Out With the Old

Greetings, Dear Reader.
I am sticking a big flag in the ground with this post--
one small step for bloggers, one giant step for Bell.
I am working from the lap top.
Me. The Bell. The one who does not embrace change
or progress in any way until I am forced. Remember
how I finally got a new cell phone when they sent me
a letter saying I was the only one in the area with that
old phone and they weren't going to support it anymore?
Remember how we finally got one of
them horseless carriages
when the old mule died?
Yes, that's me.
Always on the dull end (as opposed to the cutting edge)
of technology. But here I am, with the lap top in
my lap (how appropriate) and I actually think
I am going to like it.

I have someone else's children here today
and I have to keep a closer eye on the kids---'cause you know
how I just let mine run wild and free for days at a time.
But I've been sitting here on the couch while they
play the wii (the boys are playing the wii, the girls
are trying to play Monopoly).

Last night after my babes went to bed, I took down
the Christmas tree and all the deckings in our halls.
So this morning I continued my flurry of activity by
putting up the Christmas dishes. That doesn't sound like
such a big ordeal, but it kind of is. It always turns into
this "re-doing" of the cabinets in my "butler's pantry."
I also weeded out a pile of stuff that I am going to put
in the much needed Yard Sale. I did this with the
Christmas decor last night too. I made one of the tubs
the "going away" tub. The things that got put in there
didn't know that they failed selection. They think they
are getting packed up for a year like the rest of their
holiday comrades. How surprised they will be when they
see the light of day when Yard Sale day comes around.

The dishes that got removed from the cabinets and
set aside for the same fate, I think they might suspect
something. They know they haven't been in demand.
And they may have heard some mention of a Yard Sale.
I think I saw one of the snowman glasses shed a tear.

I also cleaned out some drawers this morning. It was kind
of that momentum thing, you know. I was scuttling things
around in the butler's pantry, and then I just thought
"Why don't I clean out this drawer while I am here?"
But don't get excited thinking you would look into those
drawers now and think
"some minimalist had their hand in here."
If you opened those drawers, you might think they could
use another cleaning out. But they look better than they did.

And so that is our relatively quiet, peaceful day here.
I hope that you are having a lovely day, Dear Reader.
I hope that your 2010 is wrapping up nicely.

I mentioned to you once a long time ago
about a band that I was fascinated with.
They're a rock band. I don't want to say who
they are now. If you remember, that's fine.
Anyway....these four men formed a band that has met
with a great deal of success. They are known all over
the world. They are very talented.
And I am just fascinated with them.
Part of it has to be their back story.
They are preachers' sons, raised in very conservative
Christian homes. I can completely identify with their
early life. They remind me of guys I grew up with,
guys I dated, even my own two brothers.
I see things they do and it's like I understand it
---little things that are hard to even put in words,
but it's like I recognize something
in them from that childhood that I understand and
experienced myself. Even down to the choice of words they
use, the vocabulary in the lyrics they write.
I know where they are coming from.
But then the lives they have launched themselves into are
very different from the path I have been led down.
Obviously.
Part of my fascination, I think, is in trying to understand
how they got to where they are from where they started out.
I listen to interviews they give because I'm looking
for pieces to that puzzle.
One of them said one time he thought about
being a preacher at one point, and it's like when they
talk to these media people, they have to kind of make a joke
of all of that. But when he said that, I realized that he has
a voice. God has given him something to say.
He's been given a certain charisma.

(don't you know that Samuel and David and Moses all had to have
some element of charisma--and so did Samson and Absalom
--"it's in the way that you use it.")

And he is speaking, this song-writing rocker.
His voice is being heard.
I just don't think it's the message
he was meant to be putting out there.

They drink like fish.
You hardly ever see them where they aren't actually drinking
or else talking about it. And you know what?
I think they use that to "ease their consciences."
I think they know better. I think, at least some of them,
are trying to silence the voice of God that convicts them
and that is how they do it.
With alcohol.


I think about their mother.
I think about when these boys were children,
when she was a mother much like myself.
Very much like the life I lead right now.
I would love to talk to her. I would love to sit down
and ask her all these questions that I think of. It is a
very good thing to learn from the example of people who
do things right, but it is also good
to learn from those who would
have done things differently.
I would love to interview her.
But I am not saying that the mom did something wrong.
Every individual person makes their own choices.
Each person decides whether they will submit their will
and follow God or if they will pursue their own desires.
Parents have a great responsibility to train their children
in the right ways, but that doesn't
guarantee that your children
will all have hearts after God. I remember reading
something Ruth Bell Graham wrote in a time when she
was dealing with major rebellion in her own kids and how
judgmental other Christians were of her and her husband,
and how hard that was. In the words of a prayer
she said "Help them remember that You (God)
have rebellious children too."
Parents who like to pat themselves on the back for
doing a good job and raising good kids need to remember
that it's only by the grace of God that they are able to have
that end result. Their children could have gone the other way.
They need to remember that it is God who works
things together for the good.

I look at my four babies and the lives stretching out
before them. I have no idea what God's plan is for them.
I would love to see my son as a Jim Elliott or Nate Saint.
I would love for my daughter to be the next
Susannah Wesley or Ruth Bell Graham.
I would love to raise a Billy Graham.
But what if God's plan is for my son to live a very small,
quiet life of faithfulness and duty?
What if God's plan for their life is poverty
or struggle or martyrdom?
That's just as good--if it's God's plan.
And what if my kids are hard-hearted?
What if they turn their back on God?
What if they want to take a walk on the wild-side?
Do I give up and wonder where I went wrong?
Do I believe that God can reach them wherever they are?

I contacted the father of the men in this band I was
talking about. I told him that I pray for his sons.
And I do.
I pray for these guys like I pray for my own friends
and brothers. I pray that God will protect them, will give
them good judgment and wisdom, that He will make them
miserable in their sin, that He will remind them of the verses
of Scripture they heard and learned in their youth.
I pray that God will work in their hearts.
I pray that God will put other Christians in their path.
I pray that the wickedness around them will not prevail.
I pray for them a lot.
I feel compelled to do so.
And do you know what their dad said?
He said that he was just clinging to the verse that says
if you train up your children in the way they should go,
when they are old they will not depart from it.
He is loving them and just waiting in faith and hope
for their hearts to be turned back to The Way.
That has just brought such encouragement to
my heart. I have this mental picture of the prodigal
son story, where when the boy finally starts for home
in humility and desperation, the father sees him "a far off."
The father sees him because he is watching for him, waiting
for him, wanting him to return. This is a picture of God's
love for us, and how beautiful it is to me to know that these
boys that have become a burden in my heart, that they have
an earthly father who is waiting for that same thing in them.
That return.

So I am going to continue to pray.
For all of our sons.
For Nathan and Caleb and Matthew and Jared.
And for Big E and Sweet T and Baby J.

Best Post Since Sliced Bread

In our quest to log as many medical hours as we can
before the end of 2010, everyone in our family
with more than 8 teeth
went to the dentist today.
Poor Big E has a broken tooth
(we didn't know about this)
and it is getting repaired on Friday
(more ways to log more medical hours!).
Big E has never had anything done besides a cleaning
at the dentist. Actually, Big E hasn't had anything medical
done since he's old enough to remember
(he had to have his tear ducts "unclogged" twice
--around 15 and 18 months). So let's hope
The Child Most Likely To Spazz Out
doesn't live up to that title on Friday.
And I would never use that title in front of him.
This is just you and I talking, Dear Reader.

Oh, I forgot to tell you something.
I got a laptop for Christmas. Wasn't that the nicest
surprise for Lloyd Dobbler to spring on me?
But the best laid plans of mice and men (and my husband)
often go astray. He wanted everything loaded on
the thing so that on Christmas morning when I turned
it on, it was all there, ready to go.
Well...once more read the sentence above
that contains the word "mice."
He spent a great deal of time on the phone with
every person in India. A technician came to our house
yesterday and then again today. Even as I am typing now,
he is down in the basement trying to get it all worked out.
Bless his little heart.
I bet he's wishing now he'd just
bought me a bottle of perfume.
I am excited about the new computer though.
And you can get excited at the thought of
hearing from me MUCH MORE.
So it's a gift for me and you too.
(Did you just roll your eyes?)

I am enjoying this week of nothing-ness.
I'm supposed to be working on school...and hopefully
tomorrow I will be able to do that
(said the graduate of the Scarlett O'Hara School of Philosophy).
I have enjoyed a break. While my MIL was here,
I got a pile of stuff cleaned out of Baby J's room.
I thought of my minimizing friend as I was cleaning
stuff out of his black hole of a closet.
Got rid of so much.
But I am able to do that now, now that I know
each stage of babyhood is over for us
as Baby J grows out of it.
I don't think there's anything on the docket tomorrow.
And I am getting into that planning,
decision-making, organizing state of mind.
So hopefully tomorrow will be profitable.

Right now I think I will go downstairs
and devour a piece of this bread I just baked.
It smells so good.
I found my old fool-proof recipe for white bread
that is so easy and so good.

Want a piece?

Christmas Review

Greetings, Dear Holiday Reader.
How are you and your merry little Christmas
getting along? I hope you had a lovely day
and that everything went the way you hoped it would go.

Christmas means different things to different people.
I have friends who, though devoted Christians, make a point
to tell everyone that they celebrate Christmas
as a secular holiday
(because we don't know exactly when Jesus Christ
was born, we aren't specifically instructed to
celebrate His birthday, etc.).
I understand what they are saying, but I don't follow
along that path. I have always attended churches that
celebrated the birth of Christ and I see no harm in specifying
a day to focus on that celebration.
It is strange to me to look around our culture
and see what 2010 Americans make of Christmas.
It's mainly a big sales event.
Most Americans celebrate materialism
more than anything else
(and this is hardly different from the rest of the year).

What I love the most are the traditions we have in
our family, the time of togetherness, the joy and anticipation
of gift giving and meals shared and special efforts made.
I love Christmas Eve bingo with my side of the family
and I love Christmas morning with just my little family
here at our home. I love the foods my mother
has made all my life (dressing and giblet gravy,
cheese ball, chex mix, her version of common foods
everyone eats---there's just no cookin' like your own
mother's cookin', is there?
Unless your mom was a stinker of a cook.).
It's weird to me that my dad asks my children to read
the Luke 2 Christmas story now; he did that for the
first thirty-something years of my life. We don't get
to play games as much as we did when we didn't have
small children. We have to get them home to bed
sometimes and sometimes there's just too much going on
with the kids for us to get into a Scrabble marathon
like we used to. My family is teaching my two older
children how to play Rook.
Another generation playing Rook
---will this cycle never end?

We had a very nice, peaceful, happy Christmas.
It was a white Christmas which thrilled all the snow lovers.
And in the spirit of the season, I didn't frown about the snow.
My kids had more sugar and less sleep than normal,
so we've not had a quiet moment for days.
But I have four healthy, happy (most of the time),
beautiful children who were
right here at my side for Christmas.
No one was sick.
No one was troubled.
No one was missing.
Nothing was wrong.
It was lovely and beautiful and I should never do anything
but give thanks to God who has blessed me ridiculously.
I am a spoiled rotten child of God
and I thank Him and praise Him for this.
It's all grace, I assure you.
I am up to my chin in grace.
And loving every minute of it.

Chocolate Covered Martha

If you've seen many of my ordinary days,
you might recall that I have gone a round or two
with our dear friend, Ms. Martha Stewart.
She puts out these recipes for all the world to see
....and some of them are good, granted.
But sometimes you make what seems like it ought to be
a decent meal...you follow the recipe
to the T....and what do you get?

Heartaches!


And if you think the main dish looked bad in the pot,
you should have seen it on the plate,
with the equally disappointing (and I might add disgusting)
tomato side dish that was brought to us by you-know-who.



And yet, what do I do?
I go back for more.
Not more of that pork chop/cabbage/tomato mess.
But more recipes from the old jailbird herself.

This morning I am making some
pecan sandies to the tune of
Martha Stewart and I have to say that Martha is back
on the nice list. One less chunk of coal
to have delivered by Christmas morning!
These cookies are so good.
Melt-in-your-mouth good.
Oh man, they are good.
(They are fresh out of the oven right now and I've had three.)
For some reason it bothered me when assembling
the cookies that there was no egg. Aren't there always
eggs in cookies that you bake? I pondered this,
and then when I remembered that I didn't have my own
TV show nor was I known for being The Domestic Diva,
well, then I decided to go by her recipe.
And I am glad I did.
Did I mention the cookies are GOOD?

Perhaps I should point out that this is something I can add
to the short list of desserts I like that
do not contain chocolate.
What is dessert without chocolate?
Someone else's dessert---not mine, hopefully.
It seems like I've had this discussion lately with
various people. One person told me their favorite cake
was white cake. White cake? White cake doesn't have
a flavor. It's like the white crayon. Or unlined paper.
How can white cake be your favorite?
Unless it's covered in some amazing chocolate frosting....

If you are the president of
White Cake Lovers International,
please do not made a voodoo doll of me and feed
white cake to it. These are my opinions.
They are the only ones I have.
Most of them change from time to time or grow in strength.
I don't see that happening on the white cake issue.
But you can proclaim your undying love for white cake
on your blog and I will come over there
and read it and roll my eyes.

It looks like one of my procrastinating students
will have a Christmas after all.
This particular student didn't believe me (evidently)
when I told him/her that he/she would be doing Math
on Christmas Eve if necessary but would NOT be having
vacation from school until he/she reached a certain point
in their book. All of this child's time was spent on Math
yesterday (I should clarify that this was only the time
when I was home with this child AND I must point out
that if half of the daydreaming time had been spent
actually DOING the Math, well, this student would
have a good jump start on next semester's Math
instead of finishing up this semesters assignments!).
But motivation seems to have kicked in this morning
and the sluggard is doing Math like a Biblical ant
this morning. He/she is taking a test right now
and when that is graded and corrected, he/she will be done.

I just took the last of the pecan sandies out of the oven
and do you know what I was thinking?
They would be good dipped in melted chocolate!

I love Jimmy Stewart!

I didn't even know they did this
---but in The Big City nearest me,
they are showing It's A Wonderful Life
on the big screen in some theatres.
I didn't know anybody did this.
And does that not sound like
the most romantic thing to do?
If I was dating somebody
(and not, you know, married
and the mother of four children)
I would so be going to see George Bailey's life story
at the movies with the current love of my life.
When I heard this on the radio today,
Lovely K said, "What? Why did you make that noise?
Did they something about babies in the news?"


Do I make noises
when I hear things about babies in the news?

It's the FINAL COUNTDOWN!

Greetings,
Dear Reader,
on this Christmas week.
It's Tuesday.
How are you doing?
Are you the type who
is out shopping or have
you hunkered down
for the rest of the week
with just your animals
and a supply of water
and chestnuts?

Or do you have 42 children
under the age of 8 living there
in your shoe with you and you
don't know what to do with this time?
I hope you are enjoying the days.
There is beauty and love all around you.
And I left a sandwich for you in the fridge.

We raced out the door
this morning to go to
the orthodontist ...because
what could possibly make
my daughter
merrier or brighter
than a holiday trip
to the people who can

always
(ALWAYS, without fail)
cause her to gag?

So we did that and now I know why I always schedule our appointments after lunch...and why I don't usually take three small boys. We waited over an hour and a half and my boys were bored. Big E and Sweet T were sort of entertained by the Christmas movie on the always muted television in the office. Baby J was good for about twenty minutes sitting on my lap, and that was his limit. It was nap time and he was bored with nothing to do. I let him down and he spread cuteness all around to the other people. It's funny, the things I never would have let my first child or two do. Crawl around a public place? No way. But now here I am, doing that very thing, and not even hosing the child down in Lysol.

Last night after everyone else was in bed, I went down to the basement and had the best time going through FIVE boxes of books that a lovely lovely friend brought to me. It was like my Christmas. I love books and there was some great books in these boxes. Great read-a-louds for the kids and some just for me. It was so cool. Thanks, Friend! I will take the ones I want and pass the other along to other book lovers.

Okay, people---here's the deal:
It's December 22nd.
Things are piling up.
We are running
out of time.
I have not wrapped the first present!
Nor the second.
Nor the twenty-third.
I have got to make
that my top priority tonight.
M.I.T. Absolutely.
I don't want to be pulling an all nighter
on Christmas Eve or handing my friends
gifts in Walmart bags. I used to
love to wrap presents--and make them cute.
Now it's like cover that thing in
paper and put a name on it. We'll have
bows again when no one in the family
wants to chew on the bows, okay?
I think I will like it again
when my life is in a different place.

Beautiful Boy

Let's take a little walk
down Recent Memory Lane.
There are many things
about the past twelve months
I would like to blot
from the pages of our
life story,
but there is a bright
and shining story
that is the absolute

best part of this past year.



It started exactly a year ago.
On Sunday, December 20th, 2009,
this was our family:

We were about to walk out the door
(some walked, some waddled, you guess who did what)
to church. Do I look stressed? Ragged?
I was on bed rest at this point,
but I was determined to go to church that morning.
I slowly got ready that morning, taking rests every
20 seconds, and finally got to the point you see in the
photo above. My favorite black dress for late in pregnancy
and a pony tail. I frankly didn't care what I looked like
at that point. I'd been through the mill.
I was ready to get the show on the road.
I went to church, made it through Sunday school.
Lloyd Dobbler had brought the blood pressure thing-y
(please try to keep up with the
complicated medical terminology I use)
so during the song service at the beginning of church,
he checked my blood pressure. It was ridiculously high

and I had to leave and go home.
And lay down.

That Sunday night, we went to the hospital in order
to get a jump start on things the next morning.
This was all carefully orchestrated by my doctor.
He was very considerate. He wanted to make things as good
as possible for us. If Baby J had been born on
Sunday (the 20th) he would have been "premature"
and we would have had to be sent
to a hospital in The Big City
and there would have been hoops to jump through
(did I look like I could jump through a hoop?)
and all of that. So I had to sit with my legs crossed
until Monday (the 21st).

And then on Monday,
December 21, 2009
we got our beautiful Baby J.


What a precious Christmas gift for me!

And then the fun began!

He has been such a good baby.
Just a constant source of joy and love to our whole family.
What a blessing our dear Baby J is!
What a lovely gift from God!

And this is our family now:


We are so blessed.

Whatever the Weather, We'll Weather the Weather, Whether We Like It Or Not

• My Daddy used to say that little phrase that is the title of today's bullet-riddled post. He also has some sentence about a fox that uses every letter in the alphabet. I love my father.
  
• Are you simply having a wonderful Christmastime already, Dear Reader? I must admit, I am getting into the festive spirit myself. I think it's because school is winding down and things are getting checked off my list. Yesterday I got us registered for next semester of our home school co-op. Check. I am almost totally done with the shopping and I WILL finish that Saturday morning. Anticipatory check. Arrangements are made for Baby J's first birthday celebration. Check. I'm making progress.
• If you don't like the weather where you are, you might want to try the roller coaster weather here in Tennessee. Wednesday night we had sleet and ice when I went to bed. When I opened my front door yesterday, it was 55° and breezy like an early spring day. There is no mystery why anyone has a headache here. It's like sinus whip lash.
• Ever since that week that Lloyd Dobbler was out of town, I have not been good in the mornings. I have slept in until I had to get up, and this just gets us off on the wrong foot for the rest of the day. But maybe these leisurely mornings are the reason I am getting more into the spirit of the holiday season. You know how people will use that phrase "You have to get up pretty early in the morning to fool John Smith"? Well, you've got a good shot at fooling me without having to get up at the crack of dawn. You could probably sleep until 8am. (I'm so accommodating.)
• Last night I made a cookie a haven't made in several years (actually, I made a whole batch, not just the one cookie). It's the easiest cookie in the world--I was thinking this last night as I was making it. It should be called "Retarded Cookies" or "Rainman Cookies" ('cause Rainman could make them, they're that easy). But they are so good. And there's the variety factor. You can change their flavor by the pudding you put in them. I made them Triple Chocolate by using chocolate pudding, chocolate chips, and frosting them with chocolate icing. Lloyd Dobbler's mom used to make these when we were first married and when I finally got the recipe for them, I was almost disappointed that they were "Cookies for Dummies." I don't know why I stopped making them for a while. They are yummy. And now I have a bunch of them in my kitchen. I might as well give up any thought of losing weight until January....not that I was spending a lot of time thinking about that.
  
• We are going caroling today at an assisted living facility. Sweet T (who is normally cute but first thing in the morning, with his sleepy voice and his bed head, his cuteness grows exponentially) kept asking me when we were going "husbanding." I got him to repeat it several times before I figured out what he was talking about. How he got "husbanding" from "caroling," I will never know.
• I'll tell you what makes Fridays more enjoyable to me: ever since I instituted the Movie and Pizza Night on Fridays, supper is already decided. Occasionally I will make the pizzas, like we did last week. But usually we order it. Papa John has become a good friend of mine. But already this morning I have thought "It's Friday! I don't have to cook supper!" And little Christmas elves danced across the screen inside my head.
• We're already joking that two of my caroling friends today will be singing a duet and I have selected Handel's Messiah for them. Actually I thought about making a joke song sheet (and I may have to make one copy of these to show my friends when they first arrive, just to see their reaction) and have it full of songs like "Last Christmas" or "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" or what? What other songs would not be the best choice for caroling to the elderly? It's just making me laugh--the mental picture of our little group of people and to picture us singing "Now I know what a fool I've been, but if you kissed me now I know you'd fool me again. Last Christmas I gave you my heart...."
• I hope you have a lovely weekend, my Dear Reader.

Merry Christmas from The Braggers

Greetings, Dear Reader.
You will be glad to know that I have shed that nasty
headache from yesterday. I have lowered the Crab Flag
--at least I thought I had.
Several times today Lloyd Dobbler has said to me,
"What's the matter?"
when I was just going about my business.
And don't you love to be asked that
when you don't think anything is the matter?
That's what you ask somebody when they
have red puffy eyes or they are out somewhere in public
with a newspaper wrapped around their body.
It makes you think:
What? What am I doing?
What am I acting like?

It's enough to make you want to
run the Crab Flag up the pole again.

Maybe it's this outfit I am wearing today.
It's sweatpants and the matching zip front hoodie.
And they are green.
Like a light, pleasant green.
Kind of like the crayon that would just say "green."
Lloyd Dobbler has expressed to me in the past
that he hoped I would never wear sweats
in public on purpose.
And remember how George Costanza dressed
when he had just totally given up on life?
He wore sweats.
Don't get me wrong. I haven't given up on life over here.
I just knew that I wasn't going anywhere today all day
so I put on a comfy outfit this morning. I meant to wear
the matching little Christmas shirt underneath that makes
the outfit cuter, but it wasn't around when I was
getting dressed in the cold dark this morning.

I have to go register for our home school co-op tomorrow.
We always used to register in January,
right before classes began.
I don't know whose idea it was to move this up. And this is
another thing that I thought I had looming out in
the future until I actually read what was
written on my calendar for this week.
I kept thinking "when we register for classes..."
like it was this distant thing. No, it's tomorrow, Bell.
Would somebody come over her and hit me over the head
with their Franklin planner? I also wondered why
the people I am supposed to go caroling with were pestering
me for details of our caroling activity. I mean, we aren't
doing that until the 17th, people!
Oh...yeah...that's the day after tomorrow.
I think I do need to be hit over the head with something.

I ordered more Christmas cards a few minutes ago.
And now I am wishing I had ordered these all along.
I got a good deal on my first ones, but they are just
boring cards, one picture of the whole fam
(and not the best picture, but it's us).
The ones I made today are a collage so you
see multiple cute shots of the babes.
I think the collage cards have more personality.

So 50 people will get the original Christmas card,
the single picture and the pre-printed message.
And then 25 people will get the new and improved
Christmas card with the photo collage.
I just hope that the people who might visit each other
or mention something about the card
all get the same one. We don't want any fights
breaking out over people thinking they rank higher or
lower on my prestigious Christmas card list.
("Did you see the odd picture Bell put on her card this year?"
"Which picture? There were six different pictures on my card."
"Mine was just one picture.")
Would you be offended if you got the one picture
card instead of the collage?
Is that an insult? It's not meant to be.
I wish I had the collage for everyone, but I've got
fifty copies of the original card addressed and ready to go.
I'm not wasting them or doing them over.

I like the collage cards--it makes you feel like you can
put a tiny bit of creativity into it. That's what we did
one year. Was it last year? I can't remember what
we did last year. I still have about 20 of them somewhere
around here (last year's cards) because I ordered them late
and I ended up going into the hospital to deliver a baby
so delivering Christmas cards seemed less important
at the time. And when I got home on Christmas Eve
with my brand new Baby J,
the last thing I cared about was who got
a Christmas card and who didn't.




Do you send out a Christmas letter?
And if you do, do you brag in an outrageous manner
about each member of your family?
Every time I read one of those, I just wish
somebody was standing there beside me to hear
my wise cracks. I hate for my sarcastic comments
to go to waste. And nothing brings out the smart remarks
(other than going to a church where Paul McCartney is a deacon)
as much as those certain types of Christmas letters.
You know the ones I mean.

"Our two year old daughter Heloise was accepted
into Harvard but we really feel like we should keep her
home a bit longer. She so enjoys practicing her dulcimer here
at home when we aren't in the Brazilian jungles handing out
hand-copied versions of the Bible in a little known dialect
that just happens to be our family's love language
--which we discovered on our way home from high tea
with the Queen of England."

I mean, nobody writes that their ten year old son
still wets the bed and that they're going to have hemorrhoid
surgery after the first of the year.

"The entire family got food poisoning at Thanksgiving;
you know what a terrible cook Peggy is. The only person
who didn't end up in the E.R. was Uncle Timmy
and that was just because he was locked up
for writing bad checks."

Nobody writes those letters.
It's all the bragging and lists of accomplishments.
One of my uncles writes a very amusing letter.
He has done this for many years. He reviews the past year
with colorful commentary. I enjoy his letter.
And I enjoy the braggy letters from the Braggingtons.
Just for different reasons.

If you are somebody who feels like you should be
getting a card from me and you never have,
maybe you better send ol' Bell your address.
And FYI--you will be getting the
new and improved Christmas collage
if I send you one at this point.
Just don't tell anybody. Okay?

The Crab Flag

My December calender is getting marked up viciously.
Never mind that I booked us to do school until the 23rd
(don't you wish I was your teacher?).
I now have to mix in other stuff.
It seems like we have about 72 appointments
with the medical community between now and the
end of the year. And guess what your hair-brained Bell
has been doing? While I knew that today was the 14th,
when I looked at the calender as a whole, I was seeing
this as the second week in December, thinking we had
another full week before the week that ends in Christmas.
But no. We're in the third week.
This was pointed out to me by my dear Lloyd Dobbler earlier.
Sometimes he looks at me like he wonders how I make it
through the days. I do have moments where one might think
I should be institutionalized.
But it hasn't happened yet!

We are all going to the dentist again--that's 5 appointments.
Lovely K is going to the orthodontist. We have Baby J's
one year check up--when I called to make
that appointment, the receptionist said
"That baby cannot be a year old already!"
Tell me about it, lady.
I am also going back to my OB/GYN, which is a topic
I am sure you want me to talk about at length on here
--especially if you are male.
But I am hoping he'll find a switch on me that they
forgot to flip, something to make everything
go back to normal. I just kind of feel
like something is out of balance.
I know it's been a hard year and stress can do stuff to you
and then having a baby at well, let's just say
mid to late thirties,
that's not the first step on the road that leads to
the fountain of youth. It's more like that machine that
they put Wesley on in The Princess Bride, the one that
literally sucks the life out of you. So there has been
this chunk of time that has been
hurdle after hurdle after hurdle
--and coming back around to the year mark on some
of the things that happened to us has not been fun.
It seems like everything is a reminder.
"This time last year...."
Yeah, let's not even think about "this time last year"
or any of that. It just kind of makes me nauseated.

So let me just vent here for a moment
since I am headed into the direction
of crabbiness anyway.
I didn't sleep well last night. Something kept me tossing
and turning and I didn't know what it was until I woke up
this morning. As soon as I woke up, I knew exactly
what it was: a nice holiday headache.
A nice, juicy, twelve pound headache.
With brown sugar glaze.
I have just wanted to kick everything
since the second I woke up. (Where are my steel toed boots?)
So I am a real pleasure to be with today.
And now I've got to load up all the babes in this
single digit temperature with ________
(insert your own choice word, don't hold back, and say it in all caps)
snow all over the ground and go all over Tiny Town
this afternoon. But you know what?
I am so very thankful that this is not a migraine.
When I get a migraine, it's bad.
I mean, it requires another adult to be present.
I can't be the one in charge of my kids.
I don't understand how people can walk around and do stuff
when they are having a migraine. I don't have that option.
The ones I have (and thank the Lord that they are few
and far between) put me out of commission.
Not by my choice.
So I am very thankful for that.
Perhaps I should just swallow all my crabby crabbiness
and put on a happy face
and just get through this day.

I have taken Excedrin.
I just ate a Reeses' peanut butter cup---
'cause I'm all into the holistic treatments like that.
If things don't improve, I'll be swinging into the Sonic
(in the stupid SNOW)
for 44 ounces of Sundrop.
So not only do I have a headache today,
but I will gain 9 pounds.


Have a lovely day, Dear Reader. Stay warm.
And if you are having a lovely day,
stay away from me.
I'm your faithful, crabby Bell...
letting my crab flag fly.

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

I don't usually give my kids a snow day
when the local schools around here call for them.
Do you know how much snow we would have to get
to keep us from making it to the closet in the guest room
(where the school stuff is kept)?
So we really are never unable to have school
because of snow. But I called a snow day today
and it has been so nice. It's days like this that make me
realize how much schooling eats up of my day and my energy.
I just did laundry and made meals and cleaned up a little
and took care of the kids today. The only thing missing
from me being that stereotypical housewife was
the bon-bons and the soap operas.
And the optional fuzzy robe.

It was so nice to have this peaceful day.
Saturday I was busy getting ready for our little
annual pot luck Christmas party. Two couples who
usually come were not able to come this year and three
couples who have never come before came. I made
two big pots of soup and a butter pecan cake
and gingerbread men.
Everybody is supposed to bring something
(hence the "pot luck").
We had a good time. I had put in the DVD from
the 80's Trivial Pursuit game and had it on that "party mode"
where it just randomly does questions and answers
(while you party). That was fun because of the group
we had there, we were all probably much more in
touch with thing sin the 80's than we are now.
Then we played this DVD version of Name That Tune
that somebody brought. It would have been more fun
if they'd had songs that were actually, you know,
known to the general public.
And it's not like we had a group who never listened to music.
The group Wa Wa Nee kept coming up and no one
had ever heard of them. If I had been Oprah, I would
have sent everyone of my guests home with a copy
of Wa Wa Nee's greatest hits.
But I am not Oprah.
I don't know if I ever told you that or not.
And I don't think Wa Wa Nee had any great hits.

Sunday our pastor and his wife came over after
church for party left overs. It started snowing then.
After they left, I made Sweet T lay down and take
a nap. I had to lay down with him to make sure he wasn't
playing with cars in his bed...as he did for the first half hour
he was laying down. So I got a little snooze in there
and I needed it after being up late Saturday night.
When I woke, Lloyd Dobbler was telling me that church
was canceled because of the snow. So we had the night
to just snug in and be cozy. We ate supper and watched
AFV together---I don't know why I always love
that show, although less and less as it progresses.
Tom whoever that hosts it now always has to say
semi-tacky things. Then Lloyd Dobbler and the kids
came upstairs to watch something from Netflix and
I had the downstairs to myself (well, Baby J was there for a little while).
It was so odd, but so nice. It was kind of like being
home alone. I got to pick what I wanted to watch on
TV and watch it while I cleaned up the kitchen.
Then I just vegged out. I started watching a movie
as everyone else was turning in for the night.
I did not realize that this movie went until midnight
--but I was already invested in it
and had to see how it ended.
And then when I came to bed, I couldn't go to sleep.
Could it have been that caffeinated drink I was
sipping while watching the movie?
Could that late hour of finally falling asleep have anything to do
with my calling off the school day today?
You draw your own conclusions.

Someone's In the Kitchen with Dinah

I wish someone had been in the kitchen with me tonight.
That way maybe that someone would have said,
"Hey Bell, when you put the cake in the oven,
why did you turn the oven off?"
Then I wouldn't have discovered it
40 minutes later.

You know what? I would like to ask myself
that question right now:
Bell, why in the wide wide world of sports
did you turn off the dad-burn oven!?!?!

Instead of slipping into my jammies right about now
and hitting the old hay sack,
I am waiting for this blasted cake
to bake so I can cook up the buttery syrup to pour over it
when it is done. So I might as well just take a shower
after that and begin my Saturday because it is going
to be LATE and I have about 1,734 things
to do tomorrow.

Take a deep breath, Bell.
Everybody does dumb things sometimes.

In other news:

I took the whole entire school here (at Bell's Academy)
to see The Nutcracker today in the next Tiny Town over.
I had this activity on our calendar for over a month,
but it was yesterday, the day before the activity,
that I realized that I never called and reserved our seats.
So I called and, of course, they were full to overflowing.
So they put me on the waiting list, which seemed odd to me.
What are they going to do with the waiting list?
Start calling people just as the curtain is going up
to see if they want to sprint to the theater in their bathrobe
and fill the three freshly vacated seats?
I don't think so.
So this morning I called the little person there and told her
that I was on the waiting list and I was going to come
down there....so that if they realized that not every one who
reserved seats showed up, they could then let us have those
seats. It was an odd conversation and I don't know why
I bothered to call first. I should have just gone down
there. The woman proceeded to tell me that there
were 17 people ahead of me on the waiting list for
the 12:15 show today. I told her that was okay,
I wouldn't pitch a fit if we didn't get in, but if we didn't
come down there, we didn't actually have a chance
of seeing it. But, she continued, those 17 other people
have preference over me. I asked her if at show time
she realized they had empty seats and me and my three
babes were standing there, was she going to call the
17 people ahead of me on the waiting list or just let me
have the seats if I was there and the other 17 were not.
She just continued to say that she didn't
know what they would do. For some
reason, it all seemed too complicated to the little lady
on the phone. But we went down there, there were
available seats, and we took them.


Lovely K has been to several presentations
of The Nutcracker. She seemed into it today a little
more and I think that's because she has started with
the dance classes. I can't tell how "into" dancing she is.
She enjoys the classes. Her teacher says
she is doing fine. But she doesn't
carry on about it. She rarely talks about it.

Big E is an eight year old boy.
He suffered through it (a ballet)
like a trooper---he's done it before. I guess he knows
that what doesn't kill him will make him stronger.
So he's one ballet stronger.

Sweet T had not seen The Nutcracker before
and he was not familiar with the story like Big E and
Lovely K are. But what perplexed him is why the people
on stage weren't talking. He asked this several times.
"It's not a play, Sweet T," I told him, "It's a ballet."
He thought they could talk while they were dancing.
The thing about The Nutcracker is that just as
a little boy gets bored, mice with swords show up
and he's suddenly interested again.

I do have to tell you about the stinkers in the dance troupe.
There were these couple of girls in the ballet
who needed to be somewhere else today.
At one point, I think it was during The Waltz of the Flowers,
they all come bounding in from both sides of the stage
and two of them just busted into each other.
Like they were surprised to find
other dancers on stage with them. And instead of
acting like it didn't happen and quickly getting back into
the groove of the jigginess, one of them actually said
out loud for all the world to hear, "Oh, I'm sorry!"
And then she had a little giggling fit.
I'm sure this happens with professional dancers all the time.

After the play, we bought groceries
and I got trapped in that time warp that sometimes
happens in the grocery store. Tell me this has
happened to you. You don't mean to be in there
forever, but it just seems like some days
it is so much more challenging.
It's like trying to get through the fire swamp
with your true love. There were obstacles of
every kind today. It seemed like the employees were
just trying to block you or get in your way and
mop the floor in front of you so you had
to just stand there. There was an extra measure of
old ladies thrown into the mix today also.
Not crabby old ladies that you just want to kick,
but sweetie pie old ladies who talk to you
about decaffeinated tea
and you have to talk back to them
because they are sweetie pies.
And then you don't know how long you are supposed to
stand there beside them before you can just move on
over to the beans. My children, for some reason, had to
each ask me five questions a minute, every minute of this
whole entire day today. I don't know what prompted
that, but I was really looking for the MUTE button
by the end of this day.

I made pizzas when we got home.
We usually order pizza on Friday nights,
but I was there at the store and since I had to go
up and down every aisle six times, I had time to
think about getting the stuff there to make my own pizzas.
It's a lot cheaper and I'm all about that right now.
After supper, the kids and Lloyd Dobbler watched
the movie I got them (Planet 51); they seemed to
enjoy it. While they did that, I made gingerbread men.
About 100 of them.
Right after I finished baking all those cookies, I began to
mess up the dang cake I mentioned before. It wasn't
enough that I forgot to sprinkle the nuts on the bottom
of the bunt pan before I poured the batter in--so now it's
not going to look pretty like usual, but then I had to slide it
into the oven and turn the oven off like some
kind of culinary fool.
Oh well. It's done now.

It'll all work out okay.
I have seven couples coming over
for dinner tomorrow night.
No need to get stressed now.

There's the timer going off.
I can go finish with the cake.
Then I only have to wait 30 more minutes until I can be
done with it and go to bed.
Remember when Aunt Bea from The Andy Griffith Show
said that it's the hours of sleep before midnight
that really count?
Well, who cares what Aunt Bea said.
Nobody ever wanted to be Aunt Bea.
I wanted to be Laura Petry.
Give me a pair of black capri pants
and a husband who dances
and I almost am.

Happiness is....

It seems that I have read several things lately
that use this phrase "Happiness is....."
And then they say what happiness is.
They are not saying that happiness is several periods in a row
(AKA "dot, dot, dot"). There have been different things,
from happiness being a minimalistic kitchen drawer
to a friendly dog in your lap.
Happiness is many things to many people.
Many different things.

I was just thinking about that,
and feeling very happy and content
on this cold, gray December day.
So I thought I'd share some of the ways I can end
that sentence and tell you of the things that
create happiness for me.

Happiness is...

...the laughter of your children drifting in from another room.


...soup bubbling on the stove as a frigid wind blows against the house.


...sitting quietly with your son while you both read and enjoy each other's company.


...a napping baby, snuggled in his bed with all his "babies."


...talking to an old friend who knows you inside out.


...hiding surprises in anticipation of Christmas morning.


...knowing your husband will be home after a week's absence.


...a bowl of homemade Chex Mix made and delivered by your mother.


...completed Math lessons on the kitchen counter.


...a basket full of wooden blocks just waiting for a playmate.


...soft music playing in the background of a warm, quiet place you call home.

I am so very thankful for all the blessings
that the Lord has lavished on me.

Black 15 Passenger Van Sessions

Okay...so I was on the phone for a couple of hours
with a childhood friend today. Not the most productive
way to spend my morning, but it was the right thing
to do today. Sometimes it's more important to be a
friend to someone in their time of distress that to stick
to the schedule and mark things off the list.
I never want to lose that perspective.

Fortunately my lovely children were really good
and did their school work (all that they could do without me)
and behaved themselves rather well.
They did eat a bag of Fritos, but I'm not going
to complain about that. They are good kids.
I don't recognize that often enough, but it's true.
I am always worried about every little thing that I see
wrong in them and I think I need to celebrate the big things
that I see right in them more often.
That is a perspective I need to work on having.

Okay, remember me warning you about this earlier
--we are re-visiting a place we used to go together,
you and I, Dear Reader, a while back.
I had forgotten about this until I stumbled across it
the other day---it's our old friend the Auto Crooner,
Mr. Explorer Sessions himself.
And things have changed.
I do believe our friend has turned Amish.
Or maybe he's in the middle of turning Amish,
the first thing to turn being his face, his bearded Amish face.
So enjoy this song, Dear Reader, with our old friend,
because the next time it might not be so easy for him
to mount his camera on the front of the buggy and
it might be more difficult to hear his voice over
the clopping of the horses' hooves.
(TURN OFF THE CHRISTMAS MUSIC NOW)

What think you?
Has our friend gotten better or worse?
More or less scary?
A greater danger on the road?
I don't know about that---because I am always singing
when behind the wheel like I'm on stage at the sold-out
world tour of Bell's Greatest Cover Songs
...but I am not trying operate a camera while I drive and sing.
That's what my crew is for.
So I'm more focused on my driving.

But the beard.
I just can't get over the beard.
And how do you like his little tour guide effort
thrown in during the bridge?
(the tour of the bridge of the road
during the bridge of the song)
He just amuses me on so many levels.

Ya'll have a good one.

Are You Wacky?

Well, it's been Wednesday here all day long.
I don't know what Wednesday is supposed to feel like exactly.
There's a book in our Dr. Suess collection (though it's
not by him) that is called Wacky Wednesday and I always
hated it when my kids would ask me to read that book.
It was not a warm and cozy read.
It was page after page of
"Find the 78 wacky things on this page."
I get tired of that fast.
I'm glad Wednesdays are not necessarily wacky.
It's just the middle of the week. It's just a "work horse"
kind of day. And I got a lot accomplished today.
My eyes just popped open at 5:30 this morning, before
the alarms, and it was one of those rare occasions when
I was fully and completely awake in an instant.
I did some decking of the halls throughout the day.
Actually, I got out all the holiday decor
that I am going to have out this year and I've got it
all adequately spread around. I made 194 trips
up and down the stairs carrying boxes because
I wanted all of that stuff put away. Away!
Then I just got busy once all the carnage and tubs and
boxes were removed. If you had seen the state of things
here this morning and then saw it again tonight,
you would know that I've been busy.
Decorating. Dusting. Cleaning.
All the floors downstairs got cleaned.
Progress. That's what we call it.
AND we got our school done and I read chapters
from Peter Pan (Hook died tonight, only one chapter left)
and from our little Christmas book. It's just been a nice,
busy, seemingly productive day.
I even laid down (as in kind of took a nap)
for about 30 minutes in the afternoon.
I was tired, haven't been sleeping well or much this week
so that half hour of rest was great.

I did not get any gingerbread men made tonight.
boo! boo!
I was hoping to do that. I have to make my gingerbread
men at night. It's my little system. I decorate them after
the kids have gone to bed (in peace and quiet),
so I get the little piping on them right.
See what kind of mother I am,
what a free-spirited wild child
--I should have been a hippie.
I know you are glad you are not my child.
Then they set out on the counters until morning
--this way the icing is set up enough that you can store them
without smearing. If it gets too late and I haven't even
started making the cookies, I have to just bail on the plan
for that day--and that is what I had to do tonight.
I opted to clean the floors and get that out of the way,
so I sacrificed the cookies tonight.
There's always tomorrow.

And what is this world coming to
when Your Faithful Bell chooses cleaning
over making cookies?

So I am kind of getting into the holiday mood a bit more
now that we have the atmosphere
(more than just the music).
This weekend we are having our
little childless Christmas party.
We were watching Minute To Win It last night
while decorating the tree and I was inspired with a game
to do Saturday night at the party. I am excited about it!
I think it will be fun---and funny.

How was your Wednesday?

Arbor Day

Pssst....Dear Reader....are you there?

I just thought I'd tell you that the tree is decorated.
In total "we have four small children" style.
But that's one more thing off my list.
I march on.

Is Your Refrigerator Running?

Greetings, Dear Reader.
And I trust that we all know the answer to that
prank phone call question. We also have
Prince Albert in a can.

I hope none of your body parts have frozen and fallen off.
It's really cold out. Maybe that's why I was grumpy
last night---I had to get out in the dark, cold night.
It was the first time this year I had to break out my coat.
The sky here is very gray-white and I am wondering
if it is supposed to snow on us. I haven't watched
the weather lately. Lovely K has been giving us her weather
report from time to time, whenever someone mentions
anything about the weather. She's been listening to some
radio station that plays Christmas music at night in her room
so she's hearing the weather and commercials. She can tell
me if one day is supposed to be warmer or not or if there's
a good sale on diamonds in town.
'Cause I'm always looking for
a good sale on diamonds.


If you were to ask me at any given moment what household job
I hate the most, unless I had just had some terrible experience
with something else, my answer will always be
"cleaning the refrigerator."
I don't know why I hate that job, but I do.
I have always hated it. I put it off until the health department
starts circling our house, giving me the stink eye.
I just hate that job.
But today I did it.
I did the thorough cleaning, taking every thing out and taking it all
apart and cleaning the silly thing. It looks very nice.
While I was doing it, I realized that it's not that bad of a job.
I don't know why I put it off so. I guess some things are
like that. You think, "Oh that job! I don't want to do it!
It'll take forever." But then you do it, and it's not so bad
AND it doesn't take as long as you think it will in your head.
So my fridge is clean.
At least for the next five minutes or so.

When I was taking everything out and apart, I just trotted
out onto the back porch and put my eggs and milk and
OJ there (one must be careful leaving OJ on the
porch though, someone might get murdered!).
It was as cold outside as it was in my fridge. I actually forgot
to bring them in for a while. It was when I saw Ranger the cat
on the porch trying to whip up a souffle' that I realized
what I'd done and brought them back to the clean fridge.
They were a little disoriented by the cleanness of that appliance.
They thought they were in someone else's house.

Now I need to turn my attention to the oven.
The health department is still circling.
See those kids in that picture?
Hopefully that will be me and my brood before the end of this day.

So much to do. So much to do.
And nothing is getting done while I'm sitting here talking to you.
See ya!

Don't Waste Your Time Reading This

Whew! I am so glad this day is over.
Have you ever had something, like a day, just kind of
go wild on you and you know there's nothing you can do
but ride it out? That felt like how this day went for me.
I'm not sure where we went wrong exactly,
maybe it was the leisurely morning where we whiled away
the time....but we got off track somehow.
Nothing really went wrong.
I just felt scurried.
And I was already tired from Sunday
which turned into a marathon day for me.
I got up early on Sunday to make this big meal for us
and our buddies after church. So I do all that, get dressed
and get everyone else dressed, run out the door to church.
After church we came home and had the big meal

--and I think my dressing turned out good.
Although I must tell you the conversation I had
with my friend after we ate. I told her that
I wanted to know the truth: how was the dressing?
She said that it was good and (this is the funny part)
that she "wasn't expecting that."
I just had to laugh when I heard that.
What a funny thing to say. Try adding that phrase
onto the end of things you say to other people.
"Margo, that's a lovely hat you are wearing today
--and I really wasn't expecting that."
"Bill, you look like you've lost some weight
--and I really wasn't expecting that."
It just makes it such a weird statement.
But we both laughed about it. And I was
pleased with my dressing that day so that's that.

After we ate, we played games and the kids partied
all over the house (and outside the house
in the ridiculous flurries of snow we had).
I guess I shouldn't say gameS (plural).
We didn't play an array of games.
We played one game.
We played Dutch Blitz.

Yes, people, it's Christmastime,
it's Dutch Blitz season. Time to break it out
and drive yourself crazy with that game.
I don't know why I love that game so.
I stink at it. I never get to blitz.
It's just like this big exercise in mental stress
and frustration for me.
And this is a game?
This is fun?
I guess so.

Towards the end of the afternoon I had to whip together
a dessert for a thing after church. We had some missionaries
there that night and we had a little dessert fellowship thing
after church. Which was great. We needed to spend
more time away from the house since we still had to decorate
the ding-dang tree and do this whole big thing for Lloyd Dobbler's job.
Sigh. But we stayed after church, we fellowshiped, I got
talked into changing my plans for today which is part of why
I started out this post with a big "whew." If I had kept
my original plan, I would have just stayed at home
tonight. I would have missed out on a holiday party
that I enjoyed, but I would have had a quiet, peaceful night.
And see, that's my problem.
Is that just being a homebody?
Or am I anti-social? Do I have a problem?
I would almost rather miss a fun, once-a-year occasion
than to have to scurry around, making arrangements
for each kid, who will take who to basketball
practice and all of that kind of thing.
I wonder sometimes if I just
get too used to my low key stay-at-home life.
I mean, is that a bad thing?
Should I be taking Zoloft or something?
Or is this another one of those situations that falls under
the category of "Well, you've got four kids now."
You wouldn't believe how often I hear that.
I can understand it in some situations.
We can NOT pick up a trio of hitchhikers. Why?
Because we have four kids. Our van is pretty much full.
We could squeeze maybe one in if they were skinny.
Not that this is ever going to happen.
But that would make sense.
But other people will say to me
"Well, you've got four kids now"
as an explanation to things that
just don't have any logical connection.

I burned the cookies.
"Well, Bell, you do have four kids now."
I forgot to pay the cable bill.
"Well, you do have four kids now, you know."
I tripped and almost fell down the stairs.
"Well, you have four kids now."
What?
Is that my excuse for everything?
Am I supposed to be using it?
Is that why people are offering me that bit of information?
Because it doesn't seem like much of an excuse.
But just tonight when I explained that I just wasn't going to
be involved in a certain activity for a while, the person I was
talking to said, "You have four kids. Tell them that."

I just paused here and realized that I'm rambling on and on
and being rather crabby. I'm really not in a
crabby mood...I don't think. I'm just tired.
I've been busy, and you sure wouldn't know it
to look at my house. To look at my house, you would think
I've been busy making messes.
Because it is a MESS.
Christmas boxes are everywhere. It's a little chaotic.
Like this day.
I'm just glad this day is over.

I could have just said that one sentence
and saved you from reading all of this.
I have wasted your time.
I could have just made the title of this post
"Whew! I'm glad this day is over!"
and not written a word.
But then you wouldn't know
that my dressing turned out good on Sunday
or that I am either very lazy or I need to be taking
an antidepressant because I often prefer staying at home
to going out to festivities with my friends.
You wouldn't know those things if you hadn't
waded through this grumbly marsh of a post.
And you know what they say:
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
So you've either died from reading this or you are stronger.
I'm hoping you are stronger.
You do look like you've been working out
--and I really didn't expect that.