Dear Abb...uh...Rascal Raiser

Dear Rascal Raiser,

I have noticed that your presence online lately has been as vague as the hair is big in Texas.  Just wondering where you and your Arkansas-sized hair have disappeared to.

Signed,
Used Six Cans of AquaNet Just This Morning

          ~~~~~~~~~~

Dear AquaNet,

Here's hoping that you can see clearly enough through your hairspray sticky contact lenses to read this letter.  Thank you for your concern about my web-related absence.  I assure you that I and the family are all fine.  Just logging more hours at everywhere else but home.

Here are the highlights:

1.  I was bit by a spider.  Again.  I have been hard at work practicing my web-shooting abilities and sewing up my Spidey Suit.

2.  I have been in the gym every.single.dingity.dangity.armadillo.lovin'.day with Jennie the Sceery Trainer.  I have never experienced so much intimidation and trepidation in all my life as weigh-in day.  She hurts me.  And I think she likes it.

3.  I have been providing fence-climbing exhibitions at ballfields across the state.  Some mothers choose to sit calmly in their camp chairs and perfect their pageant claps.  Not me.  I like to cause a scene.  And with ballgames x 3 almost every single night and most weekends, I have lots of scene-makin' time.  Hoopin' and hollerin' ain't got nuthin' on this mama.

4.  I've been celebrating birthdays.  One of the besties, J-Fo, celebrated the 16th anniversary of her 20th birthday this past weekend, and being an excellent example of a great friend, I made sure her big day was done up right.  I'll let her tell you where we ended up because it's her bid'ness to tell, but it might start with a "T" and rhyme with "rattoo."  And I'll deny telling you about it if she asks me.....

5.  Another birthday that I've been celebrating, though did not end up at a "rattoo" parlor, is my darling baby's.  Yep.  My baby turned 6.  SIX!  Big kids are 6.  Kids that can read.  And sass their mamas.  And fix their own sandwiches.  Not my baby.  Not Tate.  Oh, dear me.  My uterus hurts.

6.  I've been surviving tornadoes.  Our area was pelted by the twisty suckers this past weekend, and we spent lots of quality family bonding time hunkered down in the hall huddled around the weather radio.  All that was missing were the smores.  And that whole no-tornado-warning thing.

7.  I thought tornadoes were bad.  What might possibly be worse is Sawyer during a tornado.  My son is now obsessed with the weather and compulsively checks the forecast on my phone every 5 minutes checking for storm percentages.  We're looking into therapy. You think I'm kidding.

8.  And when I'm not hunkering in halls, or taking peeps for "rattoos," or being eaten alive by spiders, or fence-climbing....I've been hanging out in my laundry room.  And trying to find my floors under all the mud that is tracked in with the baseball cleats.  And eating food that resembles tree bark because Jennie the Sceery told me to. 

So, you see, sweet reader, all is well in our corner of the world.  Just busy.  And crazy.  And maddening.

And just so you know...I would give my right earlobe for a hunk of chocolate cake right now. 

Signed,
Rascal Raiser (Who is Starving)