Going....Going....Not Gone Yet!

So I know it appears that I've fallen off of the face of the earth, but honestly I was kind of wishing I had at one point.

Our office is remodeling and the paint fumes got to me after a few days, so I've been sick for the last 9 days. That's right. No voice. For someone who likes to talk as much as I do, it has been pure torture.

I must say though, that I work for a great company because they gave me paid administrative leave and I didn't have to use any sick days. I thought that was pretty great of them.

Of course, since I couldn't talk, singing was out of the question. That meant I didn't get to sing in the cantata on Easter morning, but Crissy stepped in and sang my song for me. Thank the Lord for someone who is able to do that on a short notice.

I was very pleased with the outcome of the cantata. I have to say I think it was one of the best that the choir has done. Yay choir!!

This Sunday night we are doing a Homecoming Style singing. I think it will be fun and give them a time to relax and enjoy what they're singing without any pressure.

He Said It!!!!!

Well, I can't help but admit that I was disappointed when Brenda Blue and Brother said my name after they learned to say every other family members', all household items and some scientific medical terminology.

Tuesday was the day though that Pal pulled ahead in the running for favorite child. Second word I've heard him say....Nunni. That's right. He said my name. He of course got the special treatment of the day yesterday.

On another note: Our office is being painted. Which means I am almost as high as I have been the last three days from the cold medication. Now if the two were combined, well, I may very well be arrested for driving under the influence or something.

The fumes combined with no sleep (which has nothing to do with the little imp who slept with me last night) have taken their toll on me. I'm thinking that I could just lay in the floor behind my desk and take a nap. Upon being questioned I could blame it on the fumes.

This whole thing could work to my advantage after all.

Oh, even BIGGER NEWS: I got a mention on BooMama's blog yesterday! This could very well be even bigger than Pal saying my name. (It's not like he wouldn't have said it eventually anyway) Now, it's no secret that I'm slightly obsessed with BooMama and BigMama and I just know that we're going to be best friends one day because they're my long lost sisters and all, but it did thrill me. Who needs celebrities? Big and Boo entertain me more than anyone from Hollywood ever could.

The Nature "Walk"

So, it's no secret that I'm not an outside person. At all. Ever.

Being the nice aunt I am though, I decided to take the little anklebiters on a nature walk. Now before you judge me because of the pictures, I realize there was no walking involved. It just sounds better to say nature walk.

I might also add that while they have four-wheelers to take the big hill in front of our house, I was riding a bicycle up and down that heel. No help from anything motorized. Which I just think is sinful.


This kind of gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "wind blown" doesn't it?

Brother started out on his four-wheeler, but then decided to ride the golf cart with me. Because we all know how exhausting keeping your foot on the gas can be. This is further proof that I think he really is my child. Why drive yourself when someone else can?

Notice the lovely color of their teeth. Because you can't get those results from Crest Whitestrips. No sir. That's a shade only squeeze-its can provide.


Of course, as long as I was taking pictures of them, they felt they should take one of me.

Notice the pearl earrings. Because who doesn't wear pearls on a nature walk?

On another fun note, I think I've come down with something. I left church after the song service yesterday. My plan was to go home, take something, take a nap and then be back that night. It didn't happen. I had a fever and my mother wouldn't let me leave the house. So, instead I just laid in the recliner.

I called Bryan and told him to have the choir practice the Easter cantata, but it seems they didn't. That's okay because they'll remember next week's practice. Since they skipped this week, they can just practice for 2 hours next week. Those bums.

Actually, I'm kind of shocked they didn't hold an emergency meeting and get rid of me while I wasn't there and they had the chance.

Oh well. They had their chance.

Hospitals, Babies and Chickens

Early this morning it was discovered that Luke (a.k.a Brother) was running a high fever so S-I-L took him to the emergency room. I navigated my morning schedule around Ben (a.k.a. Pal) and Madyson (a.k.a. Brenda Blue) who was still sleeping. I took my shower and had breakfast while Pal drank his bottle sitting in the bouncer watching Caillou.

Because that's how I parent.

Anyway, when Brenda Blue woke up she questioned Brother's absence which led to a conversation that went something like this.

"Where's Brother?"

"Mommy took him to the doctor."

"Oh, no. Nunni, if he goes to the doctor, he'll come back with a baby."

Now question my parental abilities if you must, but I do know it's not appropriate to laugh in their little faces. So, I turned around to laugh. Then I told her that there would be no more babies.

This, my friends, is what your children start to think if you have 3 kids within 5 years. Hospital = Baby.

Notice that we also teach concern and compassion at our house because she cared not that the poor boy was sick. Her only concern was that there would be another child to compete with for attention.

I am somehow convinced that Brother's sickness is related to the incident with the chickens last night.

He and my mother had a conversation like this last night.

Brother: "Those are guns. (pointing to the locked gun cabinet on the wall of my dad's shop) They go pow-pow. Give me one of those guns."

Mother: "No. What do you think you need a gun for."

Brother: "To shoot that chicken." (pronounced sh-icken)

Mother: "Why would you shoot a chicken"

Brother: "He bit me!"

So Brother must have something similar to bird flu from the chicken bite he suffered.

Please before you email me lecturing on guns and children. Don't. I'm not a fan of children knowing what guns are or volunteering to shoot biting chickens, but what can I do. I'm not his mother to prevent this type of knowledge and even then, they're going to know what guns are. He's a little boy.

Let me enjoy the funny story that it was.

Rednecks, Country Music, Prayer and the Vagina Monologues

This will be a long entry, but just stay with me. I have a lot to talk about.

Okay, so I wrote on Friday that I was going to see Alan Jackson on Saturday night. The adventure began at 3:00 when I picked Kerrie up and we headed out. We stopped and ate and headed for the Foley Beach Express. Now this would be a good time to tell you that we both have a great fear of bridges. As we pulled up to the toll there was no turning back or changing our minds...we had to cross.

Now before you judge me for having a strange phobia, just try to see my reasoning. I have no control over a bridge collapsing while I'm driving over a large body of water that I will fall into and drown because I can't swim.

While we were both upset, I must admit I think we both prayed more during those moments that either of us had ever heard the other pray.

Bryan would be so proud.

See, the trip wasn't for naught.

After our brush with death, we pulled into the wharf and parked among hundreds of pick-up trucks. It was that moment I realized we should have borrowed a truck from someone instead of driving my car.

This would be a mistake that would cause a delay in finding the car after the concert because well, a Chrysler 300 is a whole lot lower to the ground that a truck and it kind of got lost in the parking lot.

We walked down Main Street of the Wharf which contains numerous stores and a ferris wheel. I'm not sure why I was so intrigued by this, but I was. I just can't figure out why there was a ferris wheel in the middle of stores, a theater, restaurants and the amphitheater.


I would be relieved the next day to find out that my brother was equally intrigued by the idea. It's genetic.

A few minutes later we found ourselves on a pier leading to the amphitheater. Yes, in case you're wondering I'm a little nervous about piers too. Especially when that many people are on them.

I knew I was out of my element, but would be entertained all night as I looked around and saw the people I was standing near. There was a large man in overalls, no shirt and one side so stylishly left to flop and possible fling across anyone who dared get close enough to him. There were also more cowboy hats than I had ever seen in my life and well, the speech. I couldn't help but stand there and pray that I don't sound like these people when I speak.

See, more prayer.

We had to go through a check, which is all fine and well. However the guy frisked me in such a way I felt he should have bought me dinner or something. Finding out the next day that my brother and sister-in-law were not patted down made me feel even more violated by this experience.

After we sat down, well that's when the fun began. We sat with a guy I work with, Ronnie and his wife, whom I also graduated with, Rebekah.

Ronnie should have been paid for all the people he directed to their seats. I became very amused by the vast number of people who came to him as if he was who they were supposed to ask. He told me that no one was asking me because they were probably convinced I was already drunk since I was laughing so much.

It's an amphitheater filled with 10,000 rednecks. How can I not laugh?

I was a little surprised at the amount of alcohol being consumed and it was then I realized I should have bought stock in beer. After the humor of it all disappeared, I realized these people will be driving. I'll be on the road too.

We decided before it started we would leave before it ended.

Because I live dangerously.

I must admit I sat there with a fear that something would be spilled on me since most of the people in attendance were well lit before it even began. I felt a since of relief and comfort when about 5 little grandmas sat behind us and they were so feeble I was concerned they would never make it up the two steps with their walking canes.

Here's where the fun began. It all started when one of them had breast cancer. That was followed by an irregular pap smear, being put in the stirrups and all the details of her va-jay-jay, a complete hysterectomy, the removal of her ovaries, and finally that all being a mistake because the real problem was found during her colonoscopy. It's safe to say that she paid that doctor's mortgage for that whole year.

Please don't think me disrespectful towards this lady. What an awful year that must have been, but let me just say that if I want to hear something like that I would have bought tickets to attend The Vagina Monologues.

Let this be your lesson in etiquette for today. Don't talk about that stuff in public where people other than the person you are telling this to can hear you. I'm not sure I would want to hear the details she shared from someone I know very well, and I certainly didn't want to hear them from a stranger.

Still, we were comforted that nothing would be spilt on us. That was until Maw-Maw with the walking stick came back from the concession with two beers as tall as she was and nearly spilt her's on Kerrie trying to open it with her feeble hands. I nearly died laughing at the thought of these grandmas drinking. My mind went to my little Pentecostal Gran-Gran with her hair in a bun on top of her head and what she would think of this scene I was beholding.

Better still than the grandmas behind us were the loud drunks sitting beside Ronnie. One guy (according to Ronnie's count) consumed 8 beers in the time he was sitting there. I think it's important to add that he did not sit there over and hour and a half.

There were other amusing things like people dancing and security making them take their seats and the fights that followed that.

The moment that stole the show was the man and woman and their two small children who couldn't find their seats and they chose the area right in front of us to have their showdown. Now, this was the moment I took Ronnie's advice and didn't laugh out loud or make any eye contact because he was the type to fight you or kill you for that sort of thing.

She was half way up and he was beside Kerrie shouting obscenities that if a man ever shouted at me I assure you he would find himself on his hands and knees picking his teeth up off the ground. The whole scene was this that the woman had both kids and he had the video camera, which I have a feeling was probably a no-no anyway. After he made it through the gate, he decided he no longer needed his tickets for silly things like finding his seet and threw them away.
Yes, he did.

So, somehow this was his wife's fault and cursing here in front of a couple hundred people would solve the problem and make it all better.

No, this wasn't funny to me, but more annoying. Anyone who knows me knows that I dislike stupidity and for one spouse to disrespect another. I was deeply disturbed and troubled by this guy.

More praying. He definitely needed it. He had some deep issues that he was obviously dealing with in other ways than with the ways of God.

The ride home was terrifying because we saw about 50 deer on one stretch of the highway. I'm not exaggerating either. That was a scary time for me since I had just hit a deer back in October.

More praying.

You may notice that I haven't commented on the concert yet. Well, let me say this. Jake Owens opened and was pretty good. I found him more entertaining than Alan Jackson actually. I may have enjoyed the concert a little more if we could have seen the stage. See, we had really good, but really bad seats. They were pretty close, but there was a tent type thing set up over the sound stuff and it kind of blocked our view of the whole stage.

That's okay though because I got my money's worth out of watching the people.

It was a different experience for me. Please don't think I'm being judgemental of these people. I'm not. I'm intrigued and just baffled. I've never been to anything like this. It was my first secular concert. I would go back though. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in all my life.