another day and I am still alive and well

But I am tired!!! I went to bed at a decent time last night like a good girl.....even fell asleep somewhat quickly, then I heard Rosie bark....once...twice...I came out here to see what was wrong with her....Aaron and Mali were sitting on the kitchen floor talking and playing with her. It was midnight. Emily and Mirielle were on the computer trying to figure out where they are going to go this summer, the four of them and maybe Abigail or Sam....Maine, or North Carolina, or Chesapeake Bay.....they are so funny.

I got Aaron to take the dog out one last time for me, and I rested on the couch for a few minutes. Benjamin was playing video games, and listening to the five of them talk and fool around was more than heart-warming. I simply wasn't tired anymore, and didn't want to go back to bed and toss and turn. So I stayed up and talked to Emily and Mirielleand Benjamin after the other two went to bed. For Emily, it is daytime. And it was Mirielle's very last day of finals for the semester, so they COULD stay up. We solved all the world's problems, and I got in bed at two thirty. ugh, I woke up at 6:58, and I was sorely tempted to just roll over and go back to sleep and forget all about school this morning.

So we ate the chicken nuggets last night, with some nice salad and carrots and celery and dip, and pop fresh biscuits. Then we sang the birthday song to Joseph with some candles, mostly because Camille absolutely delights in it!

The older kids were pretty thankful when Benjamin came in from work with a pizza! Needless to say, it was history pretty quickly.

It was so nice to have some time to visit with Emily without the little kids monopolizing her! Oh, they love her so much. She never tells me details or names or specifics, she is very careful about that, but sometimes she tells me about general situation in her life as a nurse on the critical care floor....the other night, two people died on her shift. They were a man and a woman, with eerily similar deaths as my parents.....the man was dying and was extubated and lived for a while....and the woman was in end stage renal failure...I know Em has to talk about things sometimes, it must be rough on the soul to deal with death like that. And like I said, she doesn't give me details, so she isn't violating any government privacy laws, or any moral standards either.

Abigail is enjoying her new accounting job downtown. She is doing what she loves, and getting paid to do it.

We are having company for dinner tonight, a friend visiting from Norway, and another friend from Ottowa. Then after dinner, our home is open for fellowship. We have no idea how many people will come, hopefully not like 40.....We are planning to move the dog cage out for the evening, and move things around to fit chairs in. I want to get to cleaning out under the couches, because it has happened before that we have ended up moving things around to fit more people, and ugh, tissues and matchboxes and embarrassment.....it is so much fun though, and our little kids love it. They usually sit around on the floor or at the kitchen table, or snuggle up on some laps, and listen.

So things I want to do today....

1. Wash my long tangly hair.

2. Wash and dry the couch covers.

3. Move the furniture and clean under it.

4. Mop the kitchen and living room floors.

5. Vacuum the stairs and downstairs hallway.

6. Straighten the bookcases...why do our kids always put the books back horizontally?

7. Close the laundry room door. Ha, that sounds simple.....but first I have to pick up the dirty clothes that are perpetually in the doorway....it is probably completely redundant to close the door anyway, because it is inevitable that one of the kids will need something out of there when everyone is here, and go in there and turn on the light...probably when there is a big silence or something.

8. Clean up the bathrooms.

9. Shine up the faucets and behind the kitchen sink, where the hard water makes it look yucky.

10. Try to clean up the window sills and the wood window frames.....they are defective, and moldy and no matter what we do, the blackness comes right back...the only solution is new windows, ha.

11. Finish all the chocolate cake so the crumbs stop getting all over the floor. I already had a piece for breakfast, so I am doing my part.

12. Give Rosie a bath and brush her.

13. Take a huge nap.

14. Make the burgers, cut up fresh fruit...

15. Get more propane for the grill.

So far, only numbers one, eleven, and thirteen are looking likely.....