I can’t believe it – Evel Knievel passed away. It’s almost like a whole era goes with him, you know? It feels to me, very similar to when Mr. Rogers died. Completely and utterly selfish of me, but, it’s like – ‘Wait, that’s my childhood – you guys can’t die! That’s part of my history – don’t take it away!’

I mean, just check him out, ya’ll:

Isn’t he the coolest? I remember getting so excited when he was going to be on TV doing another stunt – it was so awesome – and so totally scary!! And check this out:

….cool – even as an old guy! How many of us can say that our grandpas were that cool? Not many, probably. Although I did think my grandpa was pretty darn cool! He ate hot sauce by the spoonful and he smoked a pipe – and to this day I love the smell of a pipe – it totally takes me back! But even still – I don’t think I can say he was as cool as Evel Knievel!

It’s so sad, and my heart and prayers go out to his family. The News Tribune says:

Knievel’s death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs.

Evel – you will be missed! You definitely made my childhood more exciting! And just think – no more broken bones!! Yea! I never understood how you could continually get back on your bike after all those injuries – yikes!

God bless you, Evel Knievel!

I’ve been working on getting my husband some business from the internet. He’s not entirely convinced that it’s actually going to work. He is a contractor – mostly residential remodeling. And he just doesn’t see the value in marketing a local-only business online.

I’m working on it slowly, bit by bit. I had gotten a pretty good start on it – I started a website for him, and then I registered him at Merchant Circle. And then I started him a few Squidoo lenses. And then I left it all sitting there. I completely lost all my steam for it.

Recently, however, I received a message from someone on Squidoo about his lenses. The message was from a realtor and he has a group on Squidoo that he was inviting us to join. And ever since then, marketing my husband’s remodeling services has been back on my mind again.

I want so much to prove to him that it would be beneficial for him to establish an online presence, but, I get so distracted with all of my other sites and blogs. We’ll see – I may just make it work and wind up teaching him a thing or two!

It’s 11pm and I can hear a kid up who can’t sleep for coughing! Nooo! We can’t have any more sickness in this house! Well, Sammie has sick days available, but, the boys sure don’t! And it is Patrick that is coughing!

Our little mini-district has a five-absence-per-semester rule – after that the children need doctor’s notes in order for their absences to be excused. And if your absence is unexcused, your grades for that day’s work? Zeros! Ack! Zeros? That’s terrible.

A lot of times kids get sick and it doesn’t warrant a trip to the doctor. This is a hard rule to follow.

We just had our town Christmas parade, and Patrick and the school band were in it – so hopefully he just got chilled and his allergies are acting up. He doesn’t usually catch the infections that are going around, and if he’s just ’sort of’ sick, I’m not taking him to the doctor – just to ‘buy’ an excused absence! That’s $50 for an excuse note!

No more coughing, kid! And most definitely, for sure – no

And fourteen year old boys are rotten!

When I left the room in mid-post, in the last post – you know, to say my affirmations? Yeah, well, Mr. Creep-o (the fourteen year old, yeah…) was in here on the other computer. And apparently, while I was away, he saw fit to add some delightful text to my post.

He wrote, ‘im gay’ at the very top of my post, I’m sure hoping I wouldn’t see it, and that I would just post away, unaware! I’ll admit, it did take me a few minutes to catch it, but, a good writer always proofreads, my boy!

We have a bit of a ‘thing’ going, I guess you could say! The other day, my friend, Loretta, sent me a Skype-chat message. We were in the kitchen (the next room) and he ran in here in front of me and before I could stop him, he typed a lovely message to her. I think that one said, ‘I’m gaya’. He was typing really fast and accidentally put in one too many a’s. So then he proceeded to giggle and call me ‘gaya’ all night!

Then this afternoon, he got home from school and got on the computer. Big no-no! I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was talking to his friend, Keegan. I declared, “He’s on the computer, too?! Ya’ll aren’t supposed to be online right now!” And I ran over there, held his hands back, deleted what he had written – and wrote, ‘Get off this puter and do your homework right now!’   To which his friend replied, ‘No’.

It was shortly after this that I left the room to put another deposit in my self-esteem bank, and this boy gets over here and messes with my blog.  Right when I’m trying to work on my self-esteem and my positive attitude!  The outrage!

I have an online friend who was really bummed out this morning and I gave her some advice that I knew that I needed to hear, as well. I know that I am going to take my advice, and I hope that she will, too.The first thing that I suggested to her was to write a gratitude list. I actually ran across a blog this morning that was called ‘Attitude of Gratitude’, which is a phrase commonly used in 12-step programs. And I heard another person talking about the topic of gratitude, too. And I know – when a subject is ‘haunting’ me – that’s where I need to be. So that is why it so easily spilled from my lips (fingers…keyboard! ha!) to my friend when she spoke of her icky feeling day this morning.

Oh my gosh! And then later – I even heard someone on the radio talking about people who make gratitude lists being healthier, exercising more, etc!! Haunted, I tell you, I’m totally being haunted – I better hurry up with my list, huh?

Lisa’s Gratitude List:

1. My sweet kids
2. My handsome redneck
3. My darling Puppy
4. My folks having come out to visit
5. Dare I say it? This house. (Shh! Don’t tell Mark!)
6. Finally living in a small town, something of which I’ve dreamed for years!
7. The gorgeous geography that is Alabama, especially our area.
8. Being able to work at home.
9. Gorgeous picture of my niece, Alex, that my mom brought me and is now sitting on my desk!
10. Sunshine today.
11. Tonight is the town Christmas parade! Fun!
12. I feel good (*knock wood*) today – no migraine, etc.
13. My peace lily is gorgeous right now.
14. My idea to put yarn on the curtains so I could open them in the daytime.
15. My two new angel figurines on my desk.
16. My comfy GAP sweatshirt I’m wearing from my friend, Deb. See how cozy I look?



17. The $12 Deb accidentally gave me. LOL!

That will do for now, I’d say. On to the second half of my advice – affirmations. Hold on just one second….

I had to run into the bathroom and do my affirmations one more time. See, I promised my friend that I would do them five times today and writing this post reminded me to go do them one more time. Now I’ve got three more to go. I’m just using my standard affirmation, which is “I love you, Lisa. I am a beautiful, gorgeous, sexy woman.” Sometimes I’ll change it up, if I’m having a particular problem that I’m working on, that affirmations can help with, but, usually I just say that one.

I really would love to have this Christmas angel fleece blanket! It is so cute, that I think that I would use it all year, just like I do my angel tree topper. Mark got me the prettiest angel to go on top of my Christmas tree last year, and she is so pretty that I could not bear to put her away in a box to live in the garage for a whole year! I wish that these fleece blankets would be a bit bigger, though. It seems that most of them are 60 inches. Well, it would be a good one for Sammie – or I could hang it on the wall for a sweet decoration. If you’d like to see the shop this comes from, just click here.