Seeing Things Differently???

My daughter wants glasses, but her eyes are fine. For months she has purchased dollar store reading glasses and removed the lens. Imagine her happiness when she found an entire display of accessory glasses with clear lens in the story, Icing.

I bought them and she has worked hard in school to earn them. Today was the day she finally paid off her debt! She thinks she looks like her cousin Gabby.

Breathing in some of the past

This week we had some fall weather blow into Florida. Well, fall weather by Florida standards. That is to say, we received a dip in our temperatures. Instead of 92-degree weather we got 86 degree weather with a nice breeze to go along with our sunshine.

This lasted three days and it was wonderful. I even slept with my bedroom window open. (That occurred because I put some cheap Drano cleaner down my shower drain and obnoxious killer fumes raced throughout our house causing me to have to open all the windows in the house. That is when we discovered the evening temperature had dropped a bit and a nice fall breeze was blowing. Thus we kept the bedroom one opened all night)

On the second day the weather was so delightful I decided to clean my van. It was in such dirty shape that I couldn't even see what color my vehicle was behind all the dirt and grime. I don' t think it had been washed since the beginning of summer.

After I returned from the gym on Thursday (the day after my exciting Obama day) I got out my iHome and hooked up my iPod. I got out the buckets, the soap, the rag, and the vacuum. I removed the protective carpeting we have inside and I vacuumed it, scrubbed it with carpet cleaner, hosed it down and hung it over my fence to dry. I washed all the windows inside and used Clorox wipes on all the washable surfaces. Then I vacuumed the entire car from ceiling to floor. That took over an hour, but I was still feeling so fine working hard in this crisp Florida weather.

When I had finished with the inside I took all of the belongings that shouldn't have been in my van in the first place and put them in their correct places inside the house. I had some water. I got out the hose and cleaned the outside of my car. About the time I was on my haunches scrubbing at the hubcaps I got to thinking about how tired I was and about how much I disliked cleaning cars. That got me to thinking about my neighbors in Indiana. These people really knew how to clean cars.

There were three kids in the family and once a month or so the kids were assigned the duty of cleaning the family car. It was an all day project. They cleaned and scrubbed and used toothbrushes to clean inside every groove and crevice you could see. There was no swishing and swiping on their car. They would clean the inside and then move to the outside. They would finish up with a good wax job just about the time the sun went down and then they would clean up their mess. Some of us neighborhood kids would start out helping, but by the time we realized we weren't going to get to play with the hose and buckets of suds first we were history.

As they got older they went from the family car to their own cars. I never understood this obsession with the car cleaning. I cleaned my car, but not like these three cleaned a car. Seriously, you could eat off the underside of their car when it was finished.

As I stared at the dirt down in the crevice of the sliding door of my van that I had no intention of even tackling I wondered if they still were like that. I wondered too if they had passed that gene down to their own children.

Better yet I wondered if they would be interested in a Florida fall vacation...

The Day After

Here are the responses I got when I told family and friends about my exciting workout with Barack Obama:

Juanita: (My mother's friend) "Oh, you did? I saw him in Mt. Carmel before he was a senator."

John: (Sharon's husband) "Don't tell me you're going to vote for him now."

Jyoti: "AAAAAHHHHHHH! NO WAY! NO WAY!"

Kelly: "What was he wearing?"

Tom: "Does this mean you're a Democrat now? That is exciting."

Sarina: "AAAAAAHHHHH!"

Madison: "Oh, that's neat."

Darcy: "Really?"

Connie: "Well, that is exciting."

Susan P: "You didn't! Let me tell Savanna."

Savanna: "She did? AAAAAHHHHHH!"

Howard: (my neighbor next door) "You really saw Obama, huh? Well, Cara, that is news."

Bonnie: (my neighbor across the street) "OOOOHHHHH! No way!"

The girl's teacher: "Did you get a picture?"

Aunt Marilyn: "Get him to sign an autograph as evidence it was real."

Not too sure about that last response...not sure what she is saying about me...not sure I like that one, but I'm still on my high from the experience so I'm letting it go...

Brush with greatness?

Today I worked out in the gym with Barack Obama.

No, seriously, it is true. My friend and I arrived at our wellness center to find nurses, doctors, pharmaceutical reps, etc. standing outside the main door, along the entrance way, and inside the door to the wellness center. I thought that the fire alarm had gone off, but since no one stopped us from entering we continued on. I felt like I was on the red carpet walking between these lines of people so I started giving them my princess wave as I entered. Only when I got into the wellness center did I ask what was going on.

Counter Girl: "Obama is here,"

Me: "Where?"

CG: "In there working out."

My friend and I walked inside and there he was straight ahead on the elliptical working hard. We put our keys and wallets in the lockers, got our wipes and proceeded to the machines we always use; however, they were all full. The place was packed. There is never this many people in our wellness center in the middle of the week at this time of the morning. The only open good machines and I'm not making this up, were the two ellipticals next to Obama. So we climbed aboard and went to work.

He looks exactly like he does on camera. He is tall and thin and younger than I thought. He looks like he could use a decent meal, which I would have happily had with him, but we left him alone. He had his ear buds in and he was very focused.

We decided he was listening to his upcoming speech that he would be giving later that afternoon in Dunedin. Secret Service agents were everywhere and they straightened up as we got that close. My friend was right next to him. She could have reached out and touched him, but with the agents checking us psycho housewives out she opted not to do that. We did not speak to him, but I got to watch him as I had to turn that way to talk to my friend.

He left after awhile. Apparently, he had been there for about an hour already. He did not wipe off his sweat on the equipment and my friend, who has an obsession about cleanliness, kept her mouth shut. I admit I was worried she would stop him and remind him that cleanliness was important.

We did think about selling the right to touch his sweaty equipment but figured we'd get kicked out. He walked out of the center and got waylaid by all the people. We heard he was there for several minutes. He arrived in town yesterday and was spotted at a local hangout across from the wellness center. He ordered a hamburger.

It was exciting. This man could be President, and I worked out next to him! It pumped me up so much that I burned 387 calories on the elliptical. I've never done that in my life! These types of things never happen to me. Who says SAHM's lives are boring?

Are You Ready For Some Football?

I'm spending the entire day doing nothing but getting back into the groove.

Go Steelers!

And life goes on...

I spent today watching television of Hurricane Gustav and the Jerry Lewis telethon and thinking about my niece who only lived for 16 months. So much heartache. So much helplessness. A hurricane, diseases and a death...that was my Labor Day. And I kept on watching, listening and remembering because that is something I can do. I can take that time out of my perfect life to not forget.