... it's been another day of polyurethaning, only to end the day with having accomplished half as much work as I had planned to. Good thing I had anticipated a day like all the others, otherwise the irritation would be acute. ;-)

We had good services yesterday. I think. I was distracted throughout most of the morning service by rotten children, all mine. I don't know what happened! You'd have thought they'd never been to church before--MY CHILDREN, who have been to church at least 3 times a week since the day they were born! Katie was fine, but the boys needed some definite attention--and they got it when we finally made it home. They were MUCH BETTER in service last night. ;-) Sister Bailey talked about winning our incorruptable crown. It was her first WMB service in years and my first WMB service in years to be able to sit and enjoy instead of head up. It was WONDERFUL!!! :-) I'm so excited about her being in that position and about the switch from WMB to VLB for me.

Ah, yes! I took James up on that "you should get a book" statement from a few days ago. I asked Sister Galaviz if I could borrow Book 4 in the O'Malley Series after church yesterday morning. I decided to forego the Sunday afternoon nap I had plenty of time for and devoted the time instead to the new book. :-) After church last night we came home and got the kids put to bed and I dove back into the book. Reading into the wee hours was sooooo much better than polyurethaning into the wee hours. Mom and I stayed up until 3:00 one morning when she was here painting chairs, so I figured that bought me the right to stay up until 1:00 last night to finish the book. It was great, by the way. :-) (Have you made it that far in the series yet, Em? Or have you passed me up already?)

This morning we got up and had breakfast and devotions a little earier than usual. Afterwards I figured I would have time to get another coat of poly on all of the various things I've been working on and finish up in time for school at 11:00. It took a little longer than I expected, but school got rescheduled anyway so it didn't matter. James decided to take the boys to town with him to run errands today, so that left Katie and me with time for a quick girl party! I finished up on the 3rd coat (so far) of poly on the chairs while Kate worked on a few other chores around the house. By the time we were done with all that it was noon, so we had a pizza party and watched a girl movie. :-) I love having the time with just Katie and it happens far less often than I would like. I want to take her to town one of these days, just the two of us, and have some fun. I think it would be great!

James and the boys got home and we put everybody down for "nap time," then started into school at about 4:00. The kids have lots of workbooks, but they also do a lot of loose-leaf stuff like math drills, spelling tests, handwriting pages and things like that. I spent a while going through each kid's binder and organizing all of the things that had been stuffed in with no real order. I realized that their binders are way too small for all the work they do! I'm amazed at how much math they've done the past 2 months.

James decided we should load up and head to Edgewood to get them new binders for their math work, along with a few other things on our list. Of course, we also came home with a few things that weren't on our list. Which brings me to a confession...

I'm caving!!! I've fought so hard--for 8 years now--to keep Christmas celebrating postponed until after Thanksgiving. It's no small task when you're married to James Horne. He'd be whippin' out the jingle bells in August if I let him. But this year I've already given in to several little things. That second "puzzle day" where he listened to Christmas music, and at least one other day since then. And tonight at Wal-Mart he bought me some Christmas pj's. And I LET him! Even (I'm so ashamed)... without a fight. Not only that... but I'm wearing them right now. ~sigh~ It's just wrong, I tell you. I've tried to pinpoint the reasons for my giving in so easily this year. It could have something to do with the fact that I'm in this cozy little log cabin up in the mountains and it's actually been COLD and we've actually had SNOW (if only a little bit) three times. And this after 5 years in west Texas. It just feels like a great place to have Christmas, you know?! The other reason could be that we really got gypped on Christmas last year. We were right in the middle of moving and spent two weeks in December packing up everything and moving into storage. Terrible timing! Felt like we missed out on all of the pre-Christmas fun, you know? So I really am so ready for Christmas this year--not the day so much as the weeks leading up to it. The "feeling" of it, you know? The music and colors and decorations. And pj's, apparently. :-)

SO. Tomorrow is a day like any other. Get up, feed the kids, have devotions, and head for the polyurethane. "Two weeks!" Right, Mom?! That's when we'll be all done. "Two weeks." It doesn't matter when you start or what the project is or how many times it gets postponed or added to, the proper answer for the ending date of it all is always "two weeks." I think I'm getting used to the fumes though. Hhmmm... Can that be a good thing?! ;-)