Handsome Fellow
Here is a toad that Jack rescued from the lawn mower and from the cats. We thought he (the toad) was unusually cute and I wanted to finish up a roll of film, so we photographed him before we turned him loose into the creek.

Mother's Day USA
I got some really nice gifts from my family this year.
Jack commuted all the way into Omaha to get me two floral scented candles: lily of the valley and Victorian Rose.
Randy got me two movies: A Prairie Home Companion and Where the Heart Is. He also ordered the video Barbaro: America’s Horse, but it’s not here yet.
Emily got me a beautiful journal to write in. It’s leather bound and the front cover is a reproduction of Leonardo Da Vinci’s horse sketches. I love a brand new blank journal – it represents such potential!
A Prairie Home Companion is such a hoot. If you haven’t seen it yet, you really should. And I finally know what the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band looks like.

"Real Quick"
Since I’ve been working for Joani I’ve picked up a phrase that I need to eliminate from my vocabulary: “real quick.” As in, “I’m going to run into the grocery store real quick for some milk.” Or “I’m going to go do the bank run to Fremont real quick.” My mom used to say it once in a while, too. “I’m just going to sit down here for a ‘real quick’ nap,” she’d say and then be snoring in a matter of seconds. I had a lot of stuff to get done this afternoon, so I wanted the bank run to be “real quick” today, but of course, that couldn’t happen. It seemed the world was trying to teach me that there is no such thing as “real quick.” For starters, there was only one car ahead of me at the bank drive through, but I still ended up sitting there for 10 minutes. I sat behind the same car for another 5 minutes trying to make a left turn onto a busy four lane street. The Sonic burger joint at the edge of town is usually a “real quick” place to pull in for a “real quick” cup of afternoon coffee, but not today. I got behind someone who was apparently ordering for a group, because they handed out way more bags of food and trays of drinks than there were people in that pickup. Just when I’d think, “That will surely be the last one,” the window would open up again and out would come a couple more bags and trays. When it was finally my turn at the window, they greeted me with, “We had to put on a fresh pot. It will be just a few minutes.” So much for “real quick.”

“Real quick” in this life is either a lie or a fantasy. Come to think of it, it’s not even good grammar, is it?

Your turn
What did you get (or do) for Mother's Day?
What’s a phrase you use that turns out to be a lie or a fantasy?