Organized chaos and prayer.

We used to have a system. It was difficult to remember, in fact, only my husband and maybe one of the kids, knew what it was. Nevertheless, it was a good system. But that was back when we had six people living at home....

The old system went something like this: everyone had a day of the week in which they were assigned to say the dinner prayer. Then, on the seventh day, my husband calculated the trajectory of the moon and how it related to Earth's orbit---and that was who prayed. Or something like that.

Anyway. Now that there are only four of us, it would really be more convenient if there were eight days in the week. Then we could each pray 2x a week. It's just mathematically unfortunate that it can't work out that way. And for this reason, we couldn't figure out a new system.

So I had an idea. My husband rolls his eyes at this, but it is brilliant in its simplicity. And it works!!!

The new system: On even days the girls pray. On odd days the boys pray.

Don't worry, there's more. To decide who prays the girls (or boys) do rock-paper-scissors. The winner chooses whether to pray for dinner or that night before bed. See? It's easy.

And the best part is that Anna always does rock. So I can usually beat her...

I've got your number.

I know it's early. I hope I didn't wake you. But I just got a phone call. At 4:14 am. This is never good. The library does not call at 4:14 am to tell you that the book you are waiting for is in. No, phone calls at 4:14 in the morning are always bad.

And knowing this, I still couldn't get myself to get out of bed and go downstairs to answer the phone. I stayed in bed for another half an hour going through all the possible scenarios:

• There has been a computer glitch and my girls have been evicted from their dorm rooms and they are sitting in the parking lot with all their belongings waiting. Homeless.

• The emergency brake on my car has disengaged and the car rolled down the hill and is now parked in someone's living room.

• My cat is on fire.

• Someone somewhere is dead. Or dying.

After a half an hour of imagining all the reasons for a phone call at 4:14 am, I finally decided that finding out who had called probably couldn't be worse than not knowing.

(This whole thing reminded me of that time when my husband was out of town and someone kept calling me and telling me they were locked in my basement and couldn't get out. It had me so freaked out I ended up calling my friend. She sent her husband and two sons to check out my basement. They had baseball bats.)

• Maybe someone was trapped in my friend's basement and she needed me to return the favor.

Anyway. I went downstairs and there it was. 4:14am. Missed call. From a number I don't know. Which leaves me in exactly the same situation I was before: There is still some unknown emergency out there.

(At least they didn't leave a message. Everyone knows that I don't know how to check the voice mail on my new phone.)

But I do have their number. And I'll think of a perfect time to call them back. Maybe 4:14 tomorrow morning.

Mutant Marshmallows.

I was at Walmart doing my weekly shopping when this woman stopped her cart next to mine. She held up a bag of marshmallows and waved them in front of my face. "Look at these marshmallows!" she yelled. "Just LOOK at them!"

I looked at her marshmallows.

"They are big," I observed. And they were. In fact they were much bigger than normal marshmallows.

"They are HUGE!" the lady continued, as she kept waving the bag in my face.

I agreed again and hurried on my way through the store. Walking down the aisles, I saw at least three displays of these gigantic marshmallows. They were everywhere. It made me wonder if Walmart had gone a little overboard and been a bit hasty with their inflated expectations for these marshmallows. But then again, the marshmallow lady did seem very enthusiastic about them.

And you know how it is at the grocery store---you always seem to pass the same people up and down every aisle. So everytime I saw her, she grabbed her bag of marshmallows and waved them at me. I tried to look happy to see her, but honestly, by the third aisle of ohhhing and ahhhing over marshmallows, it was getting more and more difficult to be excited. About the marshmallows. Even if they are really really big marshmallows.

I guess the lady also found a large Hershey's candy bar, which she showed me. She said she was planning on having her very own "campfire" smores extravaganza as soon as she got home. I told her that sounded yummy as I pushed my cart faster through the aisles, passing her by, hopefully for the last time.

Oh, I thought I'd warn you that in case you are interested in large marshmallows, you better hurry. They have them at Walmart, but they won't last long.