How's THIS for some random stuff?

This is my final week at work, which also coincides with a massive yardwork initiative and my best friend's homecoming trip and the planning of my sister's wedding shower. So I'm really glad the city has chosen this particular week to tear up our intersection. Because I don't have enough chaos in my life right now.

Please ignore the giant dandelions in my yard. I do!

Here are the shower invitations my Mom and I made. I heart them! We're throwing her a tea party shower, and it will be all classy and refined. Crustless teeny sandwiches, dainty napkins, nary a box of wine in sight. No wonder my sister ixnayed my game suggestion: toilet plunger between-the-knees races.

I bought the raw materials at a nearby crafty-type store. The cashier was a sweet young woman, maybe 19 or 20, with wholesome freckles and an all-American smile. She also had a tattoo of the word "Live" on her inner wrist, which made me pause...when I looked more closely I saw old scars scratched up and down the same arm. I left the store somewhat shook-up. I hope she knows it will be okay one day. Or maybe it won't be. Either way, "Live" is a pretty good motto.

And now to lighten the mood, some more gratuitous nephew photos. What could cleanse the emotional palate better than a toddler in a "dump truck" shirt with a quilted block on his head?

How about the same toddler draped in a lady's shawl?

There. I totally feel better. Don't you?

Thank you to my sister's fiance's lovely family for hosting my best friend and I (parasites that we are) this weekend. We went to the Green Festival in Chicago, where we discovered that we were major free sample whores. And that walking five miles in thin flip-flops is a poor decision. And that no matter how many times I walk by a homeless person and don't have spare change, I will always feel guilty.