What to Write?

Seriously, I've had about 10 different posts swimming around in my head, and I can't coherently form any of them. So I'll just mix and mash them all together in one (probably long and rather confusing) post. :)

New Orleans was interesting, to say the very least. I can absolutely understand, now, how people fall in love with that city. Lyndsey lives Uptown, not far from the Garden District, if that means anything to anyone. Her part of the city didn't have any damage from Katrina, flood or wind. Walk about 10 minutes in several directions, and it's a whole 'nother story, though. Her graduation was at the SuperDome, the first one since the hurricane. The music was great (when was the last time you heard someone say that about a graduation??), the whole thing was very laid back, and many of the concession areas were open, so during the (very long) intermissions, you could get chicken strips, fries, and a beer. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

We went to a crawfish boil at a friend's house, and I got to eat crawdads with this guy. It was very cool, and he laughed at a few jokes I made. (He had also had more than a few drinks, but we don't have to talk about that. We'll just pretend that I was the really small, cute, witty girl from Texas in the cowboy boots who really knows how to put away crawfish, and fast.) It was a small crowd, maybe 20 people total, but they had ordered 150 pounds of crawdads. People, I was in heaven. As a general rule, I don't eat shellfish, but if I'm going to break a rule, I'm going to do it right.

I was going to write an entire post about the Civil War. (Don't let out that sigh of relief just yet. I'll probably make you suffer through read my theories of warfare, politics, changes in battlefield tactics, and so many others ... I just don't have the energy to put into it this morning.) We read The Killer Angels in our book club a while back, and it's one of the best books I've ever read. The whole thing is about Gettysburg, the battle and the few days leading up to it. I re-read that book a few weeks ago, then went to the library to get Gods and Generals, which covers the months before Lincoln was elected through the days before Gettysburg; and The Last Full Measure, which covers from the days after Gettysburg through just after the war.

If you've never read any historical fiction, and never read any again, I cannot stress enough how much you would benefit from these books. I couldn't put them down, and read the first and last one in less than four days. And if you take some of what you read to heart, you'll probably come away deeply saddened for a little while, but also deeply grateful. I cried like a baby at the end (and middle, and maybe the beginning) of each one.

Anyway. I'll go more into that later. And I promise to give you a fair warning so you can skip the post find a time when your attention won't be distracted so you can really take it all in. :)

I've also been incredibly busy with XanGo. I was really disappointed a little while back, because I just couldn't seem to get the business end off the ground. However, I've had some help from the most wonderful woman, Florence, who has really been teaching me how to build my business. And here's the crazy part (are you ready?): I've actually started making money!! I know!! No one is more surprised than I am, believe me. Unless maybe ... wait. Yeah, John is definitely more surprised that moi. Skeptical jackass man that he is. Know what? It's a product I'm in love with, and if I never made a dime after today, I don't see myself without this stuff. So that helps, and I think it comes across when I talk to people.

We tried to expose the kids to chicken pox earlier this week, so even though they haven't gotten sick, we're still under a three week quarantine. Woohoo!! Goodness, I've never prayed, let alone prayed this hard, for all of my children to get sick. Preferably at the same time.

I've been planning for next school year, when we'll start formal school with Sam and Evie. And teach David how to eat play with play dough. With the help of the ever-wonderful Kristie, I've been doing lots of work and research on all that stuff. (That's right, I'm way articulate like that, and plan on doing a bang-up job of teaching my kids to write good.) (And yes, I know it's supposed to be 'write well.' I was being sarcastic.)

I love this time of year. It's just starting to get really hot (we've been mid- to upper-90's last few weeks), but it's not totally unbearable yet, and my tomato plants are putting fruit on at an amazing rate, my corn is just shooting up, and the Farmers' Market has the most lovely I've ever seen. And everything is still green around here! The heat hasn't smothered everything yet. The summer wild flowers and plants, like the coreopsis and bee balm and blackfoot daisies and cactus plants, are everywhere, and the color is just wonderful. My new morning glories are putting off beautiful flowers, too. I'll try to get some pictures up soon.

And I've either got allergies, by which I'm not usually affected, or I've got the beginnings of a cold. Who makes it all the way through the winter without truly getting sick (even though her whole family was down for the count several times) , and then gets a cold at the end of May??? Seriously? Time to beef up on the immune boosters. My kids should be the sick ones. Life, as it turns out, isn't always fair.

On that note, I'm going to read with the kids for a while, make lunch, and take a nap after I put in a post-lunch movie. Or I may reverse that order, and do nap/movie, lunch, then reading. I'm wild and unpredictable like that, I tell you.