sooooo tired. oh look, a gnome . . .

so today . . . was technically my first day of summer vacation. i say technically, because i actually went in to work this morning.

last week was jam-packed with end of the year activities. monday was totally dedicated to graduation practice, complete with tiny little pink, blue, or purple graduation gowns and hats (yes, i am rolling my eyes.) tuesday was a total loss, because the kids were all excited about graduation that night. wednesday was field trip day, and thursday and friday were busy days of cleaning and closing down the classroom. so by friday, i was pretty tired.

and then it was the weekend. i would have liked to spend it recuperating from my week, but that was not the way it went down. friday night was movie night at the church, saturday was consumed by diandra's birthday activities, and sunday was church and then father's day activities. it was a lot of fun, but by sunday night, i was totalled! if a mac truck had rolled over me, it would have been an improvement.

and THEN, today i had to get up even earlier than usual, because in a weak moment i had said i would substitute for summer camp, which meant getting to school by 7:30 this morning!! after working harder than i had planned to for almost six hours, i came home and drove diandra (who is kind of sick today,) to the post office and then the ups store.

after that, my plan was to take a nap, but it never happened.

and here it is 11:00 at night, and i am still awake. and blogging. which is proof that it is actually my summer vacation, even though i got up early and went to work. i figure i can sleep until lunch time tomorrow, if necessary . . .

rollie had the sense to go to bed a couple of hours ago. i am still up, because even though i am too tired to go to bed, diandra and i are watching tv and doing computer stuff, and i am wishing for barbeque lay's potato chips. we decided to take a short break so that diandra could move her car into the driveway--thus thwarting the parking police--and i could go to the kitchen in search of salty snack food.

i know there are no potato chips in the kitchen, but i went to look anyway. i thought nuts might be an ok alternative, but i know we don't have any nuts either, and yet still i opened the nut container to look. (i am thinking it might be time for a trip to costco.) as it turns out, it was my lucky day! i found two almonds . . .

when diandra came back into the house, she had a package. we looove packages at our house. in fact, i have decided that is why i buy stuff from shopping tv--just so i can get packages in the mail! however, i figured this package was for rollie, because the return address said angels baseball. but as diandra pointed out, it was addressed to occupant. we decided that meant US! so we opened it. and this is what we saw peeking out of the end of the mailer . . ."a garden gnome?" diandra said. well, that is what it said on the box top, but it seemed too good to be true. we pulled the box all the way out of the package, and it sure looked like the angels had sent us one of their garden gnomes.i noticed the date on the box was from a few weeks ago. in fact, now that i think about it, we had tickets for that game but were unable to attend. so perhaps not too many people went to angels stadium on garden gnome night. i don't know why--a garden gnome seems much more useful than some of the stuff they give away . . . but did they really send out garden gnomes to everyone in orange county? or were we just one of the lucky few?

we opened the box, and there he was--the coveted angels garden gnome! diandra picked him up and looked him over. she handed him to me, and said, "i'll bet you could get high from sniffing him." (did i mention how late it is and how tired we are and that she is kind of sick today?!?) so of course, i had to sniff him. let's just say that i am fairly certain he is made from some sort of petroleum product, because he does have a distinct odor--which will hopefully dissipate now that we have released him from his box . . .and i know he looks a little scary, but that is what happens when a flash goes off inches from a person's (or gnome's) eyes. we decided it was good we had opened the package, because we were way more excited about this little guy than rollie would have been. i am sure that in a few years he is going to be valuable, because we are keeping him inside. i'll bet lots of garden gnome recipients will put their gnomes right out into their gardens--where they will fade and crack and eventually end up in the trash. but not us. we will treasure him right along with the rest of our sports memoribilia.

which has nothing to do with my extreme tiredness, except it gave me something to blog about, which is why it is now after midnight and i am still not asleep!

blast the angels and their garden gnomes . . .