Front Row Seat

Day #9

Have you ever had something explained to you in such a realistic way that you felt like you saw it with your own eyes instead of just heard it?

You know, the whole mind's eye thing?

It’s powerful.

My girlfriend told me about a dream she had a while back that was so vivid and clear that I told her eventually I’m going to retell it that I was there too.

Because I can see the whole thing play out so clearly.

Which is weird since it was all a dream inside HER head.

But it was very real to her.

And her story telling ability 

made it super real for me.

I wonder what we forget going on around us because we didn’t take the time to tell what we’d seen with details enough to do it justice so we’d remember.

To make the message so vivid for someone else that they’d 
one day think that maybe THEY were there too.

I wonder if we’ve been told such a thing but weren’t listening fully to allow the details to come alive in us.

So they didn’t stick in our memory.

So we never retold it.

The bible is filled with stories like that.

Stories that had to be verbally retold generation after generation before bibles were a household item.

I don’t know about you, but I can see Daniel in the lion’s den,

Jonah in the belly of that big fish,

and David slaying Goliath with a single stone from his slingshot.

Obviously I wasn’t there.

But those stories have been told to me in ways that make me feel 

as if I’ve watched them from a front row seat.

Close enough to see Daniel sweat,

to smell the stench of the belly of that big fish

and to hear the thud when Goliath hit the ground 

face first with a stone in his forehead.

Those stories cement my faith.

But what if no one retold them?

What if Daniel was too terrified of being thrown into the lion’s den again that he didn’t say a peep about his time spent there?

What if Jonah was convinced no one would believe he’d just been
yacked up by a big fish so he kept his mouth shut?

What if David told his sheep back in the field about Goliath 

but no. one. else?

We have stories like that too.

Stories of our ordinary lives and our extraordinary God.

Stories we don’t tell.

But if the stories of Daniel and Jonah and David cement my faith and they lived ALL THOSE YEARS AGO,

what do you think telling OUR stories of TODAY 

could do to someone else’s faith?

Like in the song “Overcome” by Jeremy Camp.

It says,

“We will overcome

by the blood of the Lamb

and the word of my testimony.”

Or the song by Big Daddy Weave called “My Story.”

The best line is:

“To tell of my story is to tell of Him.”

I think we’ve been placed in these front row seats for a reason.

And it’s not to keep what we see to ourselves.

No, we need to tell people when we’ve been moved to tears,

or our jaws dropped in surprise

or we had to cover our eyes in horror 

at what has just taken place.

We need to stand up and clap in ovation at what God did that we thought could never be done.

Tell it all.

Let’s Try This College Visit Thing Again

Day#8

A week later, we brushed ourselves off from our less than ideal first college visit and hit the road again.

This time we drove out of state to Indiana, very close to where some of my family lives.

It was a beautiful day which helped tremendously.

We entered the campus to tents with parents gathered and eating underneath them.

Tailgaters!

McDaniel was encouraged.

We parked by the stadium and watched the players work out a bit to loud pumped-up music.

We just missed a fun festival that the college had set up for the community. They were deflating slides and bouncy houses as we walked up.

We walked into an enormous fitness center with classrooms and amazing equipment.

We followed the signs to the gym.

The curved wood ceiling was AMAZING!

I forgot how no one builds a gym like a Hoosier.

They are works of art.

As a former basketball player, McDaniel needed a moment to take the gym in.

Two guys were playing one-on-one while McDaniel contemplated the beauty of basketball in Indiana.

We decided that we were starving so we found our way to the cafe where there was a Chick-fil-A in the basement.

You had McDaniel at chicken.

We ate outside surrounded by mature trees and rolling hills.

It was a bit chilly so we visited the bookstore and bought a sweatshirt.

There was a mini Lifeway-like section to the bookstore.

This is a Christian university.

We walked around an area of the campus called “The Valley” where kids hammock and name the trees.

You had McDaniel at hammock.

We saw students in groups all wearing university colors heading to the football stadium.

Now the colors are a bit tricky for McDaniel.

Orange and black.

Not a winning combo for her 

but she’s open.

We learned that the Indianapolis Colts practice on the university field in their off-season.

We didn’t find a pep band but there were lots of cheerleaders and the stands were full.

There were 7 or 8 guys that stood in the front row, right in front of the cheerleaders, 

banging out rhythms with sticks on plastic tubes.

I vacillated between thinking it was really cool 

to wanting them to just stop already.

The mascot was there too.

A raven named Rodney, 

as announced on the back of his football jersey.

With the help of a student, Rodney left before half-time 

and never came back.

The football team wasn’t having a good day.

The stadium was small enough that we could hear a player give an impromptu motivational speech to his fellow players.

It was full of “let’s play for each other not ourselves” 

and there may have been mention of the Lord.

McDaniel cried.

You had her at motivational speech.

Overall McDaniel really liked the university.

We got to stop by and see family on the way home and I think it was neat for her to see just how close she would be to relatives.

The view out the back door of my aunt’s house.

Two colleges down,

one on the “like” list.

The Thief and the Rat

Day #7

The other night Monte got an email letting us know that our credit card number had been stolen, our credit cards had been cancelled and new ones would be mailed to us in a few days.

The next day Monte got more details from the bank.

Apparently, someone in Kentucky made a credit card with our number on it and tried to charge $246 at a Dollar General.

$246.

How many carts would $246 

fill at a Dollar General?!

3?
42?

Luckily, the bank denied the charge so someone at Dollar General had a lot of merchandise to reshelve on their shift.

I was mentioning this to my friend Beth and she said something similar happened to her except her thief used her credit card number at a Talbot’s.

Is it weird that I was a bit jealous 
of her "classy" Talbot’s credit card thief?

I’m not condoning robbery, but I could almost get behind 

someone’s desperate need for a nice pair of slacks 

and a cute sweater set.

I was at Whole Foods the other day when Monte called.

He asked if I’d checked out yet and I had not.

He said he was in the garage when he saw what he thought was a really fat, slow-moving chipmunk.

Except it wasn’t.

It was a RAT!

Complete with long tail.

Monte has never been super solid at animal identification.

Or animal sounds.

IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT,
you couldn’t distinguish between his monkey
and his elephant.

You’d be as good as dead.

Back to the rat…

I almost passed out in aisle 4.

Monte was actually still in the garage when he called.

He started giving me the blow by blow of the rat’s whereabouts.

It took off through the yard.

He asked if Whole Foods had any rat poison.

No big surprise, they did not.

Monte said he was leaving to find some.

I pulled in the driveway to find the garage door open.

I texted Monte to get the last known whereabouts of the rat.

He said the bush by the driveway.

The very bush that was a mere 6 inches 

from where I was currently sitting in my car!

I contemplated calling the girls in the house and having them unload the groceries and form a human/rat barrier for me to make a run for the house.

But I just ran.

Monte came back with some sort of poison rat house that lures the rats in but they HOPEFULLY never leave…alive.

It remains empty in the garage.

I make Monte check morning and night.

So 5 days later, the rat is still out there…somewhere.

Last night I asked Monte if he was somehow inadvertently FEEDING the rat instead of poisoning it.

Like, maybe the rat really likes the taste of the poison??

And over time he’s built up a natural immunity to it???

Didn’t they survive the plague?

Monte decided he needed to buy a BB gun.

Oh, Dear merciful Lord.

I envisioned each BB bouncing off the bulging belly of this fat, slow-moving rat while he casually licked the poison cube inside the rat house like a lollipop.

He’d look at Monte and ask,

“Is that all you got?”

And his voice would be a lot like Paul Lynde’s 

from his voice over work as Templeton the rat 

in the animated version of “Charlotte’s Web.”

SOURCE

I imagine if this rat was human he’d be EXACTLY the kind of guy that would make his own credit card with my number on it and attempt to buy $246 worth of merchandise at Dollar General.

On Being Self-Aware

Day #6

Some time ago I heard a guy on the radio talk about self-awareness.

He wondered if the people in our lives that we have to walk on egg shells around,

you know the ones who easily get their feelings hurt,

are quick to become offended

or explode into a tirade over the slightest perceived infraction,

if they KNOW what they do to us.

If they are self-aware enough to know they are tough to be around.

He imagined the conversation where he told them in general terms,

“You are tough to be around.”

He wondered if they would be surprised.

Hmmm… I wonder too.

This guy on the radio said he found it interesting that of all the moody people he knew, none of them are married to a moody spouse.

He went on to speculate that if two moody people got married that eventually one of them would have to suck it up and move on from their moodiness so that the marriage would have a chance of surviving.

Which would kind of prove that moody people ARE self-aware

and they subconsciously (or consciously) 
marry the opposite of themselves
so that they never have to change.

Interesting…

I talked about this issue with a friend and we likened it to this scenario:

It’s like having a friend call complaining that their cookies taste bad.

You go over the recipe with them and determine they forgot to add the flour.

Problem solved!

Then you get another call on another day from the same friend complaining the next batch of cookies taste bad.

When you ask if they put in flour they say no.

Problem solved.

They call again complaining about the cookies.

You tell them it’s the flour! You HAVE to add the flour!

 They can’t believe you are yelling at them. Don’t you think they can bake good cookies? They thought you were their friend!

You explain you are being a friend and that’s why you told them about the flour.

They decide that maybe just because you use flour that it doesn’t mean they should use flour.

You ask them if they are now happy with the taste of their cookies?

They respond that you just don’t understand! Not everyone can bake good cookies.

 Some people will never follow the recipe.

Whether they are self-aware about that fact?

I don’t know.

When our kids are little, we shape their self-awareness with constant reminders.

We tell them being rude isn’t nice.

Slamming doors is unacceptable.

Acting out in anger is not the right choice.

Certain language is inappropriate.

Being respectful is absolutely necessary.

Selfishness is not allowed.

Saying sorry is expected.

We remind them over and over and over again that they aren’t the boss.

We do all that with the goal that one day our kids will be self-aware enough to know when they are off.

And correct it all on their own.

Being self-aware.

Mature.

God knew this was going to be hard for us. So He gave us the Holy Spirit as “a helper” to convict us.

To alert us to the areas where we aren’t being self-aware 

and He really needs us to be.

Just like we do for our kids, our sweet heavenly Father does for us.

Gentle reminders to
follow the recipe.

But for those people in our lives seeking enablers rather than truth?

God’s got it.

You aren’t the boss.

Just get out of His way.

First College Visit

Day #5

Most of McDaniel’s peers starting going on college visits years ago.

She just didn’t have much time to visit any place last spring since she was busy with track or this summer because she was busy nannying three children.

So McDaniel, Monte and I decided to make the few hour drive to check out this small, Christian school on our own and attend a football game to get the vibe of the school and student body.

Once we left the city limits there was a whole lot of nothing on the state road we were traversing.

And we were hungry.

We had promised McDaniel a quaint diner for lunch.

I was thinking a quaint diner in a cute small town.

We weren’t even seeing small towns.

Just fields and trees.

We saw a sign for a family style restaurant and pulled over to see not one, not two but THREE charter busses in the parking lot.

No, thank you.

I noticed a few train cars with a sign that said DINER up on a hill off the exit.

Oh yeah, there was a teepee and a Native American on a horse too.

I’m not sure it gets more quaint than a diner INSIDE of a train car.

We were greeted by an older man who said it would be 20 minutes after we ordered.

Still better than the charter bus mess at the other restaurant.

We ordered sandwiches and fries and started looking around.

There were two booths that you had to climb up into with a great view.

The people sitting at a normal table next to them told us it was unbelivably hot up there and that they had just relocated from one of the tables.

I noticed all the sweat on the man's face so we decided to climb up for pictures only.

He was right.

It was at least 20 degrees warmer up there.

Great view.

The decor was very much The Ohio State Buckeyes.

Ignore my face. We were eating in a train!

Each table got a choo choo train with a number for our order.

The french fries were homemade and amazing!

McDaniel was thrilled to find they served raspberry ice tea--her favorite.

The wait for our food allowed her to refill her cup several times.

McDaniel with her raspberry tea.

She was a bit jazzed on the rest of the car ride.

We pulled onto campus pretty desperate to find her a bathroom because, well, so much raspberry ice tea.

We looked for a student union or something that would have a restroom.

Monte pointed to a pretty brick building and said something about the nice balcony.

That’s when I noticed all the wheelchairs and I read the sign that it was a nursing home.

THERE WAS A NURSING HOME ON THE 

CAMPUS OF THE UNIVERSITY.

We found the library, ran in, asked the two front desk girls to point us to the restrooms and we ran upstairs.

It was on the way back to the front of the library that we realized that there was NO ONE in the library.

Not. One. Person.

Except the two girls at the front desk.

We walked around the campus and found the same thing.

NO ONE was out playing frisbee 

or walking around 

or sitting on benches talking.

It was almost as if the campus was closed.

We walked into building after building seeing only the people that manned the front desk.

I’m pretty confident there were more people on that 

nursing home balcony than on the entire campus.

We rationalized that maybe it was because everyone was at the football game.

The university’s stadium was getting renovated so we had to drive to a high school down the road to see the game.

The high school was HUGE.

Bigger than the college campus we just left.

We walked to the bleachers and could not seem to locate the student cheering section.

Everyone sat down and watched the game.

This is not how it is at McDaniel's high school.

The students stand the entire game.

The parents sit.

McDaniel was disappointed.

There were very few cheerleaders that no one cheered along with.

A mascot was no where to be found.

And too bad because their colors were the McDaniel-approved 

red, white and blue.

It seemed as if there were more people on the football team than sitting in the stands.

Half-time came and the opposing team’s marching band came onto the field.

The announcer informed us that this performance had been written by a student and was an “emotional journey” that he’d like us to take with him.

Okay…

A tall boy on the xylophone banged out a sad and almost eerie tune as the band joined in. The music felt like we were walking into a dark room looking for whatever went bump in the night.

The music crescendoed with all the drama of being chased by the boogie man when McDaniel and I noticed Monte beside us swatting frantically ON BEAT TO THE MUSIC 

at several bees swarming around him.

It was the perfect dramatic expression for the orchestration.

We couldn’t help but laugh.

We decided to walk around before the “emotional journey” made it to joy.

We noticed off in the grass a group of young ladies practicing a dance in long red satin skirts.

“Oh this is going to be good,” McDaniel and I agreed.

We looked at some t-shirts for sale until the red satin-skirted ladies walked onto the field with their marching band.

Or whatever you’d call the very small grouping of instruments.

What’s slightly more than a quartet?

A gathering?

The girls jumped and twirled and switched sides of the field with all the timing of free form jazz.

McDaniel and I were momentarily distracted by an attack of bees coming out of a trash can on the side of the field when we noticed a girl walking off the field holding a big pile of red satin.

THEY TOOK OFF THEIR SKIRTS??!!

And we missed it!

Stupid, stupid bees.

We sat in the bleachers in the end zone long enough to see one guy get hurt, scream bloody murder and then walk off the field.

Then we saw two players from the same team, run right into each other, drop the ball, only to have the other team pick it up and run almost the entire length of the field for a touchdown.

Clearly this isn’t a football powerhouse school.

And that isn’t really important when looking at schools.

Yet to McDaniel, school spirit is.

Having people stick around on the weekends and not go home every chance they can is important to her.

And to us.

We are encouraging McDaniel to spread her wings and fly from the nest.

Sending her to a campus where everyone runs back 

to the nest every weekend wouldn’t be a good fit.

We left disappointed.

We found a cute Dairy Freeze on the way home that had the same kind of peanut butter ice cream I remember from childhood.

Then we walked up the hill behind the Dairy Freeze and bought white pumpkins from an Amish boy that couldn’t make change.

We decided on the way home that the best part of the day was the railroad car diner and the Dairy Freeze.

One school visit down.

One crossed off the list.

You Better Get On It

Day #4

Being the parents of a high school senior is a wee bit stressful.

 I sometimes get this feeling like I’m on the brink of hyperventilating.

And by sometimes I mean A LOT.

It began when we were back-to-school shopping BEFORE SCHOOL EVEN STARTED at Nordstrom Rack.

I was checking out and they very young sales lady asked what grades the girls were in. When she heard McDaniel was a senior she asked what colleges we’d visited. When I said none so far, she looked at me and said,

“Really?! You better get on it!”

I don’t think I’ve been the same since.

Just a constant state of 

“You better get on it!"

The second week of school our schedule ramped up to INTENSE.

The meetings. 

The deadlines. 

The meetings. 

The questions. 

The meetings.

It seems like everything requires an online registration.

Everything.

And last I checked, 

technology is still nursing 

a pretty serious grudge 

against me.

Remember?
Siri thought I was suicidal.

I finished the summer feeling pretty good since we had already had McDaniel’s senior pictures taken.

That quickly dissipated at the register of Nordstrom Rack.

I mentioned going to visit a few colleges this summer but seriously, who wants to see an empty campus with little to no students?

So we didn’t.

I quickly scheduled a few official campus tours on two different Fridays in September.

Both required online registration.

And several prayers that I wouldn’t throw 

my laptop into the backyard

 if the registration wouldn’t just submit 

FOR.THE.LOVE.OF.PETE.

But they were scheduled and all seemed good.

For almost 2 days and 2 seconds.

Then McDaniel got some neat opportunities that conflicted with the two Fridays that we had planned to be on the campus tours.

So I had to cancel them.

Guess what? 

That required me to fill out an 

online form to “unregister” her.

Throw back to when we didn’t go on college visits.

We just applied, 
got accepted 
and then showed up on move-in day.

Since McDaniel isn’t sure she wants to go to a small liberal arts school, a Christian school, a mid-size or large state school or any of the above out of state, we REALLY need her to get on some campuses to get an inkling of what feels like home to her.

Some of these schools have looming application deadlines.

Excuse me while I breathe into a lunch sack.

I’ve been scanning various schools for new tour dates but they all seem to be during the week and would require McDaniel to miss school.

Due to her neat opportunities, that’s not an option right now.

Saturday tour dates are few and far between and all seem to be later than the application deadlines.

So Monte and I came up with a different plan.

We looked up the football schedule of three different schools that are within driving distance.

We figured we could do our own self-guided tour of the campus and then attend a football game to get a feel of the school spirit and culture of the school.

School spirit and pride means a lot to McDaniel. She has put a bit too much weight into her decision to pursue a college based on its school colors and mascot.

And if they have a football team.

She promptly threw away a beautiful, well-written promo piece for a small school that had magenta and black as its school colors and a Muskie as its mascot.

The muskie has teeth and wears a sweater with a M on it.

McDaniel would have none of it.

I would like a quick minute with the board in charge of 

that color and mascot decision. 

Maybe losing the sweater would help 

the intimidation quality of the muskie a teence?

McDaniel started getting emails and phone calls from schools all excited about her upcoming visit.

The schools I had online “unregistered” to tour.

McDaniel tried to explain that we had to cancel.

I wanted to yell,

“But I almost drop-kicked my laptop out the window trying to unregister for the tour online!!”

But it didn’t matter.

Those hours were long gone.

And somewhere, 

somehow, 

I knew Siri was behind it all,

saying in her judging way,

“You better get on it!"

Enough with the Clowns Already

Day #3

Seriously.

Clowns of the world,

please stop dressing up in scary masks and chasing kids at the bus stop 

or home from school 

or following adults to their apartment doors.

Don’t just stand on the edge of a forest 

and watch people walk by.

Can you believe this?

There are very real, very scary things to be afraid of.

ISIS.

Disease.

The presidential election.

Why add to it?

There was a story on the local news the other night about what a bad rap GOOD clowns are getting.

I was very glad Monte was not in the room because 

he does not believe in things like “good clowns.”

He feels his lifelong clown phobia was prophetic

 for what is now happening.

The news interview took place while a woman was putting on her clown makeup.

The camera kept focusing on the reflection of the woman, 

white-faced, drawing exaggerated eyebrows in a small makeup mirror.

I know it was intended to be newsy-artsy

but it was creepy.

They did another interview with a clown named Steve who did not bother with makeup.

He just wore shorts, a t-shirt, a red nose and a wig.

He said he just wanted to bring joy to the children.

But apparently not bother with all the face makeup,

clown clothing

or a fun clowny name.

Can you imagine hiring a clown named Steve
for your kid’s birthday party?

It’s like he was someone’s brother-in-law who decided
to be a clown that day so he could afford to go to dinner and a movie.

Some local schools were put on high alert last week due to “clown threats” to harass the teachers and students as they walked to their cars.

Thanks to the speed of social media, my girls found out about this during school and were a bit concerned.

It was Homecoming this past weekend.

It was most unfortunate that the Homecoming committee picked a carnival theme for the dance.

And that a member of student council made a joke over the intercom 

during the morning announcements about a clown.

How do you kill a clown?

Stab him in the jugular.

Apparently he didn’t realize that an actual juggler was going to be 

showing off his talents in a few classes advertising the dance.

Apology texts and clarifications were sent to the students ensuring that NO CLOWNS would be at the Homecoming Carnival dance.

Just a juggler and someone making balloon animals.

They were also told that if any student should see a clown on or near the school premises, they were to let the administration know immediately.

Especially if the clown went by the name of Steve.

Just kidding.

Sorry, Steve.

A terrible storm swept through our town Friday with lightning and hail.

The high school was struck by lightning and one of the gyms caught fire.

Everyone was quickly evacuated and safe.

Thanks to the speed of social media, rumors started flying through the high school that the scary clowns were behind the fire.

For the love of Pete.

Monte and I were part of the carpool doing pick up and drop off for the freshman group Ellie went with to Homecoming. 

As we drove up to the high school from the restaurant for the dance, we pulled up behind a car with its lights on, people inside that weren’t getting out and with a license plate that read JINGU.

One of the boys yelled,

“JINGU? It’s a clown! JINGU is a clown!”

And just like that it was decided that 

no one was leaving the vehicle.

I told Monte to get out and check out the JINGU car.

He let me know right away with his eyes and very few words

that he would not handle the situation well AT ALL 

if he walked up to the car in front of us 

and came eyeball to eyeball with JINGU the clown.

But he did it.

After walking by the car a few times, he finally bent down and full-on peeked into the JINGU window.

He may or may not of waved to someone inside.

I can’t remember because IT WAS SO LOUD 

in the car with all the kids commentating Monte's every move.

Monte gave the thumbs up and they all jumped out of the car and ran into the school.

A few brave souls stole a glance at the JINGU car as they zoomed by.

Enough with the clowns already!

Siri Thinks I’m Suicidal

Day #2

I say the name of iPhone’s Siri like Jerry Seinfeld said “Newman.”

With lots of disdain and frustration.

Siri barely tolerates me.

I swear she blows me off and actually sighs 

when I ask her questions.

I’ve tried to change her voice to an Australian man several times 

but it keeps defaulting back to the agitated, annoyed Siri.

She likes to snub me.

She LOVES Monte.

Friday night Monte and I were picking up take out for dinner.

While we were waiting for our food,

I got the sensation to sneeze so suddenly that I only had time to turn my head 

and OPEN MOUTH ACHOO into the empty drinking glasses of a woman walking by.

She gave me the longest, dirtiest look.

I explained the whole sneezing scene to Monte that he somehow missed and even though I started the story defensive and somewhat put out by the woman’s scorn, there’s just no way to not agree with that woman’s disgust.

I OPEN MOUTH SNEEZED INTO THE TWO EMPTY DRINKING GLASSES 

THAT SHE WAS HOLDING.

On the drive home Monte tried to get Siri to play the new Twenty One Pilots song, “Heathens.”

It’s like Siri KNEW I was in the car and had just open mouthed sneezed
into a poor lady's drinking glasses.

Siri quickly said, WITH ATTITUDE, she didn’t have the song.

I mentioned that maybe it was under the Suicide Squad soundtrack.

Before Monte had time to request that soundtrack, Siri very loudly asked,

“Do I need to contact the Suicide Hotline 

for you?”

Even though Monte was holding the phone, 

it was understood that she was talking to me.

I could feel her beady Siri eyes of judgement on me.

While Monte was laughing so hard he almost ran the car off the road,

I grabbed the phone as Siri asked the question again,

“Do I need to contact the Suicide Hotline 

for you?”

 a Yes or No button popped up on the screen for me to push.

I quickly pushed NO, 

for the love of Pete.

Monte wiped tears from his eyes and said,

“Siri thinks you’re suicidal!”

31 Days of Our Lives

Day #1

It’s October 1st and that means I am going to attempt to write for 31 days straight about these crazy days of our lives.

Like the college visits we’ve been on so far.

Good books I’ve read or am currently reading.

The crazy clowns that are terrorizing the nation and FREAKING OUT my girls.

My husband’s (hopefully uneventful but who am I kidding?) colonoscopy.

How Siri asked if she should call the Suicide Hotline for me.

And anything else that might be happening on any given day of my life.

No, this has NOTHING to do with soap operas.

Seriously, I have enough going on 

to watch someone else’s drama.

So, here we go!

Throw Back

Well, we’ve been sucked back into the school year pretty hard.

We have two high schoolers now.

Freshmen start a day earlier than the upperclassmen to give them a day to navigate
the school by themselves. It’s a good idea.
But when I told McDaniel to get up to see Ellie off to school,
this wasn’t what I had in mind.
Nigel doesn’t look a bit happy either.

We have a senior now.

Before I get into all that makes me hyperventilate about that, check out my girls’ shoes.

Ellie asked for these for her birthday.

Think Run DMC in the 80s.

McDaniel asked for these for back to school.

Think Forest Gump in the what, 70s? 

Or me in my childhood in the 80s. 

We made her pay for part of them because if you look them up on the Nike website, they are ridiculously priced. But the reaction she gets from people my age is almost worth it. They all remember what color they had (I had light blue and eventually ripped the toe out of one and continued to wear them) and just how long they had to save or wait until they got them for Christmas or a special birthday.

Throw back to no 2-day shipping.

I dislike when my girls say “throw back to…” and mention something that happened last week.

That’s not a throw back. 

That’s barely a backwards toss.

But these shoes?? 

They are a “throw all the way back."

Speaking of, McDaniel has decided that fanny packs are it on a stick.

I won’t say “throw back” because I never wore one and I’m not sure how I feel about McDaniel wearing one.

Nigel can’t even look her in the eye.

The best part of having my girls at the same school is I DON’T HAVE TO DRIVE THEM!!

For one sweet, sweet year, McDaniel can be the bus driver for Ellie.

I will resume my job next year when McDaniel goes off to college.

College.

That’s pretty much all we talk about, attend meetings for, eat, drink and think about around here.

Maybe if I breathe into a brown paper bag 

it will make the howler monkey voices 

in my head stop.

We recently went to a college fair and I saw this when I went to the restroom.

Maybe she heard howler monkey voices too.

It certainly helps that it is Candy Corn season.

A lady in my prayer group spotted my full candy dishes and asked,

“I hope you don’t put all this candy out just for us.”

I assured her that indeed, 

I did not.

We got a letter in the mail last week that a house two doors down had been donated to the fire department for practice before it’s being torn down.

We were being warned that the fire department would be doing “smoke training” using "theater smoke" to practice navigating and rescues. No live fire would be utilized.

Theater smoke?? 

Like Phantom of the Opera 

or most of the Michael Jackson videos?

I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed 

there wasn’t going to be actual fire.

The letter included the dates of practice and it was going to land on the first day of my moms prayer group.

Oh how interesting if the ladies pulled up to my house with multiple fire trucks on the street and a smoking house two doors down.

Now, that would give us something to pray about!

But no such luck.

Other than multiple firetrucks, I never saw any smoke or nary a peep of someone hollering for help in a fake rescue.

I did get texts from neighbors on the other end of the street wondering what in the world was happening.

On a very different note, 

Monte is getting a colonoscopy.

Oh yeah, I will keep you posted because…1%.

Our dear friend is a colorectal surgeon and doing the procedure. 

We go to the same church and he handed Monte the prep medicine last Sunday during the “greet your neighbor” part of the service. 

Monte quickly shoved it in my purse.

I looked at it and instantly thought it said something else.

It looks like Prepoopik, doesn’t it?

I’m a little desperate for levity here, so when my mom texted me to watch the Mike Rowe video of him reading an email from his mother, I jumped on it.

It does not disappoint.

So funny!

I was cleaning the kitchen last night while watching Jeopardy.

Then this happened.

Ellie stopped doing homework in the next room and came to see.

We rewound it and watched it several times until I videoed it.

I sent it to Monte who was at a financial aid meeting 

that was just as exciting as it sounds.

This lady explained that her mother-in-law told her to share her talent for animal sounds.

On TV. 

The turkey was her mother-in-law’s favorite.

Throw back to the howler monkey sounds in my head.

Have a great weekend!

I Forgot to Mention How Duck Dynasty’s Christmas CD Saved Me

I can’t believe I forgot to mention a pretty significant part of the “A Little Procedure” story.

It wasn’t until I opened the console in my car yesterday and saw this that I was reminded.

Yes, that’s the Duck Dynasty family’s Christmas CD.

Let me back up to the point where Monte is finished with the stitches after his nose procedure to remove skin cancer.

The 7 hour day.

Monte was still a bit “freaked out” from being shown the gaping hole the removed cancer left in his nose, so I decided to drive home.

We had just pulled out of the office onto a very busy street when Monte started frantically swatting at the leg of his pants.

He said there was a bee in the car.

I lowered the windows.

You know,  

I didn’t really believe it was a bee.

Sure, it was most likely a winged-creature of some sort, 

but not a bee.

I drove on.

A few minutes later, I thought I felt something on my leg but didn’t dare say a word because I really felt the need to CALM THE MOOD DOWN in the car.

We were at a stop light when I felt something on my leg again.

I looked down to see a bee fly into 

and then bounce off 

my crotch.

Seriously?!

I lost it.

In every way imaginable.

Monte pointed to where I could safely pull over.

We both jumped out and started frantically looking for the bee.

I found him on the floor limping around by the brake pedal.

I must’ve wounded him during my “losing it.”

I needed something to smash him with.

I opened the console and found the Duck Dynasty Christmas CD.

It did a heck of a job.

Monte and I laughed on the way home that if I had been stung in the crotch by a bee and needed medical attention, 

and believe me, I would have, 

no one would've noticed his bandaged nose.

Or we’d become the beginning of a story those ER people would tell the rest of their life.

“So this guy walks in with his nose all bandaged up saying 

his wife had just gotten stung by a bee in the crotch! 

No, I’m not making this up!

I’m dead serious!

The crotch."

Thank you, Lord!

 For Monte’s healing 

and for Duck Dynasty’s Christmas CD.