Oh, hello world. I forgot how wonderful you were.

Saturday officially began my summer break.  I got up and mowed my lawn, got dirty, showered, worked a full day at the garden center, got dirty, showered, then had pizza, rum punch, strawberry shortcake and visited with the neighbors until 11pm.  It was wonderful.

Sunday I was brought tea in bed, the family made me breakfast, and we went out and used my garden center discount to buy plants.  We came home, dug about a bit in the dirt, got dirty, showered and then the family made me dinner and some more rum punch.  It was wonderful.

This morning I got up early, took the spud to school then came home and made all the phone calls, and responded to all the emails I was behind on, and read all the blogs I’ve barely looked at in weeks.  It was wonderful.

Amazing how wonderful life seems when you’re not buried under a mountain of homework.

Oh, and Sarsm:  I do want to participate in your challenge!  I just was way to busy to properly respond.  I’ll be making up my 101 list in the next few days!

Hope all my U.S. readers had as lovely a Mother’s Day yesterday as I did.

And, to everyone, a very Happy Monday.

Happy, happy, happy Monday.  A very happy, happy Monday to you!

Please excuse me if I seem a little giddy with the new found freedom.

Happy, happy, happy….

Just when you think you are eating the largest sh*t sandwich, life reminds you of why you need to keep going

Good things do sometimes come from hard work and dedication.

I just received a letter awarding me a very healthy scholarship.  It will cover 90% of my tuition for the next two years at the community college while I catch up my math skills and get some prerequisites for my Bachelors of Science degree out of the way.  As you might imagine, there was much euphoria and happy dancing.  I can’t believe my good luck.  I could cry for happiness for a change.

I wish to thank everyone who has sent me notes of encouragement, who have politely listened to me complain, and my professors who wrote me lovely letters of recommendation.  I apologize to the spud for being a homework orphan.  And I especially wish to apologize and thank Leif.   It can’t be easy living with a crazy lady like me.  But, if we’ve made it this far, we can make it the full 9 yards.

Please, dear blog friends, share my joy.  Life does reward us for being decent human beings.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a grown up, but then it’s harder to be seven

So the new job wanted me to start just as finals week arrived.  No rest for the wicked I’m afraid.  The job isn’t terribly hard, but in just two days I’ve already been reminded why I’m going to school:  to not have to work a minimum wage job.  Most of the people working there don’t work for money, they work for the discount, which is 40%.  Nice if you want to spend your whole paycheck on plants, but for those of use who have to pay bills, it’s not much consolation for a laughably miniscule paycheck.  Well, unless you actually enjoy standing on a blacktop parking lot all day in the rainy drizzle watering plants with water that is barely 50 degrees F (for my Celsius using friends that’s roughly 10 degrees C).  Because for the last 3 years I’ve spent 90% percent of my day sitting either at a desk or in a car, my feet and knees are quite unhappy.  Though spring is here, it’s still not really warm on a daily basis, and as customers tend not to shop on days with 20 mile an hour winds and spitting drizzle, so it’s been pretty dull.  But it is an honest living, and the other employees so far seem like good people.  Once my woefully neglected body toughens up I’ll likely be fine.  Until then, hello prescription muscle relaxers and Aleve!

However, my sad story is nothing compared to the misery the poor Spud has suffered this weekend.  Her balloon broke last night.

This wasn’t just any balloon, but a humongous purple number with stars on it that she payed way too much for with her own chore money at the circus yesterday.  The highly anticipated circus was wonderful.  We all had a great time.  The Spud even got to ride an elephant!  Happiness is a big purple balloon and an elephant ride at the circus.  So it was rather heart breaking when her much loved circus souvenir broke just 6 hours after getting home.  Sometimes, when your balloon pops, it’s hard to be seven.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And, I’d like to thank my neighbor’s cousin twice removed’s dog, and that weirdo who was doing street magic on the corner in the Big City last weekend who almost caused 3 separate traffic accidents…

Oooh!  I love you all!  Thank you so much!

Seriously.

I have been nominated for the Liebster Blog Award courtesty of Jess at Scratching to Escape. 

Now I know a lot of you think these blog awards are just the blogosphere version of chain letters, but I have to say, they are fun, and being acknowledged by Jess, who has some great material on his blog, is quite an honor, if for no other reason than in the six months or so while he’s been blogging he’s accumulated over 14,500 hits and in the year and a half that I’ve been at this blog home I’ve only just this month hit 4000.  Obviously, he’s a blogger who’s doing something right.  Or maybe it’s just that everyone is just afraid of my lightning Super Powers.  You know, I love having super powers, but with great power comes great responsibility, hence I choose not to exercise my powers unless it’s a matter of life and death.  So there’s really no need to be a stranger.  Really.

Come on people I promise not to zap you even if you don’t LOL in the comments. Okay?

Any way, a big thanks for my nomination!  I understand that the idea is to in turn nominate 3 other small time bloggers.   I’m not too sure what exactly would constitute small time bloggers, but short of a spiffy algorithm like Jess has, I’ll just pick via the tried and true eeny-meeny-miney-moe fashion.  So, I nominate:

Laughykate, who’s blog always makes me laugh (perhaps that has something to do with her nom de plume?)

Sarsm, one of the newer blogs I’ve enjoyed stumbling upon, perhaps this award will cheer you up a bit from the flu doldrums.

And,last but not least:

Tinman, whom I nominate in reciprocity for once nominating me for a blog award.  Plus, he has great material on his blog and has better drawing skills than he gives himself credit for.

Happy Liebster Blog Award Nominations!

Since last Monday’s post, Janie’s been thinking a lot about just how great it is to have you all as blog friends.  It’s amazing how people who live so far away, whom you’ve never even met face to face and likely never will, can have such a positive influence on one’s life.  Your comments and visits to my blog to share my laughter and pain, to give comfort and encouragement is very, very much appreciated.

 

Thank you everyone!

 

You all da bomb!  Hope you all have a wonderful week!

No rest for the wicked-please pass the fish heads…

A very happy Sunday to all my blog friends.

Yesterday was a very busy day at the Jones household.  It was shopping day.  About every 3 months or so we do the uber-stock-up shop and then for the next several months we can slack off a bit only needing to buy perishables.  While it can be a bit of a hassle, we drove into the big city to shop at some “real” stores and visited with a friend afterward so it’s not all misery and drudgery.  The consequence of said shopping excursion is not only a nice fat larder, but I enjoyed myself a bit too much, got home way late and did no homework yesterday.

So, today, instead of having fun blogging about all the fun I had yesterday I have to do a lot of homework and help the spud with her homework.  However, it’s not all bad news for Janie today.  After just lamenting my lack of Swedish Fish, I was able to procure the multi-flavored fish at the monster grocery store in the Big City.  SCORE!!!  Now, with a ginormous bag of fish at my side, that homework doesn’t seem so bad.