The Tall and the Short of It

We're in the final stretch here for all school activities and school itself. Phew! What a busy month of May! Christian and Elliot both had big events on Friday. Elliot graduated from TUMC Preschool in Scottdale, PA and Christian had Freshman Fun Day at school. Yeah, about that. The school had scheduled this "fun" day and the kids were going to play softball all day. Softball. My son would rather stick pins in his eyes than play softball all day and so would his musically-gifted friends. So we, The Parents, decided that they could stay home from school and do something different. They went to see the new X-Men movie and hung out for the rest of the day having FUN. Can you imagine if the school had told the students they were going to spend the day watching musicals or jamming in the band room all day? I don't know why they didn't have more choices.

Elliot had a lovely graduation ceremony. Short, sweet and to the point. One of the best things about his preschool (which I have loved since Claire attended in 2002) is the simplicity of the school. It is very calm and the teachers are gentle and friendly. Here's the whole class.

Did you notice the boy with the mohawk in the front row. That's Billy. Great hair...it's often green, too. Elliot is circled for you. Here we are together.

And here are pictures of the watering cans I made for the teachers.

After graduation on Friday I went to New York City with my friend, Patty. It was totally spur of the moment. I found out Thursday night that she was going and had a place for me. I went with a whole bus tour from our church and town in November with Kate, and this time it was just five ladies in a van (sounds like a rock band). Patty goes to New York often to buy things for various fund-raisers or her gift shop. Most of what she sells goes to some charity or the church or someone in need...I don't know how she does it...she gives so much away. She and her husband Eugene are the two most generous people I have ever met. Case in point, I went to NYC with $20 of my own. Twenty dollars. Patty paid for everything else and gave me spending money, too. She thought I needed to get away! Everyone should have a Patty. I had a blast. I thought I died and went to purse heaven. We were in the wholesale district and went in a store that was all purses. I seriously couldn't breathe! I have a real thing for purses. These ranged in price from $.75 to $12.00. I bought about five and bought others along the way from vendors or other shops. It was amazing.

I still have the peanuts from someone's McDonalds sundae in my purse. We figured if we had the peanuts we could spend all our money and still have nourishment to make it home. As it turned out we had enough to have dinner at O'Reilly's Pub before leaving the city.

I am so blessed. Not because I get to go to New York and shop, but because my days are full of experiences I share with other people that I love...not just my family, but my friends, too. I can't possibly keep up to date with this blog because there is always something wonderful and interesting happening in my life. They're not always big things, but they're memorable and important...they're the stuff life is made of. Thank you, God for the madness in my life!