ah, monday....

We went to the tow truck lot to visit the car. We had been shopping before the accident, so we had loot to remove from the trunk. We had to get the jumper cables and the snow brush, and a few water bottles, and some pennies from the cupholders. The car doesn't look as bad as some of them there in that sad lot, but the passenger side window was shattered and the door was buckled. Suzanne could have been hurt much worse.

Kathryn was my accomplice today. We brought Paul to the airport, he is going to Florida for ten days, for work, he says:) We then went to this really fun store called Ollies. We found too much good stuff there. Christmas presents. Every year at church, the youth aged kids buy gifts for the kids, and five of my youth aged kids here at home chose names, so we got a few of those taken care of. I found a science book, a math book, and a general third grade work book for the kids.

We went to the grocery store just for shampoo and conditioner and lightbulbs, but came home with some popcorn, wrapping paper, and sour dough bread.

We stopped for some lunch, Kathryn and I, at Chipotle. We ate in the truck, and chatted...then stopped at the gas station, filled up the truck, and got fountain drinks.

Home, ah home. We dragged in the bags, and wrapped lots of presents. Evelyn is being a sport and letting me keep the gifts in her room until we get the Christmas tree.

The Christmas tree...they are getting it without me this year. I don't mind, but I sort of do. But I cannot be everywhere, and when you have lots of kids, you enjoy who you are with, and what you are doing, and that's that. I will be with Benjamin and Ashley and Anya:). Emily is going to take these guys to choose the tree on Sunday. I leave here on Saturday morning.

This week seems full of little details to take care of. There will be five days where my absence and Paul's work trip overlap, so I am assigning different older kids to each take a night to make dinner. I have to help plan that, and make sure we have what they need. I have the minivan in the shop, another car that needs to be inspected, and then there is the crashed Sentra, which we don't know about yet. I am guessing it is totaled. I am thinking of calling a dermatologist for Suzanne's face, and have an appointment on Thursday for a vision test for her, her glasses broke during the accident. I need to plan school for kids for all of next week (I will be gone from Saturday until late Friday night). I cancelled a dentist appointment we had for today.


And, I have lots of online shopping orders arriving here each day. I, um, accidentally...um, ordered the same order like 8 times from Target. Okay, so I had trouble placing the order, a glitch in the matrix or something. It was on Thanksgiving evening, I took a break and put my feet up, and went on Target.com. And, after I put the sale items in my cart and tried to check out, it would say ERROR, and ask for my PIN # again. So I repeated it a few times. Okay, like six. I finally went on my phone and placed the order. And when I started getting emails stating, Your Target Order Has Shipped!, I thought, "those idiots keep sending me the same email." Yup, Head In The Clouds, that's my Indian name. Sorry, Native American name.

So, I am getting Psych Season 8 like...8 times! And guess what? Abigail already has it. Looks like I am going to be at the return counter pretty soon. And believe me, that's not the only thing I ordered each time. Our account...oh dear, it is a debit card, so ouch.

Fun times, fun times.

I can't complain though. I ordered myself new boots from Kohl's last week, they were less than twenty bucks. I have a pair of ugly warm ones, and this pair of canvas-y like ones, that were getting shabby. My feet are wide, and most shoes hurt them, but these new boots are keepers! It makes me so happy to have something else to put on when I'm going out the door!

Jonathan is home now, he went shopping with Mirielle.

They are all home now, all who live here, except for Paul.

It is the calm before the storm, the quiet of the afternoon, before I start making dinner and they all converge back in the living room and kitchen. We already had a pre-quiet storm, we wrapped presents and had coffee and donut holes (not me though:))...the kids are getting excited about Christmas, and are bouncing off the walls, in general.

But, I can't complain.

The calls from the insurance company, three so far. The deets and the tails, as Mirielle would say.

Have I mentioned how excited I am about going to the west coast? Super. I am slightly terrified by the prospect of navigating the airports alone, but sort of psyched about it too. I will feel so grown up and accomplished when I get home.

The quiet is over. Miss Char is dragging my new suitcase around, mimicking how Mama will pull it. Joseph is having a snack, and washing his own dishes, Evelyn is in here wanting to talk...so bye for now.