I’m so very happy.

Because today I did not set my alarm. Well, actually I did set my alarm this morning — but I am writing this post Wednesday afternoon.

This morning, I got out of bed at my leisure.

Wow. Or at least that is what I am planning.

I am not in my bed at home.

Someone else very loving and responsible is feeding my children breakfast and shepherding them to school.

Most days my alarm goes off at 3:58 a.m.

Because I am a nooze person, I usually make it out of bed by 4:20.

Not today. For I am sleeping in a hotel room in a galaxy far, far away.

Almost makes me wish I were awake to experience all my happiness.

Almost…..Zz

That never happens in my world.  

I go to the beach….but I never, ever forget about it.  

Labor Day screwed me up. So I was left yesterday afternoon realizing I was going to the beach the next day and I looked like this….  

Now for the most revealing shot of me ever.

I drive like this all the time ~ you just can't see my foot.

My  feet naked. Not a smear of polish on my toenails. Okay – at least they don’t have a fungus or anything.  

Hmm. Maybe they do a fungus and I don’t know. Maybe that’s why they are so Hideous?

No time to call Cindy (my pedi-medic) to work her magic. So I searched in the bathroom cabinet and found some suitable never-was-in-the-Kardasian-universe-of-hot-even-when-I–could-have-feasibly-been-in-the-far-reaches-of-Kardasian-universe-of-hot nail polish for the beach.  

So purty.

Here.  

And yes, that is a soccer field in the background. Just heard my daughter’s coach say to a circle of 9/10 year olds, “Anybody hear anything I said.”  

Coach, I might look like I’m in the car at the soccer field painting my toenails – but  I heard.  

Then a friend stopped by my open window and exposed foot. We talked. Just talked away like there wasn’t a hideous exposed foot sticking between us.  

While we talked, I decided life is too short. 

Do something really stupid and don’t worry about what your husband’s business-conference types think. Or what their spouses, boy or girl friends (who can get away with Kardasian-hot color) think. 

 Or pool people wondering who is this nut woman thinking she can wear far-outer-reaches-of-Kardasian-universe toenail color?  

Left my uber cute, uber sexy toenail spacer at home.

Sometimes in life you have to take a risk.

I’m happy…Just don’t ask me tomorrow.  

Or when I get home and step out of the car to see how absolutely dayglo they are. 

 Let’s just say we won’t be needing to leave the hotel room bathroom light on to find my way to the little girl’s room in the middle of the night.  

What color are your toenails?  

Maybe more importantly, what color are your toenails ~ in your heart? 

Yesterday was a holiday. 

My daughter started calling her friends at 9:01 a.m. Following my edict of no calls until after nine.

Can Lilly come over? Can Sally come over? Can  insert name  come over? 

When the calls don’t yeild results, it then comes time to go knock on doors.

“Can we see if Tom and Will want to play?”

“Yes, but promise me you will bring them back here and not stay over there.”

“Yes ma’am.”

There probably wasn’t a “ma’am” but when writing this I heard it in my head. It sounds so much better.

Off my daughter and son went on bike and scooter,  shoeless.

They never returned.

That’s what they do. This is an open apology to all my neighbors whose homes can be reached by my children without the aid of a car. For when they come to your house, I fully intend for them to bring your children back here to play. Not stay over there…for hours.

My daughter showed back up 45 minutes later.

“Ms. Pamela wants to know if we can stay and play?” Big surprise.

“Who’s there?” I ask.

“Ms Pamela, Mr. Glenn.  Will and Tom. The whole entire family.”

I ask, “Is Joe still there?”

“Yes.”  She nods and smiles.  ”He’s eating eggs.”

“And banana bread…and orange juice. He didn’t want any of Ms. Pamela’s homemade applesauce.”

So yesterday after refusing a breakfast of day-old powdered doughnuts, my children were fed a feast to which they invited themselves.

It’s good to be my children.

It’s good to be me.

It’s good to be our neighbors? Not so much.

Do you owe your neighbors an apology?

It’s Labor Day. I should writing about that…

But less than 24 hours ago, dog poop took over my existence.

Mom and Dad were visiting. We were enjoying coffee outside on porch. Came time for them to leave…

(I so want to write a few other words defining a dog bowel movement, but I shall not in the interest of my most-of-the-time, family-friendly blogging integrity.)

Mistake # 1

 Early yesterday morning, I asked my daughter to walk the dog.

Mistake # 2

Dim lighting in old house that prohibits older parents from seeing massive pile of poop by the door as they walk to-and-fro loading (good word choice) up their car.

Mistake # 3

Not discovering poop tracked all over house before husband. My husband is a very patient man. Seems there is only one thing he can’t tolerate.

Mistake #4

Assuming there was only one pile. 

 (After the second load was discovered — only after it had been tracked all over house — I shoved everyone out the door to church. I said a quick prayer to my Lord and Savior asking His forgiveness and stayed home to clean.)

I lit 1000 Walmart candles. Stole a quick glance at the wine on the kitchen counter. Sigh. Made another pot of coffee. Pulled every cleaner out of the closet. Took a deep breath. Cleaned.

Mistake #5

Buying a house with 110-year-old heart pine floors. Seems soft dog poop wedges down deep in between the cracks of the amber boards as butter-cream frosting nestles down in layers of yellow cake.

Mistake #6

Massive media blitz December 2009 that convinced Santa to bring a puppy last Christmas…

No,  that should be Mistake #1.

And how was your Sunday morning?

This is a once-in-a-lifetime weekend.

I’m one of those Flag People.

I don’t know when I crossed over the line of talking about “those people” to actually becoming one.

I fly seasonal flags. There I said it. 

In the southland, you may have heard cotton once was king before the evils of the boll weevil.

College football now reigns.

During fall Saturdays, I fly the colors of my schools: The University of Florida and my alma mater, Southern Methodist University.

It’s hard to fly them both on a given Saturday, unless one school plays at mid-day and the other at night.

For pity’s sake, as nuts as I am, I’m not going to race out there in the middle of the afternoon changing that flag.

Though to be honest, that never occurred to me before.  If any of you ever see me doing this please slap the heck out of me.

Back to this weekend being once-in-a-lifetime.

Yesterday, here was my porch.

So Boo-ti-full.

Okay. The offense played pretty bad. Dang, Pouncy’s got to remember center’s don’t pull.

But this is the great part of the weekend.

Go Ponies! My porch today.

With no NFL, SMU is playing at Texas Tech.

So here was my porch a month ago when my bestest college buddy Liz dropped by from Dallas. 

This is what my porch looks like today ~ except no me and no Liz. 

I could put on the same outfit, stand out there and have my photo taken, but that would be as stupid as changing flags in the middle of the day.

I’ve bared a bit of my soul.

I was not raised by a flag-flier. How I became one shall forever be a mystery even to me.

I’m a flag-flier are you?

And dearest Mustangs. No one around here is giving you a chance, except me.

Good morning.

I was out of bed at 4:30 to run. Just discovered an email from my running partner that she is not going to be able to join me. She was up all night with sick child.

Since I’m chicken to head out at 6 a.m. in dark by myself, I’m going to blog about this ~  my favorite time of day.

THE MORNING.

Alright. I really hate to get out of bed early, but when I do and have some coffee ~ it’s wonderful.

Well, at least it’s quiet.

And that’s what’s wonderful. The QUIET.

Okay, I’ll stop screaming at you.

I can hear myself breathe. I can go in and hover over my children and hear them breathe. I can check in on my husband and make sure he’s still breathing. Thank God, since he’s the only one that can manage to bring in any money around here. (And because I’d be utterly lost without him.)

See you think about those things in the morning. When it’s quiet, and you’re creeped-out at the thought of running alone in the dark with your iPod.

Set to do 11 miles. So I best get started. That’s the bad thing about getting up early –

It doesn’t stay early.

One more sip of coffee and I’m off.  When do you find your peace…..or piece of mind?

I fell asleep on the couch last night. Waking up to a tap, tap, tap on my shoulder, there stood my 16 year old.

My husband was nowhere in sight.

The chicken.

He refuses to wake me when I fall asleep for fear of what I will say to him. More correctly ~ how I will say it.

I stumbled to the kitchen which was still a mess after dinner. I shoveled all the dirty stuff into the sink, brushed my teeth and fell into bed next to the sleeping chicken.

Sound familiar?

Lots of us are falling asleep not remembering what was on the television.

Working my way through 2 Thessalonians, I’ve made it to the third chapter. I’m reading all of Paul’s letters in chronological order. (Because I have absolutely nothing to do.) Galations was first, then the two he penned to the church in Thessalonica. The city was founded by Cassander, one of Alexander the Great’s army officers.

He named it after his wife, Alexander’s half sister.

Thessalonica. I like it a lot. It’s a good thing I’m done acquiring children. Now that I found out it’s a proper name, I would have named a daughter such. 

Tess. Alright, I threw out the “h” ~ but Thess just sounds ridiculous. Looks like it should be in some Dr. Suess book.

Not like Thessalonica. Which I love.

(I have completely and totally wandered off point here, but will leave this in risking my credibility as a decent writer ~ because I love the name Thessalonica so much.)

THE POINT of this post.

I read “Do no weary in doing good”  this morning. 2 Thessalonians 3:13.

Don’t weary in doing good. Paul loved that church…and that’s what he told them. He knew what it was to be weary living the gospel when everything around him screamed different. The television, the Internet, the women at the temple of Dionysius whose togas left nothing to the imagination.

We all get weary sometimes.

The smallest action of good is a victory. Sometimes that’s all we can muster… a bitty action of good.

If you are weary today, I wish you rest.

I think Thessalonica the perfect name for a cat ~ don’t you?

“The Beaver?” 

All girls under 13 sure hope he does.

“No, Mom,” I yelled toward the phone. “Justin ‘BEE-ber.’ You know…he’s today’s Donny Osmond.”  

Justin Bieber. A few years ago at the age of 12, the pop sensation won second place in a local talent show in his native Ontario. Makes you wonder who won first place? His mother posted videos of the performance on YouTube to share with family and friends. Those videos caught the eye of Atlanta music promoter Scooter Braun.  

Now at the ripe old age of 16, Bieber’s most recent CD went platinum in less than two months. A recent concert sold out in 13 seconds. Thirteen seconds? You can’t even sing “Baby, baby, baby, ohhhh” in 13 seconds.  

Our daughter had a copy of People magazine with Justin gracing the cover. The issue fell apart from her loving embrace. If only they gave Accelerated Reader points for People. After finding out it was too late to enter an online contest to win tickets to a concert, she cried in a my-pet-just-died kind of way.  My little girl had Bieber Fever — bad. 

As only a mother and former card-carrying member of The David Cassidy Fan Club could understand, I searched online for tickets. My husband called me crazy. But he never sang “And they called it puppy love” over and over while staring at a life size poster of Donny Osmond on his bathroom door. At least I hope not.  

Turning to another woman for advice, I asked Kathryn Purcell, managing editor of the Citizen, if she would pay four times face value for tickets. She thought it a bit steep but then remembered her mother taking her to her first concert. “If this is Hannah Kate’s first concert,” Kathryn e-mailed, “It will be worth it.” 

So I took out a third mortgage and bought the tickets. There’s a guy online who kindly holds parents trying to finance JB tickets hostage. 

The concert remained a secret. I couldn’t take hearing “What do you think Justin is having for breakfast?” or “What difference does it make that I’m nine and he’s 16?” for the next two months. 

Finally August 9^th arrived. When she got home from school, I handed her an envelope containing two tickets.  

SCREAM. 

I’ve been to the most intense SEC football rivalries but never heard anything like the deafening roar of that sold out crowd. I seriously thought the roof blew off when the big “little” guy appeared in white suit and purple Yankees baseball cap. 

I tell this only if you pinky swear never to repeat it to another living soul over 11 years of age; we got our money’s worth. Even four times face value. The truly scary part is that I sang and danced  (you fellow car-dancers know what I mean) to his CD all the way back to Madison while my daughter in the back seat… slept.  

Bieber Fever had claimed its latest victim. Me. Thankfully, my daughter took her CDs out of my car before the whole thing became terribly uncomfortable. 

I guess there will always be remnants of the girl who poured over Tiger Beat praying to win a dream date with Bobby Sherman. And who knew that Wayne wore orange. Jay wore green. Alan dressed in blue and of course, Donny in purple. Nope. There’s no cure for Bieber Fever. But who cares?  

SCREAM.     

Implosion. I think JB just came out.

I have not been online since Friday when a pecan limb fell on a power line and knocked out our power.

The resulting surge crashed our Internet.

This is the third time that has happened in as many weeks.

I mentioned to my IT person that God is trying to unplug me or the devil is trying to frustrate the hell out of me.

Whomever it is — it’s working.

My IT said, “Well, maybe it’s both.”

Great.

God and the devil battling over my internet soul. Guess that’s better than them battling over my eternal soul.

But they might be doing that too.

Good grief. A good verses evil tug-of-war over my Internet connection doesn’t seem so bad.

But that might be because I once again have a connection.

Just never know about somethings.

I found this and just had to post.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe so much time has past. For me and those darn brothers from Utah.

The best part is the audience. Now granted they aren’t sitting behind tables eating like those Partridge Family concerts. (And I use the term concert very loosely.)

Take the girl on the edge on left of stage in white blouse. She didn’t move a muscle.

Her head didn’t swivel as they walked out. Her eyes didn’t even move….Was she human? Those were the Osmonds circa 1970 for pity’s sake. Maybe the sheer thrill/terror of it all rendered her paralyzed.

Too funny…At least they clapped. I don’t remember if she was able to clap. That would be sure sign of paralysis for no one in 1971 sitting on front row of Flip Wilson audience would dare be so rude.

Lip-syncing never looked so cool. Hey, I just figured out who I’m dressing as for Halloween.

Either an Osmond or the blond girl…..