Heeding the Rumor

...that there would be a showing sometime from Thursday to Sunday and another on either Saturday or Sunday, we hit the house cleaning hard and heavy this morning. What if Jason called today and said they were on their way?! I got one kid outside cleaning things up, gathering toys, and sweeping the porch, another was sent to dust all of the major surfaces throughout the house, while the third was hauling firewood, sweeping the floors, and cleaning the faces of the stove, dishwasher and microwave. I cleaned the kitchen, scrubbed both bathrooms, vacuumed all the carpets, and got the wood floors shining. We got it all done by about 11:00. Makes me wonder why our house is EVER dirty if it can be cleaned so quickly. Ha! About the time we finished Jason called to say that he’d be bringing the couple to look at the house… Saturday at 10:00. Jerk. Ha! Now I have to maintain the house until then. I hate trying to maintain. It’s just not possible with a husband and three kids. So tomorrow night we’ll probably end up with another mad cleaning spree.

After cleaning the house, we got busy on school. I’m not sure how it happened, but Katie has fallen way behind on her work. Today was her first day of playing catch-up. She’ll have a full day tomorrow AND Saturday in order to get up to date again. Joe and Sam both did well today and finished pretty quickly. Katie finally finished the amount I had allotted her to do today just in time to get ready for church.

As she was working on school and the boys were playing, I was able to sneak in a little nap. I don’t know why but I was soooooo tired today, even after my nap. When I got up, Sam was all excited because he’d “made a deal” with James. Sam is all about making deals. James had agreed to give him the bb gun that he’s had in the cabinet for years if Sam would sing the 99 cents song (a song Sam made up a year or two ago—it was sooooo great, but we can’t ever get him to sing it for us anymore) and give him all of the money he gets. I tried to enquire, but from what I could tell there was no end-point for that. So James will get every dime the kid comes by for the rest of his life, I guess. Ha! Crazy Sam. He’d give his mother and siblings away if it would get him a bb gun. Or new Legos. Or miniature cars. Or whatever catches his fancy at any given moment, which is usually whatever is in front of him.

Joe came in the room and he was happy to hear that Sam had his own gun. He takes joy in other’s joys naturally, but it also meant that he and Sam could have shooting competitions. Only one problem. He was all out of bb’s. The next 15 minutes were quite amusing, listening to James tease the boys because now they both had guns, but he had all the bb’s.

“But Dad, you don’t have a bb gun anymore—you gave it to Sam. Can’t we have the bb’s?”

“Nope. The guns are yours. The bb’s are mine.”

Then he would just crack up and go on and on about how pathetic it was that they both had bb guns, but it didn’t do them any good because they had no bb’s. They all laughed and giggled and fought it out for the longest time. I finally separated the bb’s for the boys, 35 apiece. Joe made a target and the two of them were outside for all of 5 minutes before they were out of bb’s again. :-)

We got all cleaned up for church, put Charlie in his box (he didn’t cry—first time! Just a fluke??? Yeah, probably), and headed to town. We stopped and got the mail on our way. Katie and Joe each had a birthday card from their Grandma Wanda with a $25 check. Sam immediately started talking to Joe about how many bb's he could buy with that amount of money--how many he could buy for himself AND how many he'd be able to buy for Sam, too. I told him to stop trying to mooch off his brother. It got real quiet in the backseat and then Joe started laughing and handed me the note Sam had just written. It said, "Joe is nise." I had to laugh because I had just picked up a note this morning--in that same handwriting--that said, "Joe is a bum." He's a bum until he has $25, then... :-) Which reminds me

James needed to stop by the Post Office, then we grabbed dinner at Panda Express before service. Joe's fortune cookie said, "Many people admire you." Then ensued another mighty arguement over who rightfully deserved to have received such a fortune. Katie insisted that more people admired her than Joe, but Joe started tallying things up. "Dad admires me, right Dad? And Mom, do you admire me? See, there's two. And Sam admires my $25--that counts for something!" I guess you've gotta take what you can get. ;-)

We had good worship tonight (it was so good to have James' voice and piano playing back!) and Brother Juan preached another good message. But honestly, I was still so tired (?!) and had a hard time staying focused.

And that’s about it. Look, Mom! Another post—15 days in a row. I’m probably just getting way ahead in anticipation of when we get a contract on the house and actually start MOVING. I may not blog much at all during that madness! Then again, I probably will. Blogging is sort of therapeutic when life is crazy. I hope I need moving therapy very, very soon. :-)