lifetime achievement award: my parents.

in case you were wondering why i've been such a negligent blogger of late, it's because i've been super busy galavanting about the countryside, doing things like hanging out with joan collins's's' stepson, immersing myself in projects involving catpaint and going to my youngest brother's college graduation, which was kind of a huge deal. we had quite a lot to celebrate, as my brother spencer is the youngest of the six kids in my family and the last to graduate (summa cum laude, incidently. way to go, nerd brother!). it is worth noting and worth repeating that my humble parents have financed six college educations, SIX, and by financed, i mean cash money. dollar dollar bills, y'all (not that there is anything wrong with student loans). it's also worth mentioning that all six of us graduated in four years, several of us graduated with honors, and most of the time, there were two of us in college at the same time. during my senior year of college, my younger sisters were a junior and a freshman, also in college (which equals three in college, for those of you who did not graduate with honors in math). does your wallet hurt just thinking about it? mine sure does. i'm still not sure how they paid for it, along with everything else you have to pay for when you have that many chilluns, but my dad has (had?) a running joke where he gave the baby calves names like january, february, march and april - named to represent the month of college that they would eventually pay for. aaaaaaanyway, i could go more and more into how remarkable my parents are to have done this on modest salaries, or to have done this at all, but i'll just post pictures instead. side note(s): i've done my best to post these chronologically, but my sister brandie graduated prior to digital cameras (PDC), i never received copies of her graduation photos, and she refuses to scan any for me. the first picture is my older sister angela's college graduation and brandie's high school graduation, both in 1999. lovely painting on the right (victorian lovers at sunset) by yours truly (NFS).

angela's ku graduation. i think this is was taken at the chancellor's house, prior to all of us getting the worst sunburns IN LIFE. thanks for the heads-up, baby jay.my acu graduation, where you get to select one person to walk with you and they wear a white robe and put your hood on you (this is that purple and brown scarf thing i'm wearing... i've never seen it at anyone else's graduation)(which doesn't mean it's cool). i picked my sweet angel mother. chelsea's harding graduation. brandie's graduation photo would go right above this one, but did i mention that she's not going to scan and send it to me? brad's ku graduation. this photo (brad and his now-wife, then girlfriend shannon) is an exact replica of a photo my parents took when my dad graduated from ku. spencer's harding graduation. there's another photo that showcases our AGE ORDER photo skills, but i'll save it for an AGE ORDER round-up post. is that a liberty of london for target one-shoulder number i'm wearing? yup. did it kind of make me look like a clown in these photos? yeah, kinda. spencer and his adorable bride, jessie. apparently, this guy had time to go to class, have friends, be on the cross country team, fall in love AND get married, all prior to graduating with honors. he's also very well-liked by professors and the elderly, and his hair is that color naturally.and this one is because it is hilarious. taken shortly after spencer was born, so my parents are approximately 30 EFFING YEARS OLD in this picture. for the ten-trillionth time, that's how old i am right now.