I am going to be one sore puppy in the AM. I spent pretty much all day (from 9am until 4pm) in my yard. I was digging up this root system for wild mulberry (or something) bushes that are just a plague around our neighborhood. I was using a hand tool for most of it, and once I get started, it's hard for me to give up, so I had about 8 feet by 3 feet of my "yard" totally dug up following this huge root (that turned out to have a couple of branches too). Basically, this is behind my house, right up against the house where no grass ever grew, so it was no big deal to dig it all up, I just wanted those darn bush things gone! Eventually, I broke out the spade/shovel of Mom's that I still have and used that too. My neighbors probably thought I was nuts, lol.

Then, I hung a load of laundry, did the dishes, dug up some more of those bushes along the side of the house, mowed the front lawn, got out the lawn furniture from the garage and hosed it down, replace the gutter things with new ones that will hopefully drain water away from the house better than the old accordian plastic ones that were there from when we moved in, and of course fed Jack meals, went to the store, took the laundry back down, etc.

Now, the very dirty boy (who helped me a bit, because he loves to dig of course) is in the tub. Dinner is done. We have big plans for the Disney movie tonight, Harry Potter at bedtime, then rest. It's Monday tomorrow. Yuck. ; )

Also, he got his card from Nana Nita today, opened and read it by himself. He was very excited to get some mail, and counter the money himself. He chose to spend it on cards at the store for Mother's Day since that's where we were headed at the time. We also had our share of wildlife viewage today. A man was walking his beagle (basset?), which scare one of the bunnies, a neighborhood cat was visiting our cats at the front window and watched us for a while, and Jack kept me posted whenever he saw the cardinals or other neat birds. It's been a beautiful day. All the way up to 70. : )

Yay! My second .NET class is officially over. I can say I learned a lot more from this one than the first. The first class was a great intro, but it gave you the code right in your book. That made it too easy. This time around, you really had to work on it. Interpret the Microsoft speak, and then figure out the code. Hopefully, now I can go back to work and find a project to apply this too. Something simple to start off with before I tackle the big one waiting for me - our intranet. Scary.

Jack and I spent the week at Nana's house. That was nice. Jack did very well; took a trip to the store and the salon with Nana; didn't get too bored with the yucky weather and being stuck inside; wasn't trouble at bedtime and generally wasn't up before the sun. My classes were pretty tiring, so it was nice to come home, have a dinner with family all ready, and then relax for the rest of the evening.

Sadly, I was probably too excited when I found out that SciFi shows Roswell at 5pm every night. ; ) What can I say? I just loved that show. Oh, and the other neat thing this week was that an employee at the company I was at was also a big Buffy/Angel fan. He even watched Firefly and Miracles before the networks destroyed them. He said Buffy is the only show that his wife will watch with him, so it was obvious that he was the original fan of the Jossverse. That was just too cool. We got to have a couple of fast discussions on things, similar to the scene with Fred and Willow on Angel a few weeks ago. Geeks bonding, lol.

We got back home tonight a bit before 9pm. The cats were fine, excited to see us. They didn't destroy the house which is always a good thing. We got settled in, and now I am just trying to get a few things done before bed. I wasn't able to connect to my work email properly all week, so I need to check on that at least. : )

Thanks to all of my family and friends who sent me birthday wishes. I received my cards/packages at home safe and sound. It wasn't as exciting of a birthday as last year, but that's okay. I'll just say I celebrated early with the NYC show. Maybe I will celebrate late too with another trip. A friend at work celebrates the number of days before and after her birthday of the age she is turning. So, 26 days after April 22 would be May 18. 26 days before was March 27. Eh, so I was off a few days. That's okay. I'll be off a few days for the after celebration too. I have a feeling I am going to take a trip to Georgia. Which is odd. I don't think I have ever intentionally visited that state. At least, nothing more than driving through it on my way somewhere else. ; )

Time to get back to those little things ...

I didn't get a chance to write something up for the weekend. We were really busy running around town. Friday was the "Treasure Hunt" at day care, and there was just way too much candy for those kids. Sheesh. Thank goodness I left work to be involved or who knows how much Jack would've eaten without me knowing! Some of the kids just started shoving it down. Crazy. I let him have some jelly beans, but I really didn't like the idea of chocolate sickness all over the place later in the day. Blech.

We left around 12:30pm and went home for naps. Yay! Jack never wants to take a nap of course, but that didn't stop him from sleeping until almost 4pm. Quite a hefty nap for someone who "is not tired." We got up in time to go to the baseball game at 6:30pm. That was fun, but cold! The wind had just not let up, and it was only in the 60s somewhere. They were giving out bats and baseball cards, so we got those. Jack got to have a hot dog and peanuts. : ) Concessions are ridiculously expensive though. The best thing was when they did the national anthem. They were letting kids under the age of 12 run out onto the field and stand with players during the song. I have pictures of course. ; )

We didn't stay the whole game because it was getting late. The Illini lost as it was. They were playing Minnesota who is apparently number one in the Big Ten right now. On Saturday, we went to the football game and the baseball game. They had some of those air structures for the kids, and Jack managed to climb up the big one this time. He also spent a little time in the jumping one. We had to go to the merchandising room because he dressed himself a bit too warmly, and we ended up with a t-shirt that is a little too big. Of course, he didn't mind. : ) I forgot that we also went to the free movie that morning, "Spirit." It was still good the second time around. The theater seemed to be having issues in the booth though, because they started it, stopped it, then started again 5 minutes into the movie, so we missed most of the colt-Spirit moments.

On Sunday, we were both tired, so we just wasted away the morning in the house. I needed to get things ready for our week in Peoria. By the time we were ready to go, it was time to head to campus for the openingbands.com meeting. That was interesting and worth it. Even though a lot of the discussion needed the input of people who have been involved longer than me, I plan on sticking around. We ended up leaving before it was over though. It was 4pm, and we needed to get on the road. Now, I am in my second .NET class, Jack is at Nana's, and the cats are probably all lonely. : (

I hope this week goes by quickly. We need to get back to the cats, the yards are growing quickly because of all the rain, and we are missing the rehearsals for the play.

Okay - the letter arrived yesterday. Jack will be attending Stratton. I hope this is a good thing. The school has had some problems, but I am sure they all do. Some people think that getting their kids into the newest school, in the "better" part of town is the best idea, but I tend to disagree. I grew up in a town where 5 grade schools went into the high school, and we were all classified by our peers if not the faculty. And those kids who came from the "better" part of town or the "better" families were just as big of jerks as any other kid. If anything, I'd have to say they were worse because they were aware of their supposed position in our little society.

Anyway, so, time to start checking out the school a little bit more, see how the teachers are (they were supposedly hiring all new staff), and investigate the pilot program they are planning on starting this year for the kindergarten classes. I can't wait to get involved. : )

Tonight we have play rehearsal. It the first time we will run through the full show in one night. Ack, this could be a painfully long night. We will miss next week's rehearsals because of my class out of town, and then when we come back it is the week of dress rehearsals, and then the play. Yay!

Oh! I won tickets to the spring sports festival this weekend. It actually starts today with a women's tennis match. There is also baseball, softball, football, and other things. The tennis match is at 3:30 though, so I have to decide if I can leave early and go get Jack to go to it. Hmm. Better get some work done then.

Ack. People are getting the letters about school, and Jack hasn't gotten one. Another parent in the play said that her friend got one, but she didn't. She called the information center and found out that she is one of the 30 odd people out of nearly 700 who did not get one of their three choices. That was Monday. Now, it's Wednesday, and still no letter. I just called, but they didn't know the answer, so someone is having to call me back. I really hope he got into one of them. I don't want to have to analyze all the choices we have left again. This is no fun. Some "choice" program. You have a choice, we just won't give it to you. ; )

I went to New York. I didn't get lost. The Empire State Bldg took forever. More details? ; )

I got to LGA a bit early, made my way to the bus and subway, to the hotel no problems. I ended up getting my own room because Briel's was on the east side, and everything else was on the west side, so I figured it'd be easier. I went to the Empire State Bldg because I still had my ticket from August, but that took almost 2 hours because of lines. However, there were two women in front of me from Chicago, so we chit-chatted a bit. The two women in front of them were from England, and they also joined in the conversation. It was nice to pass the time being goofy with them. I mentioned our good friends from England that came to the PBP in February. I believe I described them as "some pretty crazy gals." And I received lots of nods and laughs from the English women. I also questioned them on tea time. They whole-heartedly agreed (and chuckled) about "nice people" have tea at 4pm. : ) It was crazy. By the time I got back to my hotel, it was 6pm, which was when I was supposed to be meeting my other friends for dinner.

I got to the area around the Bitter End at 7:30pm. There was a bar crawl going on down there, and it seemed like a bunch of drunken spring breakers were all over the place. I found my NYC Bronzer friends though, and we headed to the Bitter End where I had already spied Briel and Erika (Cricket) in line. When we walked up, guess who else was there? Deb! I was like "No Way!" all pointing at her and everything. I said that Shelly would kick herself now for not making it when Deb was all secretive and made it. She's nuts. Said she called Briel an hour beforehand saying "Yeah, I think I'm just going to eat something and watch TV." Crazy.

Dogmeat claimed he wasn't going, but he bought a ticket anyway. Mazzy, Marsgirl, Dogmeat, SpikeLuva, Yefa, Marlena were the NYCB people there that I knew. Cricket was there with Hollyn, OzLady (Wendy), and a few others I didn't know. Ingrid was there from last time, who is part of the JMConAps group. Brenda and Vikki were there of course, and Maia from their group came and sat with me because their table was full. They had a couple other friends with them that I didn't know. And of course, I was with Deb, Briel, and Amy.

The place was packed, not even as big as the main floor space of the Whiskey it seemed like. The band members' families were there it seemed because of the grandmothers in attendance, but I couldn't tell you who was whose. The girl who played ahead of time was really good, Alison Breitman. Captain Genius was on for about an hour after her, and they were good! I was impressed enough that I will probably go buy their cd. Eric got on stage and did two songs with them. The second one was funny because it looked like he had a hard time remembering the words. Probably because he had only planned on doing one song. Goofy guys, but I enjoyed it. The singer reminded me of Green Day a bit, in his facial expressions if nothing else. They looked about James' age, lol. I just kept thinking as they were getting on stage: "So this is another one of those mid-life crisis bands everyone who doesn't like GOTR accuse James of having!"

Common Ro came on *I thought* a little after 10pm. I have the set list, but I left it at work. Eric opened with an acoustic song, "Heaven Help Me," that they recently put on the Union Maid off of the official CR site. Then, the rest of the band came on stage to "Did a Verse End." The acoustic exit song was "Love and Mercy." Adam did a very funny improv about George Bush, but I can't recall exactly how he set it up - I just remember him saying "All those things George Bushy says scare me." Another funny moment I liked was in "Oklahoma" when Adam got down on his knees and acted out the praying (hands together) and the Jesus line (arms up, waving hands like a revival).

The band members from Rainbow Trout (Jordan Katz-trumpet, Brian Kaplan-trombone, Aaron Wolfe-sax, and Jason Crosby-keyboard/violin) were awesome as usual sitting in. Their show was at midnight at Tobacco Road, but it didn't start until closer to 12:30. Briel, Deb, Amy, and I headed that way once CR was done and we had said some goodbyes. Vikki, Brenda, and Erika made their way there too with their respective groups. They were really good, but very loud too. We danced a bit, steered clear of the trippy dancer, and I gave in at 3am to head back to my hotel. I debated a bit on sleep or no sleep, but I figured 2 hours was better than none. Somehow it got to be 6am, then 7am, so I got up, made sure I had everything and hit the road. Being ever so crazed about missing my flight back, I of course made it early to the M60 stop and had to wait a good 15 minutes for the bus to get there. Even so, I was at the airport with a good hour or so before boarding time.

Plane ride = good nap time. Drive home = very pretty and warm. Got home, stopped moving = instant yearning for long, quality time with my bed. (Get out of the gutter people! )

I have pics.

That's as good of a summary as you will get from me for now because even with the 8-9 hours of sleep I got last night, that is still only 15 total since Thursday night, lol. I am still one tired puppy.

"Now I'm just a biiig fluffy pup-py." : )

I am home from my quick trip to NYC. A little too tired to write about it now, so I am heading to bed. Just wanted to say I am home safe and sound. Thanks Mom for letting Jack help paint the shed (even though it didn't get done) this weekend. : )

*peeks out from her .NET classes*

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't updated in a while. We've been very busy with my classes, life in general, and the play. By the end of the day, I am just plain tired! Hopefully, I will have a more detailed update here soon. : )

Wow. It keeps alternating between all out thunderstorms and sunny spells here today. Needless to say, I did not ride my bike in to work today. Plus, I had to bring in my laptop to install .NET on it. That would have been an interesting ride. ; )

It took about 4-5 hours, but it is all done. Hopefully it will be worth it, the classes will not put me to sleep, and the tests won't be as hard as everyone says.

Thank goodness it is Friday, even though I have no idea what we are going to do just yet. I am just glad the week is over. It really dragged on and on. Time to finish up a few more things before quitting time. : )

Yay! My bike is all tuned up, and I can ride to work again! I took Jack to school this morning, then left the car there and kept on to work with my bike. It was a bit breezy at times, but still felt nice to finally be riding again. We have play rehearsal tonight though. Next week is the first training class, and it's from 8-5 on the dot. I guess that means my biking days will be short for now. I don't want to be dropping Jack off at 7:30am and picking him up at 5:30pm. Ick.

That cold spell killed about 1/2 of one of my plants in the front. It was the biggest plant, so I guess that's why it got the worst of it. We may stop home tonight before play rehearsal, and I can try to take a look at it to see if there is anything I can do to bring it back a bit. I really hate driving all over town though. With all the trips to Rantoul for rehearsal, we are filling the tank more and more. The good thing though is that gas is down a little bit more today. It's all of $1.39/gal here now. Hard to believe it was up to $1.75/gal. Just cross my fingers that it doesn't go back up. : )