Stuck in Frump, Striving for Fab

I'd be the first to tell you that I'm a total frump when it comes to my hair. I strive, and I strive for fab, but always (where my hair is concerned) I revert to saved.

My default hairstyle? Long layers.

I know, real exciting stuff, huh?

Well it gets better. I don't dye, either. (gasp!)

And I'm in my mid 30's (swoon!)

Yes, my friends, I have silver highlights all through my once dark brown tresses. (Tresses sounds so much more sophisticated than plain old hair, don't you think?)

To remedy this, I used to keep a jumbo black Sharpie in my cosmetics case for quick touch-ups on the grays if I was going somewhere special because, well, it was just worth the extra effort.

This worked quite well until I had my toddler, at which point the grays began coming in at an alarmingly fast rate, and the smell of the Sharpie from trying to cover all those new grays triggered one of the worst asthma attacks I've ever had.

Thankfully, by that time, my hubby also had a sprinkling of grays coming in as well, so I didn't feel quite so conspicuous.

For a while there I began to worry that folks would think I was his mother. Okay, maybe not quite so bad as all that (and please understand that I don't mean that my mother in law looks bad...on the contrary, she looks pretty good for her age!). What I mean is that no woman wants to look older than her man.

But there is a valid reason I don't dye. The first time I tried any type of hair color treatment was after we got our tax-return a few years ago...

I went to MasterCuts. I guess that was so that one of their, uh, Masters could have a go at it.

My regular stylist had moved, so I ended up with a guy who had kool-aid red and black hair, cut in kind of a hacked-off, choppy style, telling me the whole sordid story of how he'd just broken up with his girlfriend as he foiled my hair. I also learned that this same stylist moonlighted as a repo guy.

Needless to say, Steel Magnolias this was not.

And to be honest, I was a little nervous how my hair was going to turn out.

At that time, blonde streaks through dark hair was all the rage (which was exciting stuff, because there was a day when there was very little you could do with dark brown or black hair).

However, after enduring the hour long foiling process and hearing way more about my stylist than I ever wanted to know, then sitting under the hairdryer that dried out my hair (and eyes) for another half hour, I learned that my hair was apparently the type that could never truly go blonde without breaking off completely. Too fine and too dark, or something like that.

So I ended up with caramel colored highlights (or so he said to try and make the color sound better than it was) that just never gave me the look I'd been shooting for (and took forever to grow out).

When I got tired of the 'caramel' streaks in my hair, I went to a high-dollar salon to have it dyed back to my regular color. The girl was a color specialist, and the dye was a perfect match.

Unfortunately, she dribbled it all over my scalp with what looked like the envelope moistener bottle my grandma used to have in her junk drawer.

The liquid not only stained my skin that color wherever it dribbled out around my hairline, but it caused my entire scalp to burn for the next two days (even after a couple of washings), and was tender for about a week afterward. Apparently I also have a rare (and previously unknown since I never dyed my hair) allergy to hair dye.

For a few days there, things were kind of dicey, as I was concerned that I might lose my hair like that one other time...

Which would be the unforgettable church retreat debacle of my sophomore year of high school, when a stage light positioned atop a tall stand (with a ridiculously small tripod base on the floor) suddenly tilted and began to fall my direction like an evergreen when the logger yells out, "Tiiiiimber!"

The three inch diameter aluminum pipe lamp post glanced off my forehead. My knees buckled. I fell to the pew in sitting position, and the kids who had witnessed this pointed at me, gasping, as my eyes (which somehow managed to stay open) followed the stars and birdies that were buzzing around my head. And let me tell you, a blow to the head will cause a person to see stars and birdies just like the cartoons.

But I ended up being hailed as something of a hero, as my thick scull was what prevented my friends further down the pew from getting hit with the hot, sharp edges of the actual stage light.

All I can say is that it was the Grace of God that prevented me from looking up right then, or I might have been hit on the nose, and would henceforth probably not be here to tell my tale.

Fortunately for me, there was a medical professional in the house.

The camp nurse came rushing over, and after a preliminary inspection, which included checking my pupils (which had miraculously regained proper focus) and asking if my head hurt, told me I was probably just a bit dazed and that she didn't believe it was a concussion.

Within about 15 minutes, I felt remarkably well, except that my scalp had an odd prickly-tingly sensation (kind of a cross between when your foot has fallen asleep and goosebumps) which stayed that way for hours afterward.

After she cleaned my just-below-the-hairline abrasion (atop the enormous bump) and put a band-aid on it, I was sent back to my cabin to get ready for dinner.

And because there were lots of cute guys there (I was a good girl, but I'd be the first to admit that it wasn't just my love for Jesus that drew me to those high school retreats), I took extra pains.

I felt compelled to do this, because I wanted to look my best. I was also a bit self-conscious about the hush that I was sure would fall over the chow hall as I walked in, and people would point and whisper amongst themselves, "That's the girl who got hit in the head by the lamp post!". I didn't want to look like a fool, because, you know, I could help it and everything.

But as it turned out, I missed dinner altogether. Because as I was pulling a brush through my hair back in my cabin, hanks of it fell out in my brush. Think "Locks of Love" hanks.

And I freaked out and ran crying hysterically back to the camp nurse, who told me my "scalp done went into shock".

I'd never heard of such a thing before, and still kind of question how legit her 'nursing' credentials were, considering that somewhere in her care of me, she told me she worked on the sidelines at her son's football games taping ankles and such, and had seen guys get up and play the game with far worse than my injury, (which I perceived then to mean that I needed to suck it up) and remarkably, I never got so much as a concussion (or so the same woman told me) and I've been fine ever since.

And remarkably, I never got so much as a concussion (or so the same woman told me) and I've been fine ever since.

But getting back to my hair, I've just never been the salon-cut type of gal.

I guess that's always been for financial reasons.

When I was one of four stair-step kids at home, my dad solved this expensive problem by telling my two sisters and I that he 'loved' long hair, and that if we all grew our hair down to the "crack in our fannies" (and yes, sadly he did use that exact terminology), he'd give us each $5.

I'm proud to say it took me five years, but I earned that $5 (and no doubt saved him a mint in haircuts during that time). My sisters meanwhile went the home perm route.

But even now, salons being like a fine restaurant, I'm more the drive-thru kind of gal, frequenting places like MasterCuts or SuperCuts for my quarterly trims. In and out of there in 20 minutes for $20 is more my speed. And speaking of speed, with cars that are always needing something done to keep them limping along, I can hardly justify $75 on a salon treatment for hair that will need a touch up again in just a few weeks.

MasterCuts is about the cheapest you can go, shy of cutting your own hair (which I also tried once, and do NOT reccomend). Unless, that is, you have someone to trade off trims with...

Out of sheer (or perhaps that should say shear) desperation, my sister Jami and I did this when we were in high school.

It was a classic case of "I'll trim yours if you'll trim mine".

She did mine first (and did a fine job, I might add) but when it came time for me to reciprocate, she ended up with the short end of the stick. And I do mean short.

I learned my lesson that time, though. Never, EVER allow your sister to watch Jaws while you are cutting her hair.

Because undoubtedly, in spite of your careful ministrations, you will become so engrossed in the movie, that during that frightening 'DA-dum...DA-dum...DA-dum' scene where Jaws suddenly jumps out of the water, you will shriek, and inadvertently take a full three inches more off than you intended to. At an angle.

Your eyes would widen in horror staring at the back of her head, but you would refrain from saying, "Uh oh" and would instead hurriedly try to correct the damage (which is difficult work with a dull, old pair of scissors that were, in a previous life, your mom's sewing scissors).

And then your sister, would get suspicious of your sudden silence, and would glance down just then and see huge, longish gobs of hair, her hair, on the floor around her feet, and would f-r-e-a-k out.

You would feel so bad that you would apologize profusely, even going so far as to offer for her to just hack off some of your much longer hair if it would make her feel better. But she would instead go to her room and cry bitterly for the next fifteen minutes, and would never, ever, ever let you come close to her head with scissors again.

And you would suffer guilt over that for years. Which is why you would never pursue beauty school. Because you just couldn't bear the stress of getting someone else's hair just so, or the guilt of botching someone's hair just before prom or a wedding or something.

So, with my career as a hairstylist coming to such an abrupt end before it had ever really begun, I instead turned my attentions to barbering...

And for a while, practiced on my brother and some guy friends from church, and did a pretty fair job of it. I actually had some repeat customers.

But the biggest feat of my haircutting career, my piece de resistance. was when I was asked to cut my dad's hair.

Now you must understand that my dad didn't trust his hair to just anyone.

Looking back, I'm pretty sure this was because he was at that time notorious for desperate to hang onto this longish strand of maybe fifty hairs spread out single file that he would sweep around and up over the back of his head in a feeble attempt to try and hide his bald spot.

This might loosely have been described as a comb-over, more regularly taking the form of a party streamer, shaking loose from it's nest and flapping in the breeze like Old Glory.

But not to worry, he kept a little black comb in his back pocket, and routinely swept the errant strands around up and over the top at the slightest breath of wind.

I guess, being the 1980's girl that I was, I felt that my dad's hairstyle was, "like, totally Seventies!" and I worried that folks would begin lumping my dad in with the dude who worked at my grandma's favorite grocery store Piggly Wiggly, and had a comb-over/toupee thing gelled in place over his (substantially larger) bald spot like a cap.

Even though I was surprised that he entrusted his hair to moi (never mind that times were tough then, and family finances were tight), I took this job very seriously, and did my best work ever.

I carefully clipped around that hank of hair, pretending it didn't exist like the 'elephant in the room', but alas, after a brief moment of hesitation, I took some advice gleaned from a song on the radio in those days, 'seized the day', and snipped off that hideous hank of hair, quickly dropping the thin, pitiful remnants through the gaps between the boards on our back deck.

It wasn't one of my finest moments, but when I was done with his haircut, he was none the wiser. Peering at his reflection in the glass sliding door he remarked at what a great job I had done with the cut.

It did look good, and I couldn't have been prouder.

That is, until he pulled out his trusty comb and went to sweep that tail around his head and found it MIA. Gone. No more. Nada.

I can't recall for sure, but I seem to remember my punishment for that little lapse in judgement costing me an overnighter at my friends house, and then being told I had to mow the entire front lawn. All 2 acres of it. Beginning right then, and it was nearly dusk.

But I didn't let that little bump in the road discourage me. In college, I set up shop in the student center laundry room of my college and while my weeks worth of laundry was being washed, I cut hair on the side.

And more often than not, it was (literally) cut just on the sides.

You may remember the infamous "mullet" cut, which I would not go so far as to say was a 'style'.

Those weren't just Georgia waterfalls, people. I stand in testimony to the fact that Minnesota waterfalls were also alive and flowing in the early 1990's, although by then, the length in the back had shortened considerably, redeeming the style if only a little.

My (now) hubby was one of my repeat customers in those days. And like many other guys at our college at that time, wanted that cut (business in the front, party in the back, baby).

Incidentally, he wore that style up until one of his students called him "Slater" (from the old TV show Saved by the Bell) ..a couple of years after that show ended.

But I digress (finally, a place to insert this word!).

I had one major salon cut as a child (so I'd look like Dorothy Hamill), one in high school (to look like Cindy Crawford), and one in college which included the coveted spiral perm. Then there was a break of several years where my hair was all one length and I did nothing to it, and finally... the one salon dye job that nearly caused me to lose my hair for the second time.

I'm getting a little desperate here. I still have a two year old in the home, and dread the thought of someone asking if he's my grandson.

Where salons are concerned, I suppose I have a bit of a phobia. A little frission of fear courses through me that the careless 'hair' mistakes of my past will finally catch up to me. That I'll be on the other end of the shears, and walk out of there looking like a half-plucked chicken.

I'm in need of hairapy.

Sick of being sick.
Laundry piled high again.
Losing weight a plus.

Our toddler came down with a little flu bug, and spent most of yesterday sick on the sofa.

Last Thursday evening, our older son was in a musical at his school. It was a patriotic play, and he had a leading role.

He did a great job and we were so proud of him, we could just bust.

Our toddler Judah, almost 2 1/2, came up and climbed into my lap at the computer the other day. "Mama? I want chip monkeys."

"Chip Monkeys?" I ask, wondering what in the world he was talking about. I quickly thought back through his recent activities and experiences, trying to decipher what chip monkeys could possibly mean in his little toddler mind, but drew blanks.

"Chips?" I asked, beginning with the logical choice of some type of food.

He shakes his head. "No."

"Monkeys?" I asked in a very convincing Mrs. Potato Head voice, as she packed a few barrel-o-monkey monkeys in Mr. Potato Head's 'trunk' for his journey (in the bloopers section of his beloved Toy Story 2). Pictured here is another favorite scene when she packs his "angry eyes".



"No."

"Chunky Monkey?" (not that he would have any earthly idea what that even is. Ahem.)



"No."

"Chocolate Chip Cookies?" I asked, thinking maybe he mistook cookie somewhere for monkey.

I'm now wrapping up the end of the third week in my battle with that horrible cold that is going around.

A little over seventeen years ago, I had just returned to Minnesota after a Spring Break trip to visit my family in Washington State.

That's my sister Jami with me (on the left) in each of these photos. (If I had a dollar for every strip of photos I'd had taken in the Kmart photo booth, I'd probably have been able to pay my way through college then, instead of still. I loved those things!)

There we were, goofing off just before Kmart closed that Saturday night, with me patting myself on the back for already having my stuff all packed and ready to go for my flight out the following morning.

When I called to confirm my flight early Sunday morning, the kind lady at Northwest Airlines told me, "Ahhh, miss, it appears that you've missed your flight."

"WHAT?!" I squawked, in disbelief.

Apparently I'd overlooked the whole AM part of my itinerary, and had missed my flight by several hours.

Through panicked tears, I pleaded with the woman over the phone, explaining my predicament, and that I absolutely had to get back to college or I could lose placement in some vital classes for my major, and that I couldn't afford a whole other ticket because I was just barely making ends meet as it was, and that either my college career would be doomed, or I would be relegated to eating saltine crackers and ramen noodles for the next three months if I had to buy a new ticket...

$50 dollars later, she was able to reschedule my missed flight, and we were forced to dash to the airport the minute I got off the phone if I was to catch it on time.

Early Sunday afternoon, my Uncle Mark and my Cousin Tiffany came to the airport to pick me up, and while on the drive back to my college, Tiffany announced that some guy named Jeff had called the house several times looking for me.

Because I'd lived at my aunts house for a year before starting college, their address and phone number were the ones that ended up in the college face book as my home numbers.

"Jeff?" I asked, my heart skipping a beat. Could it be? Had that studmuffin football player/campus security guard called moi?

I could barely contain my joy. "Are you serious?" I asked my startled young cousin.

"Uh....yeah." Clearly, she was oblivious to the importance of such news.

But then my heart sank remembering a trivial but very important little detail that put me in a bit of a predicament.

Which Jeff?

Just before leaving for Washington, I'd learned through the grapevine that there were two different guys, both named Jeff, that were interested in me.

I asked my cousin a couple more questions, trying to narrow down whether or not it was the Jeff that I was interested in, or the other guy.

Had he left a name? No.
Had he left a phone number? No.
What did he sound like? I dunno.

Big help, Tiff. But then, she was like 11 or 12 at the time and didn't pay attention to such important details.

So I worried for the rest of the drive back to campus about what I was going to do if it was the Jeff I was not interested in who had called, and how I would ever get over the disappointment if the one I was interested in never did call me.

It was all kind of wishful thinking anyway, because for all I knew, it might just as easily have been my cousin Jeff who was due to be shipped off to the Persian Gulf with the Military at any time, and who my dad had mentioned had been calling around to say his goodbyes to the fam.

How odd to have so many Jeff's in one's life all at once confusing matters.

When I got to the college, much to my dismay there were no messages for me either on my answering machine, or at the Student Center desk.

So I went shopping.

I'd just put in my two weeks notice as a cosmetics consultant at JCPenney's, and wanted to use the money my grandma had given me while I'd been home on a new outfit or two before my employee discount ran out.

As it turned out, I happened upon a fantastic spring sale, and was able to get three new outfits, two of which were suits that I'd be able to wear to church. I was ecstatic.

A couple of hours later I returned to campus, hoofed it in from the far parking lot, my purchases over my arms, dreamy thoughts swirling through my head about when and where I'd wear my new clothes and how I'd style my hair. Suddenly I see the gray campus security van pull to a stop alongside me on the one-way road in front of the building.

I glance up and see Jeff. The Jeff that I had so hoped was the one who had called my aunts house looking for me!

He had rolled down the window and was leaning out slightly, smiling.

Be still my heart!

He called to me over the sound of the van motor, "Hi, Becky."

My throat suddenly felt dry, and my hands went all clammy.

"Hi" I replied shyly.

"I tried calling you a couple of times over Spring Break, but I must have had the wrong number or something."

"Oh?" I croaked out, knowing what was coming, my heart doing really funny things inside my chest.

Just then, I see some of Jeff's buddies, Chad and Dean-O, walking towards us on the sidewalk. They glanced up and saw Jeff in the van. They smiled and nodded in the way of guys sending signals meant to egg each other on. Dean-O called out, "Just do your job, man...just do your job."

I knew they were razzing him, and could sense Jeff's embarrassment. But it gave me a moment's reprieve to collect myself and try and swallow the nervous lump in my throat.

When the door closed behind them, I turned back and found him smiling that drop dead gorgeous smile of his once again, and my heart fluttered yet again.

I later learned that during this precise moment, Jeff was pressing his already buff bicep against the van door, hoping to make it look even bigger, lol.

I was suitably impressed.

"I, uh...I was wondering if you'd like to go out sometime?"

By now, my heart was flipping around like a fish on the riverbank. Or maybe it was the butterflies in my stomach all flying upward at the same time, pounding against my heart...nevertheless, it produced all manner of nervous sensations inside of me.

Plenty of guys had asked me out before, but always, and I mean always, I knew right off the bat it was a one-time deal. Sometimes I would dread going out with the guy, and would suffer through a lame date simply because I didn't have the guts to decline.

But this...this was different. From the very first moment.

No, with Jeff, there was no revulsion whatsoever.

Nothing that turned me off, or yea, even repulsed me to the point I wanted nothing to do with the guy afterward. Like the new guy on campus who jumped out from behind a tree while I was walking late to class one morning and scared the bejeepers out of me. Or the guy who parked his can on my sofa during visiting hours and expected that I would cook for him on my one, thin dime (while his parents paid his way through college). Or the really enthusiastic guy with the white eyebrows who had a tendency to spit when he talked. Or the other guy, who though a sweetheart, was about a foot shorter than I was, and had a unibrow and poor table manners. Or my 'secret brother', who after the big 'reveal' made it known that he liked me, but unknowingly sealed his own doom when he didn't wipe the mayonaise off the corner of his mouth one day at lunch.

No, with Jeff, I knew right off, from the moment we'd caught eyes at the basketball game that there was nothing like that standing in the way with him.

Everything about him was perfect. And attractive. And I felt like I was the luckiest girl in the entire world the moment he smiled at me.

"Um, sure...that sounds good."

And so it was set.

My roomies Lynette and Mary will try and tell you that I came back to our dorm, cast aside my purchases and jumped up and down on my bed as I excitedly screeched the news to them...but I couldn't possibly have been as juvenile as all that.

Or, ahem, maybe I was. It's been so long ago now, I scarcely remember...

In any case, 17 years ago today, we were sitting in Baker's Square, on our first date, where we talked for four hours straight over a slice of Brownie Pie with vanilla ice cream.

And late the evening of that momentous occasion, smitten as I was, I floated into my dorm room my feet not quite touching the ground and told my roomies all about how wonderful Jeff was.

That night, as I lay in bed trying to get to sleep after such excitement, the words of a poem kept coming back to me, tugging at the corners of my mind, until I was forced to get up and retrieve the book I had found it in.

The best part about Jeff getting home safe and sound Sunday night was seeing our youngest son's delight at finally getting to see his daddy again. Four days without your daddy is a long time when you're 2 1/2!

I was also considerably relieved that all the worst-case-scenarios I had conjured up in my stuffed up head were all for naught, and that his plane did not crash leaving me a young widow with two children to raise on my own.

But the next best thing was when Jeff dumped out all of the loot he brought home with him from the conference all over our round kitchen table. And there was a lot. The boys went berserk. Jericho and Judah were in the thick of things snatching items for themselves um, generously dividing up the goods.

Now this stuff that might not seem like much to some, but it was all free, most of it useful, and the reps from various educational organizations kept shoving it at my husband, so he kept taking it. And did I mention it was all free?

Among the spoils:

• Several highlighter pens in every available color (always useful for Bible study)


• A black tote bag (can you ever have enough of these with children?)


• A bright red backpack, which Judah laid claim to immediately (after playing with the highlighters)

• Lots of pens in various shapes and sizes, enough to fill a gallon ziploc bag.

• Three bright red foam apples. My first thought after seeing these was that they had to take the cake for being the stupidest gimmick from the conference. However, one minute later I quickly changed my mind, because being somewhat 'Nerf-like', it was discovered they can be used to safely play catch indoors. But Jericho found the best use of all for them:

• Some novelty light-up LED necklaces


• Several picture books of animals and a book about the State Capitol


• Enough note pads for even my compulsive list-making needs for the next year.


• A beautiful stainless steel insulated coffee mug that will fit in my console in the car.

But my favorite items of all?

I kid you not, if Jeff would have offered me my choice between a box of fine French truffles or a stack of Post It note pads, I'd have taken the latter. And that's saying something, because I do love fine French truffles. Thank you, Jeff!

And now, with a nearly endless supply...I don't have to resort to rationing them any more. I can use them for whatever my heart desires! Woo hoo!

Ahem, I know that perhaps this might seem a bit weird to you all, so I won't even get started on my collection of bread bag tabs.

Or the fact that my friend Chrissy even saves hers for me. Because one day...one day I'm going to make a magnificent work of art, my magnum opus, entirely out of these recyclables. (I'm hoping that will, you know, help to relieve some of the guilt caused by the numerous trees that were sacrificed to support my copious Post It Note habit)...but that's a post for another day.

I've been working on a couple of posts that I've been trying to find pictures for, and so they are currently gathering dust in my draft file. Something else always seems to come up before I can finish them.

But that's okay, I simply haven't had time to look through old photos...I've been kind of busy calling poison control today.

Well, actually I didn't bother when Judah tasted the dog food earlier this morning, because he'd done that once before without any ill effects, and after chewing, promptly spit it back out.

I wanted to ask him, "Has it come to this? You're so hungry and neglected that you've resorted to dog food?" This kid is always eating and snacking. I just don't get it.

Kibbles & Bits must really look appetizing. Mmmm...just like candy.

But while bathing him this morning, I left the bathroom for two seconds...one second into his room just across the hall to grab his little bath towel, another second to return...and there he is, the bottle of baby shampoo upended, and undetermined amount down the hatch.

I asked him, "Judah! Did you just DRINK the shampo?" with my firmest icky-yucky, we-don't-do-that face on.

He quickly put the bottle back up on the ledge (where big brother apparently left it this morning, because it is usually on the higher one out of his reach).

"No" he says in reply, a gigantic bubble coming out with the word.

Reminded me a little of that old episode of Lil Rascals where Alfalfa Corn had eaten soap, and was blowing bubbles...

I guess this wasn't so bad though. Judah did down an entire bottle of bubbles at my sister's wedding last June, which promptly came right back up, and that didn't seem to have any lingering side effects. Perhaps he didn't ingest quite so much this time around.

The fun never ends in the Frump household!

Sometimes I go for days, running along in the same well-worn grooves.

Not that I'm complaining, as predicatability can be a good thing.

But for me, it always seems that long stretches like this are punctuated by a really crazy day to sort of make up for all the ordinary ones.

You know, those days that seem like a condensed weeks worth of stuff all crammed into one 24 hour period?

I was ready to send out an S.O.S. on Thursday morning:

Flying solo with kids for 4 days (stop) Sick with a cold (stop) Toddler feverish (stop) Send reinforcements (Stop)

Kidding on the reinforcements part, because we're actually begginning to feel much better now.

But I should have known things were heading south Monday morning.

That was the day Jeff reminded me about his conference this weekend, and the same day that I first woke up with a bad cold and a lovely man-voice (which was so hoarse my own mom didn't recognize me on the phone that day).

Wednesday night, I asked if he could cancel the trip. I just wasn't ready for him to leave for his long-weekend school conference the next day. Especially being sick myself and with Judah feeling a tad feverish.

But Jeff couldn't exactly get out of this one, as it cost his school a pretty penny.

Yeah, I felt sorry for him, 'having' to fly by plane to get to this thing and then 'having' to stay in a Hyatt hotel. As if that weren't enough, the poor guy also 'has' to eat out at nice restaurants every day while he's there, and then spend his free time shoping among throngs of people. Poor thing.

In spite of being crazy jealous about his paid weekend away, we've coped quite well.

Our older son Jericho has been a huge help since dad's been gone. Getting sippy cups of juice for little brother, making toast and other easy-to-prepare foods for himself and his brother, and even helping with Judah's bathtime yesterday evening.





Of course, being able to call and talk to daddy has helped, too, because little Judah is just beside himself without his daddy here. Especially since learning that daddy got to go on an "airpane" AND a "buth", he has not stopped hounding me about where his daddy is. Until we call and let him talk to him.




I was still feeling pretty rough last night, and was looking forward to sleeping in and lounging around in my jammies all morning long.

However, our new neighbors in the house next door were up-and-at-'em at 7 am, clamouring around in their backyard (I think getting it set up for a birthday party or something) with our loyal watchdog Raisin barking up a storm at them through the fence.

Needless to say, I was wide awake hours before I wanted to be, and so because the kids can sleep through anything, I came out to enjoy the relative peace and solitude of my kitchen in the early morning sunshine.

I had just sat down with a hot cup of tea, when I saw this




Apparently the ants in the neighborhood were all roused from their winter lodgings by our brief streak of warm weather, thought it was spring, and decided to get to work building themselves an anthill...inside my kitchen!

One inch from the outside!

Either they overshot their tunnel digging, or they were enticed in by the ready supply of crumbs left on the floor since mom's been sick.

Which means there is a crack that I will have to locate and patch up to prevent the summer onslaught from that same point of entry. Oy.

In trying to clean all that up, I woke up the boys.

So everyone was up by 7:45, and we started our Saturday much earlier than I had hoped.

But Judah was still very tired, and after he ate a little, and watched Charlotte's Web, was ready to go back down for a nap about 9:30.

I had just dozed off again myself when my sister-in-law called around 10.

In the middle of the call, there was suddenly a knock on my front door. I peeked out the peephole, and saw her standing on the other side of the door with her daughter, cell phone in hand (like she's 'surprised' me before), and I threw open the door and said, "You dawg!"

Except that it wasn't her at all, but a couple of women from a local church that goes door to door passing out literature. The woman was just putting her cell phone away, and looked rather stunned by my outburst.

"I'm sooooo sorry." I'm sure the poor soul thought I was certifiably insane.

After making feeble apologies, I closed the door.

Meanwhile, my sister-in-law is still on the phone, and so I fill her in on what just happened and we get a good laugh out of it.

But before that call ended, there was another knock on the door. This time a salesman.

I didn't bother to answer that one.

And that was just the beginning of my day!

It all seemed so simple that morning, when the only actual plan we had for the day was to take Jericho to his Awana Games practice at 2 this afternoon!

Hopelessly wide-awake, I sat down at my computer for a bit while Judah was still napping.

That lasted maybe a half hour, but with the boys snacking and some VeggieTales, I was able to finish a few things.

Then at noon, I get a call asking if Jericho was going to be at the church for Bible Quiz practice at noon.

The practice I knew nothing about, because Jericho hadn't bothered to tell me he'd even made the team!

It was ten til noon, and still in our PJ's, we had to kick it into high gear, and I got him to the church a little late.

I thought it would be nice to take Judah and go to the bookstore to kill the next hour or two, and as I was pulling out of my church parking lot, I saw a 'suspicious' car parked along the road across the street from our church, and thought at first that what I was witnessing was graffiti tagging-in-progress. In broad daylight.

It caused me to pause momentarily and assess things.

The driver's side door suddenly popped open, and a woman hopped out, steadied herself, and leaving the driver's side door open, and sort of stumbled around to the passenger side, balancing herself on the car.

The passenger, a guy who had apparently been struggling to get out of his door (what I had mistaken for graffiti-in-progress), tossed a can against the stucco wall they were parked beside, which sloshed all over the wall, then staggered around to the driver's side, and hopped in. The woman was already inside, having lit a cigarette, which for some reason she was holding out the sunroof.

I pulled out behind them, following discreetly at a distance, and glanced down at the can he'd tossed out. A beer can. At 12:30 in the afternoon. Hence their staggering.

My hackles rose. (Insert a Marge Simpson "Grrrrrr")

Their recklessness and irresponsibility was going to endanger countless other people's lives!

And I say this from the perspective of one who had friends in high school that were killed as a result of the fatal combination of drinking and driving. That was so SADD, and made a lasting impression on my life. Then, a few years ago, my cousin Rachelle, a college kid with a bright future ahead of her, was killed by a drunk driver. That makes me MADD!

So, good citizen Becky was on the job. I followed this possibly inebriated couple as I dialed 911 and gave all the particulars.

They immediately dispatched a unit that was nearby. Half an hour later, I was asked to drive past their location and ID the driver (while on the phone with one of the deputies). It was him alright. And he was already in handcuffs.

With that much excitement before 1 pm, I thought perhaps we should just play things safe, and head straight home from Jericho's practice!

So far, so good.