It seems like I just blogged but, lo and behold, it's been four days! How did that happen?! I used to be such a good blogger. Can't figure out what happened to me. I really have no business blogging tonight, but I know I won't get a chance tomorrow and possibly (probably) not Saturday either. So here I am.

Monday. Hhmmm. The only thing I remember about Monday is staying up until 2:00am (I guess that would technically make it Tuesday) doing all of the laundry and ironing. In a weird kind of a way, I almost enjoy those nights.

Tuesday we loaded up the fam and headed to Odessa to see the kids' hair stylist. Aunt Stacey, that is. Got all three of them fixed up and looking good, then had a nice lunch with Stacey before having the biggest shopping day we've had in a long, long time. We went to Christopher & Banks for the first time in ages. I loved everything in the store, but am not willing to pay the prices. I always wait until stuff hits the clearance rack and even then I'll wait until they drop the price some more. By that time they're all sold out of my size. James did talk me into one denim skirt. Love it. A girl can't have too much denim.

We stopped by Kohl's and I oohed and aahed over some stuff there, too. I don't think I've ever bought clothes for myself at Kohl's--except for a few years ago when they used to carry those amazingly cute sweaters with snowmen all over them and stuff like that. Anyway, I fell in love with a brown plaid skirt and took the "buy one get one free" bait. Coupled it with a shirt for Katie. I took that same bait on my pj's for Ladies' Retreat. Our theme this year is "Rest in the Lord" and we'll be having a pajama party to go along with it. Is that great, or what?! I have been looking for some really great pj's (it's so great to have an excuse to buy new ones! Ha!) and I finally found the perfect thing. I'm so excited!!! I wore them that night, folded them, and will now make myself wait until Retreat to wear them again. I was just too excited to not wear them that first night. I'm convinced that a girl sleeps better when she looks cute. :-)

We also stopped by Barnes & Noble and James decided to splurge and let each kid pick a book from the bargain table. Joe is now the proud new owner of a hardback edition of The Invincible Calvin & Hobbes collection. I don't think he was aware that there were any more Calvin books in existance beyond the one he already had and he is in hog heaven. The book has been glued to his lap for the past two days. Every time I walk past him he's giggling and saying, "Hey, Mom--come read this one!" Ha! I love it! Katie, following Joe's comic strip fetish, picked out a Garfield book. I tried desperately to persuade him otherwise, but Sam insisted on a great big, heavily illustrated book entitled Creepy Creatures. ~sigh~ All about spiders and snakes and lizards. Sooooo Sam!

We've been doing much better with school this week and it feels so good. Joe has now completed two subjects and now has only Reading Comprehension, Spelling and Math left in his book. He's pretty excited about that. Well, as excited as is possible when school is involved!

Stacey took me out to dinner for my birthday yesterday. My birthday was in July, but this is the first chance we've had to pull it off! It was so nice to be able to spend some time with her--I enjoy that so much and it happens so very rarely--but she's having a really, really hard time right now. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE pray for her 15 year old daughter Brianna. There's not enough space in Blogland to tell the story, but that girl is in such desperate need of God. It's hard to imagine things getting any worse, yet they're doomed to somehow unless God intervenes with a whole slew of miracles. Bri just needs GOD.

The best part about my dinner with Stacey is that I got to go to town. All by myself!!! ~gasp!~ It was sooooooooo wonderful!!! I left home at about 4:00 and drove to Midland so I could go to Mardel. Got what I needed there, then did a little shopping around town before heading over to Odessa. Went to Hobby Lobby and picked up some fall-ish ribbon for the bake sale (50% off this week--perfect!) and a set of clear stamps ($13.99 marked down to $3.01--even if I never use 'em, how can you pass that up?! Ha!). Then it was to Red Lobster with Stacey. Fiesta lobster rolls. Yum. I think we were there for about an hour and a half, then I headed to Sears to pick up my boots. I had spent some time online earlier in the day shopping around and searching for which stores had which boots and which prices, etc. I've been wanting new boots for years now. I bought a pair for $12 or something about 6 years ago and have really been wanting a new pair for at least a year or two. I finally decided it was time. So I pulled out my "stash" and headed to Sears. I can't believe the boots I bought. They're tall and brown (what I was wanting)... but the heel is the biggest I've worn in years!!! EVERYTHING this year is sooooo tall! You know what I don't get? They've got all of these casual/dress boots this year with super, super high (like 6" high!) SPIKE heels! Like anybody can even walk in that?! And why would you WANT to?! What's the point of a BOOT if it's so completely impractical as to have a pointy 6" spike heel on it?! They're just stupid. Anyway, I found a non-spikey heel, so I was willing to settle for a higher one than I would have liked--though no where near 6", thank goodness. It might actually be kind of fun to "dress it up" a bit. In a non-spikey kind of a way. ;-)

Had a good day with the kids today and school was relatively painless. That's a plus. One of the ladies at the nursing home we sing at (she's the one who brings some little gift for the kids every time we come) just lost her husband a couple of days ago, so the kids made cards for her and we went down to see her this afternoon. Then we had Quarterly Conferance and Communion and Feetwashing service tonight. That was nice. Sam & Tammy and Sara came over for dinner afterwards. Weird. This is the second time we've done this late-dinner-after-church thing. It seems to work well! We had a good time, but it took away from our real work time! We've got a Bake Sale coming up on Saturday and I was going to make popcorn balls and Rice Krispy treats tonight here at my house and Tammy was going to make macadamia nut cookies at hers. Oh well. Guess we'll do it tomorrow with all the other stuff! She got her banana bread made today and I made my poppyseed bread--and Aunt Sue made all the fudge. At least that gives us a little bit of a headstart for tomorrow.

Ah, yes. Tomorrow. We've got a house showing at 9:00. Of all days! They could come ANY day, but they wait until the day we're going to have the kitchen all torn up to come! Ha! Oh well, we'll take whatever we can get. So in the morning I need to finish vacuuming, mop the floor real quick, wipe down the bathrooms, and get the kids together and out the door by 9:00. No problem. We'll just wait and start our Bake Sale projects afterwards.

Okay, I'd best get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long, exhausting day! But it'll be fun, too. Always is. :-)

~Rebekah~