The One That (almost) Got Away

This afternoon my friend and I were chillin at my house when my mom walks in.
"So, how good are your lizard catching skills?" She asks.
"Ma'am?" we answer, unable to think of a proper response to such a peculiar question.
"Well, see there's this lizard sitting on the windowsill in the living room. Can you [meaning my friend] catch him?"

And so began what was to become known as THE GREAT LIZARD HUNT. Sure that little green guy was only about 7 inches long from nose to tail but, let me tell you, could that bad boy run. After about 10 minutes or so of watching my poor friend unsuccessfully try to pick up, capture, or otherwise detain our uninvited guest I had a brilliant idea: why not just chase him out the back door?

"Ya!" I said, " While you chase him toward the door, I'll slip out and keep the dog outside."

It was a good plan and my mom and frustrated friend quickly agreed. So while they chased the lizard across our kitchen floor I opened the backdoor and grabbed for Doogle's collar, but before I could get a good grip on the dog,  the lizard was at the door too. Next thing we knew, there was no more lizard. In the blink of an eye, Doogle had snapped that bad boy up.

....all but the tail that is. No, that poor lizard's tail remained on our kitchen floor, in all it's reptilian glory, gently twitching back and forth. Now, I've seen a lot of nasty things in my time, but I can honestly say that that tail was probably one of the more disturbing and I will not be the least surprised when it becomes the subject of my nightmares in the next couple days.

Bleach-Died Tee

I've been in the process of cleaning up and clearing out my room. Part of that process included majorly downsizing my massive t-shirt collection. My first go to solution was to make a t-shirt quilt. While I've made some progress on this project (the squares are all cut) I'm beginning to doubt if I will have the time to complete it before the summer is over.  So, in the meantime, I decided to take a super comfy but bleach damaged shirt and make it wearable again by bleaching it some more, only this time with a little pizazz.

First I used duct tape to make a stripe pattern on both sides of the t-shirt.

Then I placed an old box we had lying around inside the shirt to keep the bleach from leaking through and spoiling the design,

 and sprayed the whole thing down with some diluted bleach.

Once everything dried, I removed the tape an to reveal the easiest tie-die ever.

 

Friday Morning Adventure

Last Friday my father announced that he and my mother would be driving down to Kemah to watch the space shuttle (replica) arrive in Clear Lake and it's new home at Space Center Houston and asked if I would like to join them. At first I was incredulous. "Why would we do that? It's not even the real thing." I said, but Dad's excitement was contagious and try as I might I couldn't maintain my attitude of indifference for long. Next thing I knew I found myself in the car with them on our way to view this spectacle. 


The day itself was perfect. Houston is usually miserably hot, but for some reason that day was simply delicious. One of those days where the sun and breeze work together in perfect harmony to ensure that you are happy as possible. And, because (in typical Oglesbee fashion) we were a couple hours early we had plenty of time to enjoy the sights and sounds of Kemah and just enjoy the day in general. 

When it was time for the shuttle to arrive, I was surprised by how interesting I found the whole process. Granted, I found watching the cost guard and other security boats do their thing to be considerably more interesting, but it was still a  pretty awesome sight to see something that huge floating down the channel before squeezing under the Kemah bridge.  

 

 

 All things considered, I'm really glad I went. It was fun to see the shuttle, but the best part was having the opportunity to hang out with my mom and dad. :)

Well That Was Unfortunate

I had every intention of blogging a lot this summer. I was going to tell you all about my adventures, make some craft tutorials (I mean I'm making this stuff anyway, might as well document the process, right?), and maybe even get a little philosophical.

[OBVIOUSLY I'm doing really great at that....not]

I've been home three weeks and have not written a THING. But, it's not entirely my fault! The reason for the "silence" as it were, has to do with a little incident that happened several months ago.  

You see, a couple months ago I was traveling with the choir on our annual tour. Most nights on this 5 day trip we stayed with host families which was actually quiet lovely. They were all delightfully charming people. The night this story occurred started out like all our other home stay experiences that trip. After our performance, our hostess picked us up at the church and we all piled into her new SUV and drove off. 

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***Side note***

The day before we left my econ teacher assigned some homework that was due before we got back. "Oh, just email it to me," she said. It was supposed to typed up anyway. So, like the good student that I am, I toted my computer onto the bus, did my work and emailed it. Simple.

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When we arrived at the house we all got out and prepared to unload all our stuff from the back of the car.  This shouldn't have been a problem except for the fact that is was one of those fancy self-opening doors, which I can see as being useful, but this one was SO SLOW. As I watched the hatch rise at this excruciatingly slow pace I saw into the future. I saw my backpack containing my computer sliding through the gradually widening crack and crashing to ground.

And, wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what happened. 

Granted, the damage could have been FAR worse and I was lucky. It still worked, but the corner was a little crunched: purely cosmetic, but super annoying.

I could have had it fixed back then, but I didn't want to be at school without a computer for the 3 weeks it would take to get it fixed. Instead, my friend Mark bent the corner back down with a pen and brute force so that it mostly closed.

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***Side Note***

It was terrifying: as I sat there listening to these awful cracking noises I just knew the whole thing was going to fall apart. It didn't. 

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That's all to say for the past few weeks I have been without a computer as I finally sent it off to be fixed. But hey it's back now and consequently so are the posts.