...confessions...

It has been said that “confession is good for the soul.” Well, I need to confess. Now wait, wait, wait, before you grab your phone and start the prayer chain going, spreading the news across The upper 48 that Novia needs a soul-revival, hear me out. I’m set, my soul has been bought and paid for, she (my soul that is) has her bags packed, and her oil lamps filled (with some oil in reserve of course) and she’s waiting at the window for her bridegroom to come sweep her off her feet and take her to his castle in Canaan. So don’t you fret about my soul! I’m re2go!

Let’s just look at this exercise as upkeep for the soul. Like a trip to the dentist twice a year. Get the picture? Good, now let’s move on to my confession.

I find great joy in sprinkling acephate (Ortho Fire Ant Killer) over ant mounds and watching the ants tripping over each other fighting to get out of the mound by the thousands.

There I said it! I find GREAT pleasure in DEATH!!!!!!!!! Death to red ants that bite me. Painful, horrible, suffocating death to red microscopic beasts that make ugly hills in my newly planted St. Augustine.

Yes, I said it! I sprinkle that Ortho Red Ant Killer on the mound and if I bend over far enough, I can hear the agonized screams of those vermin “FORGET YOUR BELONGINGS, SAVE THE QUEEN, SAVE THE QUEEN FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE THE QUEEN!!!!!”

BWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA is my response to their feeble laments. Teach you to build your den of iniquity in my yard. Long live the queen? NO! I say NO!!!!! LONG LIVE ORTHO FIRE ANT KILLER! HOOORAH!

Friday Night Lights -- Blinded Me Tonight

I really don't mind being a football widow. Sure, it took a little getting used to, but after a while, it becomes old hat. It's all kinds of great to stand in the stands cheering every Friday night. It's a bit frustrating to know the inside scoop of what's going right and what's going wrong with the team, but it comes with the territory.

Every Friday night I look forward to the games. I look forward to the excitement of the crowd and my three cheering buddies. What I don't look forward to is the nail biting that comes with the territory. I don't look forward to those nights like tonight when I lose all words and stand shocked as I watch the clock run down to triple zeros and in a daze stare at the score board which tells me that my team is no longer 3-0. No, they have managed despite my yelling and screaming plays, to gain their first loss. So close to winning, so close. But close to winning tonight means second place, and second place means we didn't win.

This is the part that breaks me. That throws me. I don't show up every Friday braving the heat, allowing the heavy humidity to have its way with my hair to cheer on a group of high school kids who run up and down a field, playing keep away. I show up every Friday because someone I love stands on the sideline instructing those kids, encouraging them, nudging them to mine from deep within themselves strength and endurance to finish what they started. I cheer for him. Now that he has suffered his first loss of the season. A loss that was so close, that it was almost a win, I hurt for him.

I know, I know, it's just the beginning of the season. It's only one loss. The team will bounce back.

I know all of this, however, that doesn't make the the next few hours an iota easier.

I remember losses from past seasons, They weren't like this one. It was almost as if those kids knew they could win, they were convinced, then someone ripped away from them that certainty. A sad thing to be a part of.

I pick up the pieces and will wait until the wee hours of tonight, until he walks in his front door. I'll give him a hug and let him know that come rain or shine, humidity or drought, big win or little loss, I'll still be there cheering for him.

(That's if I ever get my voice back from all the hollerin' I did tonight!)

Summer....BLAH

Alas summer is in full swing here in happy hollow. I'm not the fan of summer, but I'll suffer thru and eventually summer will pass and my favorite season, Autumn, will be upon us.

I've run out of tolerance for those bugs that make those loud sounds all the time, the spiders that seem to have multiplied by a billion since last summer, and think it's funny to make their webs wherever I might walk. I've grown weary of humidity that takes advantage of the 20 seconds it takes me to walk from my house to the car in the morning to take a very cute hairstyle and make it into something akin to a drowned rat.

There was a time when I enjoyed summer...okay, no wait, I think that's the heat getting to me because the only thing I ever liked about summer is the invention of the air conditioner.

But now, it's the end of July and all of a sudden I look up and Ron and his players will start two-a-days in a week, which inevitably means the end of this wretched season (for all those that live north of the Red River that is). Summer here in TX will hold on kicking and screaming until at least the end of October. There's no such thing as Indian summers here!

Not that I dislike this awesome state, I'm just tired of summer. I mean hey, I'm already brown what do I need a tan for? Why do I need to lay out? I mean no really, darker colors attract more heat then lighter colors do. I'll leave that sun-worshipping nonsense to you my lighter brothas from another motha. In the meantime, I'll be the happy brown face waving at you from the other side (the air-conditioned side that is) of the window!

Come quickly autumn.......oh please come quickly!

Please oh please will someone vacuum out my chest??

So there I am, going through my day yesterday, minding my own when somewhere along the way, I came across someone who was carrying the virus o' death virus.

Last night as I was laying in bed reading a book, my nose began to run, and then I started to sneeze, again and again and again. I blew it off as slight allergies I had picked up from working in the yard yesterday afternoon. But NOOOOOOO the virus o' death was not to be denied!!!

In the middle of the night, my dripping nose drove me to sticking rolled up kleenex up my nose in order to sleep.

By this morning, a nice hacking cough had taken up residence in my lungs. By noon, my right ear was clogged, my head was hurting and I had set up a triage tent around my bed.

Sometime around 2:00 I woke up sweating with a fever. Woo-Hoo! It's a freakin' pa-har-tay in my body! Who in the world gets this sick this quickly?

Watch out whoever you are, you evil carrier of the virus o' death, I will be vindicated!!! I will hunt you down and dunk you in a bucket of blistering disinfectant, if it's the last thing I do!!!

Don't let my lack of energy and these cold chills/hot flashes that have caused my covers to be a tangle of multi-colored material, lull you into a false sense of security. As soon as I can hear out of my right ear again, I'm coming for ya. BE AFRAID!!! BE VERILY VERILY AFRAID!!!!!!

...until then, anyone got a vacuum that'll suck this crap outtah my lungs, my ears and my head???

...could someone go get me a slushee from Sonic, I'm sure it'll make my throat feel better and help break the fevah...

never mind, I'm going back to sleep

And still I rise...

In 2000 I began training to run my first marathon. 8 weeks away from the starting pistol, I was sidelined with a second degree anterior tibial tendon strain (that means the tendon was extremely inflamed and I was put in a walking cast for six weeks. Relegated to watch the marathon from the sidelines, I resigned myself to getting better and pocketed the dream of 26.2 miles.

In 2001, I ran my first half marathon to subsequently be followed by two more 1/2 marathons in 2002 and 2003. In the Spring of 2003 I was selected in the lottery to run the Marine Corps Marathon. I was STOKED.

I began training and was faithful to that training even through the sticky hot summer that plagued the East Coast that year. I was consistent, healthy and strong.

On a Saturday in late September, one month away from the marathon, I rose at my usual time of 4:00 AM to begin my long run. That morning it was 20 miles. A little less than 4 hours later, I sat at the finish line of my 20-mile run in tears and pain, realizing that deep in my heart, I knew I couldn't make it through the 26.2 miles. Mentally, I hit a wall that would prove to be my undoing. When the starters pistol was fired early on a November morning for those runners to begin the famed 26.2 miles that would end at the foot of the Iwo Jima memorial, I was burrowed deep down under my covers in Fairfax, VA lamenting over that wall I had run into.

Fast forward three and a half years, I'm back in Texas, my three years on the East Coast a pleasant yet distant memory. But the spirit of the all mighty 26.2 mile run still haunting me.

Today, I took the first tentative steps towards exorcising that spirit and running down the demons that have over the last two and a half years transformed me from an avid distance runner to an avid hater of all things running, I hired a running coach.

As I huffed and puffed my way around the 1/4 mile track at the Cooper Clinic this afternoon, I began to shake the spirit of doubt. As my new coach yelled encouragement and instruction (to fix my form and footfall cadence) I realized that however long this journey will be, whatever paths I must take to make the dream a reality, whatever I must endure, this time, THIS TIME, the journey will end at the finish line of White Rock.

See you there in December!