755: Autumn's Gift

At around 2:00 in the morning, I stagger back into my home for the first time in weeks... Immediately I am overwhelmed with the absence of everything I left behind... It's all gone... The only thing left in the living room is an empty coffee table, resting on a perfectly clean carpet... No laptop, no piles of movies, no silver ware, no toasters, even the couch cushions are missing...

I just sigh as I put down my bags and think, well we needed a new couch anyway....

But no, upstairs is the rest of the joke...
Autumn cleaned the house from top to bottom, including removing all the wine stains from my carpet and doing all of my laundry... And then in an absolute haze I start opening the wrapping of all the gifts that are strewn across my bed.
In the end I got just what I wanted, even though they were mostly things I already owned...

It was cracking me up the whole time to one by one find all my favorite things... She wrapped my laptop, digital cameras, silver ware, toilet paper, tylenol, perfume, books, jewelry, toaster, cranberry pyrex, games, and even my wallet...

So in a funny way, it was a great way to look back and be thankful for the things I have had all along as well as the gift of having people in my life that take the time to crack me up at three in the morning and know what I needed most, which was a clean start to a new year and new purse to hide all the receipts.

Awesome thing to come home to, and I am still finding all the things she has meticulously hid around the house...

Post Office Beach

Blow Hole Beach

Iyan, Clinging on for Dear Life

The Crew

Big Wave

Dad

20 Shots of the Hat

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Catch a day at the beach while you still can...

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Day One

Corky in the Waves

Down at the Boat Dock

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Good times in crashing waves. This was just after corky selflessly took a wave to the face while holding my waterproof camera over her head to keep it from getting wet. Old habbits die hard, and it was way funny.

What I Do

This is me teaching a class of first graders how to podcast.

My day,
The usual... teachin the chillins, helping teachers do state testing, doing a district training downtown, doing video for a concert, getting ready for the next round of grading, cleaning the classroom, returning broken things, and helping to answer the range of questions that cross my way...

Let's Reminisce: Great Dinner Parties

This is that famous shot of a shameless water plug...
The spectacular meal consisted only of zucchini and potatoes... and high quality water...
That was my only contribution to the meal, and I took my job seriously... Pouring over 9 glasses and having an extra pitcher on hand just in case...
It was a pretty comical scene to view. And to top that off, I spent the entire meal pushing everyone to drink more to further validate my efforts...
At any rate, a good time had by all...

My Thanksgiving

I will fill this in later... Just got tired...
Getting so old.

Just a Reminder, lest we forget...

I haven't seen the floor in my room in some time, and was just making a visual confirmation that it does exist.

Would Love to Get in the Car Now...

Just like that this picture perfectly conveys that message...
Autumn's new car is just like the rest of us... a little quirky,
which entails crawling through the window since the door doesn't open.
I got that skill down to a science in no time, and it never struck me as odd..
It comes as second nature to Autumn as we reach each destination, she just pushes the button on her side to roll it down and waits for the latest passenger to make their escape before returning it to it's normal state.
Good times,
Reminds me of Squishy, which took quite the TLC as well..
Which reminds me of the best response to a very eager car salesman...
"So honey, what would it take to get you driving off the lot with a new car today?"
"Tripple-A and a Tow truck"
That was after evaluating my less than perfect credit and walking me over to the oldest manual car left in the parking lot.
The guy was not taking no for an answer, and insisted on driving me around for the test drive...
"Wow, this is really smooth..." (In reference to the gears I had no idea how to change)
"Uh huh... sure it is"
And for an encore in the next car he drove me to his house for the test drive...
That was a line I had never seen before...
We are driving around, and I ask where to go, thinking there was some sort of route in play here...
"Hop in the right lane", "Take a right at the light" (I was starting to feel like I was back at the DMV)
"Pull over here..."
"Where are we?"
"At my house..."
(My immediate thought was he hadn't really worked for the dealer and we had just stolen a car)
I mean come on! What the hell? Really?

Aquarium