"Good morning, Beautiful." I'm totally not making this up. This, God knows why, is how he wakes me up in the morning. Looking down at me, smiling, and addressing me in some flattering way. I've seen me in the morning. I don't know what the heck he's talking about. Maybe his eyesight's not so good before 10:00 AM
"Good morning," I answer. I ask him about his neck, which has been stiff since he woke up yesterday. I ask him what he's going to do for lunch, since I didn't make him one, there are hardly any groceries, and everyone ate the Toll House Cookie Bars I made last night.
"I'll get a chili and baked potato," he answers.
"Okay," I say cautiously, "but NO POP!" This is because we have cut all soft drinks out of our diets and are trying desperately to drink only water.
"No pop!" He says. "No pop! No pop! NO POP!" He repeats this over and over in a thick commie accent as he makes his way down the stairs. I hear the basement door open. I hear the garage door open. I hear the car start in the garage.
I't's 9:25 AM.
I lay in bed for a few minutes, thinking about the best way to spend my day. I think about spelling. I think about reading. I have one child whose spelling is just atrocious (did I spell "atrocious" right?). Then again, Bard, my 15-year-old had atrocious spelling until I threatened to send her to boarding school. Her spelling drastically improved when she was about thirteen.
Still, I figure I should spend some time trying to figure out how to approach spelling with Houdin, my thirteen-year-old spelling-challenged child. I figure a good place to start is reading Guilt-Free Homeschooling, so I decide that I'm going to get up and start my computer, which is about three feet from my bed.
I can hear the garage door closing, and then opening, and then closing, and then opening. Bo is battling with the dogs and cats who keep running in and out of the garage, tripping the motion sensor on the garage door. I look out to see all four dogs romping around in the snow of the front yard. I see Bo's Jeep sitting in the driveway, and I watch to see if he'll look up at me. I send him a silent, telepathic message telling him to look up. "Look up here!" I think. "LOOK UP HERE AND WAVE AT ME!" I can tell from his hand motions that he's messing with his hair. He doesn't look up. He drives away. I say a silent prayer for his safety.
Speaking of dogs, I have to see a man about a horse. I only mention this because I have to tell you that the view from my toilet in my bedroom is so very awesome. I swear that I can see across three counties from my bedroom windows. As I sat there, I thought, "I wish my blog readers could see what I see." Ahem. I don't mean I wish they could see me sitting on the toilet. Oh, gag. What I mean is that I wish they could see these rolling hills, serene, peaceful farms, winter-bare trees. I think that's when I decided to do the 24-hour blogging thing.
By the time I finished my business, the computer was up and running. I'm so egocentric, my start page is Today's Lessons. I check last night's entries. No comments. Drat.
I navigate to Guilt-Free Homeschooling and read a few entries. I like what she had to say about having the kind of house where people actually live. I have to admit that I really struggle with this. Especially living in an Amish community, I feel like my home should be neat and clean at all times. It's not. Ever. This is when I decide to take pictures to go along with my twenty-four hour blog.
I head downstairs for the camera, and I find that Dog #4, Lewis, a one-year-old black lab, has made his way through dog #2, Jack's, tiny dog door and is hopping around at the bottom of the steps saying, "Check me out. Ain't I cool? I'm the man. Hey! Pet me! Love me!" I unceremoniously open the front door and tell him to go out. I see that one of the dogs has brought me a gift. On the front porch lies a frozen rooster. "Go play with the dead chicken," I tell Lewis. He goes out.
I grab my camera and make my way back up the stairs to my room. On my way, I turn off the light in the kids bathroom. I predict that I will be doing a lot of this today. You just wait and see.
Once back in my room, I take a few shots of my computer, my unmade bed, etc. And then I feed Wilma, my one-eyed chameleon who lives 
in a ficus tree on my tub deck. She eats live mealworms, and I keep them in the top drawer of my oak wardrobe, right under the computer I'm typing on this very second. Isn't that disgusting? Yeah.
Houdin walks in. He's disheveled and bleery-eyed with sleep. I get up and hug him to say good morning, an act I've committed to doing every morning for 1,001 days.
The phone rings. It's Bo. He's calling to tell Houdin to gather up the trash. The trash man might actually come today.
"Hey, did you get my secret, telepathic message?" I ask.
"Uh, I...yeah. Yeah! I got it! But what can I do about it when I'm driving?"
"You could have done it," I answer.
"Really? I can do that? While I'm driving?"
"You didn't get it," I answer, nonplussed (what does "nonplussed" really MEAN, anyway."
"Awwww...what was it?"
"When you were leaving," I tell him, "I stood at the window and sent you a secret message to look up. 'LOOK UP!' I said. You just fixed your hair and drove off."
"Awwwww..." he says. "I'm sorry."
"That's okay," I say. I don't believe in telepathic messages anyway. Not really. I think.
I've spent a half hour writing this post. If this continues, I know what I'm going to be doing for the next twenty-four hours.
