As the school year ends...

A year ago (actually, one day short of a year ago), I wrote a post titled 'As the school year ends...' well this is this year's version of the same post.

To get out of the truck in the school parking lot and be tackled by my best friend after being away in Indy for two months. To meet Josiah, Grace, Romey, Sean, Jonathan, Eric, and all the other amazing kids at Integrated Arts camp! They still inspire me! To go around the circle and share about ourselves. To carry books to and from the Alvina Krause - except I didn't get to carry any books because SOMEBODY wouldn't let me! To help the IA kids paint and act and create stories and make Mondalians and Fridalians. To play games with them! To SCARE people!

To go to Walker's house - I cannot adequately describe the nostalgia that place gives me. To watch 'Dinner for Schmucks'. To see Hayley laugh harder than I thought a person could. To ride home in Hayley's green 'stalker car'.

To walk down Main Street near midnight with Courtney, Meghan and Carlyn - actually, I was 'stalking' them. To see that guy light up a 'cigarette' in front of the courthouse and then follow us creepily for a block or so after we laughed at him. To be given the stare of death by one poor man who didn't get our joke. To go to the last pond party before everybody left. :(

To run three miles, four miles, five miles, six miles, seven miles, eight miles, nine miles. To lose thirty pounds. To meet Coach Smoliga and Coach Stevens, Beavis and Butthead. To 'be destroyed... and lose' - in an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent. ;-) To have fun on the bus - Courtney, remember the changing incident? ;-)

To fall in love with the music Faure, Chopin, Brahms, Grieg, Poulenc and Stravinsky.

To wash cars. To be 'Colby Mildrew' - the killer. To run all over creation being counter productive. To wash the ALERO! To go to Balzanos. Pizza, pizza, pizza... I love pizza. "Um... um... oh wait - come back! I changed my mind! Ummm..."

To spend more time at the student council stand than probably any other student council member in history at the fair. To get some lovely new CDs. To 'click, click, click'. To keep losing Mo because he could keep up. To drink Orange-aide. To sit on the steps of Carver Hall. To steal someone's scarf! To always forget to tell Coach Stevens that we met the guy who wants to 'put his Volkswagen in the river' or something like that!

To run Diamonds. To have second Thanksgiving at the Ball household with so many awesome people. Yum! :-)

To learn to sing. To sing at TreeFest and the elementary schools and SUNCOM. To sing at the Mall and for a fund-raising dinner.

To spend New Years in Jet Puff with my best friend. To go to see the Christmas Boulevard. To see the cute donkeys and the demented automated figures. To wonder where the heck Santa Clause was with our chips?! To have lots of other fun times in Jet Puff.

To be the very model of a modern major general, and to hate doing it. To look forward to nothing at play except Kelsey, because she makes me smile and laugh, and that's what I needed to get through the evening. To take pictures of us shaking our heads with faces and see how our faces would look at a given moment. To just want to sit at the piano without being bothered by everybody under the sun!!! To go to O.Y.E.T.D. for once and only. To yell at my twenty daughters to get in bed before the top of act two every show and dress rehearsal - they were up and out of bed way past their bed-time every night. To see my best friends steal the show. To dance with Ashley backstage during 'Catlike Tread' every single night. To sit in the copy room with Courtney for the entire cast party, lamenting our youths.

To get lost trying to find Southern Columbia High School - accept we drove right up to it and somehow managed not to see (where the hell were we looking??? hahaha). To see a show done very well. To be recognized. To go to the Chinese restaurant.

To wish I had listened to Courtney! Actually, track wasn't that bad... but it was nothing compared to XC.

To go to Indianapolis and see so many great friends, people who care about me even though they hardly know me. To see Randy, Father Les, Alan Davis, Charlie, Anna, Cait, Mr. Boles, Jake, and Joyce and lovely family. To be so disappointed when I DIDN'T get to see Marilyn Vargo!

To have Robert Fertitta come and play one of the greatest concerts I could ever have asked for. To laugh with the waitress at Harry's. To meet Darren for the first time.

To have dinner with the Susquehanna Valley chapter of the AGO - a wonderful group of people.

To have the Spring concert go so much better than any of us were expecting. To accompany everybody's favorite song with Latsha.

To learn the importance of humility, dedication, kindness, forgiveness, and love.