I forgot to mention: I saw a snake yesterday while I was sweeping the leaves from the back walk! It was just a little guy (or girl), brown and squiggly. I have a feeling that very young snakes don't have all their clear markings yet, in which case it could have been a copperhead. It's entirely possible though that I'm making up the markings thing, in which case it was almost certainly some sort of garden snake. I'm really only thinking copperhead because of the three varieties of snake I've seen in this neighborhood--garter, black, copperhead--the latter is the only one that would ever be brown. Anyway. He wriggled out of sight when I disturbed his dead-leaf hiding place. 

Today after church we had a brunch of tenderloin steaks, salad, egg and mushroom casserole (all compliments of mom), and butterflied jumbo shrimp (still compliments of mom, but cooked by me). All were delicious. Chloe came down sick yesterday, and after brunch mom took her to the doctor, so I cleaned up the food and dishes. Just after I started the dishwasher, my uncle showed up for brunch. We had invited him but hadn't been sure whether he was coming, and then he was held up by an accident on his way over. So I made him a plate and we talked, and mom and Chloe joined in when they came home. Turns out that Chloe has strep. It's a very good thing that she was diagnosed when she was, because she'll barely have had her antibiotics in her system for 24 hours tomorrow night, when she's supposed to be in the dress rehearsal of her senior spring play. She's playing Touchstone in "As You Like It."

And here is my big news of the day: I cleaned my room. I was on the phone with Chris the whole time actually, mainly giving a running account of how the room-cleaning process was going, and it took me about two and a half hours. I found things that I had honestly thought lost forever: most notably, my notebook from last year. I was pretty ecstatic. Also random articles of clothing, shoes, books, book darts, letters, and so on. Though it sounds obvious that such would happen, it was actually a surprise. Usually my room doesn't get so bad that I lose things for months at a time, so usually when I finally get around to cleaning it I don't find anything of interest. So anyway, it was good.

I've been sitting here having my "dinner" of leftover shrimp and thinking about how bad it is of me to be wiping  my hands on my pants, as though I don't wipe shrimp juice on my pants/apron/napkin constantly at work. Ridiculous. Nevertheless, I need to do some laundry.


And now, pictures!

Of myself and Kelly, messing around, going to the park, attempting to make banana "ice cream," not necessarily in that order:

+ cocoa

Not exactly ice cream. More like banana flavored marshmallow cream. Oh well.

Kelly Is An Adult in the spray of the waterfall.

This poor mother goose was panting in the heat, and (I assume) unable to leave her eggs.

Maymont waterfall: at the source!

Kelly smells the flowers. (Okay I know I said "me and Kelly" but the fact is that Kelly takes pride in taking truly horrendous pictures of me, and those are not going on the internet if I have anything to do with it.)

New dishwasher: installed!

New dishwasher: loaded!

Easter daffodils and an egg I dyed yesterday: how exciting!

30 minutes into the cleaning of the room, and, sadly, after some significant improvement (this is post removal-of-massive-dirty-laundry-pile):

After the cleaning of the room:

Okay, I know that by normal standards, my room is still not particularly "clean." But you have to admit that there is a significant difference. Now all I have to do is throw away two boxes of trash and wash two overflowing baskets of laundry! That, and find homes for all the stuff in/on the blue Laundry Basket Of Stuff.

And last, but not least, thrift store purchases.

shoes ($3!):

skirt and shoes:

I had a difficult time finding a way to take an even remotely satisfactory picture of skirt-being-worn, so I apologize for the odd angle. I also apologize for the graininess of 90% of my pictures. My flash setting devours my already short-lived battery.
The windbreaker and the athletic shorts are fairly nondescript, but are both blue, in case you were wondering.

The end.