The one day of the year that hats are the thing and what do I do?

Stay home all day and not a hat once on my head. *fail*

Order graduations announcements in April.

Use the same company, after all, you just spent an hour uploading all those addresses.

I've spent a large portion of today thinking about humility - just not mine.

How does a person balance humility and a desire for... everything?

O Lord and Master of my life,
Take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust for power and idle talk.
Give rather the spirit of humility, patience and love for Your servants.
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my transgressions and not to judge my brother,
For blessed are you from ages to ages
Amen.

It's complicated, trying to resolve the walk of faith and the walk of self-faith.

Note to self: just because the kid is a junior doesn't mean he remembers that scholarships and financial aid have deadlines.

2nd note to self: Getting on top of the scholarship duties is a false dream. You will never be on top because there's always more to be done.

3rd note to self: Get extra copies of the tax forms. At least 2 extra per kid. Consider opening an account at Kinko's. Or FedEx. Or whatever they call themselves now.

4th note to self: When they say "tuition" that doesn't mean they've included room and board. However, getting $1000 per year for books is a godsend.

5th note to self and child: You will never again work for 4 hours or so for a $20,000 payout. Get over it. Just do it.

I should send myself this in an email every spring for the next 8 years.

My recent Facebook status posts:

The emus are missing from their pen. A roll of duct tape is missing from the cupboard. God help us all.

The march of the Emus is upon you. I would say run, but come on, they're Emus. There is NOTHING you can do.

The emu is my Patronus. I focus on thoughts of tribbles and the occasional eggplant involtini, and there it is.

Emus are emumerably emusing.

The probable authors of these posts?

The emus are missing from their pen. A roll of duct tape is missing from the cupboard. God help us all. ED

The march of the Emus is upon you. I would say run, but come on, they're Emus. There is NOTHING you can do. TaLL

The emu is my Patronus. I focus on thoughts of tribbles and the occasional eggplant involtini, and there it is. ED

Emus are emumerably emusing. TEO

Yes, my children are taking over my FB. I suspect D'Argo would be taking part, but he's living up near Cleveland for an engineering co-op this semester. If he were here, it would be all emus, all the time.

I love the whimsy my daughters show with their creativity, albeit in [technically] forbidden territory.

ED and I visited what we will now call the Southern University*. It's a moderately sized Catholic university that My Brother attended some 30 years ago. She applied to one school. One. While that's a bit eggs-in-one-basket, she was admitted. We had a few moments: as I understood, she needed at least a 30 on her ACT to get the financial aid package that might make it possible for her to go. She got the 30! Then, when we got the admittance letter, with a display stand, I began to worry. I had thought that the tuition was higher and I despaired... until I found out that I'd mistaken it by 50%. Yes, ED goes to the college of her choice this fall.

I will miss her emu comments.

TEO was the Sour Kangaroo in Suessical the Musical this spring. She was amazing. I have no idea how she learned to sing like a black gospel/soul singer, but she pulled it off. After literally weeks of costume issues, she was perfect. She was without a doubt the best singer up there. No bias here.

And because they might feel slighted if I fail to mention them - D'Argo and TaLL are both doing fairly well in the new worlds they live in. I mentioned that D'Argo is on his own this semester. He mentions that he's lonely, as he's across town (which in Cleveland terms is a half hour drive) from his college buddies and The Girlfriend. He's trying life without internet or tv, except what he has on DVDs or on his smartphone. I'm not sure how he's doing with that. He says he's incubating an online comic (and I know you're reading this, D'Argo, so GET TO WORK.) as well as the two comic strips he's doing for the campus newspaper. He and The Girlfriend won 2nd place in a national college comic strip competition this year. There's talent there. Now he needs to start working on it! Maybe once he gets wifi, we can Skype and plot.

TaLL is growing at a phenomenal rate. We figured that she would be the tallest of the girls and she's on track to do so. The growth chart was abandoned when the kids hit 5 feet tall, so at 5 foot 8 or 9 inches this week, she may be taller than TEO was at the same age (14). She's finishing up her last year of homeschooling with an online program that she's finally agreed isn't too bad. High school next year. Big changes for her, and for me.

What am I going to do?



*We will now refer to D'Argo's school as The Engineering University. That's not all it's known for, as it's the school attached to a significant (aka world-renowned) hospital. But D'Argo is in systems and controls engineering this week, so there you go.

No, that's not an exaggeration.



Only some 67 million hits on this one:



Confession: I saw the 2nd video first, but the original by Gotye is less attractive to me as a song - but I adore how the singers look like they could be Star Trek aliens. I love watching five people playing one instrument.

Walk Off The Earth kills me. Scalzi posted a link to their cover of Adele's Someone Like You with ukeleles that must be seen to be believed, and thus I backed my way into Gotye.

The creativity that the internet allows to be spread without the intermediary of a music company is wonderful.

You know that moment when you realize that something you'd hoped for - possibly, probably in vain - just came true?

You breathe.

Just now, I had that happen.

ED, at this very moment, is now able to go to the college of her choice.  I must have misunderstood what the projected tuition would be and ever since she got accepted, I've felt crunched up inside, fearing that I would have to say to her, "It's not possible."  Instead, I get to say, "You're good. We can do this."

I can breathe.  Now, thanks to my parents, some great scholarships and work study... she can too.  When you hear the whooping and hollering coming from Ohio, that'll be us, celebrating.

What a way to start Lent.

Just found this on another blog: http://gawker.com/5124184/?tag=television that apparently LJ has laid off nearly half of its employees.

How do I back up my blog?  It may be time.

I blame Dr. Phil for this - I found a way to watch the new season of Sherlock (BBC) by looking for clips on Youtube. Someone suggested a way to get a UK IP address and voila! Sherlock. Watson. Irene Adler.

Sheer genius. Every single time I thought "that's it" there was another twist.

Also - Leverage. Quite possibly the best season yet, and that's not just because I'm a shipper at heart. This season's managed to surprise me week after week. I know that the producer said he thought there were only 4 seasons in the series, but I'm delighted that they've managed to raise the bar. For Christmas, I got Season 1, to go with my Seasons 2 and 3. I await Season 4. And Season 5. And 6. And MORE CHAOS.

Compare that to House and Bones. No, wait, don't. There is no comparison.

Sadly, I await the final 8 episodes of In Plain Sight, a show I'm nearly obsessive over. I will freely admit to rewatching every ep on Netflix time after time. I speculate about the location of her father (undoubtedly in Witsec) and if they'll wind up that storyline. I worry that Mary and Marshall might have a night, which is far more than they should. I saw that there were calls for babies for IPS for filming - did she keep the baby?