Janice and Susan at 5 Minutes for Mom are giving away a FREE DYSON VACUUM. Click on over to their place, read the instructions, and sign the Mr. Linky to enter. You must have a US shipping address to win.

For the six springs before this one, D. and I lived in a big subdivision where almost every single tree had been mowed down unless it was part of a natural buffer between streets. We had about four trees in our backyard, none of which were much taller than I am.

And as a result of those conditions, the pollen was minimal.

But in our new-to-us house, we’re nestled under a canopy of trees. The pine trees are so high that I have to wrench my neck to see the tops of them, and we have oaks, dogwoods, plus blooming shrubs.

And as a result of these conditions, the pollen is killing me.

For the last two mornings, my left eye has been swollen shut, and it’s only after several rounds with a warm washcloth that I can coax it to open. Without going into overly gross detail, I will just tell you that there is some gunk. And it is nasty. And I feel like before I engage in conversation with anyone I must give them permission to LOOK AWAY if necessary BECAUSE I AM HIDEOUS.

But I won’t be quite so hideous (well, at least not to some of you) in about a week because guess what I ordered from what my mother-in-law calls “Amazon dot cee-zero-em”?

THE SHOES!

Don’t worry, y’all. I really think my toes can handle them. They’re one part of my body about which I’m not self-conscious in the least. But now if I had to wear the shoes on my, you know, stomach, they’d have never made it into my “Amazon dot cee-zero-em” shopping cart. Trust me.

Emma Kate is usually my shoe-buying conscience, and when we see each other we automatically take off the shoes we’re wearing and swap. We don’t even have to announce it anymore (e.g., “I think I want to try on those shoes. Do you mind?”) because at this point it’s pure reflex.

And ultimately I made my decision to buy the shoes because I realized that if I were to see Emma Kate and she were wearing them and we swapped shoes as we always do, I would run away far, far away from her and keep the shoes forever because I would love them deeply at first sight and have to have them for my very own.

Which seemed to be a pretty good indicator that I was not motivated solely by the sales price.

And yes, I know that they are a bit quirky. But so am I. For this I have no defense.

I do, however, have another story about Emma Kate. As if the whole hypothetical thievery of her hypothetical footwear weren’t enough.

Last Monday night we were on the phone for the last five minutes of the Mississippi State / West Virginia basketball game. Since I have cable (THAT I LOATHE) and EK has DirectTV, she had a five-second broadcast delay that I was not experiencing. She quickly became frustrated with hearing me yell at something related to the game and then having no idea what I was yelling about until she saw the action five seconds later, so I finally told her that I would be quiet so that we could continue to watch the game together on the phone without me spoiling her fun because we are grown women and all.

You simply cannot imagine how difficult it was for me to maintain my composure during the last two minutes of the game without giving away critical information before EK saw it happen on her television. But I did it. Being able to discuss the game with Emma Kate was more important than fulfilling my near-constant impulses to scream my head off, and so I suffered in silence, down to the very last play when West Virginia beat us at the buzzer.

Since I was five seconds ahead of EK broadcast-wise, I knew about the tragic outcome before she did. And when it happened, I put my head down on my kitchen counter and shook it back and forth, wishing I could somehow roll back the clock and devise a different strategy for our last defensive series. About the time I was starting to re-structure the play in my head, my dear friend Emma Kate - who was just then seeing the end of the game - let loose with what could only be described as a wail. The wail of a wounded animal, in fact.

Y’all, I shot up from that countertop like a cannonball and nearly threw the phone across the room because what in the name of Cletus was all that noise?

“That noise” was Emma Kate. And she wasn’t just disappointed. She wasn’t just yelling. She was grieving.

As I told my friend Daph earlier today, the only way I knew to respond was to remain very very quiet and speak very very softly in very very soothing tones.

Finally, I almost forgot to tell you that Wednesday night I chipped a tooth in my sleep.

And I have no idea how it happened.

Unless I was dreaming of eating peanut brittle.

Last Friday when we got home from the beach, I found several delightful little packages in the mail, one of which contained a few CD’s from a Christian music label. Y’all know that I LOVE ME SOME MUSIC, so I couldn’t wait to sit down and listen to the goods.

(Also: for those of you who have commented or emailed to ask how I’m getting free stuff from people, I have no idea. I think maybe it’s because I’m listed with Blog Top Sites, but that’s just a guess. And yes, I am a veritable fount of helpful information.)

It was Saturday night before I loaded the CD’s on our computer and transferred the songs to my iPod. I started listening while I was working on a couple of blog posts, and while I thought two of the CD’s were great, one of them flat-out blew me away. It’s called Glory Revealed.

Glory Revealed - which features Christian artists like David Crowder, Shane & Shane, Mark Hall, Candi Pearson-Shelton and Steven Curtis Chapman, among others - is different from a lot of other stuff I’ve heard lately because every single song is inspired by and rooted in Scripture. And I almost feel like the words “inspired by” are misleading, because if I hadn’t heard the CD I might think Oh, okay - somebody read about Job and then wrote a song about trials. But that’s not it, really.

Because what the songwriters did for this CD was to set Scripture to music. There are a few deviations from the text because of rhyme scheme or verse structure or whathaveyou, but for the most part the lyrics are straight from God’s Word. And as a result, this CD is inspirational in a way that only Scripture can be. It will touch you right down to the very core of your heart.

Glory Revealed was produced by Mac Powell of Third Day, and according to executive producer David Nasser, “the purpose of this project is to celebrate God’s truth through worship.” I especially appreciate that the producers are very clear about the fact that worship isn’t about us; in fact, Nasser makes a point to say that “everything God has ever done, and everything He will forever do, He does with one intent: to reveal Himself and to receive honor and glory.”

To which I say: Yes. Preach on. Hallelujah.

After I listened to the CD about five times in a row Saturday night, I emailed the person who sent it to me with really eloquent comments like “!!!” and “I HEART GLORY REVEALED 4 EVR” and “I’m going to marry track #3.”

I also asked, in a rush of enthusiasm - without stopping to think about the fact that I WAS BEING VERY PRESUMPTUOUS - if he would please send me some more CD’s and let me do some kind of giveaway on my blog.

AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT WAS ON MY FRONT PORCH TUESDAY AFTERNOON?

So if you’d like to be eligible lay claim to one of these twelve copies, here’s what you have to do:

Leave a comment, making sure your email address is oh-so-accurate. And for kicks, tell me the name of your very favorite recording artist of all time ever (for me, it’s a four-way tie between James Taylor, Watermark, John Mayer and Chris Tomlin - and yes, I enjoy a singer-songwriter).

That’s it!

Tomorrow night at 7 o’clock central I’ll turn off the comments on this post, and then I’ll (quite literally) put everyone’s name in a hat. The four year old will draw twelve names out of the hat sometime this weekend, and if you’re one of the twelve, I’ll email you to get your address so I can mail your copy to you.

I’m so excited about being able to share this CD with people. And even if you don’t “win” a copy in my little drawing, you can still go here for a free song download and a coupon for $5 off the CD purchase price.

Finally, many, many thanks to the folks at Provident Music for the bloggity hook-up. Some of you are going to be mighty blessed as a result.

And that just tickles me to death.

Edited to add: I’ll leave comments on until around 10 pm central. Mainly because we’re going out to supper, and I don’t think I’ll be here to turn off comments at 7. And contrary to what you might think, I do not wear the computer on a chain around my neck in public.

I only do that at home.

You can click on the picture and get a bigger view.

The shoes are a brand that I normally can’t afford, but they’re on sale (over 60% off!), and I am tempted.

But I’m going back and forth…one minute I think about how cute they would be with a knee-length summer skirt, and the next minute I think that people would point at me and laugh if I wore them.

As always, I’m bringing the deeply important issues to the forefront for impassioned political debate.

Somebody has to tackle the tough topics, people.

So one of the neat things about having a blog is that people send me products to try in the hopes that I will like whatever they send and then tell the interweb all about it.

Typically this process works really well if I, you know, follow through and actually review the product.

But unfortunately what tends to happen is that I get a product and I like it okay, but I don’t love it or think other people will necessarily need it, and the review gets pushed way down my to-do list and before you know it I’ve forgotten about the whole thing.

Which is why I’ve never discussed the fancy baby monitor that never really worked very well because the portable receiver unit wouldn’t hold a charge. And if you’ve ever had a child, you know that the receiver is really the most critical part of the baby monitor operation what with it enabling you to hear the baby and all.

Some nice people also sent me a Swiffer Carpet Flicker cleaning device thing-y. And it worked fine, but not really as well as I needed it to since I have a preschooler running around, so I felt guilty that I didn’t like it (especially since I am a HUGE fan of the original Swiffer) and gave it to my mama. As it turns out, the Carpet Flicker works quite well for a couple of retired empty nesters with a low-pile Berber, so all’s well that ends well.

And then there was the British mama-lit book that I wanted to love and adore and recommend to everyone…but the protagonist got on my nerves with her non-existent backbone and misguided paranoia (a little harsh, perhaps, but that’s how I felt). And while I did relate to her postpartum lack-o-fitness, I could not get on board with her superficiality and her belief that wearing the right clothes would make all of her emotional baggage disappear. Of course she came to her senses by the end of the novel, but by that point I was still ticked off at her for falling for her yoga instructor because how could she not see the game he was playing from a mile away, especially when she had a perfectly wonderful man at home?

HAVE MERCY.

So needless to say, I think I’m going to have to be very clear with marketers from now on that I won’t mention the product they’re promoting unless I really, really like it. Because the fact of the matter is that the Southern girl in me does not like to say negative things about specific products unless it is something that I’ve paid for (like, for instance, OUR CABLE SERVICE).

However, recently I received a product that I have really enjoyed: the Dove SkinVitalizer.

I have tried just about every exfoliating / cleansing product that you can buy on the Walmart health and beauty aisle, and this one is the best, hands-down.

Using this product is so easy. The cleansing pillows are disposable, so you don’t even have to clean up afterwards…just toss the little pillow in the trash, and you’re all done (please don’t lecture me, environmentalists - I am just a girl who wants pretty skin, and occasionally the pursuit of pretty skin requires that you use a two inch by two inch piece of cotton that cannot be recycled, for which I am deeply sorry).

This product is also great for traveling because you don’t have to worry about bottles of cleanser leaking into your make-up bag or luggage. The absolute best thing about it is that the cleanser is so gentle and mild that it won’t irritate your skin at all (trust me, as I am the girl with skin so sensitive that it breaks out if I use cinnamon-flavored toothpaste), and the cleansing pillow also exfoliates as it cleans.

In short, I’m a fan. And if you’d like to try this product for yourself, you can get a coupon for $3 off here.

And tomorrow I’ve got an extra-special surprise for y’all…because somebody sent me extra free stuff to share with some of you!

Oh it’s all terribly exciting.

See y’all tomorrow.