I added a blog list!!! I wasn't ever going to do that, but I've seen it on a couple of other blogs lately and I just can't pass up that nifty little feature that actually tells you how recently so-and-so posted something. It means I can go to my very own blog, take one glace and know immediately who the good bloggers are and the bad bloggers! The best blogger (at least for the moment) gets to be at the very top of the list!!! How cool is that?! No more clicking on 15 different blog addresses--I can go to my own blog and know whether you've done anything new or not. Sooooo cool. :-)

But... one of the reasons I've never had a blog list before is the worry that somebody might be offended that they're not on it! Ha! Silly, I know, but it can happen. So, please... if you're a blogger out there somewhere and you didn't make it to my list, it doesn't necessary mean that I don't like you or your blog. It might mean that I'm a dope and just forgot! (Libby, in your case it means that it just wouldn't LET me add your blog! Weird.) The only other reason would be that I had to pare things down a little bit. A mom of three can't spend four hours a day looking through blogs, you know! So I added the blogs that I try to check the most often, either because the people are very close friends of mine, cousins I adore (you know who you are!), people who's writings I especially enjoy... or just people who blog a lot and give me something new to read. ;-) Rest assured, not being on the list doesn't mean I don't come to check on you and your life every now and again. :-)

Today was not exactly the day I had planned on having, but it was extremely productive! As for the new school schedule, Em, I'll have to get back with you once we've actually given it a trial run--we didn't have school today! Ha! We had an accidental trial run on Wednesday, I guess, and it was GREAT, but I want to give it a few more days before I adopt it permanantly. I'll let you know how it goes!

I told James I would help him this morning, then do school with the kids this afternoon. HA. School didn't have a chance. Today was the big clean-out-the-den-and-the-boys'-room day. The catch is... the den and the boys' room is actually a garage. (We'll be finishing it out and turning it INTO a den and bedroom for the boys.) More accurately, it was a garage that was overflowing with stacks and piles of junk and stuff and books and boxes and Granddad's wood and other miscellanious furniture. It's all of the things that never got "moved in" because there's no place to move them. So really the garage has been serving as a storage shed. A really, really catastrophic storage shed. I've climbed up and over and around the boxes--and rummaged through most all of them--looking for things at one point or another, so it was TRASHED out there. Can't very well remodel a garage in that condition now can you?

We worked and worked and worked. It took until mid-afternoon to get all of that stuff sorted through and moved into James' office. (Remember I said that it wouldn't be an office for quite a while?! Now IT'S going to be the storage area until we get the garage finished.) The only things we left in the garage were the couch and a couple of pieces of furniture against one wall and some bookshelves piled high with all of the tools and paint supplies we'll be needing on another. It's AMAZING how all the junk in that 19'x25' room that you could barely walk through all fit into James' little 10'x12' office! Quite nicely, I might add. We're hoping to have the garage all done in the very near future... but we left the bags of Christmas cards within easy access just in case! Ha!

The kids helped a lot, hauling things in their wagon and the wheelbarrow. They worked good and hard, so we'll call it a whole day of P.E. ;-) Actually, this afternoon when all the work was done I told them to just go play. Next thing I knew they had instituted some sort of a "learning club" (I can't remember the cheesy name they came up with for it). Katie was the manager (naturally) and had made up some math pages that Joe had completed and they were on their way to study up on frogs and lizards and write reports about them. It's sooooo perfect! The kids had school, but I got the day off from it! Wa-Hoo! :-)

And that's our day, in a nutshell. James made Frito Pie for lunch today (I was still sorting in the garage) and then, while I was working on a model of our soon-to-be new rooms (!), he made an enchilada casserole for himself and trays with Spaghetti-o's, chips, chunks of watermelon and mint for each kid--and a cup of apple juice. WOWZERS!!! He's been working really, really hard to be a fantastic husband and dad lately. What a great guy!!!

Ah yes, my model. Diagram is really more like it. Once we got the garage emptied out enough that I could see it again instead of just the junk in it (!), the wheels started turning and I couldn't stop trying out all of the possibilities in my head. I measured everything and drew up a scale diagram, then measured the pieces of furniture that I know we'll be using in the room. Gotta make sure you put the wall and door in the proper place to accomodate everything, you know?! It took a long, long time and at least 10 different combinations of couch here, fireplace there, chair over there stuff, but when I finally landed on "IT," I knew it. :-) I AM SO EXCITED!!! ~sigh~ It's going to be so great. Someday, someday. For now my happy little diagram will tide me over. :-)