and. . . let the rain begin

It looks like fall is officially here. You can tell because of the rain. Rain, rain, rain. Rain that seems to never end. Every blessed living day, rain. The rain is what keeps everything, and I mean everything, so mossy and green. I have never lived anywhere else where it gets so dark so soon and lasts so long. But such is life here in the beautiful northwest.

I made it through the first full week of school and I lost two students in the process. One is going to be home-schooled and the other is heading to Austria for professional tennis training. Yes, Austria as in small European country with famous boys' choir nestled in the hills alive with the sound of music on the other side of the pond. He's going to be trained by the national coaches there. (His parents are Romanian and they have friends in Austria with whom he's going to stay.) He's really, really good and his parents feel like they want to know that they've done the best they can to help him succeed. I imagine I'll probably see him at Wimbledon on the TV someday.

On Friday morning I was greeted with these. Aren't they pretty? There are so many different colors in them.

There's nothing cuter than a first grade boy bringing his teacher flowers. They kind of match the three new framed prints I got like two months ago but who's counting? for the dining room. The big blank empty wall needs something to pretty it up. I figure you can't go wrong with hydrangeas.

In other scrapworthy news, my online class for Me: the Abridged Version over at Big Picture Scrapbooking has begun. I got started with the prewriting project today, a little alphabet tag book. I didn't have to do much, print the pages and cut out the tags. I decorated the front and inked the edges. Now I can begin deciding what kinds of things I'm going to include in my album. My brain has been spinning all day with the possibilities.

b - berglandia; blogging; blue; buckeyes

c - christian matchmaker.com

h - hydrangeas

n - natural disasters; noxzema (actually, now that I think about it, that would be a good one to put under x); nicknames (see also schwen)

p - phil505; polka dots

s - schwen

t - tsunamis, as in fear of (see also natural disasters)

y - yankee candles

w - waterfalls

It's going to be a lot of writing, but I'm excited to get started. I still need to pick out my supplies.