in which there are pictures and stuff

remember that time i said i went to charlottesville?  and we totally went to a winery?  vineyard?  whatever your word of choice is?  and i told you i had pictures of some ruins on the property, right?  well, here you totally go!

this is the first sight of said ruins upon approaching them.  if you look at the left hand corner you can see the chairs that were set up for the wedding that was supposed to take place shortly.

 apparently good ol' thomas jefferson designed this place for his buddy who owned this particular piece of land but who's name i can't remember....OH.  i got it.  barbour.  that was his name.  last name, obviously.  first name?  probably james.  it feels right.

 anyway, eventually it Burned Down in a Great Fire that was caused by candles on a christmas tree and this house has thusly become a Cautionary Tale.  perhaps this is why they never restored it, but built a whole new house next to it...i don't know.

 this was from the back.  yes it was.

 i really, really would have liked to walk around inside it, but it was (almost) completely fenced off.  part of the fence had been laid down on the ground in the front so as not to interrupt the wedding ceremony.  definitely crossed that there line.  definitely did NOT wander around inside said line.  nope.

and a view of the vineyard itself from the ruins.  quite lovely, really.

oh, i forgot to tell you....the best part of the whole trip?  the b&b we stayed at was a Former House of Ill Repute.  this was exciting for indeed i had never spent the night in a whorehouse before.  and the best part of it being a former whorehouse?  the people in the room next to us were honeymooners.  we felt it was QUITE appropriate.  :)

calvin and harry

this is my dad.  and me. 

  

i know what you're thinking.  who are those incredibly good looking people?  well, that just means you're not good at paying attention, because i just told you.  that be my father and i.

goodness.

anyway, you can forget about that for now.  because now i'm going to talk about myself.  and also harry.

i WOULD show you a picture of harry, but i can't really, because he isn't exactly...real.  i mean, i could show you this guy, 

more on him in a bit

or i could show you this guy,

no, he's not from glee.  i know nothing about glee.  i think i watched 4 episodes ever.  please don't try to talk to me about it.  please.

but really, none are quite right because they're both real people, outside of good ol' harry.

in case you haven't gotten it by now, i do, in fact, mean harry potter.

in my family, i am by far the biggest harry potter fan.  most of us read the books, and enjoyed them, but i'm (pretty much) the only one to watch a very potter musical, allllll of the potter puppet pal videos, and i'm CERTAINLY the only one who has, in fact, taken part in scholarly discussions about harry potter.  i have not convinced anyone else how awesome all of those things are.  well, mostly.

my father has been known to pull up potter puppet pal videos when bored.  which i believe is interesting because he's the only one who never read any of the books or watched any of the movies.*

his favorite?  

it's also my favorite.  mostly because i'm in full support of beach parties in london, and because i love harry's song.  my father also loves harry's song, even though this video is about 92% of what my father knows about harry potter.  this song is also why we're here right now.  my father was singing it tonight while we were all hanging out together, as a family.  following was the final version he came up with.

my name is harry potter i'm a hairy guy...

nananalala hair in my eye....

ahnanananana i was a baby......

POTTER POTTER POTTER POTTER!!!!**

......eh, i got the gist of it

and that is the relationship that my father and harry have.

*i do not watch the movies.  i saw the first two or three and managed to avoid the rest.  i hold LARGE grudges against daniel radcliffe and company, for they murdered the harry, ron, hermione, dumbledore, snape, etc that resided in my head, and i am still unable to forgive them for it.  i have also been able to hold onto my mental pictures of several lesser characters and settings by refusing to watch the movies.  this whole movies-killing-mental-pictures thing is why i am greatly opposed to books being made into movies.  it always ruins things for me.  always.  i could rant about this for MUCH longer, but i'll spare you.

**this part was, in fact, shouted.  yep.

this is kind of funny? mostly not really, i guess. sorry.

you guys.

this last week.....i did STUFF.

and some of it was even awesome!

FOR INSTANCE.

at this time last week my mother, sister, and i were loaded into my car headed down to spend the night with a couple friends of ours at a b&b in charlottesville, va.  friday night there consisted of Drinking Wine and Playing Apples to Apples, and was Much Fun.  saturday consisted of Awesome Breakfast, Farmer's Market, and General Wandering About, followed by a Trip to a Vineyard for a Wine Tasting and Tour, which was Also Awesome.  (i have pictures of some nifty ruins from the vineyard...whenever i get them loaded on my computer i'll show you some and tell you about them....for verily they were Awesome).

also preschool started this week.  it's been an interesting week.  the first day was short, which was kind of nice due to the cancelled meet the teacher, but was also kind of difficult because we HADN'T MET THE KIDS and had to jump right into everything, which is much easier, i suppose, for teachers of older grades. but preschool?  that ain't so awesome.

anyway.

our class is very boisterous and excited about life and enthusiastic about freaking EVERYTHING.  which is both awesome (they actually do stuff) and not awesome (LOUD).  i am not, at the end of the first week, sure how this year will go.  but!  go it will, and awesome it shall be (every year is Awesome in Its Own Way), and i will be desperately upset come may when they all leave me.  for this is how my life goes, and the life of every teacher.  you get a group of kids, you're all kind of awkward together for a bit while you get to know each other, eventually you get to know each other and while you come to love each other, you also come to reeeaaalllly need a margarita after school (that might just apply to teachers.....i don't know), and sometimes you reeeaaaalllllly want to throw things (again.......teachers only?).  but then eventually your year together ends, and you have to part ways, and it sucks all around (one little girl at the end of last year hugged me so hard and tight i had to tell her to let go because i couldn't breathe).  and then you have a summer apart to get over each other, and then you get a new group to love.

and really, that is simultaneously the best and worst part about what i do.  the number of kids i get to love.  because it's also the number of kids i have to let go eventually.

the Lord told noah....

there's gonna be a floody floody!

and it's gonna be in rachel's Basement!

and in her Church!

which means Preschool gets Cancelled for Tomorrow!

and also in Many Parking Lots, flooding Many Cars!

and also in Several Roads, preventing Ease of Travel!

and it's gonna come on the heels of School Starting!  which came on the heels of a Hurricane!  which came on the heels of an Earthquake!  which came on the heels of the Death of One of the Dogs of the boys she nannys!  which means that they've been especially delightful as of late!  because they've both got specTACular coping mechanisms!

well, actually, the older one has a pretty good coping mechanism....he likes to talk things through.  the younger one gets kinda.......EMOTIONAL.  but he's 6.  whaddya want?

ANYWAY.

i was pretty excited for tomorrow, for truly it is meet the teacher day at school and i was all ready to meet my class, and the room is all set up because we made sure to have toys and everything out this afternoon before we left so that we could come in as late as possible tomorrow and have as little to do  before the kids showed up as possible, and it was AWESOME.  the room looked great, we had a good assortment of stuff out, and i was all READY FOR SCHOOL.  then i find out school is cancelled because the playground flooded in on BOTH sides.  on the preschool side and the sunday school side.

apparently this is an inappropriate environment for small children.  who knew?

i mean, we still are starting up on monday for realz (well, "monday".....my class doesn't go on mondays, so tuesday for me) and so we get to meet our kids then, but still......i've been so looking forward to this.  i do not like summer for many reasons, and a large one of those reasons is my lack of a class.  but i suppose it's not so bad, tuesday's only a couple days away, and if i can last the last few months, i can TOTALLY make it until tuesday.

true.  story.  i'm kind of awesome like that.

have a preemptive apology. which i think is also known as a disclaimer? this is only kind of a disclaimer. i think preemptive apology is more accurate.

that's me.  in my mom's maid of honor dress from my aunt's first wedding.  when i was in high school.  i was being a fairy.  without wings.  also?  picniked the HANG out of this thing.  you probably can't tell.

so, i've never had a blog before, so i don't really know how i'm supposed to start this.  i mean, i've read SEVERAL, and i've got a goodly sized list that i follow, so i'm pretty down with the blogs, and i still do not have a handle on the Proper Way to Start a Blog.  

i have a feeling it's supposed to start however you want it to start, and it should be Unique, like You the Author are.  but quite frankly?  i'm not good at the beginning of ANYTHING.  ESPECIALLY written things.

true story.

every paper i've ever written has been super awesome strong for the WHOOOLLLLLLLEE body.  the introduction and conclusion?  SUCKTASTIC.  also every voicemail i've ever left and email i've ever sent.  they all start and end awkwardly!

perhaps i was an awkward baby (allegedly i was actually really stupid happy and laughed all the time, or so says my mother)?  it seems like it would have been fitting.  of course, that would mean i'd also have to die really awkwardly...nuts.  i don't think i know any awkward ways to die.....that's probably good.  but also means i'll probably be really surprised whenever my Imminent Awkward Fatal Accident occurs.

                                                            

                                                             

also good for you to know?  while i have had several educators of mine tell me otherwise, i have not in the past nor do i in the current (present, now, whatEVER) think of myself as a writer.  mostly i just ramble.  mostly incoherently.  i once took a lit class where the professor i guess thought i was brilliant and gave me nothing lower than a 94 in the course of the semester, despite the fact i never spent more than an hour on anything for her and rarely turned in anything i thought made any sense.

also when i talk i usually just let words come out and hope they all work together.  that's also pretty much how i'm gonna swing this thing, i  think.  it works a lot better for me.  it'll likely leave you slightly confused and questioning your sanity.  i think i'm okay with that.  

SO!  to wrap up!  me=somewhat awkward and rambly.  you=probably on something, or a good friend of mine, possibly both, or else i don't know why you're here.

.................yes