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Book Club Readers: Today we are starting to read Undaunted today! It’s not too late to jump in with us and read! Go here for more details.

Warning: Get your favorite beverage first.

In October 2013 I focused a lot of my posts on the very serious topic of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This got me to wondering what would be the official focus of the month of November. According to holidayinsights.com, here’s some of what we’re celebrating other than Veterans Day and Thanksgiving:

• International Drum Month (Two guys at my house will be happy. That’s how dull we are.)
• Peanut Butter Lovers Month (I can eat Reese’s all month, right?)
• Real Jewelry Month (As opposed to “Imaginary Jewelry Month”?)
• National Sleep Comfort Month (I smell a Communist plot here.)

But, it doesn’t stop there. There are some very odd things to celebrate on several of the days in November:

• November 2nd – Deviled Egg Day (An adopted and my daughter probably honor this day.)
• November 2nd – Look for Circles Day (I can probably find some under my eyes.)
• November 4th – King Tut Day (I feel a Steve Martin song coming on.)
• November 6th – Marooned without a Compass Day (Forgot to get the free compass app?)
• November 8th – Dunce Day (I thought this was Election Day.)
• November 9th – Chaos Never Dies Day (Probably because we continue to elect dunces.)
• November 15th – Clean Your Refrigerator Day (For turkey leftovers later in the month?)
• November 16th – Button Day (I wonder when Zipper Day is.)
• November 16th – Have a Party with Your Bear Day (as opposed to partying with your lion)
• November 19th – Have a Bad Day Day (Because we elected dunces and wore their buttons.)
• November 20th – Absurdity Day (Did we need this after November 19th?)
• November 21st – False Confession Day (Mob bosses are cross-examinied on this day, right?)
• November 26th – Shopping Reminder Day (We need a reminder in America in November?)
• November 28th – Make Your Own Head Day (Two heads are always better than one.)
• November 28th – Red Planet Day (Lose your head in a Martian Invasion? You have a spare now?)
• November 29th – Buy Nothing Day (I doubt this day was conceived by Wal-mart.)

Now, there are some really useful “holidays” in November, so may I suggest that you actually do something to honor the following:

• November 1st (today) – All Saints Day (Remember those who went to Heaven this past year.)
• November 2nd – Book Lovers Day (Read a book you love or read the MIP November Book!)
• November 3rd – Sandwich Day (Fix yourself a really awesome sandwich this Sunday.)
• November 7th – Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day (An excuse to pig out, right?)
• November 8th – Cook Something Bold Day (In Texas this usually involves jalapenos.)
• November 12th – Young Readers Day (Read to a young reader or donate a children’s book.)
• November 13th – World Kindness Day (Do something kind in “stealth mode.”)
• November 14th – Operating Room Nurse Day (Honor your favorite nurses on this day!)
• November 15th – America Recycles Day (Recycle what you found in your refrigerator on 11/15?)
• November 17th – Electronic Greeting Card Day (Wish a Happy Thanksgiving electronically!)
• November 17th – Homemade Bread Day (Any questions?)
• November 17th – Take a Hike Day (Use halftime to take an actual walk outside.)
• November 20th – Children’s Day (Spend the day with kids or give to a children’s charity.)
• November 21st – Hello Day (Say “hello” to a stranger today and smile.)
• November 22nd – Go for a Ride Day (Dust off the bike and pedal.)
• November 23rd – National Adoption Day (Do something nice for adoptive parents today.)
• November 29th – You’re Welcome Day (Do something that gives you an opportunity to say this.)

November also celebrates:

• Child Safety Protection Month (What can you do to ensure the safety of children?)
• National Adoption Awareness Month (Share adoption links on your favorite social site.)
• National Novel Writing Month (I’ll be writing at least 2 pages of my novel each day this month.)
• Native American Heritage Month (Celebrate the group that welcomed the pilgrims to America!)

In addition, a friend and my daughter are all doing the 30 Day Plank Challenge (as in the exercise…not a piece of wood.) Care to join us? Click here.

Got enough to work on, celebrate or honor yet? Let’s put some “good” out into the world this month as we celebrate how blessed we are as a people. Happy November!

Monday’s Post: Jumpin’ Japin’…

You might also like: Lessons Learned from 7 Years on Facebook and Lessons Learned from the 2009 Dallas Breast Cancer 3 Day

Warning: Get your favorite beverage first. Maybe get two. And can I just add that I’m writing this for my gender, in general? In other words some of this will not apply to specific people within either gender!

Maxim Editor-in-Chief Dan Bova once wrote a hilarious piece on why women need men. But, dear Dan, I would like to state that men need women, too, even though we, as a gender, tend to be highly emotional, chronically-self-loathing, ridiculously verbose, and overly needy individuals, we are useful for some things. Here are a few:

1. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for us. We actually incubate the male gender for a full nine months. Who else would endure painful childbirth to bring you into the world just so you can annoy us with your messes for the rest of our lives?

2. We diaper your rear end when you’re babies and when you’re senile. While we probably prefer the former because it’s cuter, we will diaper it when it’s senile because we love you unconditionally. We haven’t figured out why. Just consider that one of the “mysteries of life.”

3. We bathe you when you have chickenpox skin. Have you seen how gross chickenpox skin is? We reserve the right to put on hospital gloves first.

4. We listen to you scream when you get shots as children and actually tear up because you are in pain. And then we swat you on that diapered back side when you make your sister cry. Even if she did wreck your Lego Pirate Village.

5. We try to civilize you for your future wife so she doesn’t try to have you committed the first year of marriage when you spend July through early February watching nothing but football. And when you watch basketball and baseball from February to July.

6. We laugh at your potty humor-infused jokes…even when you tell them in front of our disapproving mothers.

7. We stick up for you when our disapproving mothers tell us, yet again, that we could have married better. This we do, even though we’d secretly like to kill you for giving her “ammunition.”

8. We tolerate your mother even when she cooks better than we do and you remind us of that. My advice: Chocolate and flowers are a good way to get yourself out of the doghouse if you choose this aforementioned behavior. And eat our inferior food anyway…like you can’t get enough of it.

9. Even though we know you got your romantic ideas for Valentine’s Day from Twitter that day, we still pronounce you wonderfully romantic. Hint: You might want to delete your internet browsing history.

10. We pull the $ 1.98 Walmart tag off the flowers you bought us when the kids ask, “Where did the flowers come from?” and then we visibly swoon and say, “Your daddy got them for me from the ‘flower shop.’ Isn’t he thoughtful?” And you’re still wondering why that’s oh, so wrong. But, you do get points for the flowers.

11.  We remember your parents’ anniversaries, your parents’ and siblings’ birthdays and Christmas for you so that you can appear to be the best brother and son on Earth. Sometimes we even buy stuff for them and just say it was from you. And then we only smile when you get all the credit. I hate to break it to you, but your mom and sisters know we bought them that stuff.

12.  We immediately become helpless when a spider appears in your presence. We also have an urgent desire to cook with pickles while you are present. However, we somehow manage to kill the spiders and open the pickle jar when you’re not around.

13.  We close our eyes when you drive like Mario Andretti on the freeway. And we pray that you have the same skills as Mario. If you don’t, we pray that you have the same amount of money in your bank account as Mario. You’ll have to forgive us if we grab the door handle involuntarily after a near “airbag-deploying” stop.

14.  We go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, let our tushies splash into icy, cold, unsanitary toilet water from your failure to put down the seat yet again and quietly wipe off our cold, wet tushies, put down the seat, actually flush the toilet, wash our hands with LOTS of soap, and then go to the living room to watch TV for two hours. Why? Because ice-cold tushies tend to induce female insomnia and we don’t want to wake you. When you find us in the living room two hours later and ask if there is something wrong, we smile and say, “No. Just can’t sleep again.” And then we leave the knives and the ice pick in the kitchen.

15.  We pick up your Legos, various balls, and myriad of matchbox cars after stepping on them in our bare feet at night and then go bandage our feet. If your hair is a bit shorter in the morning, we have no idea how that happened.

16.  We make your favorite dishes as requested, even when we are bone-tired….and have to go to the store at midnight to get the ingredients. We even manage to squelch our overwhelming desire to become a Tourette’s Syndrome patient while at the store.

17. We remember your schedule better than you do. You show up on time, wearing something from this century and we tell you what a stud you are in said outfit, even though you complained loudly (The citizens of Bangladesh actually filed a noise complaint.) when we picked it out for you.

18. We remember what size you wear. Because you seldom visit a store unless forced. See # 17.

19.  We remember your kids’ names, kid’s birthdays, kids’ friends’ names, kids’ boyfriends’ and girlfriends’ names, kids’ boyfriends’ and girlfriends’ parents’ names, and a partridge in a pear tree. In fact we even have bird seed for the partridge.

20. We carry your stuff in our purses, even when you complain about how big our purses are. We add a mammoth, rarely fashionable diaper bag for the baby and toddler years and then you wonder why we ask you to rub our backs and necks periodically. And, we listen to you complain about having to carry our big purse and diaper bag because we are juggling YOUR child or children.

21. We stretch $ 2.50 so that it will cover the night’s dinner expense and the son’s new shoes (now needed because he jumped in every mud puddle between here and Bangladesh). Even when you give us grief for visiting every garage sale in the neighborhood on the way home from the store at midnight after buying ingredients for your favorite dish.

22. We balance one kid in our arms, balance another on a leg, and still manage to balance the checkbook.

23. We feed Fluffy and Fido, because we would like them to quit eating the brand new furniture.

24. We keep the family schedule in our heads. Why? Because if you were responsible for all of that, you’d have to actually put something on your calendar.

25. We admire your muscles, even if your tattoo is drooping. Because…even though the seat is still up, and you can’t remember your own birthday, we are crazy enough to think we can’t live without you.

Tomorrow’s Post: The Ration of Passion

I first put this on FB a few years ago, but having spent some time at Wal-Mart last weekend, I can assure you that our little town’s Wal-Mart will be almost identical to this today:

Some folks think that Wally World is, quite frankly, “The Devil”. (Adam Sandler would be so proud.) This would be particularly true of the folks who used to work there, like two of my children. 

But the store comes in mighty handy for a variety of reasons in “my domain,” (Jerry Seinfeld would be so proud.) since I don’t have the option of a Target nearby. It’s close to my house; it’s open 24 hours a day for those nights when you’ve run out of cough syrup and your kid can’t stop hacking; it’s cheap; it has wide aisles (Anyone from JC Penney listening to this??? Hint, hint.) and it’s one-stop shopping.

I spend so much time at Wally World that the LSH once said he was simply going to deposit his paycheck there and let them debit our account because that’s where all our money went anyway. So, on my 89th trip to Wally World this week (and I have another trip already planned for tomorrow, because I forgot one more item I need for this weekend) I noticed something very interesting….

There are nearly as many people at Wally World on February 13th as there are when the school supply lists first come out! And that time of the year is plain nuts…the only diff between that time of the year and this time of the year would be that the very same aisle is awash with red, pink, white and black as opposed to psychedelic colors on a sea of pocket folders.

I first encountered a sea of humanity by a giant display of every rose bouquet imaginable…let’s get the crud out of here! I then tried to get down the stuffed toy aisle…too many baseball caps, sweatshirts and jeans and honestly…testosterone.

I then tried to go down the Valentine candy aisle and it was full of shopping carts and purses and women on cell phones with frustrated looks on their faces (My bet is that Junior forgot to give his mom the note that said she needed to provide 24 treats for the class tomorrow and they couldn’t be red in color.).

I gave up and decided to just cruise through the sock aisle to pick up some better “walking sox” and of course, in my rush to get back to the checkout before Kyle deadened my car battery from rocking out to tunes in the car, had to go through the ladies lingerie section…..not a soul anywhere around those lacy, frilly, red numbers. Actually, very little pedestrian traffic at all in that section.

Nooooo comment.

Tomorrow’s Post: Love Letter to My Readers