Late to the party

I really need to get into the habit of writing my Friday Fragments throughout the week so I'm not so unfashionably late to Mrs. 4444s Friday Fragments party.

Tardy or not, here goes:

Thank you all for your support regarding my mother-in-law's illness. I realized that I've never updated here. Although we had originally been told it was a matter of days, she is still with us, which has meant that Mike's been able to go spend several days with her and we'll probably all head down there again soon. 

Last weekend, we were given the same news about my grandmother. She is 87 years old and was hospitalized a bit unexpectedly. We thought she was going to go to a nursing home, but she took a turn for the worse, was largely unresponsive for several days and a transfer to hospice was arranged for last Monday. My uncle went in to see her on Monday morning, touched her arm and said "Mom, it's John." Boy was he shocked when she opened her eyes and plainly said "Well, hi John! How are you?" By that afternoon she was sitting up in a chair and eating yogurt. 

The above situations clearly indicate that the secret to immortality is being related to me! 

***

In the category of "just how dumb can people be?" -- On Monday, there were crazy thunderstorms in our area. I looked out my office window to see two men up on the roof of the 2-story house across the street, trying to lay down tarp. Crazy, I know, and you wouldn't find me up there in a thundering, lightning downpour, but I guess if they were trying to cover a leak I can understand. What I couldn't understand, when I looked out again a few minutes later, was that they had a KID up there with him. He was easily only 10 or 11 years old. On a two-story roof. In the rain. While thunder and lightning was all around. I wanted to call the police. Others in our office said it's not a crime to be an idiot parent. But if he had fallen off that roof and I did nothing, I would have been sick forever. So I called the non-emergency number. By the time the police got there to "check the child's welfare," all three were safely down, thank God.

***

You know that big thunderstorm? Well, no one in the office wanted to go out for lunch on Monday (and I'd left mine sitting in the fridge at home), so we decided to order something in. We were thrilled to find out that the downtown Jimmy John's would deliver to us. Boy, did I feel awful when the delivery guy showed up. He had ridden his BIKE more than 2 miles in that storm to bring our lunch! If I'd known it was bike delivery, I never would have ordered. So some so-fast-it's-freaky props to Paul, sandwich deliverer extraordinaire!

***

Two thumbs up for lessons learned. I got a call from the school nurse yesterday that Charlie had been hurt on recess and that she thought we might want to get his arm x-rayed. Of course I didn't get the call right away because I'd left my cell phone at home and when she called the office, I was out to lunch. But when I returned the call about an hour later, she said she'd bandaged it and he went back to class. When I got home, he was sitting on the couch (yes, MY couch), which is pretty unusual for him. So, having learned my lesson from a few years ago, I didn't give him the "I think your fine" speech. Instead, I took him for x-rays. And this morning, I took him to school sporting a new red cast...

Have a great weekend friends!

Planets aligning

or worlds colliding or something like that.

Planet 1: I told myself this morning as I was walking the dog, that now that the NCAA men's basketball tournament is over, I need to get re-committed to diet and exercise. No more sweet chili cha-cha chicken wings. No blue frosted cupcakes. No more Reese's peanut butter cups (which don't have anything to do with the tournament, except that my general disregard for good nutrition made it easier to eat those too).

Planet 2: Tonight while driving Robbie to soccer practice (a whole other story by itself), I had to unbutton my jeans while I was driving. Oh. Yes. I. Did. Now, they did just come straight out of the dryer and we all know that jeans shrink a lot in the dryer and need some wearing to stretch them out. But I was afraid if I didn't unbutton them, the button would pop right off, ricochet off the steering wheel, hit me in the eye and blind me right there.

Planet 3: Tonight on the Biggest Loser, Courtney was eliminated. I really thought she'd win it all. I don't get star struck very often. But ever since this season began, I have wanted to meet Courtney. She lost 100 pounds on her own before she ever made it on to the show. Now she's lost 215 pounds total!

What I want to know is how has she maintained motivation? I've lost and gained again the same 30-40 pounds at least three times in the last 10 years. Why can't I lose it all, which would be about 70 pounds, and not find it again?

Finding Courtney wouldn't be hard. Her family owns a Dairy Queen in Valparaiso, Indiana. But it seems kind of stalkerish to go up there and order a Dilly Bar with a side of heart-to-heart chat with Courtney. Actually, I'd like to meet her mom, too. She lost about as much as I need to and she's a mom with kids. So yeah, either one of them. Or both of them. We could chat over salads and Diet Coke.

So maybe the end of a celebration plus the frustration of not being able to breathe in a pair of jeans plus inspiration from an unlikely source are just enough planetary alignment to get me back on track.

Stung

The expectations were high. The execution was abysmal.

My Butler Bulldogs lost the national championship of college men's basketball last night. It took my breath away and left me, as a friend said on Facebook, feeling like someone just ran over my dog.

I could go over all the plays and highlights, though there weren't many. I could talk about ifs and whys. I could point fingers at UConn's head coach and talk about NCAA sanctions for recruiting violations. But that won't change the outcome.

I believed. I kept waiting for something to start the run, to unleash the magic the Bulldogs have brought game after game in this tournament. But last night, the dawg remained tethered.

It was too much to watch the post-game. I turned to a DVRd cake show from the Food Network because cake always makes everything better.

Finally, sometime after midnight, I crawled into bed, still in some shocked disbelief. Yet, this morning, I woke up and realized that I was still humming the Butler War Song in my head.

No, my Bulldogs did not bring home a trophy last night. That stings and probably will for a while. But what will outlast the sting is the pride with which I can say I am a Butler graduate.

Matt Howard, Shelvin Mack, Ronald Nored and the others. Coaches Brad Stevens and Matt Graves and the rest of the staff. The way they have competed, their focus on academics, their emphasis on team over individual, the grace and humility with which they seem to conduct themselves on and off the court. All that makes me proud to be a Butler Bulldog. Trophy or not.

Fill in the blank

I've written before that I really enjoy the "God wants you to know" app on Facebook. My message for yesterday was this:

On this day, God wants you to know

... that God is crazy about you. God sends you fresh flowers every spring, a breathtaking sunrise every morning. If God had a wallet, your picture would be in it. If God has a refrigerator, your childhood scribbles would be on it.

 

That got me thinking...

If God had the last cookie, He would give it to me.

If God was Diet Coke, He would want me to drink Him up.

If God had the remote control, He would let me choose the show to watch.

If God was a color, He would be the sunniest, warmest yellow.

Now it's your turn. You fill in the blank:

If God __________________________________________.

Got my Dawg on

My Facebook profile picture is still the green shamrock Butler picture I posted on March 17, the day Butler defeated Old Dominion.

I'm wearing another piece of old Butler fan wear. I wanted a new shirt, but I haven't worn a new shirt for any game in this tournament. So I dug this one out of Mike's drawer.

I just frosted sugar cookies with blue icing. In the win against Florida, it was blue frosted brownies. Over Wisconsin, it was blue BU pancakes.

Mike is drinking his pre-game Diet Mountain Dew.

Charles Barkley picked the Bulldogs' opponent...AGAIN.

All the stars and superstitions are aligned for a Butler victory tonight. Woof woof! You bet I've got my Dawg on tonight!

Top this!

Robbie is a kid of happy extremes. When he loves something, he REALLY loves it. His first obsession was dinosaurs. From the time he was about 2 years old until he was around 6, he could not get enough dinosaurs. He knew their long and complicated names, which ones were meat eaters and which ones preferred leafy greens.

He still likes dinos, but not at the level of obsession. The next object of his heart's desire was Legos. He could spend hours building Legos. Truthfully, I think that will bring him joy for a lifetime (if his dad is any indication).

But Robbie's latest obsession is not dinosaurs or Legos. It's not drawing or painting, though both are certainly a big part of his waking hours. It's not riding his bike. Nope, what Robbie is REALLY into these days is BOX TOPS.

These things:

It started because of a box tops collection contest at school. I didn't realize there was a contest going on until I came home and found little rectangles cut out of a few boxes of cereal in the pantry. Then I noticed Robbie going through the pantry and the fridge, inspecting every box and bottle, occasionally yelling out "BOX TOPS!"

Of course, Mike then (because he's a nicer parent than I am) made sure to shop for box-top-bearing food the next time he was at the grocery store. Robbie has a baggie at home with 6 or 7 box tops in it, waiting to be turned in to his teacher after Spring Break.

But he hit the motherload -- make that grandmotherload -- when we came to my parents' house for a visit yesterday. While Annie and Charlie went with my mom and dad to a volleyball game, Robbie and I headed back to their house for a little R&R. I asked him what he wanted for dinner. He said, "Cereal," and turned to open the pantry. 

"BOX TOPS! BOX TOPS!" It turns out that Grandma's pantry was well-stocked with box tops. I told him he had to wait until Grandma came home so he could ask her if he could cut out the box tops from packages of food that were still waiting to be eaten. 

When I told my mom about Robbie's discovery, she said "Oh, I have a whole box of box tops I've been collecting just because." So this morning, Grandma rocked Robbie's world when she pulled out the box o' box tops and told him he could have them. 

Of course, when Grandma removes a box top, she does what most sane people do and just tears it out loosely. Robbie, however, is quite particular about the shape of his box tops. God bless my mom who sat there with Robbie and cut each box top into a perfect rectangle. They put all the box tops into a baggie and sealed it up for the trip home.

Wanting to make sure to leave no box unturned, Robbie hunted through the fridge and the lazy Susan and turned up at least three more box tops Grandma somehow missed. We sorted the box tops into piles of 10 and counted Robbie's bounty. 133 box tops! 

He can't wait to take them to school on Monday. Thanks Grandma!

Staycation fragments

It may be Spring Break, but I'm not missing the fragalicious party thrown every week by Mrs. 4444s. When you're finished here, click on the button below to join the fun with other folks who have frags to share.

We're rockin' the staycation idea for Spring Break this year. It's been a good combo of out-of-the-ordinary fun, housework and sleep. Guess which I've enjoyed the most?

On Monday, we took in Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules. Cute, but not as cute as the first one.

On Tuesday, I took the kids to a rally at the Indiana Statehouse. It was actually a work event. Annie was sure we were going to get arrested -- even after I told her it was an AARP rally. I think she was disappointed that it was so tame. After the rally, we went to the Rhythm Discovery Center, a place full of drums and cymbals and xylophones and gongs, which should seriously consider selling Advil in the gift shop.

Wednesday was mostly a lazy day. Except that I folded about 4 loads of laundry and spent almost 5 hours at Panera Bread working on blog posts and other freelance articles. Ok, so maybe not so lazy.

Yesterday, I had another video shoot for IN Shape Indiana. I think one more and we're finished. I'll let you know when they launch. Or you can sign up for their e-mail newsletter and get the video segments sent directly to your in-box. Then, we took the family out to Monster Mini Golf for a little glow in the dark links. Even though I have a self-professed disdain for miniature golf, we had great time, even if (or maybe because) a few of us fudged our scores a bit.

Now it's Friday and I'm already a little sad about the return of school and work. But if my Butler Bulldogs win the big game tomorrow, everything will be a whole lot brighter.