these giant apples at random just because we are so enamoured by them that we want to share them with the world.

Neither Snow Nor Rain Nor Heat Nor Gloom of Night….But Don’t Expect a Receipt

I have a story to share about the post office from last week.  It’s a doozie and might make you lose complete faith in our postal service (it sure has done it for me).  It was a whopper and got me so bothered that after the incident happened last week, I had to take my troubles down the road to Chik-Fil-A.  I don’t eat meat, but on that particular day it didn’t matter.  The people at Chik-Fil-A are always so polite and act like they really care about the status of your day.  They carry your food to your table, bring you refills while you sit and watch your child play and always finish their sentences with, “It’s my pleasure.” My day had been so rough, I needed to feel coddled just a little bit….even if it was just to have unlimited refills of lemonade brought to me by a smiling young boy who said, “It’s my pleasure” every time…..EVERY TIME. Some people drink, Some people shop, some people smoke, some people do something productive like jogging or boxing…….I eat chicken nuggets and take shelter in the required pleasantry of a fast food restaurant.

It could be worse.

But on a happier note, though that day was terrible, no good and very bad…Lila was having a particularly cute day:

But back to my bad day, I had actually been to the post office the day before.  I had used their after hours kiosk to mail 5 packages. Four of these packages were ebay things that I bought tracking (for an extra $1.05).  We have a whole little system of doing things at the Post Office (since I am there so much).  Lila gets the postage stickers out of the machine, Mattie helps me put them on the packages and Reese mails the packages.  We are like a well-oiled machine.  Flawless….except the one time when Lila jammed the postage up into the machine in her excitement to retrieve and caused us to have to wait for over an hour for the postal police to get us some help.  That was fun.  Anyway, we each have our jobs and things usually go well.  I had purchased my postage, it had been affixed on the appropriate envelopes and our muscle had tossed it into the bin.  I then waited for my receipt to come out so that I could scan the tracking numbers for my customers.

No receipt

I had paid, not only for tracking (extra $1.05) but also for insurance for a particular package and without a tracking number or receipt, I had no proof of that insurance.  Thinking that maybe it was jammed or something, I made another purchase – a book of stamps. And this time I got a message stating that the machine was out of paper.  I think I stood there for 5 minutes trying to comprehend how that could be possible.  Surely with all the technology that we have in the world today, our ability to mail things at all hours of the day using a handy-dandy kiosk, a problem as simple as the machine being out of paper couldn’t possibly happen.  I suppose I could have scanned the tracking stickers on the packages before I mailed them, but I didn’t realize this would be happening.

Because I had the kids with me on Tuesday and they were hungry and fighting amongst themselves, and the Post Office was actually closed now….I left.  Feeling defeated and terrified that with my luck, this would be the batch of eBay stuff that was lost forever and all these (there were only 5) customers of mine would be angry because they had paid for tracking and there wasn’t any. I went home with plans to go back to the Post Office in the morning to see if there was any way they could look up my credit card number and see about my last purchases from them or something.  I mean, this is our government here, they know everything we are doing….they probably knew that I was planning to go before I even left and have footage of me driving to their thanks to the cameras at traffic lights.

The next day (the no good, terrible, very bad one) Lila and I drove back across town and waited.  We waited in line to be seen, then waited some more as they tossed us back and forth to different people because they really had no answer for us.  We were finally given to a supervisor man who said all he could give me was a hand written receipt (that really meant nothing) and a hearty apology.  Thanks but no thanks, sir.  Forget the fact that I had paid for services I didn’t receive, whatever.  Forget the fact that I was out of luck should my mail be lost.  But what bothered me the most was that there was no sort of monitoring going on to make sure something simple like the paper was stocked before going home in the evening.  Something so simple that caused a lot of problems.  I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who needed a receipt at some point that day. I asked Mr. Supervisor if they didn’t have a light or something that let them know the paper was low, like how my printer blinks when the ink is running out or something.  That seems simple enough, right.  He said yes, they did but that the person who has that job had left early the day before.

Between the high-tech computer software that is supposed to recognize my facial structure (that isn’t supposed to change) that the driver’s license folk use and the blinking light that tells the postal worker to add another roll of receipt paper – I have to be honest, I am a little concerned with how this country is being run.  What other blinking lights or warning are going unnoticed because someone stepped out early?

(This is by no means meant to be a political rant, just venting about some first world problems.)

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And on a completely different note, when we arrived at Mattie’s sewing school last week, this little guy was hanging out in the flower bed:

Mattie’s sewing class is in a very populated neighborhood with lots of noise and houses and dog’s.  It was also the middle of the day and all these years, I have been completely under the impression that armadillos were nocturnal.  I could definitely be wrong about that, however.

Lila wanted to bring him home something terrible.  “Me, dillo, home….Peas!” This phrase was repeated over and over by kid number 3.  This week when Mattie went to her class, Lila was heartbroken that her “baby” wasn’t still in the rose bushes. I chose not to ask Ms. Jill what had finally come of him.  Somethings are better just left unknown.

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This is just a lovely little picture to leave you with, because it’s Wednesday.  It is to remind you that the weekend is coming, which in our case means Sabbath and on Sabbath we dress up and go to church and then come home and relax.  We love the Sabbath and now it’s only a few short days away.

A little fuzzier than I had originally thought

Have a great night! And make sure to hand deliver everything from now on or at least mail yourself as well so that you can verify that it will be getting there.  And if you can’t do that, Chik-Fil-A sometimes helps.