Not hardly!!! Actually, it started off normal enough. I woke up a little bit earlier than usual, which was wonderful. I've been stuck in this terrible rut of being wide awake until 2:00am or so each night (!!!) and then I'm sooooooo exhausted when the kids wake up early the next day. Anyway, it was great to finally wake up feeling good and energized. So energized, in fact, that while the kids were eating breakfast I decided to do some serious cleaning in the bathroom. I emptied everything out of the shower and spent a while giving the walls and tub a good scrubbing, then the toilet, then I emptied out the medicine chest (don't worry, that's just a token name for it around here! ;-) Ha!) and got everything cleaned up and in it's rightful place once more.

That's as far as I got before I decided to stop and have devotions with the kids. Then we were able to get all of their school done before lunch time. Made grilled tuna sandwiches and ramen noodles. It was great! :-) After lunch we had the kids clean the house, then threw them into that blob of a pool we've got out back. James and I were discussing it's problems and taking note that it's shape continues to change and it seems to be getting more and more oblong and the bulge is growing... it may make it all the way to the fence by the end of the week! We're afraid it's putting way too much pressure where there wasn't intended to be so much and our only real option is to empty the thing out and move it to more level ground. But the level ground happens to be right by the fence. But we can't put anything right by the fence because we haven't had a chance to paint the fence yet. That's when it occurred to James: "Let's paint it, then!!!" See, we've been waiting for a nice day with no rain (we've been under constant thunderstorm or tornado watches for weeks now) and no wind--very hard to come by days like that in West Texas. But today it was nice and sunshiny and there was only a very small breeze. And amazingly enough, it wasn't unbearably hot today. Perfect!!!

So we drug the paint sprayer out of the shed. Problem. There's no spray nozzle and no instruction manual. Where could they be?!?!? I spent the next hour (very possibly more) cleaning out the shed (it was in desperate need of it anyway), then cleaning out every closet where we've ever kept paint stuff. (As much painting as we've done around here, we've used several closets!) I was just about to snap when the nozzle and manual just kind of dropped out of nowhere into my lap and it was really rather frustrating that I hadn't found it right away. ANYWAY, by this time it was about 2:30 in the afternoon. We got the thing put together and started to work! We sprayed a second coat of cream paint on James office (we'd done the first coat last year), then switched to brown for the fence. I ran to the hardware store and picked up some red (burgundy, really) so we could paint the doors and shed. We got it all done!!!! It feels sooooooo good!!! Of course, when I say "all done," I don't really mean all done. You're never all done when it comes to painting. I've learned that quite well. I've probably got a full day's worth of brush work to do tomorrow to trim everything out. But then maybe, just maybe, we'll really and truly be done. You think?! Nah, me either.

So the kids. We left 'em in the pool pretty much all day. They'd shrivelled up until they could shrivel no more and we finally took them out for "nap time." We went back to painting, then came and got them up after a while and threw them back in the pool again! Joe looks a little red, but not really burnt. Katie and Sam have a darker complexion to begin with and I figure they'll look like regular beach bums by the end of the summer! The kids had been neglected all throughout the afternoon, but they didn't seem to notice. They love our retarded pool. But at about 6:00 I called Tammy and asked if she could come over and keep an eye on them for a little while so we could finish up. She, being the wonderful, marvellous, amazing friend that she is, said yes. :-) She came and pulled our wrinkly kids out of the pool, fixed some pizzas for them, and let them sit in the den and watch Paladin while she cleaned up my atrociously filthy kitchen. There were pots and pans and dirty dishes all over the place--I hadn't even had a chance to clear the dishes from lunch time! I was so embarrassed. But I must tell you, they just don't make friends any better than Tammy. Not in all the world. She's the greatest. :-)

When we finished painting I sat down to enjoy my own pizza and visit with Tammy for a little while. We put the kids down and she stayed until about 9:00. Then I went out to clean up some of the paint mess in the backyard and James decided to enjoy a nice, cool soak in the pool. I tried to take a picture of him, but the batteries in the camera died. It's probably a sign. I know I shouldn't put pictures of such things on my blog, but it sure would have been tempting. He was wearing a t-shirt and his pajama bottoms and was completely submerged in the water up to his neck. He had that green floaty ring around his neck and all you could see was his head peeking through the middle of it--and he had the big floaty stick things sticking up out of the water, spinning them around and around like crazy legs or misplaced antennas or something--all the while saying, "TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER!" Ha! It was great!!! I got my mess cleaned up and found my old rainbow striped bloomers (thanks, Mom!) and joined James in the pool. It felt soooooooo good!!! My Mom (and others, I'm sure) will freak out about this, but we even grabbed the dog and pulled him in with us! I generally wouldn't do such a thing, but we're going to be emptying the pool out tomorrow anyway, so why not?! It was hilarious!!! It had been driving Hershey nuts that we were outside, but he couldn't get to us. I finally pulled him into the pool and let him go. It was his first time in water (aside from a bath) and he wasn't too crazy about it. I thought I read somewhere that the name "poodle" actually came from the word "puddle" because they used to be used as bird dogs and they loved the water. Not Hershey Dog. He literally moaned the whole time he was swimming laps! I grabbed some shampoo and scrubbed him up real good (remember--we're getting fresh water tomorrow!) and he wasn't too crazy about that either, but he really needed it.

Came inside, showered up, and now I think I'm going to go finish cleaning that half-cleaned bathroom that I started on this morning. I didn't get anything done that I planned on doing today, but I got a whole lot done that I never would've expected! And it feels sooooooo good. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow night if I get everything finished out there. Everything is looking so nice and fresh and clean! I love it. :-) Especially the red shed. It looks so happy! And I have a feeling we'll be calling it the barn instead of the shed from here on out. ;-)

AND--this should have been the first thing I wrote about, it's so exciting!!! My cousin Stacey's husband, Albert, came to church yesterday!!! WOW!!! Those of you who know the situation know what a huge miracle that is. We were soooooooooo thrilled. We all went out to eat together after service and he seemed to enjoy both the service and the fellowship. We're praying that he'll be back again and again! He's even talking about going to Family Camp, so pleeeeeeeeeeease pray that God will work it out and put it in Albert's heart to follow through. His salvation would be the most transforming thing imaginable in our local church--it would be an unbelievable blessing!!!

Also, we are looking into changing our service location and are really needing God's wisdom to know what to do. We've got a couple of possibilites, but we want to be sure and find the one that God has for us. I'll keep you posted.

Guess that's it from here. I've got another half of a bathroom to clean, so I'd best get going. I hope I'm as energetic tomorrow as I was today! I'd love to have a few really crazily productive, hard working days, then reward myself with a nice relaxing do-nothing-but-enjoy-the-fruit-of-my-labors kind of day. ;-) G'night!!!

~Becki~