Volkswagens and the Park

Puppy at the park.

Got a message from mom this morning saying that her boyfriend's friend who was good with bugs came over and they were having a battle of who could fix the bug first. Neither was going home until it ran. So that's pretty awesome.

I took the puppy to the park for something different. She's been a little sad since mom's been gone so I thought I'd take her out for an adventure. It also gave me time to hang out and do a little bit of drawing. I drew one of the benches. It turned out pretty good.

Steve came over later to get one of the Volkswagen buses in the yard to take back to his place. He had a trailer that was nearly twice as long as his truck. So I helped him and Abbey get that loaded. I mostly just stood around and watched. But I got some good pictures.

Abbey steering the bus onto the trailer.

Crazy lineup.

Just have to move it on a little bit further. 

Strapping it down. 

I've Had a Very Productive Day Today

• I transplanted and pruned my Mandevilla plant. It looks so much better than it did before and now I can take it to Marshall with me.

• I washed the massive pile of dishes and cleaned the top of the stove and the counter. 

• I called and got the ball rolling on my Walmart transfer request. 

• I called my grandfather and he agreed to co-sign the lease for my apartment.

• I scrubbed down my microwave.

• I updated my Hubpages Profile because it finally transferred over to the new layout.

• I organized the bookshelf in the living room that my mom put my books on. Pretty much the top two shelves belong to me, and this is maybe 1/10 of my collection. Just a lot of stuff I've collected during college. 

Packing

I spent most of yesterday sorting and packing stuff. This is most of the pile.

Josh's Visit

Josh got here late Friday night and decided he never wants to make that drive in the dark again. So Saturday we decided to go hang out in Fergus Falls and see some movies. We walked around downtown looking at the bookstores and stuff. There's a new restaurant there called The Spot. They sell Paninis. Most of the food names were not in English but they had a list of what was in them so I picked one that sounded good. We got there right after they opened at 11 so we were the only ones there. It was pretty romantic because it was just this cute little place.

This is what I got. Isn't it fancy?

It was also neat because they had word magnets on all of the napkin dispensers. Brilliant idea. Josh and I played with that for most of the time we were waiting for our food.

After that we looked at a couple more stores then decided it was time to hit Walmart for snacks before the movie. We decided to see "The Dark Knight Rises" first and then "The Amazing Spiderman" We saw them back to back. We had just enough time between movies for Josh to get a pop and for me to buy the tickets. We also got to see Sammi and Erin (Sammi was my best friend in high school and Erin is her little sister) which was nice. The movies were really good. I liked them both.

After that we decided to head home but we stopped at Guzzlers first. The restaurant that replaced Prante's on the Lake, where I used to work. It was super busy and we had to wait a while to get a table. We ordered a plate of nachos as an appetizer to share and each got bacon cheeseburgers.Everything was delicious.

We went home and watched some more movies on my computer. The next day we ate at Zorbaz for lunch. One of my coworkers gave me a $20 gift card she wasn't planning on using. So we both decided to go big and get something we normally wouldn't get. I got $10 worth of tacos.

It was really good but we definitely needed to-go boxes, especially since both of our plates came with a huge amount of chips and salsa. We spent the rest of the day eating this. Then we drove around looking for a good swimming spot and finally had to opt for the beach on Ottertail even though I was hoping to find one of the more private spots was empty... they weren't.

Then back to my place for some movies, then grilling, a game of battleship that Josh won, and then the fireworks I'd been saving. Then more movies (there isn't much else to do at my place).

It was a really fun weekend and I was sad when he left Monday morning.

Frog Pond

My mother has this black tub dug into the ground in the backyard. I think she was using it to keep plants in that she wanted to transplant. But it has since filled up with water and now we have a ton of frogs living in it. I had to put this board in there so they could get out. Very cool.

4th of July

I spent the 4th working. It wasn't too bad, pretty slow. Then I bought some fireworks and went home. I intended to skype my boyfriend and light them while he watched through the webcam but he ended up being the designated driver on a long roadtrip so that didn't happen.

I grilled myself some chicken and potatoes and watched stuff on the internet. It was pretty fun. I decided to save the fireworks until Josh visited me.

The Last 5 Days

During the last 5 days I've had

• 4 car breakdowns
• 2 emotional breakdowns
• 2 early mornings
• 2 drunken nights
• I've spent 10 hours at McDonalds
• Watched 23 episodes of "The Office"
• Eaten only 3 meals at home
• And ridden in 4 different cars

Yeah, I needed a vacation.

Toolbox full of... candy?

I was expecting an empty box. Maybe a few tools. I am now completely baffled.

My Saturn

So my mom made me pull my Saturn out of the weeds to see what's up with it in case she needs to use it as a back up car. (It was actually fine, just needed a battery, some anti-freeze, and the tires aired up... It's been sitting for almost two years.)

Oh... and I just thought this was cute.

Froggy

There is a frog in our kitchen window. He's cute.

The Field Across the Street

I was trying to figure out what to use as a new background for my twitter account. So I was looking through my pictures to find something that would be suitable and couldn't find anything that really seemed to work. I wanted a picture that had a road in it but with pictures for twitter backgrounds the important stuff has to be to the far left or far right. Everything in the middle gets covered up. So I had to go out and get some new pictures. I was going to go take pictures of the road in front of my house but then discovered that there were tire tracks through the grass in the field across from my house. Thus began my adventure.

I've lived here 21 years and I've never actually gone over in that field. Sure most years there have been either cows or horses over there but I was a good girl and didn't like to go on the neighbor's property anyway.

But today I made an exception and so Puppy and I took an adventure.

Cute Birdies

Indy's Graduation Cake

So, I'm just now realizing I didn't post a picture of Indy's graduation cake. Anyway, it's pretty sweet looking. She didn't want to make anymore frosting so she just stuck jones soda caps on the top of it and her giant green jewel in the middle.

 The funny part of all of this is that the cake started to lean after we had eaten the whole bottom part of it.

 Today it finally tipped over. So I thought I just put a post up about that. Because I think it's quite funny. Well,  I guess I can get rid of it now that it's finally tipped over.

Spider

My sister noticed a huge spider in the bathroom. So we all stood around screaming at it until it moved to a location where I could catch it. It was huge.

Dog and Cat Sharing the Bed

Indy's Graduation

My sister graduated high school today and I'm super proud of her. It's funny looking back and remembering all of her friends as second graders because that's when I met most of them when we changed schools. It's been so fun watching them all grow up. My sister's going to be a college student now, joining me in Marshall in the fall. Way to go Class of 2011. I'm also in the mood to include some graduation quotes in here. Just for the fun of it. And because this first one is one my sister found when she was looking up quotes for the graduation speech she had to write for her English class.

"A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that "individuality" is the key to success."  ~Robert Purvis

"Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine." ~Anthony J. D'Angelo

"Your families are extremely proud of you. You can't imagine the sense of relief they are experiencing. This would be a most opportune time to ask for money."  ~Gary Bolding

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."  ~Marianne Williamson

"I hope your dreams take you to the corners of your smiles, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the most special places your heart has ever known."  ~Author Unknown

"The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson." ~Tom Bodett

"Be yourself, everyone else is already taken." ~Oscar Wilde

"Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth." ~Mark Twain

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." ~William Butler Yeats

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'" ~Mary Anne Radmacher

"Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do… The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Really smart people with reasonable funding can do just about anything that doesn't violate too many of Newton's Laws!" ~Alan Kay

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." ~e.e. cummings

Mowing

So, I spent most of my day today mowing the lawn. It actually wasn't all that bad. I have over 3/4 of it done. The other part gets to wait until later. I have everything nice that needs to be for Indy's graduation this weekend. That should be really fun. I'm looking forward to it. My grandparents are going to be here and I'm probably going to see a bunch of people I haven't seen in a while... mainly because a large amount of people in my graduating class have younger siblings in Indy's class.

The yard looks really nice now, super fancy, especially since our apple trees are in bloom and look gorgeous. 

Basement Renovation

My mom wants me to renovate our basement into sort of an apartment. That way if she doesn't want to deal with us she won't have to and we'll have our own kitchen and everything. It's actually going to be a pretty sweet setup. So my mom and I have been discussing this for a while. I remembered a paint swatch I had been carrying around in my wallet. I pull it out and one of the shades on it was one I thought would be perfect for the basement. My sister didn't like the idea at all. This whole endeavor was going to be held off until either I had money to buy paint or we found an acceptable shade at the recycling place.

My mom and I went to the recycling place yesterday and they had the exact shade of green paint I wanted. I pulled out my swatch and it was a perfect match. Talk about fate... or something. So we get it, I bring it home and start painting the basement. I think it looks really good. Here are some before and after shots. It looks a little weird because the lighting is kind of terrible in our basement, but otherwise they're pretty good. I'll post more pictures as I finish more of the project.