Recently in Sheaness Category

I have no one thing in mind. So let's just see where this goes.

In Sheaness news, she seems to have stopped growing at just over the 5' 9" mark. And has inherited her dad's ability to ruin electronic devices at a rapid pace. Otherwise, she's mini-me. She knows it, and I know it, and it makes our relationship the greatest thing ever in my life.

We've talked about things - you know the things - since she was young. Now's she's a teen. And has a boyfriend. And will be driving within a year. The talks continue, and after all these years, I have to say, we're good at it. Boys, drugs, driving, peer pressure, tolerance, prioritization, trust, religion, being a good tipper.

Of course I liked her before this, but of her own accord she started liking Dave Matthews after their last album. I'd hear "Funny the Way It Is" playing in her room and just smile. Pretty soon she started asking to borrow my CDs, and now she knows which track numbers in the car are her favorites.

She took quite a liking to "Too Much." When she was little I would turn the volume down for the parts with bad words.

Now I turn it up.

And we laugh.

So speaking of Dave, the Atlanta show was awesome. Gov't Mule opened. They sang "Soulshine." It was wonderful.

On deck are the two shows at Wrigley in September, plus any others I can work into my schedule.

In other news, in the Twitter vs. Facebook thing, I have a definite preference for Twitter.

Maybe because there is less maintenance and admin involved.

But probably it's because of the fellow Dave Matthews Band fans there.

I don't have a care in the world about Twitter being occasionally unavailable. It happens. Demanding uptime and reliability from a free service seems a little self-indulgent to me anyway.

So I check Facebook every now and then, but TweetDeck stays open most of the time. One of these days I will get my Twitter feed back over there in the right-hand column. Probably not today.

Work continues to be primarily online. I have, in fact, denounced my road warrior title. I can't say I'm totally normal now, but I do shop for groceries, and drive my car to places other than the airport. I didn't mind at all my printer ink cartridges drying up from lack of printing boarding passes every week.

My house sits in the landing path of the airport, and several times a day, from my throne on the screened-in-porch I look up and a) wish them all safe travels, and b) give thanks for not being on that plane. Or any plane.

This week I'm learning an add-on application. Which is going to be easy in all regards. First, it's a relaunch of something we had years ago. Second, the application's function is something that is so ingrained in me that I don't even have to think about it. So all I got to do is learn the fields and actions. Third, it's self-paced. Best, like all the work I do at home, I do it from the porch, while watching the birds and other backyard creatures.

It's a real-life tweet deck.

It's a great thing that I have to look at my calendar to see when the last time I had to fly to work was. A couple of years ago, I thought the only thing that could make my already awesome job more awesome, would be if I could teach from home. Thanks to online training, I now get to teach from home more often than not.

Which means that on the days I work, I launch some software about 30 minutes before class starts, plug in a headset and microphone, and have a seat, usually at my table on the screened-in porch. When class is done, I close a browser window, take off my headset, and that's that.

There is no traffic either way, I don't have to worry about what I'm going to wear, and there is never a concern that the place I'm teaching at won't have coffee. Or half and half. Or a perfect view of a busy bird bath.

This also means that my wallet is lighter by three pieces of plastic - my Hertz President's Circle card, my Hilton VIP card, and my Delta Platinum Medallion card. I think that makes me officially not a road warrior anymore.

Twenty years seems like a good place to stop. So I totally got it when Dave Matthews announced the band was taking next summer off after touring for 20 years. My first thought when I saw the tweet was, "Well shit. They are probably beat." I certainly wasn't thinking, "Oh, woe is me." More like, "Let's get five shows in then this summer."

And let's make the last two shows in my home town, right before my birthday, at one of the greatest ball parks in the country. Please and thank you.

I don't give a rat's ass what the setlist is. As I said previously, DMB could play nothing but covers on broken instruments, and I'd stay for the whole show and be happy for the chance. It was a tweet, so I ran out of characters, but I could have added any number of other qualifiers. Fortunately there is a whole group of folks on Twitter that support and encourage my habit.

Obviously I haven't figured out how to get my tweets back here since the upgrade. Granted, it hasn't been my primary focus of late.

See, Sheaness has a boyfriend. I was laughing out loud to myself last night thinking about what the graph of Jalepeno's mileage B.B (before boyfriend) and since would look like. A near-vertical spike that has sustained itself at the top of the paper for a month.

Really, I couldn't be happier with her choice. He's setting a pretty high bar for future boyfriends, I have to say.

So Sheaness took a boat load of honors classes this year, her freshman year in high school.

And finished the year with all A's. And was Cadet of the Year in ROTC. And had the highest GPA of any freshman cadet. And was the color guard commander most of the year. And made a ton of friends. (Who know that if they have a question regarding Spanish, or military history, Sheaness will have the answer.)

We're calling it a success.

I don't know what I did in life to deserve her. But the other day, during one of our ice-cream chats, my 14 1/2 year old daughter looked me in the eye and said, "Mommy you have had a huge impact on my life."

Cried right into my ice cream. Tasted infinitely better with those few salty tears.

In other news, 40 days to Dave in DC. Still dateless. But I am confident Karma is on the clock.

I gave up on the Cupid thing. But kudos to people who have the fortitude to stick it out. Not for me.

Time now to get moving. Much to do today. Birthday to celebrate. Buttons to push. Dave tonight from Bonnaroo.

in the church of the porch of the queen this morning, I'm thankful.

For my incredible Sheaness.
For my beautiful family.
For Dave Matthews.
For vampires.

The forecast said only 20% but scattered thunderstorms were possible. I failed to notice the part where it said 100% humidity. And because I was sitting under my outdoor ceiling fan when I checked the weather I was a bit oblivious.

So I got out the mower and the bag and set off for the front yard. Made about three passes before I started to melt. Fortunately the amount of lawn in my front yard is small. And the city picks up absolutely anything one leaves at the curb, including grass and leaves, so dumping the bag is easy. Actually the whole thing is easy. Thirty minutes, maximum of four trips to dump the grass.

My brother built his wife a new sauna. Push mowing the yard I figure has much the same effect. Plus, despite my melting, I enjoy it.

And as long as the rain holds off, I will continue to enjoy my multitude of yard projects.

Plus, I got up early this morning and got five of my expense reports and my time sheet submitted. I feel like Rocky at the top of the steps when I hit SUBMIT that many times in a row. I don't know why I dread doing them so much when they are as easy as they are.

The sweat has stopped running down my face. For the moment anyway, I've stopped below the ceiling fan on the porch.

As I believe I mentioned on either Twitter or FB, I've got five weeks off starting this Friday. Three of those weeks are compliments of a sabbatical program at work, and two are regular vacation.

There's lots of sweat dripping in my near future.

And rock raking.

Somewhere in the very near future I need to learn enough Italian to get Shea and I around Rome.

We're still only at a third of our arbitrary budget.

Speaking of Sheaness.

Shea and I were out shopping tonight. She got some new socks. When we got back in the car, she was reading the materials in the socks. She read, "One percent Spandex." Then she stretched the socks out and said, "That seems like more than one percent."

I couldn't help but laugh.

"I'm going to write that one down," I said.

"Oh, no."

Still listening. Still sorting.

Have been on the verge of tears a few times. (In the best way. Sheaness does that to me sometimes.)

That hair. I miss that hair.

But that dimple will never go away.

And she's beautiful no matter what she does with her hair.

The first two pictures were from the summer of 2001. Shea said she wanted to go to the zoo. So we flew first class out to San Diego, just us two. Went to the zoo one day, and the wild animal park the next, then flew home the next.

Just because we could.

(The other two pictures were taken in the past six months.)

Going a bit further this time. I am beside myself with excitement at the thought of our upcoming adventure, just us two.

Still listening to Big Whiskey.

And sorting pictures.

Shea at five days old with her great grandfather. One of my all-time favorite pictures. For oh, so very many reasons.

I'm very proud of my daughter for finishing the school year with all A's, and being able to exempt three exams. I'm Mom to a high-schooler now.

Holy crap.

But in a great way.

In other news, I had left my Hilton Honors frequent guest account alone for somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 or 10 years. Finally got around to getting an account made online this morning, after one call to customer service.

Half a million points.

Cool.

So I used points to book hotels in Madrid and Berlin this summer. Still have to get rooms in Rome. But at the moment, we've got first-class round trip airfare, and 7 of 10 nights in 4 or 5 star hotels, and have spent 71 dollars and change.

Speaking of change, if I can't find a room in Rome with points, then I'll just pay for the room, and theoretically anyway, pay for it out of the change jar. Shea asked the other day if I knew how much I had in there.

"I know exactly how much is in there."

Pause.

"Four hundred and ninety dollars."

Any we don't spend on travel will be spent on other things. Lladros for Mommy. No telling what Sheaness will choose.

Big congratulations are also in order for my one and only niece who graduated from high school on Friday night.

Funny the way it is though. I don't feel old.

I just feel lucky.

I'm not exactly sure when the idea to go to Spain this year came about. But it seems to me it was last fall when Shea was bringing home 100s consistently in Spanish.

I wanted to go to Rome, and because (hide your eyes pumpkin) she had a crush on a guy from school with German heritage, she was interested in going there.

She started learning German.

Last week I booked the airplane tickets. Yesterday I set her to work finding hotels.

We/she converted US dollars to Euros, and I gave her the budget for the trip. And asked her to read the hotel reviews. She came up with five hotels in Berlin to choose from.

I asked her to do the same for Rome and Madrid, but she got distracted by her friend, and then by going over to her friend's house, so she stopped with the hotels in Berlin.

Seems she also distracted herself with the calligraphy Sharpies I got her. She left me the red one, with a note that said it was for me, she loves me, and she signed her name, with "aka: pumpkin."

Too cute.

Definitely my kid to be distracted by writing instruments.

At one point (she was on my computer) I asked her to open up another window, because it was tedious to watch the unnecessary shuffling. She said she couldn't. I asked why. She said it doesn't work with (whatever app she had open.)

I said yes it does.

She said no it doesn't.

I said I do it all the time. "You see that little e there? Click it."

She did, and voila a new window opened up.

One of these days she will remember what I do for a living.

"Thanks, Mom."

"You're welcome."

Thanks to her influence, we are spending virtually the exact same amount of time in each place. She did have a concern last week that Germany would be short-changed.

Then she asked me how my Italian was coming along. Not happy with my answer, she signed me up for the online course the same place she's been learning German.

Maybe I can just sing Con Te Partiro for my supper, so to speak.

Speaking of which, I can't find my Romanza CD.

And just a few more days to wait until Big Whiskey comes out.