Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

Well I made it back home yesterday around 5:30pm last night.
I had to make a stop in Berwick PA to the Grocery Outlet and get some grocery deals....since I was driving right by it practically.

I had all this room left in the car now, since dropping off 35 bottles of beers in assorted sizes for my son in Pittsburgh and I knew Hubs did little, if any, grocery shopping while I was gone the last 16 days.

Please give me a few days before expecting me to start posting regularly again.
After all, I have tons of stuff to put away, a house to clean, a mountain of laundry to do(mostly MINE!), groceries to buy, meals to plan and eventually cook, blogs to get caught up on reading and a pile of digital photos from the trip to edit.....as well as my post-trip funk to get through.

Just a few things I need to attend to, right?

I will share this photo with y'all in the meantime--

This was Sonya Ann's attempt at a group "selfie" on the night before I blew outta Illinois.
Notice that her son and DH and I are IN(well parts of us are in) the photo and she is NOT.

Yah, she REALLY doesn't like having her picture took.......

Back as soon as I am able.
Talk quietly amongst yourselves until then.

Sluggy
 

School Photos or A Comb, My Kingdom for a Comb!

All you parents out there.....
You all know how annoying those school photos can be, right?

It's a production line of kids on Picture Day so the photographers are more concerned with getting all those photos snapped within the never long enough time frame they are given and not how the kids actually look in the photos.
It's quantity over quality, right?

The kids often look uncomfortable....because they ARE!lol
They are forced to pose unnaturally and the smiles are so fake and forced.
Blogging Buddy Mark did a piece on this very same subject yesterday over HERE.

And then the schools here started those Spring photos too.
You know, the set your kid brings home without you even knowing they took more that year!  The school/photography company figure if we give the kids a big fat envelope of photos with their sweet cherubic faces on them, the parents will not be able to resist keeping them and sending us a big fat check in return.
No thanks I say....one set of awkward poses and forced smiles is enough for my checkbook per year.

And I won't even get into the whole lame photography monopoly between the photo businesses and the school boards.

Since Daughter was a senior this year(which is a whole other way to drain your bank account with overpriced graduation photos, announcements and tchotchkes), we only had the one kid left doing the School Photo schtick.
So I filled out the order form for the smallest package they would allow and went up to the blood bank to sell some plasma so I could afford to write a check to send to school to pay for the pictures.lol

A couple of weeks go by and #2 son brings home his Freshman Year school photos.....the photos that we will keep to remember this special time in his life and cherish said photos forever.

And here is what we got for our money.....about 12 copies of this in various sizes......

Was there no adult there with a comb?....or enough sense to tell him to move his hair out of his eyes?
He is a teenager for gosh sakes....his brain is NOT always engaged!

This school feels comfortable reaching into my home and telling me what I can and can't do with my kid yet they can't tell him to get the hair out of his face for a photo?  Ooooh, that would be stepping on his rights.  We may damage his self-esteem!  And we can't have THAT!!
Puhleez......

Sluggy