Coracabana: Ohio

You guys, sometimes blogging is just too hard. There, I said it. Sometimes it seems like the only way I could ever possibly get done everything I want and need and have to do is if I had a Time Turner. AND severe insomnia. But I don’t have either one.

(Okay, fine. I do have a Time Turner. Happy? But that little f*cker has NEVER worked, thankyouverymuch. *grumble*)

(But I digress….)

The last several months have just simply been batsh*t crazy. What with the Ohio trip; the Washington trip; all the photo editing and organizing from the zillions of pictures I took on both trips; the court crap; the post-court crap (including a two-inch thick stack of receipts and coordinating papers I am presently getting ready to mail to comply with a post-court order—oy, please don’t ask); my eBay selling and all its required running back and forth to and from the post office; juggling all our various appointments and schedules; my quest to lose the weight I’ve put on since moving to Chicago; trying to help poor Wednesday through a very, VERY difficult emotional time (*sniffle*); and having JK Rowling publish a brand spankin’ new book in the middle of it all—*whew*—well, I guess the blog just kinda got lost in the chaos for awhile.

(There there, poor, neglected blog. Mama still loves you, I swear.)

To those of you who contacted me and Scope to ask if I am okay, thank you. I really do appreciate it. Yes, I’m fine. Frazzled and tired, but fine. However, the more time that has slipped through my blog-ignoring fingers, the more I started to worry how the hell I would ever catch up on what’s been going on the last few months….

Ummm….

Hmmm….

Nope, no clue….

And then suddenly—*BAM!*—it hit me like a phone in Naomi Campbell’s house: Project 365! I can tell you the whole whoppin’ tale in bits and pieces as I update my take-a-picture-a-day project! Yep. I’m still taking a picture every day, and I am only…. ohhhhhhhhhh…. four freaking months behind on posting it all here. So, before I get even MORE behind, here is another long, lonnnnnnnngggggggggg overdue update on this year’s Project 365 with little stories of what we have been up to along the way….

Day 161 (2012-06-09) ~ “Hey! That sculpture looks like sh*t!” Scope and I went for a quick walk along the North Shore Channel Trail on June 9th. While on the trail we spied this monstrosity, which I'm sure inspires many a poop joke.

Day 162 (2012-06-10) ~ Scope, Wednesday, and I celebrated an early Father's Day before hitting the road for Ohio. We went to the park for a picnic which was fun and relaxing.... until the evil pigeons showed up. *shudder*

Day 163 (2012-06-11) ~ I just shot a quickie of a patch of mini daisies I passed while on my way to the train station to meet up with Scope after work.

Day 164 (2012-06-12) ~ Another quickie of flowers. Oy. I know. Sorry! But, look, I posterized it to shake up the flow a little bit. That was nice of me, huh?

Day 165 (2012-06-13) ~ When Wednesday was little, I used to draw faces on her oranges. For no reason, really, but she LOVED it. As she got older, the habit died off, but this particular day I surprised her with one again, which made her giggle. Hey, even at 15 years old, an orange face is still awesome!

Day 166 (2012-06-14) ~ The 7th (I think….?) shot of my retro Strawberry Shortcake doll series. This is Lemon Meringue and she still smells incredible! Mmmmmmm.

Day 167 (2012-06-15) ~ This is a complete throwaway shot. (Duh.) We were hurriedly packing up our things for our vacation to Ohio and it dawned on me that I hadn't taken a picture yet that day, so I shot a super-quick snapshot of the messy scene in front of me and went right back to packing. Just pitiful. I know, I know. *hanging my head in shame*

Day 168 (2012-06-16) ~ Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to Ohio we go. This was the view somewhere in Indiana.

Day 169 (2012-06-17) ~ Our first full day in Ohio, we went to Ghostly Manor Thrill Center's haunted house (which was SPECTACULAR, by the way!!!!) This dragon was lurking outside the building when we arrived. CreeEEeeEEeepy.

Day 170 (2012-06-18) ~ Our 3rd day in Ohio, we went to Nickel Plate Beach where we saw this lanky bird slowly creeping through the water. He crept several yards out into the lake as if he was stealthily stalking something and then inexplicably just turned around and walked right back to the shore. Bizarre.

Day 171 (2012-06-19) ~ This was from our 4th day in Ohio where we took a boat cruise right past Cedar Point Amusement Park.

Day 172 (2012-06-20) ~ This was from our 5th day in Ohio when we toured the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and saw this massive moving puppet of the "teacher" in Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall" music video looking down on us.

Day 173 (2012-06-21) ~ This was from our 6th day in Ohio when we took a look in an antique store.

Day 174 (2012-06-22) ~ This was from our 7th day in Ohio when we got up close and personal with dinosaurs inside Cedar Point Amusement Park.

Day 175 (2012-06-23) ~ This was from our last day in Ohio as we said goodbye to the beach early in the morning before hitting the road back home.

Day 176 (2012-06-24) ~ Our first morning back home in Chicago, Scope and I took a walk around the park and saw this VERY bored film crew across the street. *snicker*

Day 177 (2012-06-25) ~ I saw this cutie playing ball at the park and couldn't resist snapping his picture. :-) (Okay, okay, I cheated a bit on this picture, which was taken on the 24th, not the 25th. I was soooooo busy organizing and editing all the pics from our Ohio trip that I forgot to take a picture on the 25th. Whoopsie!)

Day 178 (2012-06-26) ~ Yeah. It’s a Lego genie. And?

Day 179 (2012-06-27) ~ I thought I'd go old school with the picture this day with an old Depeche Mode record. (And, yep, I cheated a bit on this picture too, which was taken on the 28th, not the 27th.)

Day 180 (2012-06-28) ~ This is a dragon that guards a local shop. I love (LOVE!!) his flame-like eyebrows. (Another cheater pic. What with all the Ohio trip picture editing I was doing, I somehow got my days all jumbled up for a bit. This was taken on the 29th, not the 28th. Grrrr!)

Day 181 (2012-06-29) ~ A tornado?! Nah. It was just a funky cloud that passed by our deck. It startled me for a second though, I admit it. Yeesh.

Day 182 (2012-06-30) ~ My lovely, handsome hubby and I went out to dinner at Isla Pilipina to celebrate our 2nd anniversary a couple of days early. (I had the teriyaki chicken and it was incredible, by the way!) Can you believe it’s been TWO YEARS already?!

Day 183 (2012-07-01) ~ Our anniversary cake. Mm-mm-mmmmm.

Day 184 (2012-07-02) ~ I stumbled upon this sunflower growing on the corner of a city street. Someone's garden is conveniently in the background, making it look like this pic was taken in a field, not the streets of Chicago.

Day 185 (2012-07-03) ~ Okay, so I *CLEARLY* had the camera on the wrong settings for this shot of the moon, but I dunno, I kind of like it. It makes the moon look like it's made of cheese.

Okay, that’s it for today. I’ll be posting more pics soon, including shots of our summer trip to Seattle.

Okay. So, this is my last Ohio post. (I know. I know. I’m excited too.) And since it only took me a mere month and a freakin’ half (!!!!) to describe an eight day vacation, I am clearly in my bloggy prime here lately.

Clearly.

(High five!…. Anyone?…. Anyone?….. No?…. Oh.)

Well, anyway….

I was in Seattle on an involuntary vacation for the past five weeks and it was exhaustingly busy and eye-opening at moments, to say the least. But, hey, just for sh*ts and giggles, I think we should properly kill off the Ohio tale first, right? Sure, why not? So, umm…. Ready? Set? Go!

DAY 7:

We spent our last full day in Ohio at Cedar Point Amusement Park. We had a view of Cedar Point from our rental home and had been enviously watching it glowing and glittering just a ways across the lake from us night after night the whole week we had been there. So, it was nice to finally venture over to grab our own little piece of the experience before heading back to Chicago.

Here’s what it all looked like….

Cedar Point had been invaded by dinosaurs when we were there and happily advertised that fact everywhere we looked. Here’s Scope, Wednesday, and Scope’s parents with a shifty-looking beast we ran into in the parking lot.

Just inside the gate, we crossed paths with Charlie Brown, Sally, and Linus. Naturally, I went running, squealing, and vaulting over little children to get Wednesday’s picture with them.

Scope’s parents ditched us at approximately that exact moment, perhaps fearing I would force them to stand and smile next to Snoopy or Peppermint Patty if we chanced running into them. And I SOOOOOOOOO would have. So, good call on their part!

After our run-in with Charlie Brown, Scope and I took Wednesday on a few of the more tame rides, like the ferris wheel….

….and a viking boat thingy that went rocking backwards and forwards up into the sky.

And Wednesday liked those rides well enough, of course, but the girl has a whole heaping helping of me in her and, thus, she hungered for something wilder. So, we headed over to the Iron Dragon rollercoaster.

The Iron Dragon boasted a 4 out of 5 rating on the clench-your-butt-cheeks-and-hold-the-f*ck-on scale by which the theme park powers that be grade all rollercoasters. Naturally, that means my Neurologist would probably snap and give me a wedgie if I went on it. But what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?…. Yeeeaaahhhhh…. *crafty look* So, I joined the line, all giggly and excited and awaited our turn to rocket through the air.

It.

Was.

AWESOME!!!!

Duh.

We ended up going on it three times. Uh-huh. Three. And I videotaped one of them. Wanna see?! ‘Kay.

(And just for the record, my back after all that rollercoaster-ing? Totally fine! So, yay!)

What else did we do? Well…. Wednesday tried to wrestle a chocolate chip cookie away from a Snoopy statue.

Scope and I got thrown in the stocks.

And we got our Tom Hanks “Big” on and had our fortune told by a Zoltar machine.

Our fortune? Something about finding good men under shabby hats. Okay, then. Moving on….

Eventually we wandered into the Dinosaurs Alive exhibit.

There we hobnobbed with these dudes, and dozens more….

The dinosaurs in the exhibit were incredible. They were life-size animatronic goodies galore! They moved! They roared! They snarled! They shrieked! They leered at us with their evil dino eyes and sneered with their evil dino grins! And, best of all, they provided shade! Lots and lots of blessed shade, which was soooooooooooooooo welcome on that sweltering, nearly-100 degree day, which I swear was hotter than the devil’s freaking armpit!

*happy shudder*

After that, we went shopping for souvenirs in the Snoopy Boutique….

….where Scope and Wednesday bought matching Charlie Brown shirts. (Awwww.) Then, as thunder clouds started to gather threateningly above, we said “smell ya later!” to Cedar Point and went back to our rental house to pack up for the drive back home the next morning.

DAY 8:

Our last day in Ohio we had to be out of our rental house by 9 am—*gulp!*—so, there was not much to do but play a quick last game of ping pong….