I haven’t felt well in days. Tired, weak, achey. I’m not sure what I’ve got or what I’m coming down with but it’s spreading. April, the Boy, and Violet are all feeling it as well. Last night, Steve mentioned he was feeling poorly too. He went to bed early but got up and went to work like normal. The rest of us lay around in bed feeling crappy when we’re ill. Steve only gives in to illness on his days off. He takes a lot of pride in soldiering on. I don’t. I do only those essential things like feeding the kids and spend the rest of my time laying around feeling the crappiness to it’s fullest. I am feeling better today though - so time to catch up.
Violet won 2nd place in the Valentine Box competition. She lost by one vote - 11 to 10. Who cast the deciding vote? That would be Violet. She says she didn’t want to be selfish and vote for herself. I’m not sure where she learned that lesson. Where did she ever hear “You voted for yourself?!?!?! I…I…thats just… what about….. how could you??” Not in this house, that’s for sure. Ok - it’s probably a bad thing to to brag on yourself too much - hubris being a deadly sin and all. But being proud of your work? Not a bad thing. If you do a great job, then vote for yourself. A lesson I hope Violet has learned.
My sister Lynn visited this weekend to watch the Daytona 
500 with us. You may remember that there is somewhat of a competition going on about who’s driver is best. The race started out pretty boring. We actually thought it was going to be the shortest Daytona on record there were so few cautions. Then things heated up. Cars wrecking left and right. Lynn was all “ha ha” right up until JJ crashed on lap 174 ending his day at the races. Maybe Steve shouldn’t have taken so much pleasure in that wreck. You know pride goes before a fall…Matt was taken out by a wreck on the last lap, going into the last turn and fell from 3rd to a 27th place finish. One thing we all agreed on was the hilarious commercials - they definitely rivaled any that were shown during the Super Bowl. Lynn especially enjoyed the Sprint Nextel:Advice commercial and plans to use a version of it herself once she finishes school.
As much as I would have loved to celebrate Fat Tuesday by drinking excessively and baring my breasts (and I do hope there is still someone in this house who would like to see them
regardless of what the Boy might say), I was just not feeling up to it. So instead we celebrated with a dinner of some vaguely Creole food and King Cake for desert. I made margaritas for everyone. Virgin for the kids - probably less likely to get me into trouble with Child Services.
Everyone was eager to dig into their piece of cake in hopes of finding the little baby Jesus. You may not be familiar with the King Cake tradition but basically it is a very rich Cinnamon Roll type cake. Ours was stroke-inducingly rich since we had it filled with Pecan Praline and Bavarian Cream in addition to the cover of frosting in Mardi Gras colors. Hidden in the cake is a small toy baby. Tradition says that whoever gets the slice of cake containing the baby is crowned the king or queen of the celebration. The way everyone attacked that cake you would have thought that baby Jesus was going to be holding a “Get Out of Lent Free Card”.
Laissez les bons temps rouler!
Sadly, no one needed the Heimlich maneuver at our house this year because our baby was missing! We were gypped out of our baby Jesus! It was still a fun, festive way of ushering in my least favorite time of year especially since Steve entertained us with a couple verses of his favorite blasphemous song “I don’t care if it rains or freezes, long as I’ve got my plastic Jesus!”
Now that we’ve indulged ourselves to excess, you’d think we wouldn’t miss all of the treats we can’t eat again until Easter. Doesn’t work that way. For some reason, I can take or leave meat pretty much everyday except the Fridays during Lent. Then that’s all I can think of. This Friday we’ll postpone eating our weekly pizza until after midnight. That’s another “family tradition” during Lent - waiting up until 12:01 in order to gorge on a meat-loaded pizza. Steve remembers his parents doing that when he was a child so it must be ok!
Yesterday, April and the Boy were looking forward to eating at the all-you-can-eat buffet (apparently it has a really good taco bar) on the way back from the NEO competition until they remembered that Ash Wednesday is one of those “No Meats-No Treats” days. Both kids did well at the competition. Scores can range from 1 (highest) to 5 (lowest). April was thrilled to score a 2 for her French Horn solo since her arch rival scored a 5 and was actually asked to skip most of his selection due to poor playing. The Boy scored a 1 for his trombone solo. The band scored a 2 for their performance. I’m really proud of both of them. The band director thinks they both have a pretty good chance at the District competition. Keeping my fingers crossed!
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