When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroine

She was looking forward to summer vacation. Well, it's here! I don't have to go to the bus stop today! Raise the roof, y'all! I should point out that we have been up for less than an hour and I've already received my share of foot stomping, arm folding, and storming off. How long until Labor Day?

I finished the teacher gifts and gave them before realizing that I didn't photograph the cotton soap sachets. No worries. They're just little lace bags. No big whoop.

And I finished all the socks for the lady at church on Saturday and they were washed and blocked and went to mass with me on Sunday morning. And no, I've got no finished picture of those all done either. Have I become the worst kind of picture-taking slacker? I think it's possible.

I've been knitting. Like I said, I finished those socks. And I started on the sleeves of a pink baby sweater that will be for charity. And just for fun I knit a bib and a washcloth yesterday while sitting outside, carefully out of reach of the sun.

And can I just say how jazzed I am about my etsy sales lately? Yesterday I sold all of my little felted bowls. I had a lady from France inquire about shipping. I sold a wall hanging and a pair of mittens a few days ago. It's encouraging! Especially since I only have two craft fairs booked this summer. I'm really hoping this picks up the slack. It sure seems like I've been going to the post office an awful lot lately. It's a good thing.

I've also been working on stuff for the class reunion. I mentioned how excited I am for it, but I've also got stuff to do to help make it AWESOME. The committee brought me as a sort of creative guru. How'd they know?

I should clarify the word "committee" too, while I'm at it. It's such a highfalutin' word for what we do. Doesn't "reunion committee" bring to mind a picture of the peppiest, school spirit-infused gal who never quite left HS behind entirely running rough-shod over whatever dorks she could round up to command? Yeah, me too. But that's not us.

The committee is run this and every year by the President and Vice-President of our class. They were great class leaders then, and they are now. Mr. Prez. lives up the street from me, and his brother used to be married to my aunt. His niece and nephew are my first cousins. So suffice it to say that I've literally known him since birth. And the VP is the guy I've had a crush on since I was five. I'm not kidding either. I loved him then, and I love him now. *sigh* And how sweet is it that his son and the Bug are in the same grade? They'll most likely graduate together as well.

New to the committee this year is our friend Mark, another guy I've known since I was five. I never had a crush on him, though. He's been a great addition to the group because he's really good with calling people, sending emails, keeping databases and stuff like that. We'll call him the business manager of the committee. New too is Lisa, another person I've known since first grade. I almost forgot John. He was really nerdy in HS and is still very quiet, but it turns out he has a very dry sense of humor. I wish I'd known that twenty years ago. So far there's just one Canterbury kid on the committee, Polly.

I should clarify there too. Our school is a district made up of the towns of Belmont and Canterbury. The kids go to separate elementary schools through fourth grade and then they combine in fifth at the middle school. When we were in school, it happened in seventh, but whatever. And I can say that at least when we were there, there was no difference between the two. There might have been some sticking together when the Canterbury kids first came to Belmont, but I swear that by the time we graduated no one paid a bit of attention to it. It was a well-integrated district. (I think things have changed somewhat. Lots more money moving into Canterbury these days as compared to the rise in blue-collar families in Belmont which is making for some blending issues. I think. I hope I'm wrong. It'd be a shame.)

Anyway, Polly and I came to the party late because we're both busy on Mondays and that's when the committee has been meeting. And John too. We're supposed to be the creative ones. I've been busy writing a questionnaire to send out, and coming up with fun things to do. I think we're going to give awards, and I've got some funny ones, I think. And I've been scanning old pics into the computer to make a powerpoint presentation/slide show kind of thing. I've sent out emails for people to send me some old pics. No luck yet.

So this computer is fairly new. I didn't hook the old scanner to it when we got it because for some reason I couldn't figure out where to plug it in. Apparently that giant parallel port was under some sort of cloaking shield at the time. I needn't have bothered, since the drivers for my particular scanner aren't compatable with Windows XP.

I find this out after hooking the scanner up and trying to download a driver. No go.

So I go up to Bug's room and lug down the old, slow computer to the kitchen table. I can't find a grounded power cord so I have to shut down this computer and take one from the speakers. And the power cord to the cpu has gone missing as well, so I have to take one from this computer as well.

The good news is that the scanner works, and I was able to scan in gobs of pictures. The bad news is that I had to save them to floppy disks. There's no CD writer on that computer.

And there's no floppy disk reader on this one.

So I gave the disks to my sister who took them to work to transfer them from floppy to CD so that I can put them in this computer, use my photoshop magic on them, and then take them up to her house to put them together with powerpoint.

What could be simpler?

So, that's what's kept me busy. Now I have some shipping stuff to take care of, and then I should pay some attention to my kids.

It's summer vacation. Whee.