What's rounds on the ends and "hi" in the middle? Ohio!!

It's interesting to me that I seem to be incapable of titling an entry before I write it. I go into the "create a new post" part of the site and at the top is the title box, followed by the text box. So I automatically want to write the title first, which never works. By the time I finish writing and proof-reading (yes, contrary to popular belief, I do actually proof my posts...sometimes) the title is all wrong and I have to re-write it. So here I am, writing post number...10?...and I have finally caught on- write the title last. Check.

Custodial matter: I find it QUITE amusing that my all-time highest comment-gathering post was the one about prunes giving me diarrhea! HIL-arious! I HATE spelling diarrhea. What kind of a spelling is that, anyway? Are you TRYING to make us spell it wrong? Maybe it's French...French spelling is almost as ridiculous as English...

I'm home!! Oh, God bless the great state of O-hi-o! I write it that way because I think the phrase like that: "the great state of O-hi-o!" Today as I drove out of the bustling, asphalted chaos of the suburbs and into the lush, green farmland of Indiana, my little heart sighed. A sigh of joy. Yay for fields of corn! Yay for rolling farmland and cruise control because the traffic is light! Yay for guys with farmer tans and seed-corn baseball caps in old, well-loved, rusty pick-ups! Yay for flipping through the radio stations and every-other one being country music! I mean seriously; what's not to love about the country?

Yesterday I was sorting through the teachers' manuals at my job, and I happened to be working with the "exceptional student reports". Now, I would have thought that an exceptional student was one that excelled in academics. Au contraire, mon amie. At this particular school an exception student has ADHD or a speech impediment or had trouble focusing on the task at hand in 3rd grade. Anyway, lots of the students at the school seem to have been deemed 'exceptional' due to their asthma. Did you know that studies show that kids to grow up on farms and/or with pets have a lower incidence of asthma? It's amazing to me that the whole world hasn't moved to the country by now. These poor suburban kids! Their hyper-clean environments are crippling their own bodies! America, enough with the sanitization! Enough with the lysoling-to-death of our world! Dirt isn't all bad! Tolerance is key! (note: the spell-check doesn't recognise "sanitization" or "lysoling" as words. Can you believe it? Speaking of tolerance...)

Huh. Well, that was odd and passionate. Oddly passionate. As I was saying...I'm home for the weekend, and quite excited about my line-up of visitations! Tomorrow my dad's joining me for a road trip that will take me to visit all three of my grandparents and an aunt & uncle. Then in the afternoon I hope to visit some friends of the family, and my evening shall be a big, soft ball of Lima-friend game night fluff. Then Sunday it's off to Union Chapel, my favorite church family of all time, then a nice day-of-rest nap before I head to my brother's place (aka the house where I grew up) for a family dinner and swim-party.

Before I go I want to leave you with this thought. On Park Street in Glen Ellyn, between Roosevelt and Hill, there is a road that "t"s into Park that involves a stop sign for north-bound traffic on Park, but not for southbound. It's a two-way stop for three routes of traffic. There is no curve, or hill, or anything that inhibits visibility from either direction. There is very little traffic in general. Without a doubt, this stop sign is the most oddly-placed stop sign I've ever seen. Why is it there? Superfluous, I would call it. Definitively unnecessary. And confusing. Today I was headed south on Park, whipped through the intersection and as I passed a car that was stopped at the sign going the other way I had a moment of panic- DID I JUST RUN A STOP SIGN!?!? Nope. Just the weirdo "two-way stop".