friday again...

Friday! I love Fridays! Just the promise of the weekend is so exciting. This weekend, all the older girls (12 and up) will be at the Young Sister's conference. Then Paul and the boys will be working the Dome tomorrow. Then Sunday, Suze's birthday party.

The exciting part? Well....having time with Paul, mostly. And it IS pretty exciting that I am going to eye appointments with Aaron and Mali and Sam and Margaret.....Ashley is going too. Aaron and Mali ....they don't care who is around, they try on all the "old man" glasses and hunch over and make faces. And they are surprised that the people there know us. Sam insists he wants the "goggle" glasses this time. They are for snowboarding, or skiing...but he says he would wear them everyday. I am not caving on this, he is not getting them.

So...I am not calling the SPCA about Rosie today. Naw, that was just the lazy exasperated Me speaking. I know I have to work with this dog more, the Treat When She Comes To Me idea is something I have done occasionally, but need to do every single time.....she is not a stupid dog, although some of my kids would argue that. They say to me, "She is not real!!!" Because I do tend to treat her a bit like one of the children sometimes....yeah, I hug her and talk to her. And I know she is a sheepdog, so she has a strong herding instinct.

It is beautiful out here in Central New York State this morning, even though the skies are gray. Almost fifty degrees. The snow is shrinking a bit, the ice is melting...there is dripping from the poor roof...there have been SO many roofs collapsing around here because of the snow...we have had I think 130+ inches...and with no thaw for two months, it just piled up and piled up....the yard is going to be mush when this stuff melts. But alas, it won't be anytime soon. It is freezing up again tonight with MORE SNOW. The forecast: it isn't getting over freezing at all through next week....and the Oklahoma forecast, blah, beautiful and warm and sunny.....but by Saturday and Sunday, only in the fifties. Now, I am not sneezing at fifty degrees and sunny. But....70 would be almost therapeutic right about now....

What would also be therapeutic would be a beautifully clean house....I fight, it fights back, it wins. I get sick of fighting....then every once in a while I decide that if I just put in tons of effort, I will prevail! The house will get clean and sparkly...so I work...and even if I do get things all nice...blah, the next day it looks like I never lifted a finger. Sometimes the kids also feel the hopelessness of these efforts, and ask me why we bother....I tell them that if we didn't, it would get horrible in here instead of just messy. I couldn't stand that.

Blah!! My last drink of coffee went right back into the cup...sorry...full of coffee grounds. Paul is fired! No, I love that he makes that morning pot of coffee. But, blah just the same.

Suzanne is still home, she had a slight fever again last night, so I made her stay home today. She turned the television on to a building show. So we are watching these guys build a house. They are putting insulation in the ceiling. Why this show is so interesting to her is beyond me, but Miss Charlotte Claire is also transfixed. Uh-oh, I am also now hooked....a California tile distributor....tile made there, tile made so strong that it can be used on decks with no sealants...tiles in every color and style...the owners are picking some out....oh, I want to remodel now.. and now I am distracted....