I am about to drive to Target to buy a couple of Lego mini figures.
Why? you ask.
Well, I will tell you.
I am buying them because I bribed two of the children tonight: the boys. And while the experiment itself appeared to be a failure, I believe we covered enough ground to have earned the mini figures.

Now, before you judge me, I’ll tell you I don’t believe in bribery. I also don’t believe in sin. But I manage to mess that up on occasion. So, you know, I am known to strike a bribe with a short person if the situation calls for it.

It’s bad parenting that got me here. You don’t have to tell me that. If I had gotten a few things solidly in place when they were babies, we wouldn’t be making a Lego mini figs run tonight.

We’ve all been sick in one way or another this week. We camped last weekend, which is a separate blog, if I ever get around to it. I sat around just enough campfire smoke to come home stopped up. I was stubborn for 2 full days. Finally, on Day 3, I got out the Neti Pot, dusted it off, and grimaced as I thought forward in time about 30 seconds.

Have you ever flushed out your sinuses with a neti pot? It isn’t a glamorous process. In fact, it’s horrible. If you are married to the wrong person and that wrong person happens to come around the corner while you are flushing with a neti pot, it might cause a 48 hour Bermuda divorce. It’s really that awful. Many marriages have ended over lesser matters. My husband, instead of filing, jumped on board. We share a respect for The Pot. We also have very clean sinuses.

But there’s one person in this family who needs the neti pot more than any human ever. That’s Mama’s Boy. He was born allergic to everything. We have jokingly mentioned getting him a plastic, hypo-allergenic bubble for him to tool around in. It’s really what he needs.

Today, quite suddenly, his sinuses flared. I guess it’s a cold. I guess I gave it to him. Either way, he was stuffed so full of his own fluids that his request to play me in Kadima came out clearly as “Kadiba.” I’m not good at Kadiba and I promptly told him so. I realized then that he was headed for the doctor if we don’t intervene somehow. He has never done the neti pot. And unfortunately, I’ve said a bit too much about the process for him to just agree peaceably to try it. Truthfully, Mama’s Boy isn’t going to agree to try anything without some type of a very serious discussion. It may end in threats. It may end in bribery. But you aren’t going to get an easy ‘yes.’ And if you do, I will pay you in mini figures. I’ll buy you 100 of those puppies if you fix this problem.

Clearly I’m not learning any lessons here.

“Listen, boy,” I said, very earnestly. “I really, really want to help you. I’m telling you the neti pot is a near miracle cure.”

“No, thanks,” he said, without even letting my words fall softly to the carpet.

I went on with more persuasion, more earnestness, more pleading.

“No, I don’t want to. You said it was terrible. You said you hate it.”

Hmm. Did I say that? Actually, I kinda love it. I just hate getting the whole thing started. OK, I kinda do hate it. But I LOVE how I feel immediately following.

“Boy, you remember how you looked at me with horror when I opted to have the doctor give you a strep antibiotic shot instead of 10 days of antibiotics, 3 times a day?”

“Yes.”

“Remember how you thought I betrayed you to the doctor? But then the next morning you felt like a million bucks and you thanked me for the shot?”

“Yes,” he replied, skeptically.

“Well,” I continued. “This is just like that, minus the painful shot part.” Why did I compare this to a shot? That was a totally counterproductive move on my part.

“No, thanks,” he said again.

“OK, OK,” I said. “Listen up, boy. If you will just try it…and let me help you…I will pay you a dollar.”

“No!” he said, emphatically. We must be spoiling him. He didn’t even bat an eye at the $1 mark.

“Two dollars…” I said. Are we at an auction?

“No!” he said, but he laughed. I think he at least considered it then.

“I’ll pay you in a mini fig!” I shouted. YES! THAT will do it!

This almost destroyed him. I had held up the golden ticket. Oh, he wanted that mini figure so badly. For those without Lego knowledge. This is the equivalent of $2.99 on the bribery scale. Now he had a real choice to make. He so totally did not want to do that neti pot flush, but he wanted the Lego guy bigger than life.

That’s when AG stepped in.

“B,” he said. “What if I try it first? To show you it’s ok?”  I yanked my head around in a “What you talkin’ about, Willis” kind of way. Did he just say that for real? This was an uncharacteristic move. The doting mother in me wanted, with all my heart, to believe that AG was throwing himself under the bus to help his brother.  But I think he was secretly hoping there’d be a mini figure in it for him, too.

“Wow, AG,” I said. “Thanks! But hold up…is this about you getting a mini fig, too?”

“No!” he said. “Not at all.”

After much hoopla, Mama’s Boy agreed to watch AG try it first and we began the grand experiment.

To be continued…(later, because I have to go to Target right now).

Well, I think I’m watching a hamster die. And while, quite frankly, I have wished for this before we move, now I regret my wish. Claire, the more hyper and aggressive of our two  hamster girls, appears to be almost dead. She isn’t right, for sure. My niece is over for the afternoon and came to me with Claire. She was cuddling her and said, “I thought she would wake up, but she didn’t. She’s so sleepy.” Red flag. Claire doesn’t sleep through anything. She’s a wild one. So I touched her and she doesn’t feel warm and cozy like she usually does. She is still breathing, still twitching the whiskers, etc. But she’s either sick or on her way to the other side. Either way, she now has clean bedding and will rest in peace and dignity. My poor niece was already crying over it and it hasn’t happened yet. Sweet soul, that one. She’s 15 months old now (the hamster, not the niece…). Hamsters don’t usually live more than a year. Then again, neither do goldfish, and we had a run-of-the-mil goldfish last for 5.5 years. That’s Methusaleh old.

That’s not what I meant to say, though. I’ve been thinking since reading a really great article. And instead of restating something that was well-said in the beginning, I’m just going to send you to a great blog. I’m a firm believer that functional, loving families exist and people can be close even when they are vastly different. I believe teenagers can be fun AND respectful. I believe siblings can get along and treat each other like friends, not warts and tumors. And I believe that they learn all of this from me and Todd. How we treat each other, other people, and them will shape how they treat each other, other people, and us. I have had quite a few regretful moments. I believe I don’t have to keep having them. I believe change is possible. And I believe Jesus absolutely wants me to get this right; for the children.

I think we’re on the right path. This article hit me like a ton of bricks and shoved me hard in the right direction.  Go read it. It just might change your life.

Civility in the Christian Home

To be completely and totally phonetically proper, this name should be spelled MawMaw. Because I’m talking about my grandmother, not referring to my own mother in southern twang. And though it is spelled phonetically wrong, just pronounce it right in your head and I’ll be happy.

We all have people we remember with great emotion. My mama is one of those people for me. She was always around. She was the quintessential grandmother: Sweet. Plump. Polyester pants and clamdiggers (and she called them clamdiggers!). Canvas keds with an old lady rubber sole. Cokes in the refrigerator and full sized candy bars in the candy jar that were offered to us every time we walked through the door. The supply never ran out. Quarters for us for jobs that were too easy.  The Young and the Restless every day at 1:30 and Lawrence Welk on Saturday nights. That part I don’t remember all that fondly. Man, I hated Lawrence Welk. Man.

Whatever you asked of her, the answer was yes. She never, EVER got mad at us. And I loved her for all of it. Even Lawrence Welk. Maybe.

She was determined that she would not lose her mind. She was going to die with her mind fully functioning. I would be skeptical of a person having this kind of control except that she managed to do just that. She died of complications related to cancer far sooner than we were ready to let her go. But I have to believe that she went out on her own terms and I was forced to accept that. I was away at college when I found out she was gone. I went back home, did the funeral thing, went back to school, did the school thing, came home, did the summer thing, finished another year of college, and then got engaged. Somewhere in all of that time, my parents went through a lot of her stuff.  And the night I got engaged and came home with Todd to tell my parents, my mom brought a box down off a shelf in a closet and gave it to me as a present.

I opened it up, all smiles, having no idea what to expect. It was an afghan made by my mama, one crochet square at a time.  And sitting on top of that ivory afghan was a tiny little note in handwriting I will never forget. It said, “For Missy when she marries. With love, Mama.”  I broke down crying. There she was, many months later sending me a note, meeting Todd through a gift. That was one of the greatest gifts I ever got from anyone.

I went through many of her boxes of books and bibles later and found several copies of a couple of different poems. She was all about little poems and quotes. This one has always been sweet to me. And since I found it on my laptop today, I got all sappy and decided to post it. Forgive me. Surely you can let me have this one time…

Bits and Pieces
Bits and pieces, bits and pieces.
People.
People important to you, People unimportant to you cross your life, touch it with love and move on.
There are people who leave you and you breathe a sigh of relief and wonder why you ever came into contact with them.
There are people who leave you, and you breathe a sigh of remorse and wonder why they had to go and leave such a gaping hole.
Children leave parents, friends leave friends. Acquaintances move on. People change homes. People grow apart.
Enemies hate and move on. Friends love and move on.
You think of the many people who have moved in and out of your hazy memory.
You look at those present and wonder.

I believe in God’s master plan in lives. He moves people in and out of each other’s lives, and each leaves his mark on the other. You find you are made up of bits and pieces of all who have ever touched your life. You are more because of them, and would be less if they had not touched you.

Pray that you accept the bits and pieces in humility and wonder,
and never question
and never regret.
Bit’s and pieces,
bits and pieces.
-Anonymous

Yeah.
I do.
I know some things. Some of them are useful things. Like, I know that the square root of 81 is 9 and 7 x 8 is 56. I know that a conflagration is a very large fire and that if I ever should encounter one on my person or clothes, I should stop, drop, and roll. I know that my childhood phone number was 904-385-9788 and that my grandmother’s number was 904-386-6262. And I know 800 other obsolete phone numbers and weird number facts that will never benefit me, except in my dreams.

But there are things I don’t know.  I didn’t know how to spell cacophony, until it was one of my son’s spelling words this week. I still don’t know what demography is, which is another of those words. I suppose I could make a guess and say that it is the study of categories, or something dumb like that. I don’t know. I’m not even going to look it up. Pandemic? Is this word going to enter his regular vocabulary? No. It is not.

And I don’t know lyrics. Phone numbers from 30  years ago? I got that. Lyrics I’ve been hearing and singing ALL MY LIFE, I just can’t do it. Seriously, I might mess up Amazing Grace without the song book. Tonight I tried to sing My Favorite Things from Sound of Music to my children at bedtime. This is a great, great song. Fantastic song. But it occurs to me now that it is not for the lyrically challenged. There are more words in that song than there are fleas on a dog.

I started strong: Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.

But then, out of nowhere, the words “Bright cornucopias and warm woolen mittens” came to me. Bright cornucopias? What IS that even? It’s not a lyric. I still don’t know what goes in that spot of the song, so I kept my bright cornucopia and kept singing.

Another thing I don’t know is how to file taxes in April without filing an extension. And that’s all I’ll say about that one.

Maybe I should try to create my own version that I can’t mess up:

Potty trained babies and eating with chopsticks
Soft, smelly kid toes and boys doing drop kicks
Playing like banshees till bones are in slings,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Finding a refund when taxes are over
Seeing the fourth leaf show up on your clover,
Feeling the squish hugs of toddlers who cling,
These are a few of my favorite things

When the kid wails, when it all fails,
When I’m feeling mad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don’t feel so bad.

I’d like to say I’ll remember these lyrics tomorrow but I won’t. But I know a whole bunch of old phone numbers, so I can just phone a friend and surely somebody will know what goes in the place of “bright cornucopias.”

I’m going to bed now.

Today was exciting.
Sort of.
I spent all day at school making copies, cutting, laminating, etc., while trying to convince a 3-yr-old not to be hungry and tired and to stop changing the default language on AG’s Nintendo DS to Chinese. Have you ever tried to choose an electronic activity in Chinese? Good luck to you, if you have. I couldn’t get it done.  I ended up handing the thing back to Snugglemonkey and saying, “Just change it back to English, please” in a snarky tone. Part of me said that dismissively and the other part of me half expected she could do it. She did. Blows my mind.

After school, we had exactly 45 minutes before we needed to be at the public library to meet up with Mama’s Boy’s class and teacher for a Reading Pow Wow. As anyone who knows him knows, he hates to read. So of course I accepted the invitation to drag him to the library and preach the reading gospel to him. I honestly think he may be coming around a little bit. His teacher is young, single, from Long Island, NY (really fun accent!), and VERY educated. She knows what she’s doing and she is starting to light a fire under the lazy ones.

On our drive to the library, angry clouds were beginning to crowd the sky. In just ten minutes, the day looked entirely different. I was pretty sure we wouldn’t get out of the library without some rain. I didn’t expect it to be so crazy, though. A furious storm unleashed while we were in there. It cut power for a few seconds. Snugglemonkey began to wail, which is typically discouraged in the library. I enjoyed chatting with the teacher about literacy and literature and books in general. Then I started wracking my brain on how to get more books for their classroom and school.

In thinking on all of this, I launched a weird little IM with Todd who is not upstairs as he often is when I chat with him on IM.

(9:41:50 PM) missysnapp: I’m trying to drum up ideas to find mass quantities of books. Or find out how to write grants or something.
(9:44:03 PM) rocketreadytes: what do you mean?
(9:44:57 PM) missysnapp: They don’t have books. There are places that donate money for such things. Just doing a little research to see if we could get some money for woodmont.
(9:45:03 PM) rocketreadytes: oh ok
(9:45:06 PM) rocketreadytes: sounds good
(9:45:12 PM) rocketreadytes: Like Andy Dufrane
(9:45:20 PM) missysnapp: Exactly
(9:45:28 PM) missysnapp: I hear Laura Bush is a person to write.
(9:45:30 PM) rocketreadytes: we just had a moment
(9:45:33 PM) missysnapp: ha

Not that many people know who Andy Dufrane is. Todd doesn’t like to read and doesn’t read ever (I blame the 2nd grader on him…), but he does know about the dude in Shawshank Redemption who wrote letters and got books…for the prison.

Hmm.

Wednesday was a really bad day. It was a frustrating, exhausting day full of Whinese and overreactions.  By 7 p.m., I was pretty much done with the kids. Done with listening to them whine. Done with answering questions that had no answers (why do I have to read?). Done with requests that were stated as demands. Done.

I was.

They weren’t.

So on the way to church, Mamasboy piped up for the 44^th time that day that he didn’t like reading, didn’t understand why he had to read, wasn’t supposed to read books that were too easy, didn’t have any appropriate reading material among our 156,000 books for all ages, and didn’t like reading. Did I already mention that he doesn’t like reading? I’ve considered electric shock therapy. Truly. This is all just as wrong as it can be. At any rate, this little miniature tirade from the back of the van on the way to church set me off. I was the camel. His speech was the straw. My back broke. I think I actually heard the bone snap. And as I am prone to do on occasion, I spouted off at the flapping gums. What happened next is a perfect representation of every single member of the family. And here is how the next 3 minutes went:

“Mamasboy, I don’t want to hear another word about this. I am so tired of talking about this. All of you guys have been ridiculously whiny today. I can totally understand why God just got mad and smacked the Israelites around when they started whining. I understand why He sent them into the desert for 40  years. In fact, if I could send you guys into the desert right now, I would.”  Wow, right? I know. Not that I need to clarify this point, but I was the speech maker here. Todd was shaking his head at this speech and I think maybe his hand was on his forehead in exasperation.

There were four distinctly different reactions to my speech in this exact order:

AG: Did not react at all. Silence. He blew me off, as he probably should have. He knows enough now to know that sometimes moms get mad. Just let them be mad. Let the moment pass. Don’t speak. He’s a smart boy.

Mamasboy: “You would send ME into the desert to wander for 40 YEARS??!!” He was now wailing so hard he almost couldn’t get the words out. I felt terrible. Mostly.

Snuggle Monkey: Mama would never send ME into the desert. She would not do that ever.

Beloved, looking over at Snuggle Monkey, said in the very firm, rhythmic voice of authority: Oh, yes she would.

Right about then, Todd pulled into the parking space in the church parking lot and said:

“Get out. All of you.”

And we did.

Fair warning: steam-of-consciousness is usually bad. The following is definitely stream-of-conscious writing.

It’s 12:19 a.m. and I’m sitting up drinking Diet Mountain Dew and trying to write the final three chapters of the book. I spent the first part of the summer turning out chapters like a machine. A MACHINE, I tell you. Just joking. But I was moving a heap faster than I am now. The turning point to inefficiency came when I walked out the door to begin the annual trek to Texas. Remind me to tell some stories about that one sometime. I owe Louisiana another “curse you” post. Louisiana owes me 5 gazillion dollars. And 14 years. Because that’s what it has taken off my life just in having to constantly drive through it to see the people I love. Sheeeeeesh-kabobs. But this isn’t about that.

Did you ever hear the Carly Simon song “You’re So Vain”? You’re so vain. I bet you think this song is about you. You’re so vain. I bet you think this song is about you, don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t you? As a kid, that song drove me NUTS. I would say to my dad, “But it IS about them! How dumb is that?” And he would always reply, “That’s the whole point.” But it ISN’T the point. No, it isn’t. Dear Louisiana, this post is not about you. So step off already and pay me my money and give me back my life.

Pheww.

So when I left for Texas, I could see the end of my summer ahead on the horizon. And I could see that I had done nothing but write to that point. I needed to get cracking on living a little. I needed to soak up the last of it. And we have. We spent 13 days traveling to and from Texas. We spent 7 days at the beach. And we’ve been swimming and laughing and ignoring the looming date of August 23, which is our first day of school. So now that I’m living large, I’m not writing so much. Balance has never been my gift.

It will always be the summer of Emma. Oh, the laughter. And it will be the summer of the book. And it’s the summer my sweet old Papa passeder from this side of Eternity to the real one, leaving us to turn a page and be an older generation in just a matter of hours. It’s the summer I did a few things wrong and a few things right. And the summer I learned more than I have in the last year. And the summer I was on a diet, but gained 5 pounds from sitting in a chair behind my computer. The summer of the house renovations. The summer of decisions. And change. And the sadness that comes along with change for me. And the hope of the changes being great ones.

It was a spectacular summer. I’ll never forget it. And tomorrow marks my final day of summer. Tomorrow I’m going with friends to the beach for a last flinging of ourselves into the sand and surf. And pizza. And the Candy Kitchen. We will stay until it gets dark and then we will return much too late considering what Saturday will be like.

Saturday will be the funeral of my Papa. He was a grand, godly gentleman. Handsome. Funny. Sweet. Endearing. 95 years old. We wanted him to go, because he was so, so tired. He was ready. But knowing he’s gone feels lonely. He can’t whack me on the back in his “too much love” kind of way anymore. No more big squeeze hugs or stories about World War II. But now he’s part of that great cloud of witnesses and I hope he’ll cheer me on as I keep doing some things wrong and hopefully a few more things right. I have no regrets with him. I don’t think he had many either. It’s a good way to go. My son, Mama’s Boy, told me that he wants to die the same way Papa did…except he’d rather be 92 and not 95. 95 is a little too old, he said. He lost a little bit of zip these last three years. Oh, Mama’s Boy. I wish I could stick around and watch him turn into an old man. What a funny grandfather he’ll be.

Yesterday I was reflecting on my grandfather and how blessed we are that my children will remember their great-grandfather. They still have 4 living grandparents and up to a year ago, had 2 great-grandfathers still alive. That’s pretty superb. Thank you, God, for that.

They say a picture is worth 1000 words. So it seems completely unnecessary that I smacked you around with 800 words before showing you some pictures. Sorry about that. A girl will do anything to avoid finishing the third to last chapter of her book.

Those are the words of my summer. And here are just a fraction of the images. There will be more. But a chapter is calling me…

There are only 5 people who will care about this post. If you are not in that group and your day is busy, you might not want to stop here. But my mother would like to see video of her granddaughter swimming, so I’m posting it here.

I have been trying all summer to get the girl to put her face in the water. In 10 minutes, Grammy got her to do what I couldn’t do in 8 weeks.  Go figure.

It’s funny to me what boys don’t know. They know plenty. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not calling them stupid and me smart. But there is, on occasion, a dividing line between banks of knowledge. On one side of that dividing line, there is me. I don’t know the difference between pawning and selling an item at a pawn shop. Actually, I understand selling perfectly. I just don’t get the pawning thing. Todd has tried on multiple occasions to explain. Please don’t fill up the comments with information on pawning. I really don’t care that much. On the other side of that dividing line, there is Todd. He doesn’t know girls’ sizes. Boys typically don’t.

Don’t ask me how this transpired, but last night Todd’s mom marched out of the back room carrying her prom dress. A baby blue, very well-preserved taffeta prom dress from 1965. Whoa-za. And with an episode of Pawn Stars playing in the background, we got to chatting about that dress.

Out of nowhere, Todd said, “Missy, go put on that dress.”
What?! No. NO.

“Seriously,” he said. “Go put it on. Just try it on.”

“Todd, have you SEEN pictures of your mom at that age? She was a waif. I cannot fit into her high school dress.” I was right about this. This one time, I was right. He held up the dress in the light.

“This was you in high school,” he argued, nicely.

“No, dear. This was me in 4th grade.” Again, truly. I was right.

This went on for awhile. I adamantly argued on the side of truth and logic. Todd adamantly argued on the side of “try on the dress.”

So I complied. For the sake of the blog, I complied.

I marched off to the bathroom to destroy a perfectly intact 45-year-old dress. As I suspected, and had already stated firmly, I could not zip it. Could barely even squish my arms into the sleeves. Then I wandered back into the main room, taking great care to keep my back away from the crowd…as it was exposed due to the lack of zippage and fittage. The result of this little experiment was raucous, out-of-control howling by all four adults in the house. Also resulting was the following photos. It’s a vision of loveliness, isn’t it.

That was fun.

I’m not as fat as this makes me appear. Really.

Now, Todd. Go  put on your dad’s wedding tux. And then come get in this picture…

My van is in the shop.

Not because it broke down, but because I decided to go much sooner than the Expedition in front of me at a stop light 3 weeks ago. I was tired. Spacing. Always an effective way to drive, I find. In my tired spaciness I saw the light turn green. Then I noted that the people directly on either side of me were moving on. I moved on, too.

Unfortunately, the guy in front of me went nowhere. I crunched into him. Then I spoke to myself harshly on the matter, though I tried very hard to use “green words” as I did so. I will admit that yellow and red words are much more impactful in a situation like this one. Saying, “You idiot!” to yourself as you pull over to inspect the damage is much more natural and effective than saying something like “You daft person! You person of low intellect and navigation skills!” But whatever. I don’t remember what I said. I just know I was pretty stressed out at that point. The girls both began screaming, though I’m not really sure why. I wasn’t screaming. It certainly added to the ambiance to have screaming children in the car.

Also adding to the ambiance was the fact that hardly a word of English could be found in the other car. I actually had the thought, “where is Spemma when I need her? I need SPANISH EMMA.” She was at work, not rear-ending people.  I cast my mind quickly back to the garage sale, to the ladies trying to force a return on a working flashlight. Over and over again, Emma said, “Lo siento.” This morphed into our “no returno, no exchango” policy. But lo siento was legit and I knew it meant “I’m sorry.” That seemed like a perfectly reasonable phrase to use, so I used it. About 15 times. As my luck would have it, there was no damage to the other vehicle. The wife looked grumpy, but everyone else was really nice. The kids were very sweet, probably about the age of my 10 year old. The husband was so adorable I would have invited him to live with us. But that seemed highly inappropriate, especially in light of the fact that I just smashed into him and all.

With a few more lo sientos, I was on my way again. Sigh. I knew from looking at my car that I was in a mess. You can swipe a kleenex against your car hard and end up doing $300 damage. I knew what I’d done was going to be a heap o’ money, or as they say in Mexico, “dinero.” I did not realize HOW MUCH a heap really was. Ouch.

But it’s being fixed now and should come back to me tomorrow. And for some reason I am telling you this story. Maybe because I think it’s funny? No. It’s not that. Because when you flush that much money down the car toilet, it’s not so funny.

Yeah, I don’t know. My van is in the shop. You can have this story for free. Unless you want to send donations to the van fund.

I know now why I drive a van, though. When you cram 4 kids into a sedan, the mom wants to punch people. Every noise is 1000x louder and for some reason all of the children are exponentially more noisy. If Mighty Beanz could yell and live inside your ear canal, that’s what driving in a sedan with my 4 is like. Just like that.

I still don’t remember why I started the van story. It certainly doesn’t paint me in a good light.

Well, anyway.

When I arrived home this afternoon from a free lunch at the Cheesecake Factory (I’m pausing to allow you a few moments to be angry and jealous. If you get too angry or sinfully envious, just remember my van is in the shop and you’ll feel better about being you and not being me. It’s really, really hard to be me.), I saw a package from Amazon.com. Oh, how I love to see a book on my front stoop. I ordered a book called How They Croaked: The Awful Deaths of the Awfully Famous. Doesn’t that sound fun? I think it does.

And after I got really excited about the book, I checked my email. There was an email from Google Voice. I don’t really understand how all of this works, but we’ve switched our landline basically off. We can still receive calls to it, but they go straight to Google Voicemail. This can get very interesting, because a software program is trying to listen to the person talking and translate for me in an email message. Let me leave you with two examples that I find funny. If voice recognition software is this advanced, when my van finally dies for the final time, I will probably be able to trade it in for a time machine.

Google Voice:

Hi. This is Justin’s ministry confirming interest appointment for tomorrow, Thursday, June 23rd at 9:30. Also for ensure nothing to eat or drink 2 hours prior. Thank you.

“Justin’s Ministry” is actually Children’s Dentistry. Interest is my oldest boy’s name, and I shall hereafter call him Interest.

Hey, it’s me. Yes, my teacher Gone, and I would, give my two friends need to talk to you You know that I would leave me a a bit awkward looking. Love you guys.

I have no idea what all of that was supposed to be. “You know that I would leave me a bit awkward looking” is quite intriguing, though. I shall attempt to call this one back.

And still, at the end of all of this, I have no idea why I spilled the guts on the van thing.