Ho Ho Ho!

Heavens! I'm mighty tired right now. It's almost 1am, and I'm just getting around to blogging. Sigh. Why? Why do I do this to myself? I've gotta say, though, I didn't get a moments rest today, it seemed. It was go go go all day long.

I bought a new watch at Big Lots this past Saturday, and set the alarm to go off at 7:30am for church on Sunday. Unfortunately, I didn't re-set it for 7am for the rest of the week. So, 2 days in a row now, I've woken up at 7:10am, in a panic, scrambling to get kids to school on time. As I type, I'm gonna take a short pause to fix that.

*pause*

Thanks for waiting. OK, now I should be good to go for Wednesday :) Anyway, I got the kids off to school, and got Jimmy dressed, and to Jake started on school, and got Captain America off to work, then left with Andrea to go stocking shopping. The kids stayed home, since you can't really take kids along. Well, not without a lot of sneaking around. And really, who wants to sneak around :)

We went to the Dollar tree, and were there WAY too long. I think we looked down every isle 3 or 4 times. BUT, I got most of the things I needed. A few food type items, a bag of peanuts, some toys, some coloring books/calendars, I'm gonna put in fruit and granola bars later. Pretty good stuff. I tried to make them "even", if that's possible. It's just that it's easier to please a 4-6 year old than it is a 10-12 year old, know what I mean?

So, after the Dollar Tree, we headed to Wal Mart to get the candy. Because as good as the Dollar Tree is, Walmart is better on candy. I'm sorry, but it is. I may not hold Walmart in high regard right now, but I can recognize that much, at least :) hehehe.

We got candy, then went to the toys. I needed Hot Wheels. But then decided to just give Captain Americathe money, and let him pick out which Hot Wheels. Because you KNOW that I'd pick the wrong ones. I just don't have Hot Wheel Picking as one of my talents. Sad, but true.

We met up with Laurie there, and hung out in the Transformers isle for a while, chatting and chatting and chatting some more.

After getting everything we needed (well, except for my foundation, because they were OUT!!!), we headed back onto post. Andrea dropped me off at my house, and I picked up the boys, kissed my husband hello/goodbye for lunch break, then headed off to Taco Cabana, where I was meeting Andrea/Laurie.

It was a fun lunch! Cabana bowls are definitely good :) After lunch, Andrea went to the school to pick up one of her kids for their physicals, and Laurie and I headed across the street to Ross. Do y'all have Ross where you live? It's fabulous!

So, we walked around for a bit (dang, it was crowded), and found a few things. I found Wii Lightsabers. A 2 pack for $9. OMGosh, that's a good deal. I found similar ones online, but they were 30 bucks. $9 was perfect! Lauire got a few things, and we decided to go pay. We had about 30 minutes before we had to be at the school, and it was only 5 minutes away.

Holy line, Batman!!! I seriously almost fainted when I saw the line. It went from the front of the store, all the way to the BACk, then turned and went down the isle, and started to loop back to the front. What did people think this was, Black Friday? WTHeck? Because I REALLY wanted the lightsabers, we got in line. And waited. And waited. Oh yeah, without a cart, because there were none in the store.

And with 2 3-4 year olds, and 1 12 year old. And wait. And wait. And inch our way painfully to the middle of the line. With 15 minutes before time to get the kids, I was starting to panic. Laurie said that I could go with Jake and get the kids, and that she'd stay with Jimmy and pay. I gave her money, and headed out! It was going to be close.

There was quite a line of traffic on the way to the school, since the middle school had just got out, but I got there on time. I went and helped picked up the kindergarteners, since Andrea was at a Drs appointment, and she usually does it.

I told Lauries kids that they were coming with me, and mine were coming with me, and Leslies were coming with me, and Andrea's son Sams backpack was coming with me (he has an after school PE class) and we headed for the truck. Except for Lauries son. He kinda freaked out. I guess they'd had a talk last week or so about riding home with strangers. And how there's a code word that the stranger had to give him before he could go in their car. Somehow he miss the fact that I wasn't a stranger. Sigh.

So he was bawling and freaking out at his little sister (kindergartener) and big sister (5th grader) happily piled into my truck. He started to walk home, and I called and explained the situation to Laurie, and she said that she was almost there, to no worry about it. Sigh. Yeah, SO not a stranger. I see the kid every day. At church. At school. Socially. Heck, I was at his house on Sunday for dinner. NOT a stranger. I had the talk with my truck full of kids on the way home that mom's give "code" words to prevent kids from getting stolen by strangers, or people that mom's dont trust. Mom's "best friends" don't count as strangers....

So, I "ghosted" behind the kid, which seemed to panic him too. Lauire eventually got there, picked him up, and followed me to my house. She collected her kids, gave me my "item", Leslies kids continued walking home (2 houses), and we all went inside.

We decided to switch up the chore chart. Sometimes it's needed. Sometimes. I think this one is going to work out. Jake is now in charge of putting away the dishes, washing/clearning the counters, cleaning the stove top, sweeping the kitchen floor, and doing the upstairs bathroom. Tom is in charge of the DVD's, the computer area, the dining room floor, and the trash. Eme is in charge of the living room floor, the VHS's and the laundry room. Joe and Jim have the backyard, the kitchen table, and their room.

In an hour, the house looked pretty good. Great job, you guys! Andrea dropped off Luke at around 5pm, so I could babysit. Sam had an orchestra concert, and taking a 20 month old little boy is NOT the most fun thing in the world. He had a TON of fun at my house :)

Also while she was gone, I wrote a note to Katy and Adela. If you notice, I'm not doing a lot of stuff with them, as of late. We've kinda had a falling out. Remember the brunch on Monday to fix it? Yeah, well, not so much. It came out that they had issues with our husbands. And at first, Andrea and I weren't really sure what to think about it. I think it took a few days to sink in. For the ramifications of what that meant to hit home.

Did we really wanna be friends with people who thought so little/poorly/negatively about the men that we love, the men that we chose, our best friends? No, we didn't. So, I composed an email to them both, telling them that it just wasn't gonna work out as friends That I was sorry about how it happened, but that I'm sure that if the situation was reversed, that they'd do the same thing.

And I sent it. And I got back a response, all defensive, and saying "well, if your upset about it, then maybe your husband IS those bad things that we said about him" from one of the girls, and a "sorry it didn't work out, no hard feelings, best of luck" note from the other. Sigh. I guess it was to be expected.

It really put a bad feeling in my stomach. You know me. I don't like confrontation. Or contention. Or bad feelings. And here I was, with all three. Sigh. So I kinda felt sick the whole time.

I went in the kitchen and made pizza dough from scratch, trying to keep my hands busy, even if my mind couldn't be. I just love homemade pizza. The last pizza just came out of the oven when Andrea and Sam and Ben got here. I invited them in for dinner, since Captain America wasn't home yet.

Andrea and I read the "response" emails, and the original emails, and talked about it at length. Honestly, I think she's afraid to send an email to them at this point, for fear of what they'll say about her. Sigh. Why must life be so hard sometimes.... We unfriended them on Facebook (as well as our children), and that was that. It's really unfortunate that it's come to this.... But I refuse to be friends with someone who thinks that my husband is a racist. You can't just throw that word around and expect people to be OK with that. That's kind of a deal breaker, don't you think?

OK, ok, I hate airing dirty laundry on here. I haven't said anything about it before, but I just can't keep it in anymore. So there. It's out. I feel better. Sigh. Kind of.... Give it time, right?

So Andrea and the kids went home at around 7:30pm, and Captain America got home 10 minutes later. Dang, early for him! We let the kids stay up a little bit later, and played a family game of Uno. And I even won! I never win at Uno - LOL! It was pretty fun.

Captain America read the little boys stories, and I helped the kids who needed Vasiline get all lathered up. Tom's elbows are SO gross. Seriously, dry, cracking, and black. It's nasty. I've been putting MASSIVE amounts of Vasaline on them, with the cut off top parts of socks around is elbows. I asked him if kids at school make fun of him for it, and he was like "No, mom, they think that it's kind of cool". ROFL! Me, the fashion starter - ROFL!

Joe has chapped nose SO bad, it's extending all the way across both cheeks. Like a mustache. Poor little guy. I lathered him up pretty good. And he's got super dry hands, so I put it on thick, and put socks on his hands. That ought to help. Dang the dry El Paso air. LOL!

I stuffed stockings after the kids went to bed, and sorted some more presents. I'm about 70% done wrapping presents. Not too bad, for more than a week out, wouldn't you say? And the stockings look good, too! They're crocheted, so they're really stretchy, and TONS of stuff fit in them. I don't know if that's good or bad. Good from the kids' point of view, but bad if your the elf filling it.

Oh yeah, and I told the kids that an Elf came to pick up the stockings, and that they took it to the North Pole to fill it, then Santa will deliver it on Christmas Eve. Don't you wish you knew an Elf?

And then I had to design another WordArt pack, and load the store for the week, and design something for a Store project, and design my freebee for today, and here I am, blogging. It's now 1:30am, and I'm tired. And my throat is starting to hurt. I really hope I don't get sick. I don't have time for sick. I've got stuff to do. Fun stuff. Super fun stuff. hehehe.

WordArt Wednesday again! Click HERE to go to scraporchard to grab the zip file, and remember, you must be logged into the gallery in order to get the download :) Thanks!