Most of my friends say they go home to relax — get away from the hectic life of school (and parties) and go back to home sweet home where they don't have to do anything but party with a somewhat different group of friends. Apparently for me, it's the exact opposite: school seems laid back compared to home life. But don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining. I'm most relaxed when I'm so busy I haven't had a chance to sit down all day — which means last weekend was one of the best weekends I've had in a long time.

I think I can honestly say that more than half the weekend was spent with me in the car driving kids around to and fro from baseball/softball practices, games, dances, sleepovers, school, and the occasional (here meaning daily) trip to the grocery store to pick up dinners and/or restocking our mandatory supply of popsicles.

The rest of the time was spent walking our 135 lb. German Shepherd down by the river early in the morning and sitting at baseball games at fields in the middle of nowhere — the kinds of fields that make you feel as if it could be 50 years earlier; plain dirt fields surrounded by absolutely nothing but forests of dandelions and a group of kids with bubble gum, freckles, and baseball gloves. No fast food restaurants down the road, no highway on the other side of the backstop — just baseball in its finest.

The remaining hours of my weekend were spent at the Cincinnati Flower Show, setting up a container garden for judging with my mom (a process that took a little over 6 hours... ) and helping a friend master an Isuzu full of plants headed to restock his booth. So maybe I am a bit of a plant geek — there's a slight chance that anyone who spends more than six hours at a flower show might be labeled as such — but sitting there as the sun went down, more than halfway covered in dirt, looking across the lake at the Ferris Wheel already spinning in excitement for the next day's festivities, I could only think that sometimes a trip home — whether full of parties or popsicles — can be the perfect way to relax.

Posted by blonde_gardner at 10:44 PM | Permalink

All last winter I joked around sayin that I'd never be able to find a house I wanted by next year---that I'd just have to live in a cardboard box on the oval instead (I did find a house and will not be located in a cardboard box, for those of you who were wondering...).

Last night, however, as I was effectively not doing my spanish homework, I noticed my friend Adam standing in a roped off section of the south oval with a stack of cardboard boxes. Apparently a group of students participated in a "Shantytown" last night in order to bring student awareness to the homeless, making a video that they are later planning to show at local high schools in order to gain even more support.

One man seemed to disagree with the meaning of the night, claiming instead that the students were "mocking" the homeless. Personally, I think the students who participated are going to be very much more well aware as to the conditions homeless people have to deal with on a nightly basis. Any time I've had to sleep outside on a cold night---whether planned or not---I tend to remember.

Anyways, kudos to everyone who stopped by, and congrats to those who made it through the night! While I was there it seemed like everyone was having a blast---I at least had a lot of fun watchin my 6' 4" friend try to fit himself in his box for the night... and fun in the name of a good cause makes it all the more worthwhile.

Posted by blonde_gardner at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)