Why is it you do everything by the book yet the results don't change?

For as long as I can remember I have suffered from muscle cramps. Of course in high school the trainers were always suspecting I wasn't taking my salt tablets. Next on their list was my water intake. I've seen more water than most fish. Then came advice to each bananas, and oh, did I eat bananas. I've eaten so many bananas that my natural tendency was to swing in the trees! The next home remedy was to drink pickle juice. Luckily I have friends in fast food and they use to drain juice off five gallons of pickles quite regularly. They would have cup after cup of pickle juice sitting in Styrofoam cups with lids on a shelf in their cooler, just waiting for me. Next fix was prescription potassium (which Dr. Mackie prescribed and I take to this day). The last area to be addressed was electrolytes. "Drink some of the sports drinks that replenish your body", I was told. I have drank Gatorade, Powerade, and colored vitamin and mineral waters. I have tried it all at some point, and I am extremely conscientious about maintaining my regiment.

Guess what woke me up in the middle of the night?

Muscle cramps!

After a quick trip to the fridge for a little pickle juice I am waiting for it to loosen the grip my muscles have on my body!

I really enjoyed watching the Little League World Series. Rian had told me how excited their town was to have the Lubbock team to be playing in Saturday's U.S. finals. Although they lost to the team from Georgia, they did bounce back to win third place by defeating Curacao. The Georgia team went on to defeat Japan for the championship.

Now that was baseball.

Can you believe August is almost gone!

School starts today. Football season begins this coming Friday. Christmas is just around the corner!

Krl and I had a pretty good weekend. She hasn't been feeling well so I tried to help out. I grilled out on Saturday, and was well on my way to making omelets for Sunday lunch when I found we didn't have all the necessary ingredients so Krl opted out for a breakfast toaster from Sonic instead. Late yesterday we teamed up to make a colossal cheeseburger which we will make several meals out of.

I find cooking is therapeutic. I haven't cooked as much recently as I did at one time. Krl and I are a pretty good team in the kitchen. We have talked a little about the Thanksgiving meal at the seasonal jobsite. As many of you are aware we have cooked a Thanksgiving meal for our crew for a number of years. Usually we fed somewhere between twenty and thirty of our workers. Two years ago the GM asked if he and his family could join in to feed their crew too. In a joint effort we fed a hundred twelve co-workers. This last year the GM's family opted out but Krl and I (along with the burr contractor and his wife) prepared a meal for one hundred twenty people.

Krl and I are thinking about using the Thanksgiving meal as a qualifier for Christmas. If any of our family wants to participate in our Christmas (whenever we have it, we have had Christmas in February one year and another year we had it in June), they must participate in preparing or serving the Thanksgiving meal at the jobsite. We would give exceptions to the smaller grand babies, but if the kids or older grand kids expect to reap the bounty they had better be prepared to invest a little time in November.

Call us crazy, but we think it would be a good experience.

I continue to heal from my basil cell procedure. To have been such a minute spot on my nose, this has been one of the more painful things I have endured. Even to this day! I can accidentally bump my nose and be brought almost to tears. Ouch! I have a couple more weeks before we go in to see if they are going to do a skin graft or not!

If memory serves me correct, tomorrow is the day Coach Shannon is supposed to announce the starting quarterback for the hurricanes! Eleven more days and we'll go to Norman to watch the Sooners and the Hurricanes!

Hope you had a good weekend!

FATHER, fill this day and the coming week with YOU!