"Stadium Lights, Late Nights."

Dear Reader,

In Texas, football is a religion. And even though I'm not a devout worshipper of the pigskin, I thoroughly enjoy the game.

But if you said that a football game is only about football....No. It ain't.

The band dancing in the stands, the drill team on the field, the supportive parents, the unnecessary yellow flags, the kid with nacho-cheese dripped on his shirt, the mosquito that keeps biting your arm, the animalistic grunts of the players, the referees waving their arms, the drum majors keeping time, the press box failing to do so, the cheerleaders doing back-flips, the retina-burning stadium lights, and the late nights.

A million-quadrillion-thousand things make a football game what it is.........................AWESOME.

And even though I leave every game emotionally compromised, I keep going back. It's brutish and beautiful. It's exhilarating and dull at the same time. It's on Friday nights. It's football. NM

"Warm Cookies and Cold Milk"

Dear Reader,

Here's and excerpt from my favorite book...

All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.
ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do
and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not
at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the
sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:

Share everything. 

Play fair. 

Don't hit people. 

Put things back where you found them. 

Clean up your own mess. 

Don't take things that aren't yours. 

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. 

Wash your hands before you eat. 

Flush. 

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. 

Live a balanced life - learn some and think some
and draw and paint and sing and dance and play 
and work every day some. 

Take a nap every afternoon. 

When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, 
hold hands, and stick together. 

Be aware of wonder.
Remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup: 
The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody 
really knows how or why, but we are all like that. 

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even 
the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. 
So do we. 

And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books 
and the first word you learned - the biggest
word of all - LOOK. 



Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. 
The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation.
Ecology and politics and equality and sane living. 

Take any of those items and extrapolate it into 
sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your 
family life or your work or your government or
your world and it holds true and clear and firm. 
Think what a better world it would be if 
all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about 
three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with
our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments 
had a basic policy to always put thing back where 
they found them and to clean up their own mess. 

And it is still true, no matter how old you
are - when you go out into the world, it is best 
to hold hands and stick together.

 I hope you liked that. :) NM

"Past and Present"

Dear Reader,

"Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it." -George Santayana

A journal is a priceless tool that can help prevent you from making the same mistakes again. 

And wouldn't it be great to make less mistakes?  

Trust me. It is great. So start journaling.......every day. NM

"By Small and Simple Means..."

Dear Reader,

It was the evening of September 8th in the year 2012, and I was attending a church fireside/dance.

In all honesty, a clean church dance is #2 on my list of favorite things ever. Dancing is as essential to life as breathing, sleeping, and eating warm cookies with milk. (Sometimes I do all of those essential things at the same time......But that's beside the point.)

Anyways, I was thoroughly enjoying a One Direction song when the unusual occurred. A girl passing by on the dance floor, stopped and talked to me. Now I don't know if screaming above a British boy band is the most effective form of communication, but I did enjoy what she told me. In fact, I pretended to not hear her so that she had to repeat herself. She said something along the lines of "Hey, I've read your blog, and I like it."

After thanking her, she and her friends walked away. Once they were gone, I literally jumped in the air with joy. And in mid-leap, I had a beautiful epiphany. I realized that it's not huge things that really make a difference for a person. It's expending the effort to tell somebody that you like their writing. It's holding the door for the people behind you. It's complimenting the girl wearing the really cute shoes. It's buying a car for the guy behind you at the dealership.

Okay.........maybe not that last one. But do you get the point?

I have a challenge for you: Go ahead and do the little things for other people. You'll quickly learn that by small and simple means are great things brought to pass.

And I won't name names, but thanks a ton for reading my blog, Maddie Jones. NM