Happy Sunday!

Happy Weekend, even if it's almost over!

Yeah, I totally missed Weigh-in Wednesday but I'll probably have to make it a bi-weekly thing since on the 2nd & 4th Wednesday each month, I haul ass directly from WW to the VFW for that meeting, and I get home late enough that I am not about to sit down in front of the computer.  

I was down 1.1 lbs this week anyway.  Woot!

Speaking of the VFW - since I am going into my second year as the post surgeon (don't ask me what that means, since even the VFW bylaws are super vague) - they got me business cards!  And the leather card wallet is a gift from our new commander.  

I wonder when a good time would be to point out that the website is wrong?

You guys!  My first dance recital was last night!  

And I get the impression it went over really well since we could hear a lot of laughter from the audience.  

We didn't dress up Friday for dress rehearsal, but we still could hear the girls on the sides of the stage whooping & laughing for us.   Since I'd never been on stage before, I had no idea it was 10,000 degrees up there!  And Angel used to go out there multiple times??  She was in 11 dances one year, how did she not melt??

Well, here's 2/3 of us fabulous ladies.

Angel had already taken the pillows out of her butt here. The lady in the white gown (also her first year in dance) has a stuffed cat on her shoulder - she had several attached to her walker.  And the lady in blue has a purple feather boa, and her walker was wrapped in one, too.  Our teacher Meghan had a red skirt on & sparkly jacket, gold sequin fanny pack & gray wig.  Jamie the kind-of co-teacher had on an obnoxious purple dress with a padded butt & boob area. 

I was pretty proud that I remembered during rehearsal that I was looking down a lot, so I made sure to keep my head up and smile / make faces. 

My only issue is that I hurt my knee sometime during the third song.  Like something popped in it and I almost went down.  So I have to give a lot of credit to these competition girls who go on stage with injuries and manage not to show it.  I know Angel did more than once.  She said it's adrenaline.  

Randy had been at a buddy's house and was going to try to make it to see us - but I knew where he was and would have been more surprised if he HAD made it.  But he was at the school when we came out & had flowers for us & took us to dinner.  Guess he'll just have to wait until we got the DVD so he can see it!  We didn't bug anyone else in the family to go, since we just had the one dance (the Dancers Only Studio recital is no longer the Angela show!) but there were enough people in the audience that we knew to make it all worthwhile. 

Random photo of the local heron rookery.

Oh man - I just went back & was reading an older post - I never reported back on presenting the VFW scholarship check to the 2nd awardee!  Quick recap - a local WWII vet passed away back in 1995 and willed his estate to our post (which he was not a member of!) so they created a scholarship in his name and up to 3 local kids are randomly chosen for $1000.  The one kid was already in community college and was happy to get his check mailed to him, but the other asked to get his at his school's awards night.  

So this kid not only attended the regular local high school, he also was one of 40 (out of 75 kids) valedictorians at the math/science/technology super-smart kid school.  Luckily I was only able to make it to one of his awards nights so I went to the UCMST (most places call it STEM) one, which also happened to be their graduation banquet.  So I got a nice dinner out of the deal.

I was crazy nervous about getting up in front of people to speak, like knot-in-my-stomach-for-2-days-before nervous!  I kept telling myself that I wouldn't know anyone anyway (but I did know one kid - his sister danced with Angel for years and he himself even danced a couple years, too) and that this wasn't about me - it was about this particular student.  So I came up with a brief little speech with how the scholarship came about & realized too late that I didn't actually write the kid's name on my paper, only his initials - so I had to pull it from memory and hope I got it right.  So I said his name very slowly & dramatically.  I didn't stutter or say um, but my voice was oddly high pitched.  I could hear it & couldn't do a damn thing about it.   

So I managed to present it and not pee myself.  After I sat back down, this woman slid into the chair next to me and introduced herself as his mom and asked if I would be around afterward so they could take some pictures.  Apparently the boy's beloved (WWII vet) grandfather had passed away just a few days before I called to let him know he was drawn for the scholarship!  So it really meant a lot to them and that they felt it was a sign from grandpa.  Both his parents were in tears, so I felt honored to be there on behalf of the VFW for this particular family.   

Besides, even tho the awardees were chosen at random, I was really impressed with this kid's application and kinda hoped he would get it. He re-wrote the application to include every activity & club he belonged to and a description of what it was, and even added his hockey stats for the season! 

We dog-sat for my sister over Memorial Day weekend.  I sent her this artistic photo of Ranger on our patio. 

Daisy realizing the bedroom window was open and something was out in the yard. 

This month's first-Thursday meeting for the search & rescue team ended up being training at one of the sheriff's deputy's property.  The 3 of us who haven't done land navigation training yet teamed up with someone who has and were assigned a team #.  Then we were given a paper with directions and went to our beginning point (a pole in the hayfield marked with a letter).  The paper told us the setting for our compass and we had to figure out the number of paces we took and write down the next point.  We had to find the correct 6 poles and write them down.  Luckily I chose the right partner.  I was going to tag along with Tim, whose property it was.  But he admitted he wasn't the best for me to go with since he needed a serious refresher.  Nearby was JR heading out, so I went with him instead.  He was a good teacher!  He showed me how to use my compass and he'd let me get a heading first, then he would and we'd compare. And we completed our course correctly! 

It was a nice day to be outside training! 

So anyway.  Things will definitely be quieting down a bit for a while.  With dance being done for the season I have one more evening free each week.  I was hoping to get outside and work on a Halloween project today, but it was cool & drizzly most of the day.  But I don't know how much my knee would have let me done anyway.  

Randy had a nice Father's Day - Angel got him a t-shirt and a picture and I took him out to breakfast & we had BBQ chicken carry-out tonight.  

But that's about all I got for now. Hoping nobody had floated away or anything in all this rain we've been getting lately!