I have nothing to write about today.

I don’t feel like writing about taking my daughter on a college visit this last weekend, because then that would lead to me writing about marking the beginning of the end result, which is, my first born child leaving the nest for college.

I don’t want to write about my younger daughter finishing eighth grade in a few months, and that I’ll no longer be able to watch her walk safely to and from school each day across the field behind our home. Because then I’d have to talk about when she starts high school in August and she’ll be climbing on board a school bus or hitching a ride with a teenage friend or her own sister to drive about 20 minutes away to the high school. I’d have to think about how the security of having her in the school building, that I am looking at right now, just outside my kitchen window, will be gone forever.

I really do not want to talk about how the news has been diligently covering the story of that brave little 14-year-old girl in Pakistan who was nearly killed by maniacs who climbed aboard a bus, singled her out and shot her in the head just because she is fighting for girls to be able to attend school, learn to read and write and do math. And then I’d have to lecture on how lucky our girls are here in this country to be able to just go to school at all. And how fortunate they are to wake up each morning in this country and have freedoms, opportunities and choices that others are being killed for trying to achieve.

Oh then there is that tragedy of the man who killed his estranged wife and two other women, and injured four more women in a spa in Wisconsin. His documented hatred and anger has now ruined the lives of so many innocent people. His wife had already had a restraining order out on him, because she feared for her life. Yet two days after placing that restraining order on him, which required that he turn over all his firearms, he went out and bought a new gun. Then the next day after that, he killed her with that new gun. Monday morning my phone rang and the editors at the newspaper sent me out to knock on the door of the wife’s parents’ home. They understandably slammed the door in my face. That was not the best day this week. I’d like to forget about it and pray that I did not cause these poor people anymore pain than they were already in. I do note, however, that while I was blessed to be enjoying this wonderful weekend with my family, planning for our own daughter’s future, laughing and enjoying warm fuzzy feelings, someone else in this world, not too far away, was so enraged, psychotic and killing people…… Killing people……. He murdered someone he loved and who he vowed to cherish and protect. I also reflect on dozens of others in the news this morning who were killed senselessly this weekend. It certainly puts a new bright light on the weekend I was having. It makes me grateful for the good that I have.

Or how about the changing of the seasons. I could write about how we are now at the end of what I thought was just a perfect, beautiful fall. The colors were amazing and the sky had that perfect shade of gray on so many days. But I don’t want to dwell on this either because that opens the discussion of what may be a frigid, winter to come.

Or I suppose I could talk about the presidential debates and the changes in our country. Nah.

Well I’ll see you next week. I hope to bring you something to chew on!