Hunkering Down.

There are a few things my family does well.

Cook. If you need an exhibit A, look at me. If you need an Exhibit B, look at all the rest of them. We can cook. We can also play games, watch movies and over analyze everyone and everything. But mainly we can cook. Our King Ranch Chicken is unparalleled and our Spinach Salad is talked about in most society circles. (Don't get the wrong impression, our Spinach Salad sounds healthy and yet is packed with eggs, bacon and fat!)

Circle the wagon. If you are not from the South you may not know what this means. But in a nutshell, if one of us needs help we "circle the wagon." If one of us needs privacy we "circle the wagon." And if one of us needs to let the family in on a little secret that the rest of the 75904 is not privy to then we, you guessed it, "circle the wagon." It means, "if you ain't part of this here wagon train, then mozy on along, cuz this here wagon is for me and my compadres only. We don't let no one else on and none of us is gettin' off."

Hunker Down. Hunkering down is never fun and it doesn't happen very often, but when it does, we mean business. It means we drop what we're doing and go into hiding. Maybe someone in the family is ill, is sad, or is a little of both; then we drop what we're doing, go to their side and together we hunker down.

We're doing a lot of hunkering down right now.

One of us is sick. And many of us are scared.

So we've dropped to our side what doesn't matter; soccer games, homecomings, birthday parties and even work - and together we've hunkered down. Always together. After all, no one should ever have to hunker alone. So my weekend might not look as I had planned it, that's okay. It's time to hunker down with my family. So you may see me on Monday, then again, you may not. I'll hope you'll forgive me, but it's time to hunker. Someone in my family needs me now. And when someone needs us - we're there.

Hmmm...I suppose that's another thing they do really well.