Pop a la Mode

Last night, she and I were discussing my schedule for the upcoming months - specifically at night after work.

Me: I’ll have chapel bells (youth handbells) at 6 on Monday, Colla Voce (a singing group I’m in) at 7 and they’re both at church. Then I’ll work out Tuesdays and Thursdays at the church rec center and then Wednesday of course is Master Ringers and choir. So pretty much if I’m not at work, I’ll be at church except for Fridays and Saturdays.

Mom: Well at least you’re not drunk and hanging out at bars.

Me: (After a moment of silence) You do realize I’m putting that on my blog?

Mom: I’m really going to have start biting my tongue.

Me: As if that’s going to happen.

Heavenly Father,

You are in charge of everything that will happen to me today -

the good and the bad,

the happy and the sad,

the positive and the negative.

Please help me to be thankful for everything that will happen to me today. For you have given me no more than I can bear and every opportunity that is placed in front of me.

Amen.

I am very sorry for the lack of posts last week. Between the olympic insomnia, Tivo trauma, 14-hour work days and a visit from Isaiah and his mommy and daddy, I am done. I still don’t know exactly what day it is. I went to 8:30 service at church this morning and that was so long ago, I almost forgot I went.

This week is hopefully less hectic but it won’t be normal. My “little” cousin Elizabeth will officially be entering Samford University as a freshman this week and her family is all coming down to move her in and get her settled. So the non-university students will be staying at my condo which will be fun. I can’t believe that it’s been 12 years since I moved in to SU for the first time. And some of my best friends are still the ones I met the first day of class. Isn’t that awesome?

So sleep is a top priority for me this week as well as continuing the workout routine that I attempted to begin fully last week. And also trying to get the work done that was pushed aside due to extenuating circumstances.

But it’s all about attitude and right now, my attitude needs rest. Ask me tomorrow.

I don’t usually have trouble staying asleep at night. Especially when my days are as busy as the past two days have been, I usually sleep rather well.

But not right now. I keep waking up and can’t sleep. I can’t get comfortable and I end up turning on the TV. And what do you know? I’m watching the Olympics on one of the seemingly endless channels that is carrying an event. Like right now, 12:26 AM on Thursday and there is a fierce badminton game going on between China and Germany. That poor little birdie. They play nothing like we used to in the backyard.

One night I watched swimmer Michael Phelps get his assumedly 100th gold medal or something like that. I don’t know - the way they talked about it you would have thought he would have been more excited.

So maybe NBC and the Chinese have cooked up some sort of brain-washing scheme that means I can’t stop watching it. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were hidden messages in that scarily-accurate Opening Ceremonies. As impressive as it was, I walked away actually thinking there is no way I would want to engage in a war with this country. They are entirely too perfect.

Change all the channels on my TV without telling me.

Charter decided to rearrange every channel that was not basic cable and I cannot find anything. When I look for Headline News, I find the Weather Channel. When I look for Food Network, I find MTV. When I look for the Braves game, it’s a Lifetime movie. And all of a sudden I have Telemundo or Univision one - I don’t know which. All I know is they are speaking Spanish and I don’t know what they’re saying.

And worst of all? My Tivo hasn’t changed over to the new channels! I am missing important things people! Like Ace of Cakes and The Closer and The Middleman and NCIS reruns. This has just been very stressful.

AND to top it all off, my Tivo in my den died. (Yes I have two, I dare you to say something about it.) I feel like I’ve lost a friend. When nothing else in my world was right, I could count on my Tivo to be there for me. It was always on time and had exactly what I wanted when I wanted it. So of course I just found a refurbished model for $50 on tivo.com and it will be here soon.

I know - I have a problem. I am addicted to TV. But you know what? I’m okay with that. I work hard all day and if I want to come home and enjoy my TV shows I will. It makes me happy. And isn’t that what it’s all about anyways? Everybody has their escape mechanism and this is mine.

(And for those of you that read my blog that do not know what a Tivo is - it’s technically a mini-computer you hook up to your TV that records TV shows for you and stores them until you watch them. You can even pause live television. It’s pretty awesome.)

Sigh. It’s just been that kind of day.

Please make note - Saturday, August 9 was a perfect summer day. Hot enough to go the pool, a breeze blowing to keep you cool, no cloud in the sky and no humidity in the air. Ahhhh. It was lovely.

The hardest work I did today was work on my tan and other than that I watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. I tivo’ed it because first I wasn’t home when it started and second, I knew I would be too sleepy to watch it until the end. If you didn’t see them, it was pretty amazing. I’d hate to be the country to follow that show. If you missed any of it, you can go to NBC’s special site here and watch the highlights.

It also led to a discussion between myself and D. about random Olympic events. Like table tennis. And hand ball. From what I’ve seen about hand ball, it’s very similar to that American Gladiator game where you have to put balls in to the cylinders after fighting through the gauntlet of gladiators. Maybe I’ll learn some more about obscure sports for which a medal is presented during these next two weeks.

And unless laziness becomes an Olympic event, I can accurately predict there is no chance of me medaling in anything.