That's me. I have been sooooo wiped out this week. Just can't seem to pull myself together and get anything done, and the past few days I've been feeling pretty "puny," too, as my Grandmother would've said. Just weak and tired, sore throat and stuffy head. No actual sickness, just a severe case of the blahs. All I can figure is it's the aftermath of all the excitement of company-convention-more company. It all seems so pitiful. How could such things affect me so much?! I mean, it's not like I was doing anything strenuous! Just sitting up talking, playing games, laughing, teasing, taunting... The only real work I did was meal prep--once a day! Ha! Mom says it's because I never truly relax when people are around. (I might miss something, you know!) That's pretty pitiful, but I can only assume she's right! ANYWAY, that's the excuse I'm claiming for having not concluding my series of blogs. At the moment, blogging sounds better than doing the laundry I've been trying to get done for four days now (I'm averaging about a load a day... talk about pitiful!) or anything else constructive, so here I am!

Let's see... where was I? I think I left off with the trampoline pictures from last Sunday. ~sigh~ What great fun it was. :-) After the jumping party ended the folks started to load up one car at a time and drive away. It would have been depressing except I knew that some of them were scheduled to stay for at least a few more days. :-)

So the Smith's moved out and the Hays moved in. And, of course, we still had Brother Tim with us that night. James whipped out the projector and made everybody sit down and watch "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium." I can't decide what I think of that movie. There are some really fantastic one-liners in it, but the movie itself seems to drone on... and then drop off abruptly right at the end, leaving you thinking, "What?! No way--that's the end?!" I hate movies like that. Anyway, James thought the kids would enjoy it. When the movie ended and we put the kids to bed all of us adults sat down and played a rousing game of I Buy. I think it got a little late for Tim--he was acting rather tipsy by the end of the game. If I hadn't made the punch myself I would have wondered if it had been spiked. Ha! No, it was fun, but we were all wiped out by the time it was over.

The next morning James took Brother Tim to the airport while the rest of us slept in a bit. I got up long enough to say goodbye, but headed right back to bed when they walked out the door! Monday was the day we did lots of planning. We had a whole slew of electrical jobs lined out for Brother Dustin (he's a master electrician, so he says--though I was demanding to see his credentials by the end of the week. I'm still thinking about calling whoever gave him a license and having a serious talk with them... Ha!), so we basically spent the morning walking around the house, exploring all of the options, and watching Brother Dustin make a list of everything he would need to make us happy. The guys finally left for town and spent a good, oh, 6 or 8 hours shopping. That's what it seemed like, anyway! It was really a pretty slow day. We were all tired from Convention and having a hard time working up any gusto to accomplish much. I did manage to plan some meals and get a grocery list together.

Jamey and I loaded up all the kids in the afternoon and drove out to Wal-Mart in Edgewood to do some grocery shopping. We came home and threw some chicken in the oven for dinner. I think we at at 7-something that night. A little later than I had fed them the night before... which was way past regular dinner time! ~sigh~ I'm such a terrible hostess. Oh well. The chicken was good and I'm sure we appreciated it more than if we'd eaten at 5:00. Right??? :-)

That night we played a couple of games of Pictionary, Dustin & Jamey vs. James & Becki. We won the first game handily and were about to put it away until Brother Dustin started making lame excuses for their loss. I, of course, couldn't let it go at that, so Game 2 began immediately. This time we used the extra die--the one that tells you to draw with your "off" hand, with your eyes closed, using one continuous line without picking up your pencil, and so on. We won again. :-) And we discovered it was really much more fun playing with the wacky rules anyway. Especially when you win. Again. ;-)

Rats. I had every intention of making this one, great, glorious, long-winded post all about our week last week. I started writing this during nap-time today. Then James came home and sat down next to me. Don't know what it is, but I can't write with somebody sitting next to me. My brain totally freezes up unless I feel like I've got some privacy. Weird. Anyway, after a little while he said, "Why don't we load everybody up and go to Albuquerque to take care of some business?" I said, "Be...cause...I hate Albuquerque???" I guess that wasn't a good enough reason. We left at 5:00 and just now got home--at 10:00. I hate nights like that! But we did get a lot accomplished. Namely...

We went to the Cottonwood mall for the first time since we moved into this house 3 months ago. I haven't been to the Christopher & Banks up there for longer than that, so it was exciting all over again. So exciting that I walked out with two shirts and a sweater! They've got a ton of stuff on sale right now. :-) Our bigger reason for going to the mall, however, was... (insert drum roll here)... to get CELL PHONES!!! Can you believe it?! James & Rebekah Horne now have real, true-blue cell phones! Whoa!!! I'm still in shock. We've had that tempermental little TracFone for a few years now and just kept buying more time for it, but it was so unreliable that it was definitely time to do something different. With James being an Overseer and all, I think I finally convinced him that he needed a real phone so that people feel like he's available all the time and they don't have to wonder if the phone is on or if it's going to decide to work that day or not, or if will give us our messages that day, and so on. James still isn't very happy about it (he HATES cell phones), but he finally gave in. And I got a phone, to boot! I never counted on that one, but it's pretty exciting. I think. If I'll ever use it! Ha! Anyway, that's our big news of the night. We are now official cell phone owners. (I know a lot of you punk kids out there are DYING right now to think we've lived this long without them, but it IS possible to live--even happily--without them. Now you know. Still...I'm excited to have one! Feels like a new toy.) ;-)

We also went to Lowe's to get some more supplies for the kitchen project, but they didn't have what we needed. So we bought other stuff instead. There's always SOMETHING you need there, you know?! Now if only I can pull myself out of this slump and find some motivation, maybe we'll start getting some more things accomplished. I'd LOVE to get some things done between now and Regional Convention next month. I guess we'll have to wait and see how things go. Anyway...

I'll continue my story next time. I'm shot and gonna call it a night. ~sigh~ By the time I get a chance to write about last week I will have forgotten all of the great stuff I was going to say. I'm sure I'll remember the very most exciting event of the week though... no matter how desperately Brother Dustin may wish that I would forget it. ;-)

G'night!

~Bec~