Tuesday, July 13, 2010

a most magnificent rainy day

Yesterday, it finally rained.
It's about time--the humidity has been unbearable.

This summer, I've become pretty dedicated to walking the puppies. One of them, Lulu, loves going for walks. She wags her tail the entire time, keeping her hears up and smelling absolutely everything on our path. The other one, Izzy, is completely disinterested in our walks. He keeps his tail down and refuses to socialize with other dogs/people walking/Lulu. He is hilarious. Too bad for Izzy, because these walks are not optional for the puppies. I personally love our walks.


Lulu on a mission. She's about to herd those ducks.

Lately though, it's been so sticky and hot out that we have to wait until almost 9 to head outside to walk. These means that my entire family has a chance to sit down and watch Jeopardy! together, which rules, because we are all such nerds. Which, if you ask me, is a pretty great way to be.


Halfway point of our walks

Anyway, it's been so hot out that I haven't even really been enjoying being outside. Some evenings I try to take my ukulele out to play in the sunshine, which is fun and summery, but usually I've just been sticking to the (fixed, b"h) air conditioning! But, since it rained today, I convinced the kiddos I babysit to play outside. Everyday, I say, guys, let's go play outside! Or, hey kids let's go do sidewalk chalk/swim/run around/play frisbee/etc but they never really want to. So yesterday when I told them to put on their bathing suits in a torrential downpour, they thought I was being facetious.

They were wrong.

After they looked at me like I was completely and totally insane, I went and put on my bathing suit and collected beach towels to put as close to the door as possible. Rain can be quite chilly, people. I wasn't about to freeze my tuchas off after playing in the rain. Slowly but surely the kiddos decided I was serious, and then we proceeded to have what might have been the most fun hour of the summer we've had together.

look closely, and you'll see a house upside down in those rain drops.

All just by playing outside [in the rain]. It was awesome.




Plus, rain makes everything look prettier. Everyone's grass has been fried looking, and flowers have basically given up lately. So now everything is refreshed and ready for what is supposed to be a 94 degree scorcher.




In other news: it's almost my birthday =)

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

summertime and life is sweet



proud buckeye family on the beach

I'm the worst blogger.
It turns out, that even with all my "free time" during the summer I'm still not really cranking out blogposts like I had hoped.
Oh well, you get what you get.

So it's July (YES I LOVE JULY) and I'm babysitting all summer.
But what, pray tell, have I been doing since treacherous finals week, besides not blogging?
Thanks for asking, inquisitive readers!

First I went on an epic family vacation. I have the funniest family on the face of the planet. Thank g-d I don't get embarrassed easily and instead am part of the hilarity, because otherwise these epic vacations would be epically humiliating instead of fun.



shoot, look at that super cute family.

After we got home from vacation, I continued with my awesome summer job.

Think about all of the things you like to do. Maybe you like to read, or watch movies, or go to the pool.

Now imagine getting paid to do those things.

Ka-chiiiiiing.


So I also bought a ukulele, which has been an incredibly fun and ridiculous new thing that I've been spending time on. I've really increased my repertoire lately--so far I'm up to nine or ten great songs that I can play almost from memory! Ukuleles are so easy to play and so summery and great!


just chillin' with the new uke...nbd.

Now that the siblings' baseball and softball seasons are winding down, it's just about time for me to stop wasting time and start studying for the GRE. Womp. But really I'd rather just read...so far this summer I've read 13 books! The Sookie Stackhouse novels were first--great beach read, btw, and now I'm finishing the third of the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson. Great books! Once I'm finished I'm planning on watching the Swedish versions of the movies.

What else...

OH I went to see fireworks (duh) and got some pretty cool shots with the D90. Win!



USA! USA! USA!

That's all I can think of right now but I'll try to keep this updated more regularly.