...a Monday, a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday night... Oh, beware of the scare of the ricky-ticky-bear on a Friday, Saturday night. Who wrote that song, anyway?! It doesn't have any point. Surely we can come up with something better than that as our rhythmic base for clapping games.

It's been an eventful couple of days around here. There are still several more "recovery" jobs to be done since our trip, but I feel great about the ones that we've conquered thus far.

We had quite a storm here in Andrews while we were away, so we hear, and our yard bore the proof of it. There was a rather large tree limb down--across our garden, of all places. Didn't seem to do any real damage, so that's good. The storm had also blown the pool cover off, which was a really, really bad thing. The Blob was full of dirt and leaves and moldy, algae looking slime and all sorts of grossness. It was nasty, smelly pond scum kind of stuff. "Oh, mighty pond scum! Ye are powerful and...scummy." So after devotions yesterday morning the kids and I headed out back for some serious work. While the Blob was draining, I got busy in the garden. I couldn't believe the weeds in there! So I spent the longest time taking care of that, then doing the same in the flower beds out back. By the time I had finished, the pool was pretty much drained, so I drug it to the other part of the yard and managed to drape it over the swing set. I spent the next hour or two spraying and scrubbing all of the nastiness off and out of it. G-ROSS!!! It was truly grotesque.

James was kind enough to provide lunch for the family, since I was cloaked in a mildewy pool with a scrub brush at the time. Sonic! Frito Chili Cheese Wrap (there's just nothin' like it, hu, Sister Tammy?!) and a cherry-limeade with extra cherry flavoring. :-) I finished up on the nasty outside jobs and came inside to find my children doing their school work--without me! They just decided it should be done and got to it. What great kids!

Spent a while cleaning the house after that. Earlier in the day I had been in James' office and mentioned how his fish (he has an aquarium with two oscars in it) seemed to be struggling to breath. Gasping desperately is more like it. Anyway, James came in the house after a while and said he had figured out why: the filter had burned up while we were on our trip! He called around to see if there was any place locally that sells the filter he was needing. Nope. He did NOT feel like going to Odessa, but I insisted. He had two fish who were suffocating out there! That's just wrong!!! So we got everybody cleaned up and headed to town.

We stopped at Schlotzky's for dinner. Yum! Did some major grocery shopping while we were there. We'd really been needing to get down there and do that anyway, so it was nice to kill two birds with one stone while saving two fish. ;-)

Today I got up and went out back for some more slimy work. The pool cover was all nasty and covered in dirt and slime, too, so I spread it out on the grass and took the scrub brush to it. I didn't have time to take care of it yesterday when I was working on the rest, so that means the pool was uncovered last night. Good ole' Tom Tefertiller (you rememeber my pal, Tom) forcasted a big storm for last night with huge winds and--I quote--"Better make sure everything is tied down!" ~sigh~ I don't think the storm was as violent as Tom said it would be, but it was still enough to blow some leaves and a bunch of pretty little pink petals into the pool. Ggrrrrr. So I had Katie scooping them out while I scrubbed the cover. Got it done pretty quickly, so that was nice.

Came inside and got a quick shower, then went to work. At Aunt Sue's store, that is. :-) It's been months and months. December, I think, was the last time I worked a day for her. She wanted me to come work a half day today, so James decided he'd take the whole family out to eat before he dropped me off there. So Main Street Deli was the lunch stop. I had a great time working at the store today. Usually I sort of jinx the place and there are very few costomers and even fewer sales. It was pretty much the same today, but Sue got 10 big boxes of freight in today, so I had WORK to do! The whole time!!! That's a first. It was so great!!! I LOVED IT. It was all fall decor from a really great company and we were able to get 8 of the ten boxes unpacked and priced. By "we" I mean Katie and me. She stayed and worked with me today and she worked as much as I did! She would find the product number, then she would locate it on the invoice, then she would tell me how many there should be of that particular item and what price they were to be marked. I would unpack the stuff and write out the tags, and she would tag them for me. It was terrific!!! What a great little helper! It was so fun to be able to work with Katie--much more fun than if I'd been alone. It was a great mother-daughter day. :-)

James and the boys showed up at 5:00 to pick us up and took us out to eat at Western Grill. Do you know what that means? It means that we ate out TWICE yesterday and TWICE today!!! I AM SOOOOOOOOOOOO ASHAMED!!! I'm sure that has NEVER, EVER happened before except on trips. That's just wrong!!! ~sigh~ I'm going to have to get my priorities straight and learn to put family dinner in front of pond scum. I'll start tomorrow. :-)

Came home after dinner, gave the kids their baths and cleaned out the pantry. It was really bad. I need to clean out the fridge one of these days, too. And I'm hoping to scrub the kitchen floor in the next day or two. Then it'll be time to start in on the laundry and ironing again. Don't you just love the endless cycle of housework?!

Before I go, I just have to share this... SAM & TAMMY ARE GETTING A DOG!!! Can you believe it?! Sam LOVES dogs. Tammy HATES dogs. They've been married 4 years (as of tomorrow) and have never had one, but Tammy is finally willing to give in. IF Sam signs the contract! It's not actually written up yet, but it should contain lots of interesting commitments for Sam to agree to. :-) Sam's family always had basset hounds and there just happens to be one at the pound that captured Sam's heart yesterday. This whole situation is already hilarious. Just to listen to Tammy talk about it is great. You would think that they are preparing for the huge life changes that occur when somebody has their first baby! In fact--this is sooooooooo funny!!!--I asked Tammy tonight if they had a name picked out for the dog. You know what she said?!?!? "Well, if it's a boy..." HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! I cracked up!!! Just as if she's going to have a baby of unknown gender! "If it's a boy, we like... but if it's a girl, we're thinking about..." They don't even know if the dog Sam loves is male or female, but it's looking like it's going to be either Archie or Molly. I'll be sure to keep you posted!

Well, it's nigh unto midnight and I'm trying real hard to make a habit of being in bed by then. I'd better run! G'night!!!

~Becki~