This set of pictures is a little different from most I publish. Usually I show you pictures of things, and not very many faces. This time, it’s the opposite. Lots of faces I love and only one thing. Well, two, but one of them has my face under it.

June 23 Stuntman just because we were sitting and chatting.

June 24 Diva on her birthday

June 25 Lots of Books Somebody has a lot of reviews to write, and that someone is me. I pulled them all out to work on and stacked them ever so neatly on the bed. And then I didn’t get to them. When bedtime rolled around, I had to move them to the floor. Since that time, I have managed to review a couple of them, but I still have quite a stack. No, this is NOT the time for ya’ll to start sending subliminal “sell books” messages. Aint gonna happen.

June 26 New Hat That One picked this up for me on his travels this week. It makes a nice driving hat. On the way up to to Polkton, it kept my frizzed out hair out of my face, and on the way back, it preserved my small and curly hair from being blown about. I never realized a hat could actually protect your hair as well as hide it. Yay for hats!

June 27 Baby You’ve seen this one before, but it’s worth a repeat.

June 18 Baby Got Back Sorta. On this day, I slid into 2 pairs of jeans that I slid right back down my hips without unfastening, and then I pulled out these size 6 Levi’s. When I looked in the mirror, there was this thing behind that looked like it wanted to be a butt eventually. Like, when it grew up and stuff. Since I hadn’t seen anything like that on myself in months, I recorded the moment for posterity. And I will be buying some more of these britches in this size.

June 19 Six kid pile-up Here you see a lot of fun going on. This is the kid from down the street with five of my kids piled on top of him. Who knows why, but there was a lot of laughter and play shrieking going on, so I snapped it for ya.

June 20 Not an oops But it almost was. I had gone to bed when I remembered that I had not taken a picture. So I took one. Of the Christmas lights that hang behind the curtains in my room. Am I too old to refer to them as “fairy lights”? No, I don’t think so either.

June 21 Shirt I didn’t buy I almost bought this shirt for That One, because he loves to fish, and he frequently tell me about his nemesis, a huge fish that refuses to take his bait. They are old frenemies, he and this fish. But I didn’t get it because we decided $5 was too much to spend on a fishing shirt. Cause we are frugal beasts.

June 22 A Purple Spidey I love this kid and how he rawks this ‘hawk. He’s something else!

Wow! I can’t believe I’m almost caught up. In fact, I am so caught up that I am only giving you three pictures in this post, but that is also partly because I am so proud of the last one. Not that the picture is so great, but just that it represents something really good for me.

June 15 The List On the 15th, I wrote my list. I hope I properly conveyed my excitement about it when I posted it, because I am truly, very excited about my life list.

June 16 Hot, Tired, Pissed It has been very hot here, folks. It has been excruciatingly hot. And on days I work in the garden shop, I am out in that heat for most of the day. I find it interesting that many of the other people who work in that area manage to stay inside. In fact, I had someone say to me the other day that I was lucky because it was so nice and cool back there. Umm, yeah, yeah it is, inside. But I’m not inside, because the plants are outside. It takes me 3-4 hours to water them all properly, and since I work 6.5 hours and get a half hour lunch, that will tell you how much of the airconditioning I get to enjoy.

But that’s not the part that bothers me most. What really aggravates me is that I have to argue every.daggone.day for my lunch break. And one day last week, peeing suddenly became optional. WTH? I am 42 years old, I have given birth eight freaking times, and I don’t even sneeze without crossing my legs, ever!! And you think I can wait 45 minutes to go to the bathroom? Umm, no. It’s gotten to the point that I love my work, and hate my job. The plants and I get along just fine, but……….the rest, not so much.

June 17 Hydrangea On this day, I did the first thing on my life list, with the exception of the publication. I planted this hydrangea that I’ve had here for a couple or three weeks now. I actually have two of them, but the other one is burned even worse than this one and I am just not sure it’s gonna make it. But people, HYDRANGEA! And it’s time to edit the life list.

Now, then, I want to talk about something else. Do any of you buy gold bullion? I’m thinking about small investments these days, not because I have any money right now, but because I hope to have some eventually. I know it’s pretty, and I know that it’s practically been an object of worship since it was first discovered, but I am actually more interested in it’s staying power and growth potential than it’s beauty.

If I do decide to invest, should I go with coins, which have a currency value, or ingots which do not? The initial investment is higher for coinage, I think, but does that mean I can sell it for more later, or will the ingots be just as valuable down the road? Is it a matter of aesthetics or is the actual weight the bottom line?

Any tips? Experiences you want to share? Cautions? Talk to me, people, I’m listening.

June 10 Four feet of counter Yep, I found it. And then I lost it again, at least once per day. But I keep refinding it, so that’s progress of sorts, right?

June 11 Freedom Party On this day, I had a little party. My divorce had become final the week before this, and I wanted to have a party to celebrate, but I thought it would probably be wrong to do that while the children were home, so I waited. And also, there were bff birthdays in March that I never did anything about because I was waiting for the divorce to throw the party, and in the meantime, sections of my unfamily divested themselves of me in a very public way, and so, I truly was finally free.

Is it awful that my major emotional response was relief? I clearly wasn’t imagining things all my life, my feelings were validated and those involved can finally all quit pretending to be something we aren’t. Let me be perfectly clear here: I am only speaking of those who were specifically involved. Does anyone need a dictionary to understand that? And the weirdest part was that they were so concerned that I had talked about them in the first place, when I really only talked about me, and no one even knew we were related until they outed themselves all over my facebook page.

So, this picture is of my lop-sided but delicious Strawberry Tall Cake, which you should really go read about. But come right back, cause I’m not done!

We did indeed have a party. I almost said “bangin’ time”, but that would be too easily misconstrued. Here’s the deal: That One, Guitar Guy and I all share very similar senses of humor. We are all quick-witted, punny and ready to see the hilarity in any given situation. We have a great deal of fun just sitting around stone-cold sober, which is how you will usually find us when we are all together. On this particular night, That One stopped by the ABC store and bought so much liquor that he had to have a permit to bring it to the house, and oh my word!! He went home with most of it, but in the meantime, we found out that he is a *very* capable bar tender, and that when he drinks a bit, he’s even funnier than usual. Madea was in da house, and if you’ve never heard a big white man impersonate a big crazy black woman, you should come to my next party. And it went on for hours, people! Hours! We kicked off about 6pm, and I think I crashed around 4am.

On a more serious note, it was a very fitting closure for me to celebrate my personal freedom with those who have held my hand while I fought so hard for it. There was a great deal more to it than a facebook fight and a piece of paper. This little mouse of a girl has officially graduated to gerbil. I may not be standing very tall at 5 feet even, but damnitall, I’m standing! And, Ang., I really wish you could have been here with me, too. I missed you, even though I know you were here in spirit.

June 12 I want it! That One has a new hat, and I want it. He let me wear it while he was here, but alas, he left with it on his own head. Unfortunately, he found it in an ittybitty store in some town in PA. I’m hopeful that he will find another one, but not counting on it. Oh! Remember I said he was funny? So, we were talking about the hat and he looked at me and said, “yeah they had one in pink, too”. And then I said “Really!!” And he said “no”, and we both dissolved in giggles. Well, he didn’t giggle, he laughed, because boys don’t giggle.

June 13 Matches the Other Half of my Wardrobe See?

June 14 Really? I’d like to meet the person responsible for this piece of marketing “genius”, just so I could point and laugh!

June 5th would be an oops. But I’m not sure why, because the kids were here and I was home, so……who knows. Moving on!

June 6 New Black HatThis is my new black dress hat. On me. In church. Muhahahahaha! I felt very classy and very tall, since I was also wearing high heels. I musta been 5’8″, at least!

June 7 One to play in I liked this one, too, and it was on sale, so I bought it. Six bucks and matches half my wardrobe. The blue one like this that I bought a few days later was also six bucks and matches the other half. Yay me!

June 8 Graduation Day Drama graduated from Kindergarten!!

June 9 So proud Stuntman started and finished elementary school this year, capturing the highest award given at the school. He’s somethin’, ain’t he?

May 31 Migraine Medicine On this, the 3rd day of my unsister induced migraine, I attempted a cure. The headache did not go away, but the ice cream sure was good! And easier to swallow that prenate vitamins with dha.

June 1 Day FOUR Yeah, on this day, the headache was still there, only worse. My options were to call in or wear shades all day. I opted for shades, but I had to repeatedly prove that I wasn’t hungover. The day with shades did help with the headache, and talking to Mama did away with the rest of it. Of course, the 1,600 mg of naproxen sodium I took throughout the day probably helped, too. And made me sleep like a baby, to boot.

June 2 Diva Gets A Phone Which was supposed to be for her birthday, but she did all the things she had to do to earn it and That One is a sucker for a pretty face.

June 3 Nope I didn’t buy this one, even though I love purple. It just wasn’t my look.

June 4 That One and Micheal This is absolutely one of my favorite pictures. That One rode in on his white horse and fixed the water for us, and here he is shown in the closet, pausing to explain things to Micheal and I. By that time, we’d been without running water at all for a couple-three days because of the stupid glue issue. What makes this a favorite, besides the fact that I love the people in it, is the memory associated with it.

That One and I were bantering back and forth as we usually do when we are together, laughing and joking and playing off one another. We are somewhat like Abbott and Costello or Punch and Judy, or whatever. Maybe a barrel of monkeys??? Anyway, at one point Micheal was looking back and forth and back and forth as we were horsing around and he said, “You guys are different……you’re like…….younger.” And we looked at him and laughed and said “yeah.” Because, somehow, together, we are still about 16. This is my friend.

I tell ya, folks, I am still so pleased with my last post that I feel like anything I write next will be like comparing an outdoor fireplace to a volcano. But the blog must go on, and so, here I am. Before I begin anything, I want to let you know that I am now able to cross something off that list I published yesterday. That is what I really *want* to talk about, but I am so far behind on pictures again, that I feel I really need to do that instead. So,….here we go with May 26-30.

May 26 Party Time? I have no idea, really. I walked out back to tend the plants at work, and apparently, someone had had a good time in the old garden shop the night before.

May 27 A Little Clearing I whittled this pile of assorted mail and papers down to about 4 pieces. One thing about getting behind on time sensitive stuff is that you get to throw A LOT of it away when you finally find your round tuit.

May 28 My Hand This would be the swollen hand that my unsister flicked with her acrylic nails the night she tried to fight me at our respective parent’s home. I guess she hit a nerve, because I couldn’t see a mark, but it was swollen and I couldn’t close it comfortably for a couple of days.

May 29 Hands I Love No real words needed, right?

May 30 Oooooh, baby This is the water heater That One ordered for me before he left on the 30th. You would think I would tell you that I was able to take a hot shower, but it was almost a full week before we had reliable hot water. The clerk at the store looked at all the CPVC Micheal was buying to do the installation and then sold him PVC glue to go with it. Grrrr!

Not sure quite what happened here, but I only have 2 pictures on my computer for this time period, and then I pick up on the 26th. I find it hard to believe that I missed three days in a row, so maybe I will find them later. I may have used the camera, but ….who knows. Maybe they will turn up. Oh, the second picture reminded me of something. Not acne, something else.

May 21 Pwetty Flowies Just about 4pm a truck came in with 24 4×4 flats of flowers. I worked until 8:30 getting those flowers put out, and I thought they were so pretty. Unfortunately, when I got to work the next morning, I discovered that the flowers belonged to the vendor instead of the store, and he was busily tearing down my display and putting it together on the front sidewalk instead.

May 22 Eeyore pajamas and high heel shoes On this day, I was NOT a happy camper. I wanted to go out and instead of just going, I waited for someone to take me out, even though I knew no one was coming. Because I am silly that way. Anyhow, my cousin challenged me to put on my new shoes even though I was hanging out in my Eeyore pajamas. And so I did. And yes, I felt better. I also decided that it’s perfectly permissible to take my own self out. Alone.

If I find the rest of the pictures from this time, I will post them. If not, well……not.