The day started out much like any other day. Up before the sun rises, coercing children out of bed and off to school.

This is when Mona’s hearing problem started. She’d dropped Emily off at her school bus stop, and the Holy Spirit whispered in her ear, “Mona, you should go to the YMCA this morning. It’s safe there.” “What?”, Mona said, “I didn’t quite catch what you said.”

A few minutes passed and, after having been ignored the first time, the Holy Spirit tried a new approach… “Mona, if you’re going for a run, you should go down this nice smooth paved sidewalk.” “What?”, Mona said, “huh? what?” Mona paid no heed.

So, off Mona goes. Back home. Change into exercise clothes and out the door with the iPod and some favorite tunes.

I don’t know if it was on the outbound trip or the return trip, but there most definitely was a trip. A trip that Mona won’t soon forget. You don’t want to know the details. Not from me.

My phone rang this morning at about 9:30AM and a guy said, “here’s your wife”. Mona said, “I was running and fell on the bridge. Now I have a sliver and I need you to come get me.”

If you’ve had a sliver before, you know how much that can hurt. While the words out of Mona’s mouth said it was a “sliver”, the tone of her voice said it was a S-L-I-V-E-R. After 20 years of being married, one word was all I needed to hear to know that this was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill, “we’ll get the tweezers” sliver.

I dropped everything, jumped in my car and hurried off to help my love. When I pulled up and Mona showed me “the sliver”… oogy. We spent the next 2 hours at the urgent care center.

Mona is home now and recovering nicely. She’s such a trooper.

So, Mona, if you’re reading this, I recruited some friends to put together a “back to the basics” training video for you. Please, please watch this… and take notes.

Take 10 minutes of your time right now to watch this and you will be too…

A blonde walks into a bank in New York City and asks for the loan officer. She says she’s going to Europe on business for two weeks and needs to borrow $5,000.

The bank officer says the bank will need some kind of security for the loan, so the blonde hands over the keys to a new Mercedes Benz SL 500. The car is parked on the street in front of the bank. She has the title, and everything checks out.

The bank agrees to accept the car collateral for the loan. The bank’s president and its officers all enjoy a good laugh at the blonde for using a $110,000 Benz as collateral against a $5,000 loan. An employee of the bank then proceeds to drive the Benz into the bank’s underground garage and parks it there.

Two weeks later, the blonde returns. She repays the $5,000 and the interest, which comes to $15.41.

The loan officer says, “Miss, we are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we are a little puzzled. While you were away, we checked you out and found that you are a multimillionaire. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow $5,000?”

The blonde replies, “Where else in New York City can I park my car for two weeks for only $15.41 and expect it to be there when I return?”

You’ve seen our kids, right?  Anna, Ben and Emily?  Well, I found this picture of three manatees swimming together, and tell me if you don’t think there’s a resemblance…

Wierd, huh?