Just another week

 Not much to report this week. Last weekend Shona attended a convention for anime artists. She was going to go for one night, but it was cheaper to get a weekend pass, so she and her dad went Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. She had a wonderful time and met new friends. She got to listen to panelists who did voices for anime movies and TV shows, and panelists who taught her about perspective drawing. Every one of them she met personally told her that her art work is already beyond her years, but that she needs to get a degree in graphic design if she wants to work in the industry. She thought about it and has decided to drop out of chorus to take an art class in high school. I'm just happy that she has found her "thing" so early in life. I've never seen her so self-motivated as when she is engaged in this e-communications program. It does my mom heart good.

We also did mundane shopping this weekend, at Target among other places. Snapped these cute pictures while we were there.

 I still need to finish shopping for Easter and Shona's birthday, which happen during the same weekend. Yikes. To add a little pressure to the situation, Shona has asked if I would continue the tradition of doing an Easter-egg hunt for her to find her basket. I always did rhyming clues for her, but apparently they were too easy. This year she wants them to be tough clues, and she said they don't have to rhyme. So I guess I will continue this tradition another year.  Oh, who am I kidding? I bet she will still get this when she goes off to college.

It's spring break around here. I know because Shona is staying home and sleeping in until noon. I am jealous, I admit. I am also aware of spring break because my office is like a library. It is painfully quiet. The only excitement going on there is that we are doing a March Madness bean bag tournament. Instead of creating our own teams, we had to draw names. I got paired with a good player, because we have survived two rounds so far. OK, the first game I did score eight of our 21 points, so I was no slacker. Yesterday's game? I scored a whopping 1. Oh, well, there will be another opportunity sometime this week. As quiet as it is in my workplace, and as slow as my work is right now, I could probably get away with going to the hallway with the bean bags and brush up on my game. Maybe that's how I'll spend my afternoon tomorrow.

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated...

I was keeping up with my blog pretty well, and then my computer crashed. What we thought would be a quick fix at the store turned into sending it away for a couple of weeks and then being told it couldn't be fixed. In good news, it was still under warranty, so I got a new computer out of the deal. But getting one picked out and set up and getting everything up to speed again took longer than I anticipated. I suppose in other good news, my life is pretty dull, so I didn't miss posting many things. I haven't even taken many pictures. My life seems to be work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, then spend the weekends cleaning. It's a vicious cycle.

 At least Shona had some excitement. She was invited to a school dance by her boyfriend, who lives in the town we moved from. They gave us a date, and Shona and I went out shopping for a dress. Yes, a dress! She wanted one. I swear I didn't force her to buy a dress. The night of the dance, we texted to make sure it was still going on thanks to bad weather, and they swore the dance was still on. So up we went the 45 or so minutes it takes to get to their house and knocked on the door only to discover that the dance was not until the next night. We were pretty angry, considering we had been texting back and forth with the mom all afternoon. The next night, I was off to a dinner with a friend, so I couldn't see the girl off, but she dressed back up and her dad took her. This time the dance was on.

I think the best part was that Shona got to see all of her friends from middle school. She said they "swarmed" her and chatted the entire evening. Well, between dances that is. Yes, Shona actually danced. Or so she says. I don't have any actual proof of this, but she swears it's true. The girl wore a dress, so I'm willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to her. I'm glad she had such a great time and got to catch up with her friends.

We have also spent the last few weeks planning for and doing some early preparations for summer vacation. We have done Disney, we have done a few cruises, and we have done some driving tours of local places. What I really wanted was to just go to the beach. No exhausting days spent walking around a hot park. No days crammed with activity after activity and the noise of a party boat. I just want a vacation that doesn't make me feel like I need a vacation to rest when I return. Just once. Shona has a thing for hunting seashells, and she wanted to see Sanibel Island. Turns out John's mother was born not too far from there and has always wanted to go back. That started us talking about taking her with us to the beach. Then I added in how much my mother loves the beach, and from there it morphed into a family vacation with the grandmas. We searched until we found a condo rental that will work for all our needs, and finally put down a deposit on it when John was able to put in for time off for that part of the year. We also took the dogs in to make sure they are up to date on all health things before we board them for a week. Next up is buying plane tickets, which should happen in the next week or two. Then it will finally feel real.  Know what we are doing already? Planning for vacation 2016. John wants to take another cruise, but this time in the Mediterranean. Oy. That's going to take some planning. Stay tuned!