GOTTA KEEP UP!

Okay, I must admit I have been motivated to blog this morning by my sister, who is presently cranking out a new post each day! Have any of you ever had a sibling who could do anything you could do, only better? That's my sister! The thing is, she is so nice and likeable and willing to laugh at herself that it's tough to resent her for it (AND she'll always be older than me, which is a big plus now that I'm pushing 40!) Therefore, I have happily resigned myself to being the lesser Clark sister (rather ironic if one stops to consider...well, let's just not go there!) Lesser in accomplishment that is! One might be tempted to read some underlying bitterness into my words; however one would be wrong... I love her dearly, admire and respect her, often hold her up as my role model, and only very rarely take delight in HER embarrassing moments! Well, that's not completely true, we've both always been prone to enjoy the other's faux-pas (I don't know how to make that plural!) it's just that she has a much better memory than I do despite her short-term memory claim. I remember the rough details of an event, and often have to rely on my creativity to fill it out.

You all might be expecting this next paragraph to be an anecdote about my sister, given the lead in, but alas, it's not. Just a little update on midwest living... We are nearing the end of our second week back in school and have almost adjusted to being back on a scheduled routine. We were in a bit of a rush this morning as Brittany's alarm didn't wake her up. She is the one who gets the ball rolling at 5:30am. I am next to arise at 6:30am, at which time Brittany has usually just finished the "wash hair--blow dry hair--straighten hair--curl hair" routine that she goes through each and every morning. I roust the boy's out of bed (not as easy as it sounds mind you!) point David in the direction of the shower, feed and dress a semi-comatose Christian and scoot him out the door in time to catch the bus at 7:05am. We try to have lunches made, clothes laid out and backpacks packed the night before, which certainly helps the morning run more smoothly. We are usually quite good about keeping up with this through, oh say, mid September! I pledge to last at least until October this year!

I happily report that the humidity seems to be easing up just a bit, which is quite nice since the air conditioning in the car went out two weeks ago. I have had to adjust to the bird's nest hair look that I seem to sport after driving with the windows down. As I've admitted before, I am a firm believer in climate-controlled living and this fresh air blowing through my hair thing just doesn't work for me. Seems every time we turn around lately, one of the cars needs work. I must say however, I was quite impressed when our mechanic (whom we are getting to know quite well!) made a house call the other day. Our car would not start despite our best efforts, and we feared we might need to have it towed the 20+ miles to the mechanic's shop. Not so... he just came over and fixed it right in our driveway. Now granted, it wasn't a complicated repair, but nonetheless, I think that's just gotta be a perk of small-town living!

And that's the news from Dale, where all the women are organized, the pastor's good-looking and his children are above-average! (I kind of stole that line...)