the pool opened today. i was an early-riser and cleaned for a long time this morning, but we opened on schedule, and besides the horrendous wind, it was great to be back in my lifeguard chair.

one of the best things about my job is that i get to listen and observe children all day. i love to watch their little imaginations grow and prosper. they come up with the most fascinating ways to occupy themselves. for instance, i heard this today: "hey you guys, let's play matrix!" i never got to see what "playing matrix" is but i'm looking forward to it. also, since i took last summer off, i had forgotten how confrontation-friendly one has to be as a lifeguard. i was very out of practice for spending so much time with adults as of late, but it was so freeing calling kids down for splashing and picking on the "special" kids. i love being able to tell the kids what they're doing is mean and why it's mean, opposed to my adult-observing routine: watch, get disgusted, and remember to relate the instance to ian later so we can both shake our heads at the world.

i did get sun-burned today. i don't know how that happened when it was super-cloudy and only 75. oh well. maybe it's a windburn--much more likely. ˇ

last night we had a huge storm--tornadoes all over ne. it was crazy-wild, but the pool is now hideously dirty. my beautiful pool is full of dirt, leaves, and the water is this green-brown. i am terribly sad about all the work ahead of me for tomorrow. let's hope the water-vac works. also, i hope to never see another paint can, paint brush, or anything resembling the previous items ever again.

in other news, ab's a meanie, and shrek 2 is delightful..

everyone's home, and it's fabulous! ab got home last night and kate tonight, and i can't say how great it is. dad took all of us to a fancy restaurant in kearney tonight, and it was so wonderful. we were all laughy, the waiter loved us, and we got a dessert sent to us from a guy in the restaurant. i love these times.

abby achieved super-sister status today when she surprised me at the pool ready to clean out all the grossness from the bathrooms. she's the best. mom helped last night too. yay fam!

going to go read now. abby has me reading a book fit for the masses. oh my.

point of fact: pine-sol's stench lasts and lasts.

everytime i go somewhere different i get frustrated thinking, "why does it smell like pine-sol everywhere i go?!" it's me. i can't escape it. i'm sprouting branches.

we picked out the colors for the bathouse today. it will be a beautiful purple with splashes of pink. i love buying stuff and just charging it to the pool. cort and i get to axtell dressed in our dirtiest ;), ready to work with our new brushes and rollers; however, the bathouse is so disgustingly dirty we cannot even think of painting until some major cleaning is done. fun! fun! fun! that is monday's project. ick. knocking down birds' nests and throwing out dead toads will be thrilling.

it seems like half the state of nebraska is in a tornado or severe thunderstorm warning tonight. it's eerily dark for a bit before seven, and it's started hailing. chris and dad say it's the smallest hail they've ever seen, "it looks like sonic ice!" chris says. what a wonderful similie. sonic. yum.ˇ

so, today was exciting. the cat brought her four baby kittens fromby the bins to the deck, and they are adorable! chris and i named them paris, hector, cassandra, and polyxena. we're very proud of our little trojans.

i did so little today it was insane. i didn't even drive to town. but chris went on a walk with me after dark, and that was wonderful. it made me realize how perfect nebraska summers are. right now the sky is lit up with lightning. ahhh...@

i am now an official certified pool operator for the state of nebraska. go ahead and take a moment to ponder my glorious accomplishments. :)

this morning chris and i woke up bright and early, picked up cortney, and headed to the capital city for a day of shopping for them and a four-hour class/testing for me. the day was highlighted by dining in two of nebraska's treasures: runza and valentinos. it had been way too long. they need to expand to the southwest immediately.

we had to wait for abby to finish "being an adult" to have supper with us so we spent a long time in the nebraska bookstore where chris asked, "do you think i can get a huskers shirt here?" he was being cute. nebraska bookstore has everything huskers--even ice-scrapers. they even had hot new apparell since christmas, and i was tempted to buy errol a pink shirt i saw. but it had sparkles on it. are you ok with wearing a sparkling pink shirt, errol? ;)

it was a fun day and great to spend a lot of time with my two favorite class of 2004 graduates.t

what a change in scenery! i left tempe at one on saturday afternoon to head home to the prairie. i got here all in one piece after a near-accident in santa rosa and a four-hour nap in guymon, oklahoma. my intent was to surprise everyone at my little brother's graduation. what a success! the looks on my family's faces were priceless. my mother started to cry. precious emotional mom. it was strange to be back in mindy after so long, and it was great to see all my friends again--except i hated it that i could only speak to each one for thirty seconds because there was always another person saying, "i thought that was you! how's arizona?"

after a seventeen hour sleep i feel totally rejuvinated after my c. 1200 mile journey. i was eager to get to the pool today and start cleaning and painting, but when i opened the front door, i jumped right back into the house. wet sidewalk, wind, and rain. i don't know what the high was today, but it def. not pool weather.

kearney county is in a thunderstorm warning right now, and the sky is lit up with lightening and roaring with thunder. i wish i were feeling more creative because it's a perfect night to write a brillant short story. the problem is that the storm knocked out the satelite (yay TV!), and everyone went to bed before eleven. i'm lonely. no more screams down the hallways of best a3 to fill the silence. :(

my phone's not working out here so i apologize for any missed calls. i'm now going to try to make a dent in the laundry situation. still haven't unpacked the car...

nebraska love!

tomorrow at this time i'll be a very happy girl. only one more paper to write till the semester's end. i wonder if i think about it being done enough, it will magically appear... wouldn't that be nice. i wouldn't have to pay for printing.

tonight i had supper with my old roommate, ashley. check out her latest project:her latest project. we had a great time, but it made me sad because these suppers are so rare now. we used to see each other everyday and have so much fun, and now it's every couple of months. once a time of your life ends, it's impossible to recapture it.

orientation today was full of locals--all these scottsdale kids who were too good for the food that the program comes with. parents handed out $20 bills for their precious tylers and jessicas to go downstairs and get the "much better" cuizine from burger king and chick-fil-a. puko. i'm so excited to see them on campus next year!

things i like:
1. watching people at the computing commons.
2. seeing who tries to slide down the slippery floor of the computing commons.
3. going to taco bell with ian
4. the pretty white keyboard i'm using right now.
5. singin' in the rain
6. my residents. they made me card. a rather colorful one.
7. paul cook
8. only having one more paper to write
9. nice emails from nice cousins

things i don't like:
1. writing bad papers.
2. not being home
3. being forced to talk to people i don't know very well
4. not so good mornings--especially when they come too fast, like deadlines

the score is tied--5 to 5. are you at the edge of your seat? stay tuned. the night is young

i'm jet-lagged. it's 2.56 in the morning, and i feel like it should be 4.30 in the afternoon. who's with me? i blame it on arizona not observing daylight savings time.

i apologize for the lack of anne updates. my computer was sick but hopefully will be feeling better soon after an evening with ian, the sasser killer.

i will be home in two weeks, and i cannot wait. everytime i close my eyes i picture myself somewhere in my house that i haven't seen since the beginning of january. i'm reading in the sunroom or listening to my mom and sisters laugh at the kitchen table. i don't know how many mornings my sleep has been interrupted by the three of them being loud in the kitchen. for some reason, that interruption doesn't bother me as much as a duty call does... today my dad is planting soybeans, and i want to ride in the tractor with him. as my siblings can confirm, my father gives the best conversation when he's in the tractor or, even more so, in the combine. when he sits alone for 16 hours a day for weeks on end, any human contact is appreciated. even dad can only listen to stephen hawking's a brief history of time so many times. he talks about his dad, the markets, the last book he listened to, and my mom. i hope everyone has a version of tractor time with their dads.

getting a bit sad now--have a fantasically superior cinco de mayo.

hanna is my hero. she's massaging my shoulders. ahh. sarah hayden's a close second as she demonstrated a spectacular fall earlier this evening. oh, fun duty nights at the desk.