~sniffle~sniffle~ It just won't end... No matter how much and how hard I work, there is still more work to be done. Especially when you're married to James "whop-ching" Horne. (That was a whip cracking, in case you couldn't make it out.) I told him yesterday that it is sooooo exhausting to "work" for him. There's no such thing as, "Hey, great job on that! Why don't you take a break and treat yourself to a day off." It's always, "Alright! You finally finished up on that? When are you going to do..." Ha! Chop-chop! Of course, since that time he has brought home a vase of beautiful red and yellow roses, helped make lunch (soup & grilled cheese) today and made most of dinner (chicken parmesan) tonight. He also told me I should get a book from Sister Galaviz' "library" tomorrow. He's really a pretty good boss... once you let him know that's what you need! ;-)

Oh, to be a kid again!

I was really hoping to get another coat of poly on the chairs last night, but they never did feel quite dry enough to use the steel wool on. ~sigh~ Same story tonight. I kept thinking they'd be dry enough sitting in there by the fire, but some of them still feel just a little bit tacky. You know what this means, of course. It means that I am perpetually bonded to a can of polyurethane and a foam brush. They will be my constant companions for 2-4 hours a day every day for the rest of my life. There's no such thing as just getting it all done in a day and being THROUGH with it. Noooooo, you have to don the grubby work clothes and walk around with your bucket day after day after day... ~sigh~ I can't imagine I'll have a chance to get a coat on the chairs tomorrow, so that means it'll be at least Tuesday night before I can be DONE with the poly--or at least think I'm done. (Until James reminds me of all the other things that still need poly-ed.) It really hasn't been so bad, I guess. Today I had the kids bring their school books and sit next to me while I worked so I could help them. It helped to distract me a little bit, too, so it didn't seem quite so monotonous.

Since I couldn't put another coat on the chairs tonight I decided to take a nice, hot bath. It was GREAT! I've actually been managing to catch up on a little bit of my reading this week. I'd fallen way behind again, but I finished of the Evening Light and two No Greater Joy magazines, then a Reminisce Extra. Tonight I finished up a Country Woman and made some headway in the latest Country. Wow. That sounds like a LOT of reading! It really wasn't. I was NEARLY done with most of those to begin with! Anyway, I was enjoying my nice, relaxing time in the tub... until this dreadful sound started coming from the bedroom. I couldn't figure out what it was, but it sounded TERRIBLE. It wasn't incredibly loud, but it was whiny and chaotic--and extremely repetitive. I finally had all I could take and started screaming for James. I told him I couldn't take whatever it was anymore and to please MAKE IT STOP. He just laughed, but the racket did stop. I found out later that he had been listening to some of that horrid organ music that he loves so much on YouTube. ~sigh~ What a goon. I'll never understand how he can enjoy such terrible things!!!

That's about it from here. I'm all set and ready to go for Sunday School tomorrow. Apparently next week's goals are the same as this week's: polyurethane everything that isn't walking, breathing, or speaking. We'll see if I can be more successful this go round.

A couple more pictures before I go. Hhmmm. None of Katie this time. Here's Joe enjoying some Hershey time. Hershey goes to sit with Katie or Joe a lot more than he used to. Not Sam, of course. Sam's the reason Hershey finally became "mean" to begin with! Ha!

And here's Sam with the "old woman" he made out of one of his birthday balloons.

Ah, yes. Sam. He was watching the slide show on my computer today when a picture came up of Katie pressing her hands against the glass of a tank at the Tennessee Aquarium a couple of years ago. There was a guy in scuba gear on the inside, pressing his hands against the glass back at her. Sam recognized it as an aquarium and asked if it was a scuba diver in there. I said it was. His shock was anything but mild. "You mean they keep PEOPLE in that tank?!?!?!?" HA!