Your Everlasting Summer, You Can See It Fading Fast....

What a great week! Yes, it's been hot. Hot. HOT. Humid. SOOOOOO humid. 70% humidity and 90 degrees. It's like walking through chest-deep water, and your clothes are clammy and your hair is all drippy around your face and a trickle of sweat runs down your back and into your underpants and you drink and drink and drink but you hardly ever pee, because all of the liquid in your body is oozing out of your pores and never makes it to your bladder. 

Sounds like a great week, huh?

Well. It was. Here's how:

1. It was "move up" week for some of my preschoolers, when four of my nugs moved up to Pre-k and four babies moved up from Toddlers to my preschool room. It's bittersweet, but I can stop in and visit my big pre-k nugs any time, since they are just down the hall, and it's fun to see how quickly the new nugs go from baby to preschooler once they are in a bigger kid classroom.

2. I'm thankful for severe weather forecasts that did not come to fruition.

3. Air conditioning. I'm quite thankful for that.

4. Several weeks ago, my friend Becky (we met in MOMS Club when our kids were toddlers AND I had both of her kids when I taught pre-k) posted on Facebook that she had tickets to Steely Dan that she was not going to be able to use and were free to anyone who wanted them. Guess where my husband and I went Friday night?  I am sorry Becky couldn't use her tickets (which she bought two years ago and had been hanging onto after Covid caused it to be postponed), but I'm really, REALLY thankful that I saw her post! 

5. We had never been to the Walmart AMP before, only driving by it on our way to Fayetteville, but it's a really nice venue. Parking was plentiful and FREE, and as we were walking down the sidewalk in the direction of the amphitheater, we ran into our friends Kristie and Steve, who are not only from Joplin but who live a couple of blocks away from us. We even used to live on the same street, and Kristie and I worked together many years ago, and we had a great visit before the concert. I love small world encounters!

Strict rules about taking photos at the event
(or, rather, NOT taking them) per Steely Dan,
so rule follower that I am, we took this before
we went through the gates.

6. I learned about boozy milkshakes at the AMP, specifically, hot fudge and bourbon milkshakes.... 

7. After getting home late from Steely Dan (which was excellent, by the way), we got up early Saturday morning and drove to Kansas City. First thing on the agenda was attending the KC Pride parade. What a joyful event! I couldn't even complain about being hot, because there were drag queens in full make up and wearing outrageous shoes marching down the street.

Pride!

 

8. After the parade, we changed gears completely, and my daughter and I met my lifelong (as in since we were about 3 years old) friend Teresa at March For Our Lives. We also attended the first March For Our Lives together back in 2016, and as Teresa put it, it would be nice if we didn't have to keep rallying for gun law reform. May the horror at Uvalde elementary school be the last of its kind and we can be free of gun violence. May it be so.

We were positively melting.

9. Saturday evening, my husband and daughter declared themselves done with the great outdoors, but I took a leisurely walk down to the Country Club Plaza to buy a KC Pride t-shirt and people watch.

This sculpture used to be a fountain
and water trickled out of its nose. It
was located in front of Steve's Shoes,
where we went for my corrective
saddle oxfords....

The Hare Krishnas were
having a good time

In front of the fountain formerly known
as the JC Nichols fountain. He designed
the Country Club Plaza but was a horrible
racist and it took about a hundred years
for anyone to do anything about it.

10. Always on my thankful list is attending church in person at Community Christian Church, It always gives me comfort.

I hope you had a terrific week, too. because you deserve it!

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Ten Busy Things Of Thankful, More Or Less

When last we met, I had been so very, very busy that I had to do two weeks worth of thankfuls in one post.

Sooo, this week will have to be THREE weeks worth, but I PROMISE it won't be three times as long. Nobody likes me enough to read all that.

I made the commitment to do the A to Z Challenge, so part of the reason I have been too busy to take the time to write is that I have been working on my challenge posts. Okay, the writing has only taken place inside my head, but it's still preparation! 

We're getting into the busy time of year for preschool. Or maybe I should say "busiest" instead, because we're ALWAYS busy. It starts in mid-March with Big Wheel Day, an event where we set up the gym with centers to resemble a town, and the kids bring tricycles and big wheels and ride them on the "streets" of the town and visit the centers. For example, we have a bank (you get play money and a sucker), a grocery store (play grocery carts and empty food containers, such as cereal boxes and milk cartons, all cleaned and taped closed), a beauty shop, a tattoo parlor (before someone says it, of COURSE they're temporary ones), and a McDonald's. The McDonald's is a HUGE hit, because the kids pick up a pretend Happy Meal there: a "hamburger" made with a vanilla wafer bun, an oreo "burger" made from a spring Oreo (the kind with the yellow filling - cheese, get it?) and some red frosting (you guessed it - ketchup) and shoe string potatoes for the french fries. These Happy Meals are so well loved that we all have to take one home to our own kids, most of whom are graduates of the preschool. Here's one of those kids now:

Med School Boy's last Big Wheel Day
was 18 years ago....

A reporter from one of our local tv stations came to tape a segment about Big Wheel Day for that evening's news, and I was standing there, MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS, when he asked who was doing the interview, and the director said, "SHE is," pointing to me. This is how I had dressed that day, and believe me, it's not what I would have chosen had I known I was going to be interviewed:

I didn't want to see myself babbling on tv while wearing pigtails and, ironically, a Razorback hat, so I avoided the news all day. That evening, however, I got a text from a preschool mom telling me how excited her son was to see me on tv at Big Wheel Day on the news that evening. Ahh, my heart!

Got some spring going on around here! Hyacinths and daffodils have been up for a couple of weeks. The Bradford pears are blooming, the trees are budding and a few have baby leaves making an appearance, the tulips have thrown up bulging buds, and the grass is greening by the day. 

Anyone know who Chris Long is? You do?! Cool! For those of you who don't, he is a defensive end for the Philadelphia Eagles (you know, that team that won the Super Bowl this year); his dad is Howie Long, now a sports analyst for Fox Sports. I started following Chris Long on Twitter a few months ago because he's funny. The other day, he tweeted about Three Billboards in Ebbings, Missouri, and while I wouldn't ordinarily reply to a tweet from a celebrity, this one time, I did:

AND THEN THIS HAPPENED:

Rode that high for quite awhile.

This past week was Spring Break. Teachers LIVE for Spring Break, even part time preschool teachers (sometimes ESPECIALLY part time preschool teachers). My daughter and I road tripped to Nashville to spend part of the week with my best friend and her daughter. We ate entirely too much very good food and we talked and laughed more than you would think was possible. I wish Terri and I could tesser back and forth, because it's a hella long drive and we need to be able to spend more time together.

I have never been away from Nora Pearl that long before, and she was beside herself when I finally got home. 

The Med School Student came home for Spring Break as well (there's another thankful: all three of us, at three different schools in three different states, had spring break the EXACT SAME WEEK). The whole family took a quick trip to Kansas City to visit my brother and his wife. We visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum and saw the visiting Picasso exhibit and ate my favorite Kansas City pizza (and probably favorite pizza of all time). 

Saturday, my husband and I attended the March For Our Lives in Kansas City. It was FREAKING COLD, with 6,000+ in attendance, but what an uplifting, promising event! Two of my childhood friends were also in attendance, and thanks to the miracle called the interweb and me being next to the biggest tree in the entire park, we managed to find each other.

Dana (friends since we were 11) and
Teresa (friends since we were 4)

Initially, his reason for attending with me was
to make sure I didn't get arrested....

The A to Z Challenge starts ONE WEEK FROM TODAY. YIKES! Once again, I am doing a Pinterest Challenge theme, so feel free to send me interesting Pinterest pins you would like me to try to replicate. PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU! In spite of what I said in the first paragraph, I am woefully underprepared for the A to Z Challenge and need ideas! Nothing is too bizarre for me to consider! 


Linking up with Josie Two Shoes and Ten Things Of Thankful