Kristen’s Blog

I bet you anything, Mama said this to Daddy today, or will sometime between today and August 23.  See, my parents were born in ‘55 and ‘56.  But because Daddy was born in January and Mama in August, they are two years apart most of the year.  Today Daddy went from being one year to two years older than Mama.  For years on his birthday, Mama comments on the fact that he is older.  Daddy gets back by saying, “Well, you’ll be 52 next year” even though she is only 50 now.  While technically true, it makes Mama mad because she hasn’t had her birthday this year yet.

Because I want to be just like my mama, I do the same thing to Robin.  For seven glorious weeks, Robin is a year older than me.  He’s my “Old Man.”  He’s robbing the cradle.  Tee-hee, tee-hee.  But back to the subject at hand….

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!!  You are the bestest daddy a girl could ever hope and dream for.  I hope I can be half the man you are.  I love you.

Hello.  I am here to introduce the person who is to introduce the person you are actually here to see.

I heard this line tonight.  Well, I didn’t really.  But it would have been appropriate.  I went to a banquet.  I’m approximating that there were 500 people in attendance.  I think only 250 weren’t introduced.  There was a person that introduced the person that was to introduce the keynote speaker.  The keynote speaker was Congressman Bennie Thompson.  I think there was only one person in the room that didn’t know who Congressman Thompson was before he spoke.

And it was a great speech.  It was funny.  It made your jaw drop.  It commissioned the people to do great things for our state.  It was inspiring. 

I really could have gone for just the speech; why did there have to be so many introductions!?!  Okay, I’ll admit it.  I’m just upset I was left out of the introductions.  I mean, I do great things for the state too.  In fact, we just paid our property taxes and bought car tags.  Those are great things.  So I’ve included my introduction below (to be delivered by Brendan Fraser wearing his George of the Jungle outfit):

Here is Kristen.  She is great.  Let’s all bow down and worship her while I feed her chocolate-covered strawberries.  Why do I get to feed her?  George just lucky I guess.

Thank you and good night.

I had a pretty day today.  This morning I shaved my legs and washed my hair.  I blew my hair dry and hairsprayed it like a good Southern girl.  I put on all my makeup (well, in the car on the way to work, but it all got in the right places - for the most part.)  I wore my diamond earrings and my cranberry sweater.  I looked hot!

I know I’m tooting my own horn, but I’ve been on a diet for two weeks, and every little thing that makes you feel good should be celebrated.  And today makes me really want to stick to my diet.  Think about it, if I looked this hot in my fat-suit-with-the-broken-zipper, think of how I’ll look when I finally get that zipper fixed! 

This morning, I discovered something heartbreaking: I am not a weeble.  Shocking, I know.  I intended to get out of bed, blindly stumble four feet to the bathroom, do my business, and get back into bed.  Instead, I weaved and bobbled, pirouetted and landed in the laundry basket at the end of the bed.  Of course, my eyes were still closed through all of this.  I hate not waking up to pee and trying to do it asleep.  There is a reason most people aren’t sleep walkers!  Our legs just do not want to work when we are asleep.  Of course, Robin was semi-conscious at the time as well, but he had the good sense to stay in the bed to help me out of the laundry basket instead of using his still asleep legs to take a tumble too.  For once, I was glad that we had clean laundry still in the basket.  It really would have hurt had I fallen without anything to break my fall.  On the bad side, the laundry basket has a Kristen-sized butt print in it now.  Oh well.  At least in its’ now stretched-out state it will hold more laundry. (singing) Always look on the bright si-ide of life. Do-doot, do-doot, do-doot, do-doot.

If you are a Mills, today was your day.  You probably have a sore throat, you might have shed a tear or two.  You more likely than not bit off all your fingernails (and a toenail or two.)  You attempted to watch television through your shirt.  You fought wave after wave of nausea.  You even thought about passing out.  But you perservered.  You made it.  Some of us have been waiting our whole lives.  Others, merely forty years.  We’ve had Mannings and Bums, Herberts and Moras, Rickys and Ditkas.  We’ve been 1-15, 8-8, 12-4,and most recently, 3-13. We waited twenty years for our first taste, and another twenty to have a shot.

Now we have Payton and Deuce and Brees.  Reggie and Horn and Colston.  And a shot at the SuperBowl.  Yes, the Saints, the perennial underdogs, the “Aint’s”, the heartbreak of the Mills family for generations, will be heading to the NFC Championship game.  One year after the Hurricane Katrina-ravanged season.  Forty years after the team was franchised.

It’s good to be a Mills tonight.  After I get through breathing into this bag, I think I’ll go suck a cough drop and find some press-on nails.

Did you know that the field goal ball is really slippery?  Tony Romo does.  He’s the poor Cowboys’ quarterback that fumbled a snap last night to end the Cowboys playoff hopes.  Poor Robin, not being a life-long Saints fan, said just seconds before the fumble, “It looks like [the Cowboys] are going to win this one!”  I advised that he didn’t need to get too excited until the game was over.  After all, the Saints lost because of a Hail Mary pass my very first game at the Superdome.  I know all about heartache caused by football teams.

Both of the teams I was rooting for today lost - the Jets and the Giants.  The Jet because I like to hear Mike Greenberg on Mike and Mike in the Morning talk about them.  The Giants because I know that Eli will eventually get out from under his brother’s shadow and be the quarterback I know he can be.  I always root for the Mannings, but Eli and I are the same age - gotta root for 80’s babies (as in 1980.)

Speaking of 1980, it’s only 23 days until my birthday!  I hope you’re thinkin about what to get me.  I don’t want any slippery balls though.  I’ll leave them to Tony Romo.

I’m slowing drowning in my own mucus.  It’s kinda gross.  And I can’t take anything to stop it if I have to work - which is every day but Sunday.  Everything I take knocks me out completely.

This afternoon, I had to work for a few hours.  So I suffered until I got home.  Then I drank as much Earl Grey and Diet Coke that I could hold.  The thought was that the caffeine would counteract the stuff in the drugs that make me comotose.  I’ve taken two types of drugs in the past seven hours and am still semi-conscious, so the caffeine’s worked so far.  Only now I’m afraid that I will never go to sleep tonight.  And I can’t take more medicine to counter-counteract the caffeine because Mama and Daddy will be here in the morning to help us hang pictures (and by help, I mean hang not only what we got for Christmas, but some things I bought in October, while Robin and I watch TV.)

All this to say, tonight I’ll either blog more to put myself to sleep or drown in my own mucus.  If this is the last entry of my blog, you know which it was.

I have wise friends.  Today one of them said, “If you don’t take time for yourself, no one else will take it for you.”  I’ve been neglecting things lately that I like to do and that make me feel good.  This blog is one of those things.  So I’ll take time every day to make sure I’m doing things for myself.  (No one can accuse me of not being selfish!)

I didn’t make any New Year’s Resolutions.  They get broken anyway.  There are things I know I need to work on, but I don’t need a big date to get me to work on my faults - I just need a wake-up call or a slap in the face or a life-changing event. 

Within the past week I’ve really learned the preciousness of life.  A colleague unexpectedly lost her brother and a very good friend discovered that spermicides are not as effective as the pill (contrary to her doctor’s advice.) 

These are just two examples of how your life can change on a dime.  January 1, 2007 was not a life-changing day for me.  January 4, yeah.  January 5, maybe.  You never know when something is going to change, so I resolve to make daily resolutions - easier to keep and probably longer lasting than new year’s.