Rachel Callahan

Rubbish Trail.

April 13, 2010 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, I'm a Glutton for Adventure

Subtitle: Never Underestimate Your Own Back Yard.

We live in a very suburban residential area. You have to drive through five minutes of nothing but neighborhood to arrive at our house from the main road, and there’s not much space within all that that isn’t occupied by houses, front yards, or back yards.

However, we’d heard that at the end of our street, there was a secret trail into some rare woods. In the two and a half years that we’ve lived here, we’d never attempted to find or explore this trail, but we decided it was high time to put on our Dora Shoes and go exploring.

We set off on one of our evening-Daddy’s-home-and-we-all-need-a-change-of-pace walks.

We knew about where the trail was, but it wasn’t very easy to spot: It wasn’t much of a trail.

We quickly dubbed the lack-of-trail as “Rubbish Trail”, because of the menacing sign right above it:

It’s hard not to read with a British Accent when you encounter a sentence with the word “Rubbish” in it.

As soon as we stepped foot onto the trail, we heard water running. We knew adventure was afoot. We crossed Christmas Tree Curve:

(Do those count as rubbish??)

We beat back bushes, jumped over a humongous downed tree, and within no time, found this glorious sight:
(Notice the dots of reflection in the picture – that would be pollen. It was, after all, still pollen week.)

Ali and I immediately made our way out into the middle of the stream and sat down:

While Chris went to explore upstream:

What we didn’t see is what happened to him while he was upstream. He came back with a good side:

And a very, very bad side:…which made me feel pretty good, since I’m usually the clumsy one of the family.

Ali, however, was not impressed. Being the worry-wart that she is, she started moaning anytime he would walk on the rocks and and would repeat under her breath, “Be careful, Daddy…don’t fall!”

Which was quite fitting, since she gets all of her paranoia from her Daddy.

On the way back, we photographed the big log we had to climb over:

…which would make an awesome Daddy/Daughter photo, if it didn’t look like Chris had a horrible case of the pit sweats, thanks to his fall.

We managed to make it past Christmas Tree Curve and out into the neighborhood again, where Ali was only slightly ashamed to be seen by all of the neighbors with her Daddy and his massive messiness:

…but really, his look kinda went with the whole theme of “Rubbish Trail”.

If I Had My Wedding to Do Over Again, I’d be Hispanic.

April 12, 2010 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, A Day in the Life, Do You Know? Because I Don't., Don't Listen to my Fashion Advice, Weird Strange and True

Seeing as how the weather is at that perfect point of brand new warmth and beauty, paired with the fact that pollen week seems to be over, we absolutely had to spend our Saturday outdoors. We started with an outdoor lunch at Chez Lulu.

I don’t know about you, but we adhere to some pretty strict parenting policies when it comes to mealtime manners.

We allowed our three year old to use a knife to spread whipped cream (with purple sprinkles) onto her cookie,

and when she ran out of cookie, spread whipped cream (with purple sprinkles) onto her potato chips,

and when she ran out of potato chips, just eat the whipped cream (with purple sprinkles) straight from the knife.

Oh wait – she still had cookie in that picture. Maybe we just let her eat her whipped cream (with purple sprinkles) from the knife the whole time.

Obviously, the problem here is that they provide way too much whipped cream (with purple sprinkles) at Chez Lulu.

After finishing our whipped cream, we headed to the Botanical Gardens to show Daddy all of the pretty flowers that we saw last week…

and get some energy out on the trails.

And by doing so, we discovered where all of the pollen ended up: In the pond.

Poor fish. I’m sure their eyes are watering like crazy down there.

But for Ali, the gardens themselves paled in comparison to a much more exciting event that was happening there.

She caught a glimpse of something magical going on….She gasped. She leapt. She grabbed my arm and hyperventiladedly squealed that she saw a Princess!!!Marrying her Prince!!! and insisted that we go immediately to watch:

The bride was decked out rather magnificently, and definitely in Princess form:

Which immediately reminded me of another wedding that we saw at the exact same place two years ago, where the bride’s dress was another interesting color choice:

Which got me thinking. Unless Princess Blue Dress is just the same girl as Princess Pink Dress but now on her second wedding, Hispanic brides must be free from the confining tradition of white wedding dresses.

AND if you’re going to have a boldly colored dress, a hoop skirt only makes it better.

AND I have to say, I really like it.

Not the hot pink, for sure, but I do love the bold colors and the opulence of their gowns. I’m pretty sure I would feel like a Princess in one of those dresses.

White dresses are beautiful, but a bit overrated.

Much like Diamonds. Sure, they’re pretty, but color is prettier.

When we got home, I did some internet research to find out if these colorful dresses are indeed a South American cultural tradition, but couldn’t find any information that backed that theory up.

Mysterious.

So then, I went to Google Images and searched for “Mexican Wedding Dresses” and “Hispanic Wedding Dresses”.

I still got nothing but white dresses, and an added bonus. Google apparently thought I was asking to see Maternity Wedding Dresses, and brought me back this horrifying search result:

Bing needs to quit doing all of those jibberish commercials and just show this picture with an ominous announcer overdubbed, “THIS is what you might see if you use Google. Bing promises to NEVER let this happen to you. We care about your state of well-being.”

Now, pardon me while I go bleach my mind. And my computer screen. While I’m gone, will you please solve my mystery for me?

Maybe She’s Born With It…

April 11, 2010 Rachel Callahan Kids: The Experience.

I was getting Ali dressed for Church this morning.

She told me, “Ethan is going to be very happy today.”

“Really? Why?”

“That’s because I’m wearing a really pretty dress.”

I ran into him after church…

She seemed to be correct.

Yogurt Mountain and the Dreadful Case of Underbutt.

April 9, 2010November 12, 2013 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, Don't Listen to my Fashion Advice, I Love Birmingham, It's Tough Being a Girl, Weird Strange and True

There’s a new hangout in Birmingham. It is most definintely the hippest of all places to go, especially if you’re under 18 years old.

The esteemed and worshipped ascent to Yogurt Mountain.

Careful, though. It is dangerously addictive. I am afraid that my husband is hopelessly and forever strung out on the place.

When it first opened, all I could think of was the bizarre yet wildly popular YouTube video…. “Candy Mountain, Chaaaarlie!!!”

But luckily, I’ve been to Yogurt Mountain many times, and can happily say that I have yet to lose a Kidney.

If I’ve totally confused you now, Yogurt Mountain is a Frozen Yogurt establishment that has a line of gazillions of different flavors of self-serve frozen yogurt, then another line of bazillions of toppings for said yogurt. You mix and match whatever would make you the happiest, pay 45 cents an ounce for your bowl of sugary diabeticness, compare your price with your friend’s price to see who the biggest pig is, and enjoy.

Ali is also quite the fan. Especially since Chris took her on a Daddy/Daughter date for dinner there.

Now, any mention of the word “Mountain” will bring forth an onslaught of Yogurt requests…

“Where are we going today, Mommy?”

“The Botanical Gardens to see the flowers!”

“Oh. Where is that?”

“In Mountain Brook.”

“I really like Yogurt Mountain better….”

Anyway, the average age of patrons at YoMo (aren’t I trendy?) is about 16.4. So every time we go in there, I feel horribly old and extraordinarily out of style.

Especially on The Night. Chris and I went to get our FroYo on at YoMo after a date one Saturday night a few months ago.

(I know – this occurred quite a while ago to be blogging about now – but I’m just recovering from the event enough to be able to express it.)

Apparently, every high school basketball game in the city had just gotten out at the same time, and every single high school spectator, cheerleader, and basketball player were crammed into the tiny rectangle known as Yogurt Mountain, or in line that stretched around the block.

There was very little room in which to inhale oxygen into one’s lungs that fateful night:
(I personally would have chosen to leave and find somewhere slightly less hip to hang out, but as I said, my husband is a YoMo Junkie, and his FroYo DT’s were starting to take over when we walked in the door and he could smell his upcoming fix.)

Anyway, as I mentioned, there were a lot of cheerleaders there from half a dozen different high schools. They were all talking amongst themselves and discussing who won what game. Most of them looked just like I remembered cheerleaders looking from decades ago when I was of that age: Pleated short skirts, ponitails, tennis shoes…

Except for one school’s cheerleaders.

They had straight skirts with slits up the sides…that were unbelievably and quite horrifically short.

So short that while standing in a normal position, they had a very obvious case of …Underbutt.

As in, there was uncovered cheekage actually peeking out of the bottom of their skirts. And, I stress, that was whilst they were in a normal standing position. Heaven help us if they bent over to, say, do a cheerleading routine or somethiing.

And all of this on a very cold night.

We saw one and hoped that she just “accidentally” hiked her skirt up a bit high, but then two more came in and our worst fears were confirmed: some adult somewhere looked through the Cheerleading Catalog and said, “No, I don’t think we’ll get ‘The Scottish’ this year. I think we’ll go with ‘The Underbutt’. That one would be an excellent look for our school.”

My first reaction was bone-freezing fear. Will Ali live in a world where underbutt is acceptable, nay, even expected???

Will she one day be writing an updated and revised version of my Mom Jeans post and say that any skirts that don’t show underbutt are Mom Skirts???!!!

I began to hyperventilate. I felt my FroYo rising in my throat. I considered boarding schools in Amish Country.

So.

I would like to make a fashion proclamation, here and now with all of the fashion authority (none) vested in me: Underbutt is never acceptable.

From this day forward, all skirts and shorts must be checked at all angles and postures to ensure that this dreadful fashion nightmare can in no way occur, at any time.

And on the day that Underbuttless skirts become Mom Skirts, I will gladly join the ranks of Mom Clotheswearers.

And I will drag Ali with me, kicking and screaming in her Duggar-Length skirt.

We All Live in a Yellow Atmosphere…

April 8, 2010November 12, 2013 Rachel Callahan Delicious Greekness, I Love Birmingham, Just My Luck, Storytime

It’s Pollen Week in Birmingham. Maybe it is in Alabama as a whole, or the world as a whole. I don’t know. But I do know it’s most definitely pollen week here.

Pollen Week is THE week when every flowering and non-flowering tree in the city (and we have a lot of them) conspire together to release their yellow powdery presents at the same exact time.

Every surface in Birmingham is covered with a dusting of yellow, from barely there to inches thick, depending on how long they’ve stayed in the same spot.

Yeah – don’t stand still.

I drove down the highway Tuesday morning, wondering why it was so smoggy. And that was the moment it hit me – that thick fog had a yellowish tint. IT had arrived. Swirling around in a devilish haze and choking every being within its reach.

Despite my realization, I made the mistake of leaving my sunroof open while my car was parked for a couple of hours, and when I started up the car, a dust cloud rose up and engulfed every living creature in my car.

I’m not especially allergic to pollen, but it is SO thick this week that even my eyes are watering, and my throat feels like I’ve inhaled the powder off of an entire bag of doughnuts.

I’m pretty sure that anyone that actually does have pollen allergies needs to be evacuated from the city immediately.

The rain today was greatly anticipated to wash the pollen away, but so far it only looks to have taken away the small stuff and replaced it with the Mother Ships:

Every year, this Week of Yellow Horror reminds me of my Missions Trip to Cyprus.

Not that it was horror-filled. Quite the opposite. It is definitely one of my fondest memories. When I was 16, I went for six weeks to the unbelievably gorgeous country of Cyprus to work for a missionary family there. They lived in the most amazing house perched atop a hill overlooking the blue-green Mediterranean Sea…

It was a true time of suffering for the Lord.

It was my first time to ever fly in my life, but despite my inexperience, I flew all the way back by myself. One of my favorite moments was when I arrived to New York City via Athens, Greece, alone and 16, in the middle of the night. The customs agent was a tall, suspicious, red-headed man.

He looked at my passport. He squinted at me. He looked at my passport. He glared at me. Then he asked, “Do your parents know where you are?”

There are so many things that I wish I had said now, half of which would have probably prevented me from setting foot on U.S. soil, but instead, I muttered, “Yes sir, I promise they do.”

At any rate. Back to the pollen.

While I was in Cyprus, there was this morning there that we woke up to the whole country coated in red mud. The cars were red. The buildings were red. The countryside was red. And the air was still red. Windshield wipers had to be used to battle red rain.

We frantically searched for news of this crazy phenomenon and discovered that a mud storm from the Middle East had decided to travel internationally for the day and had made its way across the Mediterranean and into Cyprus.

It was really cool.

And I didn’t take any pictures of it.

Darn pre-blogging days.

Anyway, I thought it was so cool that I sat down to write my Dad an email about it. I started out the email telling him how spooky it was…the sky was red, everything was red…red rain…the red silence was deafening…

And then I accidentally hit send. I didn’t have much time, so I figured he’d realize what I did and I’d finish the email the next day.

However, I forgot that one of my Mom’s Two Main Fears about my missions trip was that Chemical Warfare from the Middle East infighting would drift over and kill me instantaneously.

(Her other Main Fear was that I’d meet a Charming Cypriot Man, fall in love, marry, and never come back. At Sixteen.)

(Lucky for Mom, 90% of all worries never come true.)

(And also lucky for her, although Cypriot women are stunningly gorgeous, the Cypriot men were nothing but enormous Greek eyebrows.)

(Which, paired with mine, would create babies born with a full-faced unibrow, somewhat akin to that wolf kid that shows up in the tabloids once a month.)

Anyway, the moral of this story is: If you’re writing an email about something spooky that is currently happening to you, be sure to finish the email and explain the phenomenon. Or your parents just might track you down, halfway across the globe, and strangle you.

Oh – and stay indoors until the Yellow Plague ascends from upon us.

Webster’s Dictionary: Toddler Edition.

April 7, 2010 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Toddlers: The Experience

Monday. Ali woke up singing. I let her sing a for few minutes until her song began to downgrade into a whine, then I went to get her. She was holding a bunch of her stuffed animals…

“Good morning!!! What were you singing about?”

“Well, I was singing a song about flowers and love to White Bear. And then I was singing a song about struggling to Star Mouse.”

“Struggling? Do you Struggle much?”

“No.”

I started to explain to her what struggling meant, but then I realized that she was paying me no attention whatsoever (stuffed animals are always more interesting than Mommy), so I gave up.

I then noticed that she still had splinters in her hand from a run-in with the porch yesterday…when she wouldn’t let us take them out. Except the first one – and only Pop could remove it. No Mommies Allowed.

But it was starting to look red, and we weren’t going to be seeing Pop again anytime soon, so I began prepping her for the fact that I really needed to get her splinter out.

She let me know with all of the panic, stubbornness, and illogicality that a three year old can manage that I would not be taking out her splinter.

I reasoned with her. “It will hurt you more if you don’t let me take it out.”

“I WAAAAAANT IT TO HURT ME MORE!!!!!”

After several minutes of useless effort to contain a wiggling panicky ball of nerves, I called Chris and put him on speaker phone. I subtly told him to make his daughter let me take her splinters out.

He talked to her….he calmed her down…he reasoned with her…he demanded of her.

“So will you let Mommy take your splinter out?”

“No.”

I gave up on the Daddy strategy, and began working on an illusionist strategy.

I asked her if I could clean it with a wet wipe, and she agreed. I wiped it for a minute, then I sneakily slipped my tweezers under the wet wipe and started trying to work without seeing what I was doing.

But I was never meant to be a magician.

It didn’t take her long to figure out my amazing illusions. And she wasn’t impressed with my magic trick.

I finally managed to fight her panic for long enough to get Splinter Enemy Number One out, but it wasn’t easy or fun for anyone, including the stuffed animals.

After that, we talked, we comforted, we agreed to be wise next time.

When we got downstairs, I remembered our conversation about struggling. I asked her, “So, were you struggling when I took your splinter out?”

Very decisively, she told me “No.”

“Oh. Then what does struggling mean?”

“It means that you don’t color in your coloring book.”

“Oh.”

I’m sure glad she’s got it all figured out.

AwkwardBall.

April 6, 2010 Rachel Callahan Weird Strange and True

Basketball is over!!

(I would normally start dancing a happy dance at this exciting point in Basketball Season, but really, my hubby didn’t watch too much of it this year, so I’m oddly not burnt out on it. But I’ll dance a happy dance for any of you that might not have been so fortunate.)

***Happy Dance***

Apparently, my bracket fortune from last year was just that – fortune. I didn’t win any of the brackets this year, and the lucky winner of my bracket was Chris (who can’t really win a prize, seeing how he’s MARRIED to me), so the second place person wins the prize of the frames, which is Bethany.

Congrats!

(In a dramatic ending nearly as exciting as the final game, Bethany and Greta were completely tied. I had to use the tiebreaker – the predicted final scores – to select a winner. )

And, the winner of the worst bracket entry by a child was David, son of Bethany!

(Apparently bracketing runs in the family.)

David wins one of these fun Monster Bowls:

The other winner, from the Monster Bowls giveaway, is posted on my giveaway winners page today.

(If you didn’t win a Monster Bowl and want to buy one, check out Nathan and Katie’s Etsy Page.)

Anyway. Back to blogging.

My enjoyment of the bracketing process is purely for the geeky fun – not for love of Basketball. I didn’t watch a single bit of the stuff until Saturday night.

I found myself feeling a bit under the weather and exhausted to the point of delirium, and so, in an odd state of events, I actually laid on the couch and watched….Basketball.

Now, since I hate the sport, I had to occupy my mind with other things, as I lay on the couch ailing…

Like, what if I took my parenting strategies from Basketball rules?

(What follows are the thoughts from a very delirious me. No blame, intended or implied, will be accepted for the silliness herein.)

For one, Ali wouldn’t get in trouble until after she’d hit her friends five times, and then she’d be put in time out. But each time she hit them, they’d get one or two free shots at her (depending on the severity of her attack).

And then, to live in a world where dribbling is not only okay, but if you don’t dribble every two steps, you get in trouble?

I wonder if the Basketball Court is covered in drool…

Then I thought my silly delirium turned to hallucinations as I was totally distracted from my crazy thoughts by The Injury.

West Virginia’s star player, De’Sean Butler, hurt his knee. It was so heartbreaking, because he was writhing around on the floor, obviously in a lot of pain, and very disappointed, as he knew he was out for the rest of the game.

SO Sad.

But then it took a turn for the weird when the coach came over.

He gets on top of De’Sean, and then nose-to-nose with him.

Awkward.

He pulls De’Sean’s face towards him, then starts stroking his cheek with his thumb, while passionately talking to him, mere millimeters from his mouth.

OhMyGoodness Awkward.

They talk, nose to nose, mouth to mouth, for WAY TOO LONG. The seconds tick by. The players standing around start to shift uncomfortably and look away.

SOOOOO awkward.

Aaand….I guess that’s why his name is Coach Huggins.

…..then it was sad again as Da’Sean got taken off the court, but the awkwardness.

Oh, the awkwardness.

It was like watching a real live episode of The Office.

Now that you’re curious…

…And they lived awkwardly ever after.

Easter Pictures, En Masse.

April 5, 2010 Rachel Callahan I would NEVER take too many pictures. . ., The Blissfulness of Life

Ali got to have her first experience with dying Easter Eggs on Saturday, where she learned that it’s NOT such a great idea to suck on the spoon that stirred the dyes: And us parents learned that three year olds that are just starting to grasp the concept of the word “die” are very confused by the concept of dying eggs.

But after moving past the shock and horror of the idea of killing eggs, Ali and her BFF AJ had an excellent time:

Even Tessa joined the fun, but I sadly managed to teach her nothing new.

(I thought maybe our next learning project could be to turn her into a professional Faberge Egg designer, but she was really more interested in chewing on Ali’s blocks. Maybe next Easter.)

Of course, long after all of the children lost interest in the process, the Daddies were still perfecting their masterpieces:

I think we managed to scrub all of the dye off of Ali (and Chris) before Church.

Ali forgot that Easter meant that she would be receiving an Easter Basket, so she was quite thrilled with the extra surprise yesterday morning:

We couldn’t manage to bring ourselves to tell her that the Easter Bunny brought it (As if Santa didn’t feel weird enough selling – there’s something just super bizarre about convincing your child that a giant bunny with the ability to put candy into plastic eggs broke into her house to deliver her a basket full of sweets that are hopefully not infested with Bunny Mites.)

Anyway, so we just didn’t address the origin of her basket at all. But after being asked a dozen times by different people if the Easter Bunny brought her a basket, I’m sure she’s good and confused about everything.

Because that’s how we like to parent.

After letting her appropriately over-sugar herself before Church, we managed to get a couple partial-family-because-no-one-else-was-there-to-photograph-us-pictures:

And, since we know how hard it is to photograph our family, I offered to help our good friends Greg and Julie photograph their (slightly) bigger family after Church. First I had to ask Ali get out of the way and wait for Greg to summon all his children:

Kids needed to be drug into place, except Benjamin, who was practicing his charming smile…

Greg started “requesting with force behind it”, as he informed me later, and Julie realized I was photographing the process and stuck her tongue out at me.

Everyone finally gathered, and as soon as everyone looked and smiled at the same time in an Easter Miracle, the baby, Tori, let out an ear-piercing scream:

Apparently she’s not a fan of quiet. And that’s a very good thing.

After a few takes, I think I was successful at photographing their beautiful family:

But Ali wasn’t getting impatient waiting on me. She was way too busy posing for everyone who would look her way while waiting for them to tell her how beautiful she was. I think she liked her dress, smock or no smock.

When we got home, we got my Dad to give us the family photography services as well, since it’s not often that we all manage to get in the same picture.
Happy Easter!!

Resurrection Respite

April 2, 2010 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Don't Listen to my Fashion Advice, I would NEVER take too many pictures. . ., Thoughts about Faith

Life has been a frenzy of chaos, activity, and responsibilities lately, so to be able to slow down and focus on the Resurrection, I am going to take a blog break for the rest of the weekend. I’ll be back sometime on Monday, hopefully refreshed, refocused, and renewed.

I’ll leave you with a few pictures of Ali, Ethan and AJ at the Botanical Gardens. We took them to run around and enjoy the fresh air on Wednesday. They were oddly underdressed, though, because every other kid that we saw was dressed in their smock getting their Easter pictures made.

(We even saw one poor little boy in a sweater shorts and shirt set. Sweater Shorts. I didn’t know such a thing existed.)

We tried to keep our kids out of the background of the portraits taking place, but if any of you out there discover a non-smocked toddler or two in your photos, I do sincerely apologize.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend!

April Fool’s Day: aka National Child Trauma Day.

April 1, 2010 Rachel Callahan Parent of the Year, Storytime

So I’ve been trying to think of a good blog April Fool’s joke for weeks. And I’ve got nothin’. My inspiration has just completely flown out the window, along with any small amount of organization, neatness, and stay-on-top-of-everything-in-life-ation that I usually have.

I LOVE April Fools. I really love practical jokes in general, as I come from a long line of jokers. My Dad could do a whole series of guest posts on the jokes he’s played in the past, and my Brother JC has been involved in his fair share too, especially on our High School Youth Group trips.

But, unfortunately for JC, they had a you-have-to-take-retribution-with-a-happy-heart rule, so JC was forced into having his head shaved (which he unfortunately liked and continued to do for a while, once even with the help of his little sister), and into eating a raw octopus sandwich (which I don’t think he liked quite as much as having his head shaved.)

Anyway, April Fool’s. Every year when we were kids, my parents would tell us some sort of “news” over breakfast on the morning of April first, always early enough that we didn’t realize what day it was. And every single year, we fell for it.

The only one that I remember (the rest I’ve apparently blocked due to the angst that they caused) was the year that they told us that we were moving to Utah. I was horribly brokenhearted. Being the rut sort of girl I am, the thought of moving across country deeply disturbed me. JC, however, was fine with the news, so they had to ramp it up a bit to ensure fair and equal traumatization for all children by telling him, “oh, by the way….baseball is illegal in Utah”.

Then he came completely unglued too, which allowed my parents to fully enjoy the thrill of inflicting April Fool’s terror onto their children.

I can’t wait until Ali’s old enough for this sort of special parental torture.

Last year, I used the oldest, most worn out April Fool’s joke possible and had a bit of fun announcing on my blog that I was pregnant, with twins.

I must say, some of the people that didn’t fall for it surprised me, such as my self-admittedly most gullible friend, Gina. I was pretty proud of her.

And some of the people who did fall for it surprised me as well, such as one of my best friends and Ali’s Godmother, Amanda, who called me with the angriest voice I’ve ever heard her use. I answered the phone, and was greeted with: “TWINS, Rachel?!?!?! TWINS???? And you didn’t tell ME?!!?!??!!?!? TWINS!!!!”

Me: “Did you finish reading the post?”

Amanda: “No. I’m too mad. TWINS?!?!!?!?!?”

Traumatizing friends is almost as much fun as traumatizing kids.

So, if your kids are old enough, by all means, please shake ‘em up a bit tomorrow morning. And enjoy every minute of it. Then come tell me what you did, since I have to live vicariously. For now.

And tell me the best April Fool’s Joke you’ve ever heard of. I need inspiration.