My son Drew is having a few friends spend the night at our house tonight.  They built a campfire on the lawn and then I called them in to eat some pizza.  They took a few slices of pizza downstairs to watch the Heismann trophy announcement on TV, then they came back upstairs to eat some more pizza.  And that is when the following conversation took place…

Drew – Let’s go back out to the fire.

Friend 1 – Why? What’s out at the fire?

Drew – The fire.

The other day I was driving Drew home from school and he related a bit of his personal philosophy to me…

“Sometimes when I am dreading something… like a cross country race or a test or something like that… I just tell myself, in two days, this will all be behind me.  Or in less than an hour, this will all be behind me…  And then I just zone out and stop worrying about it.”

In other news…

We sold our house.  In only two days time, we depart this sweet abode, this house that we built -  our dream house for what I am referring to as “The Pink Nightmare House”.  Because the house we bought is pink and it is a nightmare.  If I ever start to post regularly again, it will involve mas mucho renovation.

In other, other news…

My husband quit his job.  The country doctor is the country doctor no more.  From now on he is the Emergency Room doctor in a town two hours away.  He took a job wherein he works two 24 hour shifts a week.  No more call, dictation, nursing homes, or middle of the night trips in to the local ER.  It’s a big change for our family especially now as he is currently working both jobs which is making this whole move thing a bit tricky.  But we aim to get through it one day at a time.

In other, other, OTHER news…

Here are a few of Calder’s senior pictures.  They turned out beautifully thanks to Audra Downing, a photographer out of Kansas City.  She met us one late Sunday afternoon in downtown Lawrence, Kansas where we strolled the back alleys behind both sides of Massachusetts street finding some great back drops for his photos.

Way back last Spring Calder told me, “Mom, I DON’T want to take my senior photos in a wheat field!”  The wheat field is a popular motif around here and one that I think is very pretty, but Calder said he wanted an “urban” setting for his pictures and that’s how we ended up in Lawrence.  The photos are very Calder – and I suppose that is the whole point of senior pictures….

The one above is his mother’s favorite…

Or maybe this one!

To see a few more click here.

My son Drew was in the marching band this year. I finally had a reason to go to the high-school football games. I am afraid that I didn’t pay much attention to the actual game. Football has never penetrated much beyond the hair follicle level of my brain. I may have been somewhat irritating to the “serious fans” sitting around me as I chatted and laughed and generally paid zero attention to what was happening on the old grid iron when the players were doing whatever it is they do. But you better watch out during half time! If you dared to stand up in front of me to go get some popcorn or talk so loudly that I can’t hear my trumpeter playing the theme song from ET followed by a Lady Ga Ga medley, I would not hesitate to cut you!

My senior was a homecoming king candidate this year. I know, the whole thing is a pretty silly tradition. I don’t know why these kind of things continue to exist, but holy moly, did the candidates ever have a great day.

They got to ride around in golf carts in a parade and participate in a game day pep rally which had a “Hunger Games” theme. The candidates were the tributes. In the above pictures Calder is trying to make his partner candidate as white as possible.

Before the king candidates could begin to transform their partners, they had to find a backpack containing all the necessary “whitening” supplies somewhere in the gymnasium. As all the male candidates ran frantically around the gym trying to find the right backpacks, one of Calder’s friends yelled out from the stands, “Here Calder!” and threw a backpack down to him.

Calder yelled back, “Thanks!” and ran with the backpack over to his partner to begin to turn her as white as possible, but when he opened the backpack, he discovered that it was only full of books and homework! His friend had just thrown down his regular backpack! So Calder had to run around the gym again trying to find the right backpack. He found it pretty quickly and then he had to make up some serious time as the rest of the candidates had already gone to work.

As you can see…

Even with his late start he managed to win this round.

He applied great gusto to turning his partner all white (the poor girl!).

Who knew my super cautious, extremely tentative, tightly wound first born child could apply himself to a task with such gleeful abandon?!?!?

Calder did not win the title “Homecoming King”, but it was a really fun day for him.

One he is not likely to ever forget.

Ethan tried out for the school play this fall.  He has really caught the theater bug.  This will be his third show in less than a year.  He did a community Theater production of Guys and Dolls last Spring and over the Summer was “Linus” in You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.

He is currently working on The Outsiders in which he plays the role of “Soda Pop”.  He is my artist and my avid reader and my movie fan.  Of the six of us in this house, Ethan and I are the only ones who watch Netflix movies.  So Netflix has taken the viewing habits of Ethan which lean towards edgy comedians and action adventure films and all the episodes of Lost, with my tastes for a good English murder mystery that happens on a manicured estate replete with foggy garden and piles of tea cakes and as a result our suggestions tend to be darkly violent English comedies in which Maggie Smith and Judy Dench sit in a garden in big floppy hats while delicate tea cups sit perched in their blood drenched hands. You would not believe how many shows actually fit that weird little niche.

Here is Ethan after a band and vocal concert with an unidentified blond.

He ended up taking this blond and another Nordic blond foreign exchange student out for late night pancakes after this particular concert.

This whole theater/music thing seems to be working for him.

And this is Jack.

He played football this fall.

A game that after only a few seasons of play, I easily managed to dissuade my other (skinny, slow) boys from playing.

But I don’t know with this one…

He seems to love football much more than his brothers ever did.

I may have to resort of stronger tactics to change his mind.

He also refused to play the trumpet like I suggested and has taken up with the saxophone.

And after a short time of trying to convince him otherwise, I just backed off and let him do what he wanted.

Isn’t it interesting how we parent the younger kids so differently than the older ones?

Sometime in the middle of the summer an unusually wily chicken managed to slip away from her captors at a nearby hatchery and she took refuge at the Garden Center where I work. She was discovered sheltering from the heat of the sun underneath the perennial displays and almost at once a bug brigade was formed to collect fat caterpillars from the annuals and the tomato plants to fatten her up for our own designs…

Which were to create the most pampered chicken in the universe.

And though her beak had already been clipped and her feathers as well, she managed to grow plump and happy from the cracked corn and oyster shells with which the employees of the Garden Center supplemented her buggy diet.

And they decided to name her Lucky.

Lucky Clucky.

And every day, usually mid morning, she lays an egg under register one.

And then she is off again on her rounds…

To patrol the Garden Center grounds.

Until she is called back to the store.

Chicky Chicky Chicky!

And she will come a runnin’!

To find a delectable snack of tender worms or crunchy grasshoppers with her name on it.