It’s National Duran Duran Day! I don’t know which nation would actually be celebrating it or who, and what exactly they would be doing to celebrate it, but somebody thought of it…and it is today. So, get out your big hair, put on those cropped jackets and crank up the tunes. It’s National Duran Duran Day.

Today was the first day of school for Devin. The first day of First grade! We woke up early, got dressed and then came out to watch TV for a while. Last year, he wouldn’t be dressed and actually watching tv until about 7:30, but this time, for some unknown reason, I had him up and dressed and eating breakfast (another first) by 6:55! (yet another first!) We got up at the same time we normally do, I guess we were just better planned this morning.

He had time to watch 2 of his favorite shows, one of which being PeeWee’s playhouse. Normallly, I laugh my ass off watching it with him , but today I am a little irritated because I have the song “Deep in the Heart of Texas” stuck in my head. Cowboy Curtis, a.k.a. Larry (Lawrence) Fishbourne…no really!….was singing during the episode. (my favorite bit from PeeWee right now, is his giant underpants bit) Anyway, we got all ready to go, I put a little note in his lunch bag and off to the bus we went. Early again! ( another first!)

As he was waiting for the bus I realized that he looked so grown up. Maybe it was the new outfit we got for school or his new haircut, but he looked more like a young man than ever this morning. Quite handsome too, if I might add.

So, I loaded him up on the bus and off he went on a wonderful learning adventure….and out of my hair! I couldn’t resist doing a little dance after the bus pulled away. (far enough that his little friends couldn’t see me) I’m free…I’m free….I’m free! Hooray! I was happy….that is until I noticed the lady driving a car behind the bus laughing at my little dance.

I know that this is just convenience, and probably common sense but it’s still just wrong. This is the kind of thing that should be in Japan right between the beer and popcorn vending machines and the used schoolgirl underwear vending machine.

I forget sometimes that we live in the boonies. Fortunately, I am often reminded of how rural we are by Devin. The other day we went to Martinsville, which is a small, dirty little city about 30 miles to our east to go to the orthodontist and run some “town” errands. As we were driving down the street to the Dr.’s office he says….”Stop mom, look!” (Here I am thinking that he’s seen something of interest…..) “Look, they have sidewalks. We should stop and go for a walk because they have sidewalks here.”

I made this from a site on the internet that makes note cards. Pretty cool idea! Aren’t we cute? If I could remember the name of the site, I’d give them credit. I think I did it from “checks in the mail”.

The other night we had a thunderstorm that I was able to watch from the back patio. Here are some pictures that I got. They are not a good quality, but I was happy to actually see some of the lightning in the pictures. Just a side note, these were taken at about 10:00 at night, all of the light that you see is from lightning.

I don’t know why I find this so funny. I have started taking pictures of him just to see if he’ll still squint. The first picture is so funny because I caught him mid-squint. ha ha ha

Stupid me left a huge bucket outside a few weeks ago, in the rain and the frogs came out to spawn. They left me with a wealth of fresh frog eggs that, of course, I didn’t notice until I had a swarm of pollywogs. With my sweet nature, I usually can’t kill anything, especially anything in numbers, so I let them live trying to figure out what to do next. The mosquitos hadn’t found the bucket yet so it wasn’t a big concern.

The other day I noticed that we had mosquito larve and that was enough, it was time to dump the bucket. Awwww….but there were still some pollywogs in the bottom. Fortunately, most were eaten by other frogs or had died in the heat so I was only left with about 15 pollywogs. Hmmm, what to do?

I could fish them out and take them down to a river, but someone might see me and think I was dumping something bad or just plain see me and laugh. I could just dump it and kill them. (last year we tried giving some to the chickens but they weren’t interested)

No, this time I was to be a cool mom and give Devin a new pet….well, several new pets. He’s been buggging me about a fish, but a fish is so permenant. (we tend to have goldfish that grow to the size of small koi and live for years) A pollywog is a good idea! It will only be with us for a few weeks and if they die, they were no worse off anyway.

So, I just spent the last half hour fishing pollywogs out of this big bucket with a 6 oz. glass, draining each part carefully so I didn’t miss any of the little guys. Can I just say, eeeww?!?! Anyway, this is the result. They are kinda cute too, big eyes pressed up against the glass…..so, say hello to our little friends.

Damn….husband is away again. He’s at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and he’ll be gone for more than a week. Sigh…I don’t really miss him yet…but I *AM* a big mess without him. It’s the first full day that he has been gone and here I am at 7 o’clock at night still in my pajamas and I can’t even tell you truthfully if I’ve even brushed my teeth! I think I did…but I can’t even remember…and right now they feel like I haven’t brushed them in weeks. I’ve managed to watch 2 episodes of The Practice (my new thing), 3 episodes of What Not to Wear, and Morgan Spurlock’s 30 Days. I’ve spent a few hours researching why call centers in India are a bad thing, wrestled with the dogs a few times, harassed the goats and chickens and even slipped in a short nap in this afternoon. I also googled most of my high school friends and even sent a few emails out hoping to reach them and hoping they’ll want to contact me back.

I had 2 things on my “to do” list today and I still haven’t gotten them done. One was getting the laundry, from last week, out of the basket and off the treadmill. The other was to use the treadmill. I still don’t know if either will get done today or not, which is why I think it’s a good thing that I am not single. I’d probably end up living in a trailer with a bunch of cats and a house robe that never leaves my body. That man keeps me honest and on my toes. Good thing he’s coming back….you ARE coming back aren’t you Mario?