...again!

Oh, well. I still do far better than my sister-in-law. :-) (I know, I know--you've got good excuses, Em. It doesn't mean any of us have to LIKE it though!)

Where did I leave off last time? Tuesday, I believe. Tuesday was kind of a crazy day. I keep having this plan and it keeps not working out. It goes like this: get up, feed the fam, clean the kitchen, make sure everybody's dressed, beds are made, rooms are cleaned, have devotions, then get into our school schedule. We always make it pretty well through the devotions part, but when we hit school time it all starts to fall apart! Tuesday was no exception.

We started into school, but then had to call a very long recess so I could make a host of phone calls for James. I can't remember what they were all about. Service times and locations for our local members, campground arrangements for Ladies' Retreat and other stuff I can't recall at the moment. I know that I was heavily burdened that day and spent a whole lot of time praying. There were some "family things" that were going to take place that night and I was just sooooo pleading with God to have His way! I know that He helped in the situation and I feel like He's going to keep working things out, a little at a time. :-)

We finally ended up doing most of our schooling in the afternoon that day. The kids spent most of the morning outside playing, so that made them happy.

We had BTI service that night at one of our church members' home. We had a good Bible Study, but I had a hard time not being distracted by the nearby bookshelves throughout the service. It was almost like being at a Christian bookstore! There were shelves upon shelves upon shelves of Christian books, including a whole slew of fiction books. She had the entire O'Malley series by Dee Henderson. I had read the prequel a few years ago and was sooooo sucked in that I totally neglected my kids and became a bit irritable (or nearly violent--it depends on your definitions) if they dared to interrupt. Bad, bad, bad mom!!! But it was sooooo intense! Sometime after that (a year or two later) I allowed myself to read Book One of the series, but no more. By now you've guessed that I came home from church on Tuesday with Book Two. I couldn't help it! I was good though and only read the first half of it that night. I made myself go to bed shortly after midnight so I wouldn't be totally crabby with my poor, unsuspecting kids the next day. :-) I was quite proud of me.

Wednesday started out well enough and we even made it into the school part of our day without a hitch. That was nice!!! I did a few loads of laundry that morning. Strangely, an item or two of fall decor appeared around the house that day. James had agreed to hold of on decorating until September 1st and that meant we were already 2 or 3 days late! So I hauled the couple of fall bins into the house and did some decorating. Things look so great in this house! I've known that it was going to be much, much easier (and more fun!) to decorate this house for the the holidays than it was the last house, so it's kind of exciting!

I put the kids down for a nap at 2:00 and I grabbed my book. :-) The kids got up and went out to play at 3:00. I finished my book at 5:00. Very good boook, but I was disappointed that the ending was rather predictable. I like for things to take me totally off guard--especially if they're suspenseful--but still, it was great fun to read a good book. :-)

The kids showered up after their long, sweaty day of playing outside, then we had a late meatloaf dinner. I baked chocolate chip cookies while James put The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again on for the kids to watch before bed. I don't remember ever seeing that one, but it was great! The kids loved it. I even got all caught up on the ironing while we watched. Wa-Hoo! All in all, I managed the book thing pretty well, I thought. I got decent sleep instead of staying up until 3:00am to read it all in one sweep, and I managed school, decorating the house, some laundry, a hot dinner and cookies AND all of the ironing the next day. Maybe I can squeeze in a book a week like this! HA! I don't think James would ever allow such a thing. He told me that I was allowed to bring ONE BOOK home with me, NOT the entire series. As if he doesn't trust me to manage my time well or something. How unfair a judgment is that?! ;-)

Yesterday morning we had some differernt guys come give us an estimate for installing our kitchen floor. The "I Dream of Jeannie" Guy was GREAT and his estimate was fantastic--and there's no doubt he would do a beautiful job... but he can't get to it for a month! We were really wanting to get that project taken care of, so we thought we'd get somebody else to give us a price who might be able to get it done this next week or something. It made me very, very, very nervous the way this guy oohed and aahed over my house. He loved the wallpaper and then he just about went nutty over the kitchen cabinets--went on and on about what a great job we did painting them and how professional they look. Now, I love my house and I love the things we've done to it. But I would never dare to say that ANYTHING we do looks professional and it freaks me out a little bit to have a "professional" come to our house and ooh and ahh like that, you know?! Really makes me wonder about the quality of HIS work! I was really scared there for a while, but felt much better once we got his estimate. This mountain dude who thought OUR craftsmanship was amazing priced the job 5 TIMES HIGHER than the Jeannie Guy who's floored mansions! That settled that. We'll wait a month for the REAL professional. :-)

I had grand and glorious plans to accomplish much last night, but it wasn't to be. My cousin Stacey called and we talked for 2 hours. I didn't get anything done, but I'm sooooo glad she called. We're really bad about keeping in touch, so it's really great when I do have a chance to catch up on what's going on in the family and how she's doing. If she would call more often we wouldn't have to talk so long when she does call. (Okay, Stacey?!) Of course, I could call her sometime... I'm soooooooo bad about that!

Today was another start-into-school-only-to-have-it-foiled day. (Are you starting to understand why Saturday school is necessary around here?!) We had a minor emergency arise that was going to force us to take a trip into Albuquerque. We got all dressed up and ready to go, and as we were walking out the door we found out the problem had already been resolved! But James said we'd go ahead and go since we'd gone to all the work to get ready.

We ended up going to Lowe's and Home Depot to look at wallpaper books and tile. I have GOT to make up my mind about what we're going to do in that guest bathroom!!! We found a few things we liked and I came home with a plan... only to go stare at the bathroom for a while and discover that this plan won't work either. Just like all the others I've come up with. I'm beginning to hate that room. It just doesn't want to work!!! Nonetheless, we're going to do SOMETHING with it real soon, grand or not. Even if it's not fantastic like I would like, it'll still feel better to have it fresh and clean.

Sam & I have been feeling rather blah the past day or two and just keep sniffling and sneezing and scratching our itchy eyes. I'm beginning to think it must have something to do with the weather or some weed that's blooming or someting. Does that cause problems like this? Weeds? And do weeds bloom? In any case, something's going on out there that's affecting us. I'm tired of the sniffling and the itchy eyes but I've always liked to sneeze, so that part is cool. I haven't heard Sam sneeze, but he keeps rubbing his eyes until they're big and puffy and miserable looking. Of course, you rarely see his eyes since he's almost always hidden in a costume of some sort. I've taken these pictures this week.

The eye holes are a little difficult to manage, so he prefers this.

And the glasses he made for himself today. They're so narrow not even one eye can look through them! Ha!

That's it from here! Have a great weekend!!!