How to sum up a life? Young or old, when one's loved ones stand at a pulpit or a gravesite, what do we say? We say, well, they were a wonderful person, and they loved all of us, and gosh, he/she really loved flowers or animals or Spider Solitaire.

Jack died. And I can't help but think that since his kids were cleaning out his house ahead of time, hoping he wouldn't pull through, what's to be said about or done for him in a funeral sense?

Don't have funerals. Love folks while they're alive. While you can see them and hear their laughter and laugh at their jokes and slide across the freshly Armor-alled front seat while rounding a corner, and get cracked in the forehead with a plethora (sp?) of medals, keychains, and your own prom garter.

My mom makes a big deal out of everything for Grandma. Because Grandma's not going to be around forever. Neither will you. And you're so great, you should be jealous of yourself.

Lots. Hot, iced, mochas, latte`s... Everyone knows this about me. It helps with the killer headaches that threaten me constantly. Right now, I am suffering the last four minutes of Whitestrips in order to have a sparkling smile. They taste so awful. Erik's right here, helping me power through. We do what we gotta to soldier on. They seem to work. I brush my teeth a lot, too. Hey, Grey's Anatomy's on. Double rock.

A seizure is only frightening for a few seconds beforehand. I set the latte` aside when I heard the sirens and text messaged my husband, who was halfway home from work. I laid down on the dining room floor and set my jaw as my extremities began to tremble and the world around me began to echo, as if in a slow motion scene in a movie. Alone, thinking, how long will this one last? A half hour? Forty minutes? Please, God, don't let him walk into the house and find this. Please let it be a short one.

Thank Heaven for this dog. Boy, I tell ya, I do not care that I have to vacuum the living room constantly, she was the right decision. She licked my face and hands until I woke, and then my phone rang until I answered. Then I tried to talk to three freaked out loved ones, while giving the dog a treat. In a cloud.

We're a wee bit sore this morn, so we're doing beginner's yoga at my house.

No one can make you feel a certain way. You only feel the way you choose to feel, right?

As Duncan said, "Hey, Winnie-the-Pooh lives in the Hundred Acre Wood, where everyone understands that he is Winnie-the-Pooh and treats him as such. You live in the Real World."

I know I have to. And I know you're thinking I should have learned this by now, because I'm going to be thirty after all. I know.

I'm getting tougher. I am. It still would be so much easier if everyone would just respect everyone else. Unrealistic, but then we'd all be robots, and overpopulate, and smother ourselves.

I got glasses in fifth grade. Then we had burgers at the Rockin' 50s. Then I got contacts for my 13th birthday, after I began cheerleading.

Alas, I never have to wear contacts again. Today, I asked the doctor to slip me some extra Valium, just a couple. He said the worst place for a pill is on a shelf somewhere in a lab, and that at 24 hours, my eyes look so perfect, one can barely tell anything was done. A wonderful day! I went from 20/425 to better than 20/40 vision. Today wasn't vision test day. It was just, "Hey, is the flap of the cornea healing correctly?" day.

THEN, Travis and I stopped at H-E-B on the way home, and he left Suw (his ibook) on top of the truck while putting groceries in the back. And when we turned onto the I-35 access road, and heard a sliding, banging sound, is when it started to feel like a bad afternoon.

Travis ran out into heavy access road traffic to save Suw's life, as she miraculously had not yet been run over. He wasn't run over either, for which I am prayerfully thankful. Tonight, he took her all apart and put her together again. I don't know if that computer is a cat or what. How many lives is this?

PS...Travis says he is NEVER having LASIK done. He watched the whole procedure from an observation room, through a window and on a video screen.

Whilst I, under a measly five milligrams of Valium, was singing the Lambchop theme song to the staff ("This is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on, my friends. Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, and we'll continue singing it forever just because this is the song that never ends..."), he saw them clamp down onto my eyeball, slice into the cornea and laser it! I remember him being pale when I came out of there, but what do I know, coulda been the Valium. Not to mention the blur of EVERYTHING at that moment. I told him he should have seen what I saw during that twenty minutes.

One Christmas, 1996 or so, Tash stuck a stuffed husky puppy with blue eyes in my stocking.

If that puppy had magically come to life, she would be the young dog staring up at me with ice blue eyes right now.

We caught the Sneak Preview of Eight Below the other night, then came home and loved all over our dog. And yes, I know you're thinking, "This is a good time to talk about limits: 'You can love your pets. Just don't love your pets.'"

Even full-grown, she is so much smaller than those big flouffy dogs. She's so cute.

In this crazy world, how far is heaven
I just keep on prayin' Lord
Just keep on livin', how far is heaven
Lord can you tell me, how far is heaven
I just got to know how far, how far is heaven
Lord can you tell me