Sunset Sunday
Random picture. Not time traveling or living in another time zone. Cleaning the files out. Purging. I don’t like that word. Sorry for using it if it makes you feel yucky too. And yet I’m going to type it again. Purge. Blech. Later.
Random Sunday Butterfly
I’m going to go babysit my brother’s new baby for the first time today! Although technically since he’s 6 months old now, he’s not all that new. So expect the random pictures, I promised, plus new and updated baby pictures, throughout the day as I add this new thing into my Sunday of football, work, and posting. Our dinner was very nice except we forgot that they had the lighting/parade/Christmas thing downtown (in Chicago–in case you want to look it up) and we got caught in a million people’s attendance and traffic. No joke. I heard the news last night, they said one million people were estimated to have attended. If I research and confirm this factoid, I will let you know. But I probably won’t. I won’t research. I won’t confirm. Or refute. Heck, I probably won’t even ever speak of it again. If you want to keep it real, feel free to comment with the correct number and facts, otherwise, let’s just all agree we were downtown with a million other people last night and leave it at that! I will post pictures of anything food/fun related the kids took as soon as they send it to me. I am also planning on a lot less words to go with the rest of the posts I put up here today. Consider this all the reading you need to do for the day! I have to shower and gather my things. Time is a ticking. The kids are going to their dad’s and I think the BF is staying home. It’s individual Sunday. That can totally be our new thing! Later.
Terrible Mom Alert!
TWO missed birthdays! The boy. Above. Oct. 13. He is 16. The girl. Below. Nov. 21. She is 15.
Thank you Outback Steakhouse for having large mirrors and flattering lighting in your bathrooms, men and women’s, so that both of my children could, separately, but at the same time, go into the bathrooms the night we were there and take pictures of themselves without the other one knowing. They both came back to the table and were very excited about the selfies they got in the excellent washroom photo studio they apparently have there. Also, it’s good because I have no actual pictures of them with their cakes and mini-party celebrations we had here at the house. If I find any pics later, I’ll just post them randomly and you can guess what they’re from. Kind of a “Where’s Waldo?” but with cake. At least I only missed the girl’s by 2 days. And we are going out for a collective dinner tonight. An expensive, collective dinner. We really spend way too much on food in this family unit. Plus we get to dress up! But I need to finish this now quick, so I can shower, shave, and shine. The BF is yelling because he doesn’t think we’ll be ready to go. He’s walking around confiscating cell phones and electronic devices. This is serious business. But first, quick quick: Old mom alert! The boy has a driver’s license now and a vehicle. That he paid for. And the girl will be starting driving school soon. Here’s a picture of the truck that he bought:
It’s good for both kids actually, because now he can drive them both to school. And anywhere else they need to go! One of the only sophomores with a license, a car, and a parking permit. I knew he’d be ahead of everyone else in his class at something! Alright, I’m seriously getting a side-eye from the time police over here, so I need to go. Happy (late-internet) birthday, Mason and Stevie! I love you! XOXO. Later!
Last Day Of Football
This was actually the end of October. Sunny. Windy. Not warm. The usual.
Action shots. From various games. Mine is 71. White jersey, you can’t really see the number though. On the right, doing what the 70’s do.
Huddling. I’m not sure how he was looking this way, but it’s a nice pic.
Green jersey here, running in, tackling or something. I took a lot of pictures but only a few of them are clear enough or action enough to be looked at. Thank goodness for digital cameras. You can take 500, for 2 good ones. Then delete them all and start over. Hi-tech.
And that’s everything in my files this year for football, I think. If I find more somewhere, I’ll just post them. We are going into the city tonight for my daughter’s birthday so I prob won’t be able to get more of this exciting world news in; But I have to do some work tomorrow, and that means I’ll already be on the computer, and…I like to waste A LOT of time while pretending to do that work, so….Super Sunday! Football! Nurse work! Blog posts from the middle of nowhere! About nothing! Absolutely nothing! Stay tuned! Later!
My One Summer Butterfly
Hello and thank you to all my new friends and followers! I’m not sure what has changed in these last few days but I am glad for the chance to expand my world and to become a part of someone else’s. Maybe all those storms that blew through the middle of America shook up the airwaves somehow and blew out the dust of our random lives and we all ended up in fresh spots to wait out the winter that’s looming ahead. Maybe it’s just a fluke.
Either way, here we all are and it’s good. Now on to my picture story: All those wild flowers in front of the house, that everyone else calls weeds, and I only managed to attract this one, big, beautiful, patterned butterfly. And he was late to boot. Showed up in August/Sept. But look at that photo. It’s nice, right? Perfect American image. Not planned, I swear. We keep the flag up all the time, and I was taking pictures too fast to frame this on purpose, because he kept flying around and landing anywhere that was away from me and my phone. Oh yeah, did I mention that picture was taken with my phone?? Just a smidge more bragging on the G4 even if I have to do it myself. Here are some more pictures of that butterfly below. All the flowers are gone now and it’s too cold for flyers. I’m just gonna start posting all my pictures as fast as I can without any central theme. Maybe I will just start at the first one and run down the line. I know I’ve said this before, but this time, this time, I swear I mean it. My time is really tight now because my new job is trying to kill me with paperwork. Nursing at it’s finest I swear. And I suppose I really really have to go back to school. As usual I find myself to be the least educated person in the crowd. Again. I swear, I keep saying I swear, and FYI for the kiddies out there: School NEVER ends. Love it. Tolerate it. Keep at it. You will be a student forever. Even when you work you still have to keep plugging away at the next big thing. Or little thing. It doesn’t matter. Forward roll. Oh Geez. As usual, I have run off the thought track and I wanted to, needed to, get some sleep tonight. Like I was saying, about the pictures, I can’t even remember why I took some of these or if I had any idea of what to write, so this should actually be kind of fun. Random. Just like me and my life and my personal beliefs. We live in a random world and I am good with that. Now, what was I talking about again? Butterflies. And flowers. Later.
Post Tornado. Skeleton Trees.
Lots of noise. A strange, continuous roaring sound to the north of our location. Sirens everywhere. No actual sighting in my town. Confirmed visuals in Coal City to the South and Frankfort to the west. And as everyone knows by now, Washington, IL, out in the middle there. It is VERY windy now. If you turn on the TV to the Bears game in Chicago, you can see that our wind is extra windy. In case we forgot that our weather patterns here in the Midwest don’t just stroll in all leisurely-like, changing over the course of a few days or even hours; but prefer to burst out of the atmosphere like fireworks in the sky. Boom, flash, done. It’s dark. It’s light. It’s dark again. One minute you are outside just milling around and taking pictures, marveling at nature in all its raw beauty, and the next minute a powerful gust of wind crackles through the high branches of your fragile, breaking trees, pushing you, the garbage cans, and one of the plastic chairs you are standing next to, across the patio, almost giving you a heart attack. I literally covered my head because I thought a limb was coming down. I know the sound. So you decide you should probably go inside and close all the windows because it was 65 degrees mere minutes ago and now its 50 with all your blinds blowing inside the windows trying to come off the hinges. I have work to start and finish because I wasted my day on all this weather and I may slip in a drink or two to count my blessings tonight with my family. Say a quick prayer, send a thought, or help if you can, for our neighbors to the south. It’s getting dark now and the weather looks like it’s staying. Good luck. Stay safe. Winter is pretty much here. Only four or five more months until it’s spring. Cold hands, warm hearts. I think we say something like that. Later.
Veterans Day
Another year to say thank you and to post my favorite picture of my dad.
To all who serve. Past, present, and future. Thank you.
just shy of pretty 