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Whatever that is. ;-)

James made it home just after 8:00 Tuesday night. The kids were still up, of course, and were THRILLED that they got to see him before they went to bed. He had been gone for two and a half weeks and it was good to have him home.

Wednesday... I'm trying to remember. I know we took James' rental car back to town, then we had plans to have a nice dinner and go to the River of Lights or whatever it's called. But some dummy forgot to take a coat with them so we couldn't do the River of Lights. Okay, it was me. We ended up at Church's Chicken for dinner (so much for the "nice" dinner--ha!) and then went to Hobby Lobby to let the kids pick out their annual ornament. Then we went to the dollar store for the kids to start picking out their gifts for one another. I knew that was a bad, bad idea. It's way too early to be doing that--there's no way they'll be able to keep their secrets that long! Cato is in the same strip mall as the dollar store, so I went to look around. I've never actually found anything worthwhile at Cato before, but every time I ask a friend where they got a cute skirt they tell me that's where. And they have girl cloths, too, though all of them have always been too big for Katie. Well, I finally hit the jackpot! :-) I found a nice, long denim skirt for Katie--she's always in desperate need of those. It's too big at the waist, but can be cinched up with a belt, so we took it! And I found an outfit for myself, too. Whoa! It's a skirt and a jacket-sort-of-thing. Kind of like a dress suit, but not really. It fit really nice and was on sale, so Katie and I both walked out with something! All those dozens of trips to Cato finally paid off. Ha!

Thursday I started working on Christmas cards, but didn't get very far. It was just one of those days that seemed to stand still. No, actually the day flew by, but the goals for the day stood still! Went to church early that night because we needed to run by Lowes and Home Depot. After service we stopped to pick up a few things at the grocery store.

Yesterday was a different kind of a day for us. I went to work and James stayed up with the kids! Ha! Brother Chris has been working on a house for months now (a total remodel) and is finally coming to the end of the project. After all of the grinding and sanding on the tile all over the house all of the walls had a heavy coat of dust on them. He's needing to get everything cleaned up over there so the carpet can be laid on Monday and he can finally be finished, so he asked if Sister Yolanda and I wanted a job for one day. :-) I picked her up at 7:30 and we got to the house at about 8:00. We worked all day long and still only got about half of the house done. Brother Chris was there, too, for part of the day working and cleaning, but he had one of those killer headaches that had him SICK and unable to function. It got worse as the day went on and he finally went on home and went to bed sometime in the afternoon. Cainan had come to work with him and he worked by my side and talked up a storm and kept me company all day long. In all these years I've never actually been around just Cainan (when he's not playing with the other kids) and I was amazed at how much I enjoyed his company! Ha! I had such a great time with him. He stayed with us when his Dad left, so I drove him home when we quit for the day. I felt terrible that we didn't get more done, but the dust was just so thick the same areas had to be cleaned over and over and over again to get them clean enough to move on to the next, you know? I think we took care of the two worst rooms in the house though (the rooms where there was the heaviest dust) along with 4 other rooms. I guess that leaves 3 rooms to go, one big one, one small one, and one bathroom. I sincerely hope Brother Chris is feeling 100% better today and able to get it all done! Wish I could've gone back to help again!

I took Cainan home and then drove on up the mountain. I think I made it home at about 6:00 to find three happy children and a very, very, very happy Charlie Dog. :-) They said he missed me and looked for me all day long. Aaaawwwwwwwwww. ;-) It sounds like everybody had a great time while I was gone. I had the only vehicle so they were stuck at the house all day. They baked cookies with Dad and he had them doing all sorts of exercises and who knows' what all. They did some painting. And James had them each brind one object (Katie brought a small Christmas tree, Joe brought his guitar, and Sam brought his remote controlled truck) and he arranged them, then had all of the kids draw a "still life" picture of them from the angle they were sitting at. It amazes me the things that James thinks to do with them! It was great for him to have some time with just the kids after being gone for so long. They all seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. I think we should do this Mom's Day Away / Dad's Day with the Kids once a month. It's good for ALL of us. :-)

So today I am a wee bit sore and achy from the work yesterday. Don't tell Brother Chris, though. Every time he complains of aches and pains I tell him that I feel great--must be because I'm so much younger than him. ;-) I don't know why, but I was soooooo tired last night. I know it wasn't because of the work itself. I hadn't slept well the night before and I was up early, but still--I crashed on the couch with Charlie at 8:00-something last night, before the kids were even in bed! Ha! I woke up at about 1:00am (!), put Charlie in bed with Kate and went on to bed myself... and slept until 7:00!!! I couldn't believe it. Crazy. AND Charlie slept all of that time without needing out! Good, good puppy. :-)

We all had cookies for breakfast this morning. :-) James left a few minutes ago to go to town and shop with all the other loonies. I'm supposed to be working on Christmas cards today. I'm having a hard time getting motivated. Thus, I blog. But James wants them in the mail by Monday, so I'd best get busy. I need some hot chocolate, a toasty fire, and some good Christmas music. It's sounding better already. :-)

I wrote all of the above this morning, but didn't post it for some reason. Now it's after midnight and I still haven't posted it yet. Might as well update it, then post, right?

James was gone most of the day doing some Christmas shopping (our own, and for his folks--saves on shipping that way, you know) and I did work on Christmas cards off and throughout the day. I used to lo-o-o-o-o-o-ove doing cards. It was just so much fun. It's nothing that I dread, but it just doesn't seem to have the thrill that it used to. Probably because we send out way too many now and I don't write personal letters to everybody like I used to. It's too overwhelming to really be a lot of fun, I guess.

James got home just in time for dinner--orange glazed pork loin. I didn't know he'd used the last of the brown sugar when he made brownies yesterday, so I--completely forgetting that you can substitute white sugar and molasses for brown sugar--melted some butterscotch chips as a fill in. Ha! Crazy. It turned out okay, but nothing to rave about. I thought the garlic cheese mashed potatoes were fantastic though. I'll have to do that again sometime. :-)

Once we got the kids and that crazy dog put to bed (he was HYPER tonight!) I got busy wrapping presents. We've been stashing them in our bedroom, but with what James came home with today I knew it was time to start getting them wrapped. Besides, it's a lot more fun for the kids to see the packages under the tree and wonder what's in them for a couple of weeks. :-)

Now it's way past my bedtime. I'm going to read through the Sunday School lesson and call it a night. Looking forward to good services tomorrow and a good nap in between! :-)