I am a Rainbow Maker!

Hellooooo. This morning feels like a Monday-filled Monday dipped in Monday batter, deep fried, wrapped in a crunchy Monday-shell with Monday sprinkles all over the top. It was a long weekend full of a lot of work and fun but now Splenda is back at school and tomorrow she starts her new job before school actually starts in a couple of weeks. I think she prefers being at school and now that she and her friends have their own house there it should be even better (or more headaches - time will tell). Man, those were the days!

Driving that noisy, bouncy truck full of Miss Daisy's and her roomates' stuff for six hours gave me lots of time to think. And you know that when I think I write stuff down in my little blog book but as bouncy as the truck was I will be surprised if I can read what I wrote so who knows what's going to spew from my keyboard this morning?

On our way home from Southern Illinois we stopped and visited Nature Girl and her family in West-Central Illinois. We had a really nice time. It was nice to relax for just about an entire day. Cha Cha and I also did our first remote interview with a couple of archeologists for the Dirty Laundry Podcast while we were there; I should have that show uploaded by tonight. Of course, I will let you know when it's ready for your consumption. If you're a subscriber on iTunes or Podomatic, however, you will probably know before everybody else. Followership has it's advantages!

I still find that I am obsessed by fuel prices. Supply and demand is killing us near Chicago (we use so much and we keep buying it so they charge what they want) or maybe it's higher fuel taxes? You don't have to get very far south of I-88 and gas prices drop down to around $3.57 per gallon. I still find it ridiculous that $3.57 per gallon is a good price. Shouldn't it be more expensive in those little remote places because it's more costly to get the fuel to them since they are in the MIDDLE of nowhere? We really need to reduce our driving and use less he says after he just drove two vehicles the entire state of Illinois top-to-bottom and one back up.

I thought of a great acronym that I am going to start using. You know TMI (too much information). I am going to start using JEI (just enough information). Wow, there are a whole bunch I could start using. I also like NQEI (not quite enough information) or WTMI (way too much information). I get bored when I drive sometimes - can you tell?

We only hit rain one time near Springfield, IL Saturday afternoon heading back up this way. The rain was so bad that I could barely see the road and I had to slow down to about 70 MPH (I could still see the yellow and white lines so I had bearings even 85% blind). As we came out of the rain I looked in the side mirrors and saw rainbows behind us. They weren't in the sky they were coming from behind the car. I was making rainbows. I am a rainbow maker! That's gonna look mighty impressive on my resume.

Southern Illinois is fun to travel through. Between Carbondale and Macomb we took quite a few back roads. It was like the good old days when we were kids and there were no expressways or tollways. They didn't seem like the good old days when they were happening as kids though; it's funny how our perceptions and appreciations change. Just think, some day these will probably be "the good old days." It was kinda fun seeing all of those small towns. Fortunately, Fabio had the VCR in the back and was watching movies or we never would have been able to enjoy the road-Les-traveled. I always like to follow in Les's footsteps from time to time. Most of the little towns we went through still have town squares - pretty cool. When we drove through Beardstown, besides thinking of The Beardstown Ladies, I wondered if the town was named for Abraham Lincoln (pretty famous guy from the area with a beard). I am sure he was there one time or another - it's near Springfield and right on the Illinois River. My curiosity got the better of me and I just now Googled Beardstown. The town was founded by Thomas Beard. However, ironically since I just mentioned town squares, the Beardstown town square is where Abraham Lincoln delivered his "house divided cannot stand speech" in 1858.

 

Gotta love Lincoln! (even beardless)

I have so much to do today so I had better wrap up Matt In The Middle's Tour of the MIDDLE Diary Blog for today. I had better write my todo list here in case I have to come back for reference (not in any particular order). Get the podcast edited and uploaded, mow the lawn, do laundry, return chairs, register Fabio for school, grocery shopping, more laundry, check with the television repair man, make dinner, work-out (hopefully), buy a calendar (mine ended in July)... (I know I am missing several but this will get me started).

Enjoy the great weather in the MIDDLEwest today. I hope you're having agreeable weather wherever you are! Thanks for stopping by - I always appreciate you letting me be a part of your day. I have lots more to write about from my blog book so I should be good for a couple of days. TTTT...MITM (out to conquer my todos). Do you feel better now that you got your MITM fix? I hope so! TA!