OK. As you may remember , I have a pretty good-sized hat collection. In 2007 the number of hats was somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty , including my graduation cap... I think. I'm not exactly sure. Now, it is up to thirty-six. And I'm very sure this time! Well, come to think of it, it ought to be thirty-seven... I didn't include my graduation cap in that tally. (I'm pretty sure it's still around here, somewhere!) A slideshow of the pictures: You'll probably be able to see the pictures better at the source .

Three gerunds in one--must be quite the topic! But it is because I've made (or had made for me) several purchases in the last few days. 1. I have shoes!! Well, I've always had shoes, I guess, but these are new shoes. They're waterproof, and steel-toed (that was accidental), and they lace up... and they're two sizes too small. Literally. (Well, in a way. They're a men's shoe, if one can say that and still be grammatical, and men's sizes run differently than women's sizes.) Their purpose is to keep my feet dry while studying abroad this fall--I'll be in the tropics, or close to it, and since it rains there every day (right when we'll be walking to class, wouldn't ya know) the waterproof factor is imperative. 2. I bought a wedding gift a couple days ago. A nice little thing for a friend of mine who's getting married Saturday--it was on her gift registry over at Kohl's, and it's something my mom has used time and again so I kno...

OK, so I had my friend take a photo of me the last time I was wearing my "Hermione cape" (or, rather, the fall cape which first caused her to say I looked like Hermione ). Compare with a web image of Emma Watson, actress who portrayed Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies: Granted, she's not smiling, and I am. Oh, and if you're more curious about this cape than about my supposed resemblance to a fictional character, there's a decent picture of it on my Flickr. I really like this cape. I even have a matching hat that I often wear with it. It's a marvelous cape for fall weather.

As promised.... pictures of the graduate! I changed the tassel only after my cousin reminded me to. :-P Of course I couldn't just skip it, so I went ahead and switched it over to the other side. The other funny thing: the kid dubbed Q (on this blog, at least) yelled to me that I had to "chuck the hat". So I did - I threw it as far up in the air as I could. I had no worries about trying to figure out what cap was mine, considering the dearth of 'em at my graduation ceremony. *grin* More photos forthcoming, if my computer cooperates later!

In other words, I got a new hat yesterday. A nice navy blue messenger hat: And I got one last Friday at another rummage sale - a purple knit cap. Which brings the total to twenty-two plus a graduation cap! ( Proof - i.e., pictures of all twenty-two-plus hats! )

OK, we went up to my grandma's to pick up my graduation pictures from my uncle. While we were there, this same uncle gave me an Internet card for my laptop! And it works! Then another uncle (the bachelor one) gave me a niiiice black leather laptop bag to put all my stuff in. It even has a unique smell, since he smokes pipes in his living room where the bag was stored for awhile. Not a bad smell, actually; nothing at all like cigarettes' smell. Plus that uncle also gave me a hat from my Dad's favorite college sports team. A nice wheat-colored, woven something-or-other hat (I'd say straw but it's not), with a black band around the crown that has the logo on it. I really like it, but I may have to surrender it to Dad because it fits him pretty well too. ...and of course, amid all the excitement, I left the envelope of pictures on my grandmother's kitchen table. I should be getting them in the mail either tomorrow or Saturday.

Yesterday I headed up with the rest of my family to see my uncle. He's a photographer - has been for years, and took the pictures at my parents' wedding. (He wasn't even related yet!) Anyway, the reason: SENIOR PICTURES. So we spent an hour at an assisted-living community (no kidding) shooting me, in various positions, in various locations, at the little pond outside the complex. The ducks got in a couple of my photos, but I don't think I picked those. Of the six that I did pick, in one you can see the pond and the little stone bridge in the background - Mom says that is the "essence of me" picture, as I am also holding my fountain pen over a book in that. (It's supposed to look like I'm writing in a journal, but the book's actually my darling little copy of Pride & Prejudice .) And, another of my pics featured my wonderful little gold acorn hat. It's the one left-of-center in this pic, beside the pink rain hat: I really should get a pictur...