Wow, today hasn't been great...

I cannot believe how unbelievably rough today has been, already! First, some back ground. My mom has a lumbar sprain, or a spinal tap or something wrong with her that's causing major pain. Now my sweet mom lives with a lot of pain. My grandfather lived with a lot of pain and you would have never known it. Sometimes, with my my mom, you know it. But, she's pretty good about going through the pain and even when you know she is hurting, you don't really know how bad she is hurting. But the past three days, she has been in major, read-it-all-over-her-face pain. She's gone ton the doctor twice and they've given her medicine which hasn't really helped but merely knocked her out. Her conversations have been hilarious when she does wake up!

So, I've been taking care of her Sunday and yesterday and since she's mostly slept, its not been hard. I was planning to work today in Decatur, and usually, when I do that, I come spend the night with my dad. But last night I decided to stay and get up super early and come so that I could take care of her.

So, this morning, I wake up around 5:45 which is well before my alarm was set. I know I won't be able to go back to sleep (alert readers will know I have sleeping issues), so I lay in bed, trying to figure out how, once again, my dog Parker, all 14 pounds of her has managed to move me into the smallest corner of the bed while taking up the rest of the bed for herself. Did I mention I am sleeping in my brother, Nick's bed? Yep, the air conditioning upstairs is out at my house. Not to be confused with last month when the downstairs air was out. Yep, summer's been fun, folks.

Luckily for me, I was able to strongly suggest to Nick that he get lost and stay with a friend all last week and weekend and until we get this fixed. And Nick, knowing a losing situation when he sees one, agreed.

So, this morning, right at 6:00, my dad's friend Mr. Buster calls me. Naturally, I am confused since I don't typically get calls that early in the morning and its even more atypical for me to get a call from Mr. Buster. He apparently called my number instead of my dad's. And I'm thinking, wow, what could he be calling about this morning? I mean, I KNOW Dave's not up at this hour. So, I go on to get ready and thought I hear my phone ring again but then decided its my too-early-in-the-morning imagination. Thirty minutes later, I realize it wasn't, and my dad has called and text messaged me that he is in the hospital at Andersons. Minor chest pains. Like an idiot, I wake up my mother and spend 10 minutes explaining the situation to her. She's concerned (obviously) and thinks she should get in the car and head that way. Fortunately for all Central MS drivers, she then gets distracted by the bandage and gauze on her right arm where they presumably took blood yesterday. And proceeds to ask me what it is and why its there and will I take it off for her. I convince her that its probably not a good idea for her to drive and she agrees. I'm ready by then and Parker and I take off. Once I'm almost to the hospital, my mom calls again and asks where I am. She then tells me I've made really good time (which I hadn't). And she asks what time it was and gets confused as she thinks I only left a couple minutes ago. How in the world her medicine-laden mind believed I made it 65 miles in 10 minutes, and how that's labeled "good time" and not "faster than the speed of light", I'll never know. I remind her not to drive anywhere while I am gone.

I make it to the hospital. Dad's fine. Since he had previous heart problems (another post for another time), they want to keep him overnight as a precaution but they don't think its a heart attack. I stay for a while and call my sister, who is about to start her second day of her new job. She's freaking out and dramatic and suggests, only half-jokingly, that once she left town, everyone's fallen apart!

My dad is discussing heart attacks and health problems and issues with the nurses and making jokes and it hits me-- he has turned into my Pop. For those of you in the know (lucky you!), you will know my recently-deceased Pop had a knack for making friends and talking their heads off. I can't tell you how many times I've heard him tell the same story over and over to every single nurse/orderly/patient/doctor/random visitor/guy who happened-to-get-stuck-in-an-elevator-with-us. So now my dad's doing the same thing!!!

[Sidenote: this is NOT to be confused with the incident last week when I walked into the house at night, started turning off every single light that was on, and asking my sister if we were made of money and to turn off the lights please, cause we've got to keep our electric bill down. I felt like I'd turned into a mini-David Carr overnight, and that I should go to Hardees for a DC to celebrate!)

Anyway, Dad's fine-- he has to do a stress test in the morning and I'm to bring him a book to read, some tennis shoes and socks. Mom seems to be okay, last I checked. Its going to be a long week, I believe.

In other long, rambling, not really important news, my friend Katie is now blogging!! I am so excited. I want all my readers to rush over to her blog, here and check it out!! Hopefully you won't all go at once or else the server might get overloaded.

Seriously, I am excited about her blogging and me blogging-- it truly shows that great minds think alike in that we've started doing this at the same time!!! Hopefully we'll keep it up!! I love Katie. I've got lots of good stories to tell about her. Unfortunately, she has even better ones on me, so, never mind!

Long post today but its been a hectic day and I'm exhausted and I don't edit well when tired. Plus, its nice to get all this out of my head, like a diary! Or therapy.

Just bought...

Just bought this new book, Lady in Waiting. Went to the bookstore looking for a Beth Moore Bible study book and found this one instead. So far, it's excellent. I am excited about getting back into devotionals.

Agape church

Went to Agape Church this morning with my cousin, Em. Its a non-denominational church that recently started up in Laurel. It currently meets at the Cameron Center, a couple blocks from my house but they've started renovating an old, downtown building that they will use. I've been going to church here with him for nearly a month now and I really enjoy it. I am sorta torn because I am loyal to FBC, Laurel, my home church which I love, and which I teach Wednesday night missions to elementary kids (which starts soon and I am so excited cause I miss my kids!). But, this summer, I've wanted to go with Em and I've really enjoyed the services at Agape.

This morning, Bro. James Hill, the pastor, spoke on prayer-- its the second in a month-long series. He did a great job discussing how we should pray with specificity, commitment and use God's Word to back our prayers up. We should also pray for others. Prayer is something that's really come alive in my life here recently and I'm taking notes on how to make my prayer life even better. For now, I will start praying for specific people and things in my life. Also, they gave everyone a book about prayer-- it lists different topics and corresponding verses to use in prayer (i.e., when you feel lonely, etc.). I am really excited about this book!

Nicholas and I went to Hattiesburg for a quick trip this afternoon-- Target and Books a Million. Bought some photo albums and photo boxes. After my Mamaw died back in April, we've done a good job of cleaning up and clearing out everything in her and Pop's house in order to get it put on the market. I've taken the responsibility of organizing all the photos that were framed on the walls, put into albums and stored in boxes. There are tons. And its really fun to look through. I will post some of my favorites sometime soon. I've tried to label as many of the old pictures as possible and I am going to enlist my Aunt Rita's help (she is sentimental like me and has a great memory-- better, thank goodness, than my dad's). There are some really cool older pictures-- my great, great grandparents in front of their house, lots of my grandfather, Pop and his three brothers, some of my Mamaw when she was young vacationing at the beach, and, my favorites, some of my Pop in Nazi Germany in 1945. I'm planning to frame lots of them! And put the rest into the cheap, black photo albums I bought today-- there were lots of colors and patterns to choose from and I went with safe, boring black, because I was overwhelmed!! Now, off to work on Junior Auxiliary before tomorrow's meeting!!

I'm back!!!

So, it's been forever since I've blogged and lots of things are happening, changing. Its been a pretty stressful summer and I'm extremely ready for the fall. One of the things I'd like to see change in the fall is me. I'm ready for a fresh start. And part of my fresh start is to get back into being more creative. That is, thinking about things other than my little problems, my work and my family issues. I have a tendency to withdraw into myself when things are bad-- its a strange cycle-- I feel sad, I withdraw from my friends, stop communicating very often, stop making efforts to see them, stop doing things, and veg out in front of the tv. Which puts me in a really horrible mood, and then I feel lonely and sad and left out, which makes me even more withdrawn. Yeah, its a dumb cycle. I never said I was very smart! This summer has been a lot of that-- I'm finding myself watching ridiculous, brain-numbing television, fussing with my family, feeling guilty over not keeping in touch with friends, worrying about work to the point I can't sleep.

I'm tired of being this way so I'm going to make an effort to get things together in my life. I don't really have dreams. I've never been the type person to say, "I want to be xyz when I grow up" or "in my five year plan, I'd like to see abc happen". I've never known what I wanted to do or be or act like, and I still don't. I'm not entirely pleased with the circumstances of my life at this second and there is no one to blame but myself. I am now actively attempting to change those circumstances by trying to make my life better for myself and those around me. Although I've never had serious ambitions to be, say a doctor, or married with two kids, or even a lawyer, I've always wanted my life to be in control. My dreams consist of having a clean house, organized life, work of which I can be proud, an active social life (don't mean dating here, I mean, seeing people, throwing parties, going to parties, etc.) I just want to be in control of my life, instead of it controlling me, which happens most often.

This blog is me taking action. I'm going to try to post as often as possible (which will make all my readers to happy, I am sure!) and include ways I'm trying to improve my life. Here goes!!!

GLEE

Watch Glee Tonight!

Fox 9/8c

Its the best thing on TV (thus far) this fall. I'm in love with those show. And I'm tired of the ridiculous tv shows that everyone else seems to love. TV should be fun, interesting, and enjoyable. It should NOT be about watching some twenty-something living in the big city, with a fake job and fake friends and fake drama. It should NOT be about a bunch of skanky girls throwing themselves at whatever man is the subject of that particular show, claiming to be so in love. And it should NOT be about a bunch of people stuck in a house. I mean really? Don't we have better things to do? I admit that I am not discriminatory in my tv-watching, and that tivo has opened up a lot of shows, some great, some otherwise, and that I probably watch more tv that you do. But, I try to at least pick shows that are uplifting, interesting and good for mankind. And Glee is all of these things. Its fun, its different, its positive. Watch it!

Others tailgate, we GROVE!

Its finally fall! I love love love the fall season and its finally here! I know its finally here because I've begun waking up with a sore throat in the mornings. This is the best time of year, and it leads right up to Christmas time!

Of course, for most people, fall is synonymous with football! As all the faithful blog readers know, I've been tailgating at Ole Miss in the Grove for nearly all my life. As a young whippersnapper (fun word!), we mostly just went to the game and visited other people's tents, but as I got older, specifically, in high school, my family began setting up our own tents and tailgating our own way. We've had several incarnations of the tent, several different locations (still mad we gave up our great location at the Crossroads), and many different people with whom we've set up. However, these past couple years, since law school, I've not gone to as many game, and not really been in the spirit of things at the Grove. And when I do go to the Grove, I rarely make it to the game.



Its hard to admit, but there was something missing for me these last couple football seasons. Perhaps its because I have such GREAT, wonderful memories of the Grove, throughout high school, certainly in college, and in law school. And then, boom, I graduate, I leave Oxford, and nothing is the same. It was actually hard for me to return. My sister didn't understand my hesitation about coming back, but for some reason, returning to Oxford for Game Day was much harder than anticipated, and a bit sad. Made me wish I was still up there so much I couldn't hardly stand it. Not to mention it was a heck of a lot more effort-- getting up early, making the 4 hour drive, rarely having a place to stay. Exhausting.

Luckily for me, this feeling has finally passed. Maybe its something all alumni go through-- you must get a bit of time between you and your great memories in order to truly enjoy going back. I don't know. But I do know that I am ready for football season again!

Its really exciting to get ready for the football games, and get to see old friends again! I cannot wait!!! This link is to a website with a really good video from a news show about the Grove-- I cannot figure out how to be all fancy and link it directly to my site (that's way too much for me at this early stage), but its a good watch and got me all fired up for football! I especially like the guy at the end who talks about why the Grove is so special to Ole Miss Rebels-- basically, everyone has special memories from the Grove-- when they were in college, graduations, weddings, game days, etc. And going back to the Grove brings back those great memories. He put it much better than I did!!

Enjoy!

money, money, money, money...MONEY

Money. I don't have enough of it. Not nearly enough. And, I admit, I don't have good money habits (not from lack of trying of the part of my dad, however).

Lately, though I have been working on better money habits. For months now, I have kept a notebook (a really nice black moleskin notebook-- see where my money problems come?!) with all my bills-- one bill for each page. I write down the date I made a payment, the amount, check number, etc., and the new balance on the bill. I am proud to announce to you, my faithful blog readers, that yesterday I was able to pay the final amount for not one, but TWO bills! Granted, they were smaller bills, but you gotta start somewhere!! I was tempted to go out and celebrate by buying this new black leather with zipper detailing purse I saw recently at TJ Maxx! Its so cute and would totally look great this fall. However, in trying to learn from previous mistakes, I suppressed this desire. Instead, I celebrated by writing in huge RED letters, "PAID IN FULL!!!" in my cute little notebook!

I choose not to dwell on the fact that these were very small bills, and, honestly, should have been paid off quite some time ago. Instead, I will be proud of my small accomplishments, and look forward to paying off more bills in the future! Aren't you proud of my, blog-o-spherers?