My great niece who kept trying to take a nap in a roomful of people. She was folding back the rug and taking a couch pillow to get comfortable. Mallory was highly amused by this and Mason was just trying to get goofy in my photos.

My laptop, the one issued to me by the district for which I work, has finally decided to kick the bucket and ascend to that place in the sky landfill where computers go when they retire. While it’s a total inconvenience and the 15,000 pictuers I had on there are safely located on the external hard drive I bought last year, I am super sad about it. First, because I love MacBooks and cannot afford to purchase one for my own personal use and second, because I have to borrow the only other laptop in the house which belong to my sons. If there is a third it is this: the laptop on which I am currently writing is decidedly NOT an Apple product and Apple long ago lured with their sexy talk into their Den of Awesome and made me a believer. It was probably when Apple told me that I had a nice booty, a decent frontal load, and that, for a woman my age, my skin still looked fabulous and shiny and taut. Thanks a lot, Apple, for hitting me where it hurts.

Now you’re wondering why it took so long to get my stuff transferred onto my external hard drive but the most
simple explanation is that there is no good time to drop off my computer at the district computer services because I need it every single day. When they offered to set aside a whole day to get this done after school got out I took advantage of the opportunity.

You know what? Stop wondering about how and why I do things. It’s none of your business.

I’m doing that thing again where I’m talking to blog readers like they’re sitting right next to me and also like we’re really familiar. My apologies. It’s just that I haven’t even had 30 minutes to myself lately to bother committing to writing a full post. Often, lately, I’ve been having the same thought over and over: Is it too much to ask that I set aside some time to just write?

It has a lot to do with all the happenings going on in my life. There are so many new changes and events that a friend asked me when I was going to check into the mental hospital because people don’t take easily to this many stressful events. Coyly, I asked, “Oh? Like what? What big things do I have going on?” It was just an excuse to push her buttons. “So you don’t think negotiating a divorce, buying a house, changing jobs, having two sick parents, and having a child graduate high school are big things? I’ll be visiting you in the hospital, lady.” It has occurred to me in writing that sentence uttered by my friend that I haven’t bothered to explore, in writing, what’s going on with my current job and now really isn’t the time to delve into it but, at some point, I will.

For the time being, I will just share some pictures of events that have taken place in my life this month.

My dad, Mason, and Mallory on the first night in the new house. Dad, recovering from his heart attack, did the cooking and none of the moving of boxes. I’m so glad he’s got that good New Orleans cooking gene.

Just before Mallory came to sit on the couch with the two of them. They were having Man Talk Time and I was eavesdropping and using my phone to take some pictures. Does anyone else find it humorous that these two are blood related?

My mom and I found it rather comical and diverting that, while she took a trip to the ER, the number of this particular machine was “42″. Apparently, it is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Thanks Douglas Adams. I have not, however, found it comical that both of my parents have had heart issues lately. No. Not comical at all.

And finally, this is a picture of my great niece again. She has some amazing curls in her hair and when it comes out of the ponytail on top of her head this is what it does. I think we should all take a moment of silence for the magic and wonder of this hair.

There is no way I could make this up and I swear that I only did this ONE TIME, but I have finally closed comments on the Gain Review contest I had going on in conjunction with BlogHer and did the Random Generator to pick a number. You can probably guess what it was, can’t you? Of course you can.

It’s 42. So congratulations commenter number forty-two! I’ll be contacting you shortly and someday, when I truly am admitted to the Crazy Shack, you can probably find me in room 42 reading The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.