End of May to mid-June, A Big Whoohee and a Wahoo

Whew!

About mid-May I was really losing it. "It" being: my mind, my composure, my daughter...

Losing "it" takes a lot out of an old lady. Blogging became out of the question.

In a nutshell, this is how it mostly went down:

Third and youngest child, Fashionista, home educated from 1st through 12th grade, graduates with a small group of other home educated seniors, who know each other through involvement in an organization called PtC- a place where home schooled students can take a few courses for high school credit, to round out the academic program they are working on at home. Fash volunteers to be one of the student speakers at the ceremony. Mom mostly holds together, crying crocodile tears only during the part where the parents stand behind their child and place their hands on the child's shoulders, while one dad prays for the students, as the ceremony concludes.

Here she is standing by her display of "this is the stuff I did in class and my awards etc." Each graduate had such a table set up in the hallway outside the reception area. You see here some of her art and fashion designs, as well as a couple of monkeys from her huge collection. (Fash is off to college in the fall to study fashion merchandising and interior design)

After this, the rents (as Fash calls us) got really nutso fixing up the house, pool and surrounding property, for her upcoming graduation breakfast open house that was scheduled to take place in our garage- the garage that houses more junk than Carter has pills.

Though we weren't expecting any early morning swimmers, we feared someone would look out and see the cracked up with peeling paint pool, so fixing that became priority #1. I.T. spent two and 1/2 solid weeks in the empty pool, scraping, sanding, caulking and painting. I stood on deck and handed him tools, as needed- like the operating room nurse hands the surgeon the scalpel.

In the meantime, I had to do something about the window in the bathroom. I'd hung a tablecloth over it after we painted, but had never gotten around to finding a curtain or blind. I went with the faux stained glass decorative film covering. It provides complete privacy and makes us feel like we're showering in the Sistine Chapel.

We needed to spiff up the front of the house a bit. My lifesaving friend and neighbor recovered my sun-faded pillows for the porch swing, I.T. painted the service door to the garage, so it matched the front door (I painted it yellow about 8 years ago) and I planted a gob of flowers.

I.T. got that cement pond lookin' pretty darn good and trimmed the euonymus trees. I weeded around the pool and planted more flowers.

Two days before the party, the house and pool area were ready to roll, but this is what the garage looked like. And wouldn't you know it- the party was actually happenin' in the garage! Yes, I cried, while I.T. surveyed the situation- complete plan in mind, he assured me.

I thought, "you know what, if we just hang Fash's monkeys everywhere, we can cover most of the garage." So, we did that.

Then Fash made a display. It covered one whole wall! Yeah! Things were looking up.

Two nights before the party we said to ourselves, "We absolutely just cannot have this party without Pilgrim. Cannot." So I.T. stayed up all night searching for flight deals from California to here and back. We didn't tell Fash about it. The Thursday night before the Saturday morning party, sometime after midnight, after Fash had already gone to bed, Outside-the-Box delivered Pilgrim from the airport to our home and he went down into her room, as dangerous as it is to enter there, and surprised her. She thought she was dreaming.

At one in the morning, on June 4th, this is who I was feeding a meal to in my kitchen. I wish I could've frozen that moment in time, so that I could go back and revisit it often. But this picture will have to do. Man, I love these kids...

Holey Smokey, it's party day! Early in the morning my dad started using every trick he'd ever learned from the Food Network to help get these fruit bouquets out on the serving table in the garage. Yes, we actually got that garage in shape.

I only got pictures of the very first to arrive. After that I was too busy making monkey bread non-stop and talking to friends and relatives- about 150 of them! Here you can see people gathered around the serving table on the left, some monkeys hanging around, party lights and purple balloons for the college colors where Fash will attend and orange balloons, because orange is her favorite color. That's Fash with the orange thingamabobber in her hair.

Pilgrim reconnects with friends from church. It was so great having him here, since many friends and relatives were already planning to be here and were thus able to see him. We hadn't seen Pilgrim since Christmas. The lovely and talented girlfriend of Outside the Box helped me tremendously! Here she is just churning out the monkey bread- you do know what monkey bread is, right? Pillsbury doughboy rolls covered in cinnamon sugar, then drenched in butter and brown sugar and baked to sticky, sweet perfection. Nothing gluten-free, fat-free or healthy about it. Just pure deliciousness. Our neighbor and Fash's longtime friend also helped by making loads of monkey bread. Outside the Box made pancakes, french toast and sausage on a big griddle in the driveway and my mom baked up a few huge egg and ham casseroles. Juice. Coffee. WaLa- breakfast open house in the garage.

Party's over. These three remain. The greatest of these is LOVE!
Monday after the Saturday party Fash had to sign up for classes and attend orientation at the college- in Ohio. So, off we went. We checked out the actual dorm room where she will live next fall. I grin thinking of what Fash will be doing to this space.

All of Fash's wardrobe must fit into this closet. BAH HAA HAAAA!!! She will probably need to rent a storage shed off campus.

Yes, this is ancient history now. I would've posted it sooner. But somewhere between then and now our computer pooped out and I could not get on to blogger. It does feel good to be back. I hope I'll be a good girl and budget my time wisely between blogging and work and housework and cooking dinner. Now I'm off to read all of your blogs. I've missed that.