Some may doubt that she is adopted.

Our dog Jessie is... um, unique.

As I write she is trying to fluff her bed that can't really be fluffed.  She also does this with blankets.  In addition, her head is too small for her body. 

That could explain it.

Oh, I'll just make a list...

1.  She has a tuft of hair on top of her head that sticks straight up.  We call it her "do."

2.  She is unusually skittish of the wind.

3.  She lifts her leg when she goes potty.

4.  When her ear gets flipped inside out, she just leaves it there.  For like hours.

5.  We flip it back for her.

6.  When we first brought her home she wouldn't eat out of a bowl.  I had to feed her on my (now retired) Pampered Chef cutting mat.  Or the floor.  I prefer the mat.

7.  She thinks the doorbell on iCarly belongs to us.

8.  She is afraid of the brush but not the small comb.

9.  She hides treats around the house and then forgets them.

10.  She likes to smell hair. 

11.  She hangs upside down on the couch.  Until she falls off.  Then climbs back up and does it all over again.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to turn down the television. iCarly is coming on and it could send her into a frenzy.

She fits right in.

Can't we just have a nice, fun Spelling Bee?

There are a few things from childhood that should be passed on from one generation to the next, like playing Duck, Duck, Goose, saying "Jinx! You owe me a Coke" when two friends say the same thing  at the exact same time, and the age-old decision maker (which could actually be used in international peace talks) Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Then there are the things that should die, never to be spoken of again.

Like school lunch meatloaf, that wierd powdery substance the custodian uses to clean up vomit, and field day.

I always hated field day.  We've already established in prior blog posts that I am neither athletic nor interested in sports. The one sport I watch on television is baseball and that is because it's the only one I understand.

I'm gifted.

I remember wanting to be sick on field day.  I don't know why I never asked Mama to let me stay home.  Maybe it's because I knew she wouldn't let me.  She would never lie and what is a mother supposed to write on that excuse?  "My daughter was absent because the three-legged race makes her nervous?"

Everything made me nervous.  It runs in the family.

So, when I received the email from Daughter's school that they needed volunteers for field day (which is now known as the olympics. Let me tell ya, that doesn't help their case) I quickly sent that email to the delete file.

My good friend Kim even tried to convince me to make cotton candy that day.  No way.  Even pink spun sugar couldn't lure me to field day.  Making cotton candy is one step away from working the sack race booth.  Just thinking about it makes me itch a little.

I stayed home.  While all the other devoted mothers manned cotton candy machines and bean bag tosses, I was all cozy in my sweats waiting for Barbara Walters to bring up a hot topic.  That's when Nancy called me.

"Hey. I'm freezing.  Will you bring me a hoodie?"

Who is this?

Oh, I kid.  Just a little.

So as the good friend I am, I gathered several hoodies (a girl needs options) and headed to the school.  Nancy didn't tell me where she was so I had to wander through the booths shouting out to other volunteer moms and even to Daughter until I found Nancy huddled in the wind, shivering.

I gave her the hoodie of her choice and meandered back through a sea of elementary kids, most of whom had the same expression on their faces that I used to have.  The one that says, "I wish I was sick today" and "Oh, man. The three-legged race makes me nervous."

Once in the parking lot, I let out a sigh of relief that I'd survived, managing to avoid all field day volunteer opportunities.

It seems my feelings of field day have passed on to my own daughter.  I could see it on her face before she got to the car line. As she described the torturous events of the day (which included them running out of cotton candy, gahhh!)  I decided that the tradition of field day should not be passed on to the next generation.

It should be swept away by the custodian in that weird powdery substance, along with the lunchroom meatloaf.
 

I just hope there are no fingerprints on the television when the trumpet sounds.

I don't mean to make light of the END OF THE WORLD or anything but I was just a tad bit glad that May 21, 2011 wasn't it because my house did not meet rapture standards.

I have always had company standards and vacation standards, but now all of this end of days talk has made me create rapture standards. 

I clean before we go on vacation so my relatives don't talk about me at the funeral.  Well, they can talk but I want it to be about my casseroles and not my toilet bowls. I make sure everything is dusted, the bathrooms are scoured, and the trash is taken out.  I have a fear that we will all die and my mother and mother-in-law will enter the house appalled at my poor cleaning abilities.

"I always suspected," they would say.

Company standards trump vacation standards.  In addition to the typical vacation standards of clean floors and uncluttered counters, company standards include pressed pillowcases and good smelling bath soaps.

Obviously, rapture standards trumps everything else.  I am not certain what I will add to rapture standards but I'm pretty sure I'll be going through our movie collection. Not that we have anything that one would call questionable but I know some people may want to pillage my Gone With The Wind collector's edition.

I'll be spending this week cleaning house. If those crazy folks decide to predict a new date, please give me a good, solid week.  I haven't done the baseboards in forever.

All of this rapture talk has made me ponder my faith, my spiritual readiness, and yes, my dust bunnies, giving new meaning to "Get Ready."

And, yes I will be grateful when Christ returns and takes me out of here, but is it a sin to hope that my house is clean at the same time?

On a serious note, are you ready?   

Now that there is an automobile.

Hubs has never been what you would call "into cars."  Now, he likes cars, as opposed to say having to walk everywhere, but he has never been the type of guy who would point out a Ford Mustang or a Grand Prix, or a BMW for that matter.

He has also been the type of husband who always ended up with the hand-me-down vehicle.  Either I hand the old family car down to him when we purchase a new one, or someone else does when they trade theirs in at the used car lot.  His last car was a used Toyota Camry with engine light issues which, at the time, I believed to be the beater. 

I. Had. No. Idea.

When we moved to Smalltown nearly three years ago, we sold the Camry and drove out here in one vehicle, our (my, ahem) new Honda Pilot.  It is always easier to make a cross country move in one vehicle and Hubs decided when we arrived in Smalltown that he would buy another beater that he would sell when we left Smalltown.

Once we settled into our home, we went car shopping.  We visited the used lots at the Toyota and Ford dealers.  None of them were within Hubs' price range which really meant that they were all still running.  I kept trying to persuade him to spend a little more so we could have a warranty, but he was convinced that he could find the perfect (or imperfect) car for him that he would simply sell when we left town.  After all, he only needed it to get him to and from work.

That's when we met Rusty.

Rusty is the nicest and most honest used car salesman I have ever met. He even plays Christian radio in his showroom.  Granted, his showroom also has one crusty old coffee pot with sugar packets from 1984 and a small upholstered chair that may or may not have been in a nursing home visitation area.

I'm just sayin.'

We met Rusty when the dealer down the road told us that Rusty is the man he sells his unsellables to when they can't get them off the lot.  Let that sink in for a minute. 

Rusty's used car lot, known as Car City, sits on the edge of town.  There are slightly dinged pick-ups and compact cars scattered on the lot, along with a huge family of prairie dogs who peep up out of their holes at sunset next to white wall tires and bent fenders.

Praire dogs aside, Rusty found a car that met Hubs' standards.  It was (somewhat) reliable, it had four tires, a steering wheel, a windshield (with a crack) and most of all, it was cheap. 

Let's make a deal.

We did and Hubs drove away from Car City in a Dodge Intrepid, well, once the cracked windshield was replaced. 

Since that fateful day, the Dodge IsCrepid, has leaked oil, made strange transmission noises, yet has managed to get Hubs to and from work, fulfilling its purpose, adding a new spin on the Purpose Driven Life series.

It has also been my nemesis.

Because we all know that no matter how much you say that a vehicle will only be driven by one family member in order to get them from Point A to Point B and back, it is part of Murphy's Law that the secondary driver (me) will someday have to go to Albertson's while the vehicle's primary driver (Hubs) takes Daughter to horseback riding in the secondary driver's very comfortable Honda Pilot.

Now I know what you are thinking.  Why can't the primary driver (Hubs) take Daughter to horseback riding in the Dodge?  I'll tell you.  It's because the secondary driver doesn't want her kid stranded in the country. 

It's a Mother's Love.

I climbed in the Dodge yesterday to head to Albertson's and just as I started the engine, Hubs ran up along side me motioning for me to roll down the window.  As I did, the window went down slowly with a squeal and a squeak. 

Hubs reached in the car and said,"The turn signal doesn't work. It broke off."

"Broke off?" I said,"I can't drive this.  It isn't safe."

"Yeah, you can, just stick your arm out like this to turn right and like this to turn left."

I rolled me eyes and rolled up the window.  SQUEAK.  SQUEAL. 

Then headed to Albertson's, remembering all the arm motions I learned in Driver's Ed, and praying for a miracle that perhaps if I lingered in the deli long enough someone would steal the Dodge and drive it away.

A girl can dream.

All the while, Hubs and Daughter safely and comfortably drove to horseback riding lessons in the Honda Pilot. My Honda Pilot.  With my new Elton John CD.

So if you ever see a white Intrepid with Florida plates and a small ding on the rear bumper, feel free to drive it away.  I left the keys in the ignition for you. Just make sure you remember to stick your arm out of the window when you make that right turn next to Car City.

And while you're sitting at the stop sign, wave to the prairie dogs for me.