Funny thing

During the past week I was asked by a mother to babysit her children last night.  However, I had too much homework to do so I gave the job to my roommate, Jenna, who gladly accepted.  When Jenna came back she told me how one of the kids kept thinking that she was me.  I thought this was so funny.  I work on Sundays at the nursery and watch both of these kids in the morning and Jenna said that the little girl was so confused that she thought she (Jenna) was going to be working at the nursery instead of me.

This morning, I got to see how confused the little girl was for myself.  When I saw her she gave me a great big hug and said, "I missed you".  I foolishly thought that she was referring to my absence during babysitting the night before.  However, it became clear to me that she meant "I missed you since last night" when the little girl called me Miss Jenna instead of Miss Monica.  The saddest part is that she has known me for two years and Jenna and I don't look alike at all.  I feel so replaceable and disposable.*

Love,

Monica

*By the way, this is the little girl that says she loves me and gives me hugs just to get cookies.  And she tricks me every time.

Leaf Pile

The kids that I babysit every Thursday are wonderful.  They are 3, 5 and 10 and the four of us can get into a lot of trouble.  Today, they really wanted to play outside.  They are fortunate enough to live in a beautiful farm house on a lovely property with many, many trees.  This means that their yard and drive way and roof are all covered in leaves.  I casually suggested to them this evening that we build a leaf pile, thinking that it would burn off some of their energy.  The rest is history, however.  They built a great big leaf pile, one that was probably bigger than any one I ever built growing up.  For a couple of hours we took turns jumping into the pile, re-building it and burying each person under the leaves (we even buried Lulu, the pug-beagle mix, while she would sit still).  I think it is safe to say that we all had to take time to retrieve one or two leaves out of our shirts or even our pants after the fun.  

They were so cute and driven while building the pile that I wanted to take a picture of it.  Unfortunately I only had my cell phone and it was very dark at the time (if you look closely you can see the contour of the leaf pile, but it does a great job of disappearing into the leaves in the background).   

Cute video

18 seconds left

Tonight, instead of writing my end-of-semester report for honors (which I am avoiding still by writing in this here blog) I had an impulse to buy legos.  Ebay is my friend, but I usually have had to take the easy way out by using the Buy Now option in which one doesn't have to go through the bidding.  You see, my only experience with bidding ended badly.  Senior year I sold my dirt bike in order to buy a kayak (I was going through an adventurous, nature phase).  I had the highest bid up until the last few minutes in which I was pushed to my financial limit.  As a result, one single tear of combined sadness and relief (it would have been a gigantic purchase) was shed and I moved on with my life by avoiding ebay for good...or so everyone thought.

Back to the present:  I am now the proud owner of a 1500+ assortment of lego pieces.  As a bonus, I've been promised some large pieces, some rare pieces (like umbrellas, wheels and corner units), some minifigs*, and some Star Wars pieces.  But nothing can beat the free priority shipping that I will be reaping from this battle of double-clicks out of which I came so victoriously (and in the very last seconds too).  The seller, stumpy31, promises that it will ship in 2-3 days.  I'll post picturreeesss.  Get excited!

Meet Nate.  He is a lego master.

I am starting to notice a trend, though.  Everything that I became sick of around middle school (i.e. legos, gameboys, hamsters) and, as a result of my assumed maturity, sold or gave to my cousins/Goodwill, I am now slowly buying back through online marketplaces (this behavior is not saving me any cash).  I think I'm reverting back to my childhood or something 'cause I'm practically an adult now and all I can think about is competitively obtaining legos and gaming appliances! 

Love,

Monica

*I came away from this experience with some new knowledge.  Apparently the lego people are referred to as "minifigs" (I wouldn't get too involved with that link if I were you).  But if you were me, you would waste hours of your time with it.