Finally

I have pictures of the inside of the house. Here they are:

Living room












Dining room

Kitchen. That's the range with the self-cleaning hood most of you have heard so much about. It's really fun. I'll show you when you come over sometime.

Bathroom

Bedroom. Note penguins pretending to be innocent stuffed animals, incapable of wreaking havoc and destruction everywhere they go. But the party hat is a dead give-away.

Guest room

I Brought Back Cookies from the Italian Store

Had a good time in NY. Had pizza and Italian cookies in NY. There might be some other point to NY, but I don't know what it might be.

The strangest things happened friday morning - we got up, made a plan for the day, and got NINE PEOPLE out of the house before 9 a.m. How bizarre is that? Kind of makes one wonder what was about to go wrong, doesn't it?

Nope. Nothing went wrong. We went for a lovely walk and saw this sign of life in rural upstate New York. We got et by a bunch of skeeters, but that hardly counts as something going wrong - that's just spring happening to you.

Dan graduated on saturday. Here's a picture of him and Briahna (she's graduating today). Doesn't he look all growed up and competent? I mean, if you didn't know him and all? Don't worry Dan, most prospective employers will buy it... and by the time they figure it out, it will be too late.

It very politely did not rain on graduation - good thing, too, or the cookies would've got wet! They were pretty good cookies. They had cookies shaped like pony heads, with green sprinkles (school color and mascot), chocky chip cookies, M&M cookies, peanut butter cookies, and some others. There was lemonade, too.

Another day it did not rain was tuesday. I guess I should say the other day it didn't rain. Maybe it did rain, but it didn't start till after we got done with our hike, and that's the only important part of the day. We went to a waterfall. Two waterfalls, actually.
This is the first one. It's called Beaver Meadow Falls. It's near a meadow. The meadow supposedly contains beavers. Didn't get to see one. Saw a muskrat, though, which probably tastes a lot like beaver (Paul? Dale? Input on that topic?). The second one is Rainbow Falls. Didn't get to see a rainbow, either, but there was some snow next to the falls. I like snow.

We went to China Buffet after the hike. We actually got to go to TWO China Buffets this trip. It was awesome. And they were totally different buffets, which is not often the case with China Buffets. They had different sauces on their sauteed green beans, for instance, and one place had sushi and chocolate fortune cookies, and the egg rolls were different... but the lo mein was the same. I am pretty sure that all China Buffets sign a pledge to serve the same lo mein. It's probably their way of taking over America - as if China Buffet needed any help taking over our thoroughly distended tummies.

So... that basically sums up vacation. Hiking and China Buffet. There was also a day of mini-golf, but I don't have any pictures of that, and it was a very stressful mini-golf day. Not ready to talk about it yet.

PAID Vacation Time?

Yes, paid. I haven't had paid vacation time for the last two years. It's already become a foreign and exciting concept. I leave tomorrow to go to NY for Dan's graduation. My baby brother is grajumatating! He's a big boy now! Now he'll have to go find a Real Job.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Dull is Your Friend

Hmm. It appears that it's been a while since I posted something. That's probably because nothing terribly interesting has happened lately. But that's probably for the best. "Interesting" is usually synonymous with "expensive to fix" in my world.
We got our rush project out on time. Last week was the big industry conference. That was kind of interesting, I suppose. Lots of free stuff, of course... I got a poster and two stress-squeezie-things and a lanyard and a bottle of Tabasco and a pen and three business cards and two tote bags and a bottle of sunblock and there was cake and cheese and crackers and cookies. Oh, and there were some interesting speakers, too.
Finally got my birdfeeders up. The first bird I saw on the seed feeder was a cardinal. Boy cardinal. His girlfriend was hanging out on the ground. That seemed like a good portent for future birdwatching.
Second thing I saw on the feeder was a squirrel.
The squirrel baffle seems to be working so far.
So far I have sparrows, house finches, doves, and mockingbirds... which is to say, my backyard does not appear to be a Ring of Death. I also saw a blue jay try to land on the feeder a couple of times yesterday, but the tray was in the dishwasher and he wasn't having much luck landing on the tiny perches. I told him to come back today and try again. Not sure if he was listening.
Now I am at work. We have another rush project this week. Bill better not be getting any ideas...