Music to my ears.

      It's been such a long time since I've posted anything, but I'm just going to jump right back in. I finished my semester at MCC's Red Mountain campus and now I have the summer to play catch up on other things. I made new friends, loved being a student and had fun learning again in a school environment. Overall, I was happy with how the semester turned out. I could not have done it without the support of Brian. Thank you, thank you. He joked all semester that he was dating a college girl. I do still feel like a girl on the inside, so I was always surprised when I was reminded in one way or another that I might not be as young as I think I am. I was mistaken for a teacher on my first day in the cafeteria when they were trying to point me to the teacher's lounge! I met some great "kids" in my classes who are impressive and then there are the slackers who don't know how lucky they are to be in school. So that kept me very busy on top of everything else. Happy to have summer here.

     Jon-Erik has been living in his own apartment with 1-2 other guys since January. It's fun when he drops by for a visit. He stopped by yesterday and said six words that are music to my ears, "Want to give me a haircut?" How about YES!!! I would love to. Let's go. Right now. Aside from the actual haircut, there are so many other nice things about this little ritual that goes way back for us. With just a few exceptions, I've always cut my kid's hair. When they were younger, they hated it. They thought it took SOOOOO long. "Are you done yet?!?" (Hey, I'm not a professional. I go at my own pace. Precision takes time.)

"Owww, you're digging!" 

"Hold your head straight or I'm going to take a chunk out and you're not going to like that."

"Sit tall like a giraffe, please. Almost done." 

"Just have to blend it."

"This is taking SOOOO long!!"

"We're almost done."

"Just think of how much money we're saving."

Sometimes I would threaten to take them to a real barber and for some reason that WAS a threat. I don't know why. I would have thought it would've been a treat for how much they complained about the job I was doing.

But now, it's different. They ask me for haircuts instead of the other way around and we get to talk and laugh and it's fun. I occasionally have to remind them to hold still or sit straight or explain that I'm almost done. So, when Jon-Erik asked me for a haircut yesterday, the haircut was the bonus, but the time we got to spend together was the real treat.  We tried out some different "looks" along the way to help build up my haircutting portfolio.

Shmansome! I'm a sucker for short hair.

More Scorpion fun at our house.

Well, some of the people at our house seem to have a thing for scorpions and we have plenty of them around should we want to play with them or even cook them and eat them. In fact they are so common that I don't even jump when I turn on the bathroom light at night AFTER I am already in there and find a scorpion on the floor not two feet from my own two feet. I simply look for the nearest weapon...in this case the spine of a very thick book, Uncle John's Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader.( It's a good read. I learned that Michael Jordan is afraid of swimming. It's loaded with lots of other interesting stuff like that, including: more than 90% of Egypt is desert. Betcha didn't know that?!) Then I say a quick good-bye and whack it so hard that it's outer shell separated from whatever was on the inside. They are very resilient, so a light tap is completely out of the question.

Another scorpion encounter...also in the dark:

The other night I came into the dark kitchen and saw a lone cereal bowl sitting on the counter. I peer inside, a little surprised to see a scorpion crawling around in there. I didn't feel entirely comfy with this, so I stuck it in the freezer. Apparently, they don't like the cold. I guess that's why you don't find scorpions in Minnesota.

Jon-Erik, likes them the most and will gladly take you scorpion hunting if you happen to be at our house after dark. All you need is a black light, a pair of tongs or tweezers and something to put them in:

I, personally, would never do this!

No Way!

The next thing that they did was cook and eat them. (You can find out how to do this on the internet, if you want to try this before scorpion season comes to a close) Barbeque sauce was the seasoning of choice. I DO like BBQ sauce, but not even that would entice me...but Adam was game...



It seemed like a good idea earlier.

He gave it a two thumbs up or maybe that's a, "I'm o.k., Mom." but I think one was probably enough. I did not hear him ask for seconds.