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 . . .

the card is in the mail . . .

so today . . . is father's day.

i have a dad--a pretty great dad, actually--but he lives far, far away. so taking him to lunch, or even giving him a big father's day hug, are not options for me. i have to find other ways to remind him that i love him. usually my solution is sending a card. this may sound like the easy way out to you, but trust me, anything involving cards and the post office has disaster written all over it for me . . .

first, i have to choose a card. and no matter what store i go to, the greeting card section is like a mine field--especially for father's day. i avoid the funny cards as a matter of principle. they all sound like they were written by immature college-aged boys whose wallets are empty! they are awful!! and anything with a lawn mower or caricature dad on it should just be set on fire . . .

but the more serious cards are not a lot better. they sound like they were written by adult women with self-esteem issues. and they are beautiful--too beautiful for a man! i mean really, what man is going to look at an aqua-colored card with foil scroll work across the front and think, "wow! that really says DAD! i love aqua-colored foil scroll work!!" what ever happened to stripes? the colors brown and blue? (and no, aqua does not count as blue!) or even green? they could at least choose manly colors . . .

so there i stood at target, in front of the father's day cards. my dad is awesome, and i wanted to get the perfect card for him. i read card after card after card after card. i finally even started picking up the ones with girlyish fronts, hoping that at least the words would be good. but they weren't. finally, in frustration, i said, "where are all the cards with FISH on them?!?!?" the young mom standing to my right looked at me, and said, "here's one." and then she quickly rolled her stroller some distance away . . .

perhaps i looked a little desperate. it was the tuesday before father's day.

i said, "thank you" to her retreating back and looked at the card. the front was kind of a 3-d picture of a big fish. i knew my dad would like that. now if only the words inside weren't terrible . . . i opened it, read it, and laughed. yes, this was the one!

i bought the card and put it in my purse with every intention of mailing it right away so it would arrive at his house before father's day. but i had to rush home, change my clothes, and go right back to school for graduation. i soon realized his card was not going to get mailed on tuesday.

but that was ok. if i mailed it wednesday, he would still get it in time. i put it in my school bag so that i could write in it the next day and take it to the post office. (you see, this is part of the reason i never get anything mailed on time. nothing i need to mail only takes one stamp, so i never have the right postage. that means i have to go to the post office, get out of the car, stand in line, and get the proper postage before anything can be sent. which would be no big deal, except i seem to have some sort of mental disconnect between getting something ready to mail and actually mailing it. i had four packages to send to my aunt last fall. i got them all ready to go, put them in my trunk, and promptly forgot about them. i finally mailed them two weeks ago . . . ) at least, that was my plan. but in my "planning" i forgot that wednesday was my class field trip to adventure city. so, i did not sit at my desk on wednesday. i did not take anything out of my school bag. and i did not make it to the post office.

then, wednesday night after slurping down a big soda (because my day at the amusement park had been relatively soda-free,) my brain started working again, and i realized that it was now going to be thursday before i could mail my dad's card.

on thursday i went to the post office immediately after school was out. i knew that barring some sort of postal miracle, my dad's card would be late. he would probably not be completely surprised by this, since my cards are usually late. but still, i always hope it will somehow make it on time.

i went into the post office and witnessed my first postal miracle--there was no line! not one body was in front of me! so i stepped up to the counter with my fish card that required extra postage, and the postal worker said, "you can mail this for 66 cents. OR you could mail it priority mail--that would ensure that it would arrive tomorrow. would you like to do that?"

i'll bet she had been saying that all day to everyone who brought in a card. there she stood, implying that my card was going to be LATE! i just looked at her. ok, i thought, i'll bite. "and how much would it be to send it overnight." it couldn't be that much, could it? it was just a card. "$18.95," she answered.

$18.95?!?!?! are you kidding me?!?!?! i could have gotten a real gift for that--well, sort of . . . but $18.95 just to make sure my card arrives on time?!?! no, i don't think so. i said, "no, i think i will just mail it first class." "ok," she said regretfully, knowing that i must be the black sheep of my family, "it will be 66 cents then. and do you need anything else? stamps? boxes??"

she was so helpful. no wonder it takes so long for the lines to move at the post office.

i took out my wallet to extract the $10 i knew i had left over after paying to get all my kids into adventure city--it was all the cash i had left. and, as my luck would have it, i had left it in the small bag that i had taken to adventure city. it was not in my purse--the purse i was currently holding.

i couldn't believe it! all i needed was 66 cents to get my dad his father's day card only a day late, and now it was looking like it might be TWO days late. i was going to be the black sheep--a position, btw, with which i am not at ALL familiar!

the postal worker watched me digging through my great big handbag. (you know, the one diandra bought me for mother's day? it is beautiful and i love it, but it has so much space in it that sometimes i can't find anything!) she just kept looking at me. to fill the silence i said, "i know i had $10 in here . . . " she just looked at me. the silence grew. finally i said, "maybe i will have to buy some stamps after all, because i may have to use my debit card."

"oh, that's ok. you can pay for your postage with your debit card," she said. put 66 CENTS on my debit card?!?!?! oh no, i don't think so. and what happened to all that up-selling she was doing! but she wasn't finished. "yes, you could. or you could just get cash back. we don't charge a fee for that. in fact, lots of people come in here at lunch time and buy a stamp just so they can get cash for their lunch."

that stopped me in my tracks. because i have been at this post office at lunch time. i know what the lines are like then. and let me tell you, if a person only has an hour for lunch, they do not have time to come to the post office to get lunch money!! besides that, where are you planning to get lunch that won't take a debit card? every place takes debit cards!

finally i managed to find 66 cents in change. i paid her and sent my dad's card on it's merry way. a day late.

but my dad won't care. in fact, he isn't even home today--he is visiting my brother. so hopefully my card will beat him home, and be waiting for him when he gets there. he will never know that it was a day late.

. . . unless my mom tells him to read my blog . . .happy father's day dad! you are the best! i love you!!