Coming up with great ideas and then having your client love those ideas and then actually getting to produce those ideas - it's what makes all the long nights, stressful meetings, last-second changes and pretty much every other stressful part of advertising (from cold coffee in the breakroom on up to the worst horror story every told) worth every f-ing second.

I love today! Love it!

Football starts next week.

I'm concerned he'll break a bone, knock out some teeth, blow out a knee or something equally horrid and expensive to fix.

He's concerned he won't be good enough to land a skill position.

TOTALLY FORETELLING: Equipment handout was last night at 8pm, on the knife-edge of a brewing storm. For real.

Tim and Colton went to the Big Horns with the Boy Scouts, hiked and camped 44 miles, and then came home. It's great to have them back - we missed them so much!

I've been trying to figure out how to get still photos from the Flip video they took ... finally got it. Here's some of the better ones:

I found this really cool photo on this really cool site.

No amount of deep breaths, nature walks, Hershey bars or Daily Bhudda blog posts gonna help me today. I. Am. Pissed. Not exactly sure why, either, so that's an interesting paradox. Let's just go with it, shall we?

(a.) I'm pretty sure I have a social disorder that kicks in around the 45-minute mark for any large gathering.

(b.) I'm pretty sure I drink too much coffee.

(c.) I'm 100% certain I suck at baseball.

(d.) I absolutely hate looking like an idiot during anything athletic (which is usually why I never do it), having to make small talk (worse in a casual situation, nearly unbearable in a business one), and sweating in 90-degree heat at the same time.

(e.) When all of the above converge within a 4-hr timeframe, I seriously consider locking myself in a closet for the remainder of the day.

TOTALLY RELATED: But Little E hit a home run in the Moms vs Sons game, after I taunted that he would be an easy out - so that was pretty awesome.

Okay.

Abbey WAS on the third cream for the face rash she's had since last December.

Today we go see a pediatric pulmonologist - who in addition to treating her shortness of breath, writes me a prescription for whatever he thinks is causing the rash.

I call the doctor who prescribed the first and third creams, but not the doctor who prescribed the second cream because she caused the rash to pretty much overtake the entire side of Ab's face, and the first/third doc says no way take what the pulmonologist prescribed, which I was pretty much expecting.

Now he's given Ab two more medicines - the fourth cream and an oral medicine.

I also got him to (finally) refer me to the dermatologist.

Dermatologist office makes me an appointment with their PA. I call back and say, gee, I bet your PA is really good at her job, but after 7 months I really would like to see an MD. The lady on the phone, no shit, says "Well you certainly are asking for the moon." And she didn't mean it jokey.

WTF?

I blame myself. Why have I let this keep going on and on and on and on? Ack. Me and my trust-all-doctors mentality.

yesterday:

Ab was invited to take the yellow belt test at the martial arts academy, and Little E was not. She actually passed, which sent him into spasms of jealous and rage - pretty much reinforcing the instructors' decision to not invite him to test until he is mentally ready. Ab rubs it in with 'now I can beat you up' comments - ending with Little E sobbing on the porch for put-near 20 minutes, until his mother (me) tossed the ol' "you want me to make you some brownies" emotional-eating cap on the proverbial gusher (after I gave him the "Life is Pain" speech, natch). Little E eats his way back to happy as Ab and I spend most of the evening whispering about how cool/tough/awesome she is.

today:

Little E was invited to take the test, rocked it, split the board with one quick, and is still over the moon. Ab and I breathe sigh of relief. I take both to see "The Last Airbender" which pretty much sucked except for every few minutes when my kids were yelling "COOL!"

FULL DISCLOSURE: These are not my kids.

Behold Little E and his quadruple-decker, peanut butter toast sandwich. Breakfast of champions!

TOTALLY UNRELATED: Can't wait for "Colton Mommy Day" this afternoon - gotta love a 12.5-y/o who still wants to hang with his mom - or at least is willing to lie about it.