September Already?

Quite odd.

The summer flew past me at warp speed. This was aided by the amazing weather our Creator has given us. In all my 28 years, I do not recall such splendid temperatures during the normally Saharan months. I remember back in '99 when I spent my first summer on campus at The University. I would walk outside and my face would immediately melt away. I distinctly recollect a 114° day and having the misfortune of needing to walk across campus. And although I should not complain about this very mild May-August, I'd prefer the baking heat to the sopping humidity we're faced with nearly every day. If I want to be wet when I step outside, I'll play in a sprinkler thank you very much. I think we've hit triple digits only twice these past 90 days. My buddy Donnie has a bumper sticker on his truck that reads "Pray for rain". I'd say he's been having quite the effective prayer life this year.

Yesterday, Sunday the 2nd, C and I welcomed our 5-and-a-half year anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been that long. When I look back at our wedding photos, I wonder who are those kids staring back at me. The changes are not subtle. I am actually taking the form of a man these days. Although 23 when I was married, the picture suggests I wasn't a day over 18. My face has filled out a little more, but I am still unable to grow the requisite facial hair to officially proclaim my manhood. I'll just have to leave that to the two arrows in my quiver. These additions have only intensified the beauty of my love. I knew when we were dating that she only desired to be a mother and wife, and she has been rewarded bountifully with M and S.

Speaking of those two, it has been my great pleasure--most of the time--to help raise these little souls to Christ-likeness. While M has her rotten moments, she still has plenty to assuage any anger/frustration/disappointment I might have toward her. The other night as I was leaving her room, she very sweetly refused to let me go until we had some cuddle time. S and I have some nice snuggle time, even though it may come in the wee hours of the morn. She likes to say "Da Da Da" a lot lately. She makes a cute face that looks like someone took vice grips to squish her face together. She is very much a Mama's girl, throwing herself at C when the opportunity presents itself. She continues to be content with just sitting in one place. She doesn't care for crawling or rolling around. I think it's God's way of giving C a little rest so that she's not having to run after two girls.

Work has been weird in that I have had to manufacture ways to keep myself busy. The last week-and-a-half have improved. I've had actual work to do. I perform well under pressure and I like having a lot of things hit me at once so I can rock it. Our venerable CEO Ms. P was gracious enough to give us a half-day on Friday, and, since we had our third consecutive record revenue quarter (quite unexpected), she's ordering nachos and beverage for tomorrow afternoon. Things are definitely looking up for our little corporation.

At home it's been more of the same: never-ending yard work. I quipped to a neighbor the other day that one way to make an end to it would be an atomic bomb. But then our neighbors wouldn't appreciate that, let alone my dear wife and children. However, we are making steady progress. There is some Turk's Cap that I'm dying to rid ourselves of. (I know you English majors are wincing at the sight of a sentence ending in 'of'. Two in a row probably has you slamming your head in a door. But be careful.) Then there's the issue of our kitchen window shrubbery. I started to go after it this morning, but was deterred by a swarm of yellow jackets and red wasps. Needless to say I opened a can-and-a-half on them critters.

And last, but certainly not least, football season is upon us. It was an exciting opening weekend for the college ranks, with Appalachian State pulling out a thrilling upset over Meeeshigan, as the annoying Tim Brando calls them, at the Big House no less. Thankfully, Texas survived against a very game Arkansas State squad on Saturday. Here is my email to my friend N after he inquired of my thoughts on the 'game':

Unfortunately, or fortunately--I'm not sure which--I didn't watch or listen to the game. It almost looked like after they went up 14-3 in the first quarter they might've put things on cruise control looking forward to TCU. I'm just glad we didn't pull a Michigan. That's the beauty of college football. You don't get scrimmages like the pros do, so anything can happen. It doesn't help that we lost most of our O-Line and secondary to graduation. Neither does losing Orakpo to injury. Just a sloppy game all around. Thankfully they had the penalty on the onside kick or it might've been an even bigger scare.
Again, I didn't watch the game (Pay-per-view. Seriously?), and I only listened to a brief snippet on KVET. I didn't really think we were the 4th-best team in the country. I think 15-20 is about right, especially after all we lost to the draft and then our top receivers being injured. But I'll take an eeked-out W over a Sun Belt foe any day rather than being Michigan and Notre Dame. I watched most of the first half of the Golden Domers contest and I was wondering whether Weis was just going to call runs all day. Hey coach, there's this thing called the forward pass. Some guy named Knute helped introduce it against Army back in the day. You might want to watch some of that game film. But hey, you don't replace basically your entire offense and not have ugly games like that. Give those kids a year of taking lumps and they'll be ready to lose another bowl game next year.

Time to leave you. The grind welcomes me back with open arms tomorrow and I need my rest.

Hook 'Em.