They used to call me Joey Bear . . .

Now it's "Joey the Kodiak (grrrr)"

Not really, of course, but it sounded like a very Jessyesque way to start my blogday post- and frankly she's my hero. Again, not really, but hey she feels good now. Well, if she ignores that last sentence. Well . . . moving on.

Last night we had our final meeting at our bookstudy. We're being moved to a saturday morning (*grumble/smile*). We've been with this same group for 2½ years so it was not so easy to be reassigned *oh-so-tiny-a-tear-drop*. But they had a "treat-night" send off for us which made Amanda and I feel good.

Cute story from last night: Meet Kira. She's the most intelligent and adorable 2 yr old you've ever met. So after bookstudy she's playing "bedtime" in her little cardboard house. I don't know why, but she loves this game. To play you set up a bed on the floor, lay down for 10 seconds, get up to readjust a pillow or blanket or stuffed animal; then repeat the process over and over again.
So I tucked her feet in and closed the cardboard doors, peeked through the gap and said "goodnight Kira." "Good night Joel," she says, then after a brief pause adds a cheery "love you." *sigh* My lil heart just melted.
Then, like any manly man would do when there's heart melting going on, I ran upstairs and between bites of cake and salsa (not mixed) told everybody AND their seconds cousins.

So, as long as I'm baring my soul, and telling my most appalling secrets . . . *shifty-eyes* I really, really think fireworks are the neatest thing since flush toilets. Actaully they predate flush toilets by a few millenia, but that wasn't the point.
The point is each year I thriftily venture forth on the 5 or 6th of July and buy up as many clearanced fireworks as i can possibly afford. Or rather as much as I can sneak past Amanda- "what in the world could that be?" Are you SHOCKED?

Ok enough with the soul baring, or bearing (hehe).

In the way of contests- it was apparent from the response to Beaner's blogday race that all you readers love contests- I offer this: The first person to identify what's wrong with the chess set in this photo, will get a cookie. Yes a real cookie, there's nothing metaphorical about "cookie"!! Can you spot it? Oh yeah- NO it's not Black's missing pawn ("Fievel, come home!")

Hope this finds you all having a fine day.

Roger Wilco . . . signing off.



P.S. Thank you Bean for letting me in on the fun. I hope the antics weren't too far out in left field.