You know how I’m blogging over at ClubMom?  Well, yesterday, after VBS and lunch, I sat down at the computer to check email and lo and behold, my email box was jammed with comments and email from The Amazing Shrinking Mom blog. 

I surfed over to check the stats on that blog and what?!  I’d had 7,800 hits overnight.  I spent the next two hours hunched over the keyboard answering email and comments and private messages sent through the ClubMom network.  By the end of the day, I’d had over 12,000 hits on that blog.

And a huge amount here, too. 

My husband kept saying, “Why?”  And I said, “Well, I must have been advertised somewhere.”  As it turns out, the folks at ClubMom sent an email to their members which featured my blog, among other things.

Today’s hits have been much higher than normal, too, and so has the amount of email. 

All that to say that I miss you, my fellow bloggers!  I’m not caught up on your lives, nor have I changed my Blogs in Focus, nor have I left any comments on any other blog in the past two days.  It’s kind of ironic because one reason I love blogging is the interaction with other bloggers, especially reading other blogs . . . and now that I’m experiencing a little blog-growth, I’m missing out on part of what I love.

For example, how much do I love The QC Report?  Or Dishpan Dribble?  Or Judy’s Anybody Home? 

I’ll tell you.  So much that I feel disconnected, unmoored, floating around in outer space because I don’t know how they are.  It’s like my phone has been disconnected and I’m out of touch, without a dial tone! 

 But soon–next week!–my life will slow down.  Fiesta! will be over.  My husband will be out of town for a week and I won’t be babysitting and I will catch up on my blog-reading.

Or die trying.

And now, another picture or two from Fiesta!

(My daughter, boycotting today’s Fiesta! and playing with a baby, instead.)

(How cute is this cactus?  My friend and I made it ourselves!)

(Do you love that parrot?  I stole borrowed it from my husband’s office.)

Okay.  One more.

All my brownie points in heaven for servant-hood have been cancelled out my pride over this foam-insulation-latex-painted village.  Pride cometh before destruction, you know.

Fiesta! begins in eight hours and thirty-nine minutes.  I just finished typing up the last form and tending to the final details.

Hooray.  Tomorrow is the beginning and thus, the ending will be along shortly.

Maybe I’ll even remember to take a digital photo of the decorations.  Then again, I hope I remember the basics, like . . . oh, I hope I remember to wear pants and brush my teeth before rushing down to the church at 8 a.m.  Details!  At this point, it’s all about details!

Happy Monday!

I nearly drove off the road tonight as I peered between houses and trees at the pink-painted sky and purple-gray mountains.  A person in less of a hurry might have turned the car toward the beach for a decent look at the fleeting sunset, but alas, I wanted to get to the grocery store more than I wanted to sigh at the sky.

The decorations for Fiesta! are essentially complete.  I stopped by the church for an hour tonight to make sure that everything’s ready for church in the morning.  I meant to take a picture, but I left the camera at home.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll remember. 

The paperwork awaits my attention tomorrow.  I will sort the children into crews, create sign-in sheets, finalize the schedule and tend to a dozen other details. 

I am so thankful for the women who helped me with decorations this past week.  I might have been able to manage without them, but only if I skipped sleep altogether.

I saw footage of the running of the bulls on television today and said to my husband, “That.  I don’t get.”  But then I googled it and now, I sort of understand what.  But not why.  I could live the rest of my life without putting my ample behind within reach of an angry bull.  I’m boring like that.

Did you see the date on that last post?  July 1?  How did that happen?  Today is July 3 already . . . I’m stuck in one of those fast-forwarding time-warp thingies.  Help!

Last night, I headed down to the church to work on decorations for Fiesta!  I was meeting a friend there, but I arrived earlier than she did, so I made transparencies of the patterns we planned to use, then stood in the entryway blowing up inflatable fiesta-themed shapes. 

But it was stuffy in the church and cooler outdoors, so I patted my pocket to make sure I had the keys, then stepped onto the sidewalk.  And in that fleeting moment as the door slammed closed, I realized that the keys in my pocket were only my car keys, not the church keys.

I just locked myself outside.  My phone?  Inside.  Purse?  Inside.  And here is proof that God loves me–at that very moment, a member of our church pulled up in a car.  He was no ordinary member, either.  He was a member with elite status and therefore, he had a key.

So, back inside I went and this time, I put all the keys in my pockets.

My friend arrived and we got to work tracing the pattern of three buildings onto three four-feet-by-eight-feet pieces of foam insulation.  Then, we cut them out with a saw, then vacuumed up the white snow-like bits.

We started painting at 10:00 p.m. and to our great shock, finished up (two of them) at 1:00 a.m. 

I got to sleep at about 1:30 a.m., but kept waking up throughout the night, in a panic about oversleeping.  (Am I the only one who does that?)  I let in the little girl I babysit at 6:25 a.m., and went back to bed–my son came downstairs then and they watched television quietly. 

My daughter was up at 7:40 a.m. and still, I tried to sleep.  At 8:30 a.m., I was up and showering for the day because I’d planned to take the kids to the zoo.

Which we did.  My husband went, too, so it was a full-fledged family outing.  We came home in time for my daughter and husband to nap–while they slept, I wrote a letter for my volunteers, took it to church to make copies, and mailed the final product at the post-office.

Then I took the kids–mine and three others–to the pool until 6 p.m.  I made them a quick dinner and my husband took the 8-year old to Judo.  I cleaned up, did a little laundry, wrote in my other blog, wondered where the time has gone and here I sit. 

My daughter will go to bed in less than an hour and I’ll be back at church, painting the foam-insulation backdrops, stringing together tissue paper flowers and eyeing walls where decorations will ultimate go.

Don’t you wish you were me?  Queen of Decorations and Lack of Sleep?  Because if you want, I’ll trade places and you can be me for awhile.  Anyone?  

As it turns out, I have a full roster of volunteers already committed to Fiesta!  I cannot even begin to tell you what a relief this is.  It’s all beginning to come together.

Except for the decorations.  I’m in charge because no one wanted to create the decorations and I’m a crafty soul, in love with school supplies and latex paint and clever ideas.  Tonight found me wandering the wide aisles of not one, but two local home improvement stores.  I was in search of thick foam insulation suitable for turning into a Mexican village scene and a cactus or two. 

I even picked up a gallon and a quart of latex paint on clearance because it was tinted wrong.  (I bought two more gallons, but had to pay full-price, minus a $5.00 rebate by mail for each one).  I bought supplies–all except the 2″x4’x8′ boards because I only had a small car with me.  Tomorrow or the next day, I’ll pick up the big sheets and the painting fiesta will begin!

I went to the church before I going to the stores and discovered that our church storage room looked like (how I imagine) the stockroom of a Goodwill store must look.  Twenty small wooden chairs formed a tangled hill.  A wheelchair, crutches, braces and a walker were propped up against empty shelves.  Two Christmas tree and assorted decorations had been shoved into the room and blocked the path.  A dozen swimming pool noodles were scattered on the floor, along with a half dozen hula hoops. 

What a mess. 

So, I spent an hour and a half straightening up that nightmare before I even peeked into the room which houses the Mexican tissue paper flowers the church ladies have been industriously fashioning out of materials from the dollar store.

All I have to do, really, is work out all the decorations, assign kids to crews, conduct a couple of meetings, send out letters to all the volunteers and survive the actual week of the Fiesta! 

The week after that?  I’m taking the week off from babysitting and intend to see the local sights, including the Grove of Patriarchs Trail.

But first, I have to survive.

 I opened the patio door so I could close the storm door, too, and lock it.  I heard a sound and flicked the light switch on and saw these masked bandits helping themselves to the crackers one of the kids left outside.  They were quite bold, snacking away even while I took flash photos.  I would have gone closer, but I was worried they would attack me and give me rabies, thus ending my life in a painful torrent of foaming at the mouth. Hey, if you haven’t yet joined ClubMom, click on that happy link over there ———> and do it!  I get a little something everytime a new person joins (and it’s free for you!).  Also, don’t forget to check my other blog, The Amazing Shrinking Mom, for my most recent posts about being fat.  And not. 

Well. 

My day started off slowly enough with a wake-up call from my daughter at 8:05 a.m. (“Mommy!  Mommy!”), followed by my habitual old-fashioned oatmeal breakfast, laundry rituals, washing of dishes, preschoolers painting, school-at-homers huddling over spelling books . . . you know, a typical morning.  (Minus or plus a stinky diaper and four phone calls.)

And nap time was sort of quiet, though the neighbor boys came over and everyone promptly began to bicker–if you think hearing your own kids bicker makes you want to stab your eardrums with chopsticks, imagine listening to the neighbor kids bicker.  The kids all wandered outdoors and for a while there, it was blissfully quiet.  Even though the 18-month old woke up.

And then the kids went home, all of them, except my 8-year old son’s best friend.  We took him with us to the craft store.  (I needed to buy t-shirts for VBS and they were on sale for $2.50 a piece.  You haven’t lived until you try to get in and out of a craft store with five kids trailing behind you while you attempt to avoid the aisles that look inviting to a 3-year old–fat chance!  Having that many kids in a store must be what it’s like to be an octopus without good motor control.)

Then, to the pool.  We returned home at 8:15 p.m. . . . and by 9:00 p.m., my daughter was in bed.

And then I went to my mom’s apartment to change a light bulb for her.  We sat and chit-chatted and soon it was 10:45 p.m. 

That’s why I’m writing this at midnight.  It’s as if the day was perched on a hill and once it got started rolling downward, it just picked up speed.

I am going to be so sorry for this late night in the morning.  Then I will repent of typing at midnight, though I will abandon my repentance as the day wears on and as Diet Coke begins to course through my veins.  That’s just the kind of girl I am.

Yesterday, at a conference, I heard the most encouraging speaker, Bror Saxberg.  Even better, his father introduced him with stories of his boyhood–how Bror never stopped talking, how his handwriting was awful (one day, he came home and said, “My teacher said my handwriting doesn’t matter because I am such a good talker!”), how he drove his mother nuts (my paraphrase) causing her to consider giving him to a passerby.

And we all laughed, perhaps in some relief.  Perhaps our children, too, will grow up to be clever speakers and brilliant men with multiple degrees.  Maybe we’ll survive this mess and noise after all!

Would you like a glimpse of the pastor’s wife on a Sunday morning?  We finally left the house at 9:30 a.m.–me yelling at one boy, “FIND YOUR SHOE AND LET’S GO!” and him appearing in the car at last in a different pair of shabby sneakers.  His missing shoe was in the car.

At church, I had to make copies of fliers.  In my ongoing effort to recruit volunteers, I spent my free time last night creating the flier in question . . . but I’m sure I’ll end up having to make desperate telephone calls this week.  During church, I made an announcement, then left the sanctuary to tape flags all around the lobby.  The flags each listed a food item we need someone to donate.  The idea is the people will take a flag, buy the item and return it.

By that point, my restless daughter wanted to go outside.  I did not.  She won and so I stood on the sidewalk while she pranced around a little.  Then she strode toward the street.  I called her back, but she was determined to go around the church to the back.  In the back of the church, we used to have a play area, but now it’s just a giant dusty square full of pebbles.  I did not want to go, but she whined and so I held her hand tightly and hurried her toward the back.  “Fine,” I said, “You want to go?  Fine!  We’ll go!”  I was angry.  

She cried then and said, “I want to go home!”  And I–on the edge of fury–said, “Fine!  Let’s GO HOME!”

I marched back toward the front entrance of the church and she trailed behind me, wailing.  I grabbed my purse and bag and rounded up my boys (who were watching the service on the television monitor) and off we went. 

She still cried and I was still angry.  We both settled down by the time we reached home.  See?  That’s what this pastor’s wife did today at church. 

This afternoon, the boys wanted to experiment with a homemade water-slide on the play structure.  I okayed it, but first I wanted to mow the grass which was terrifyingly tall.  I barely started when our mower sputtered and died.  I tried to restart it with no success.

So, then I decided to use my husband’s fancy new weed-eater to trim the scary tall edges of the yard.  The orange string-thing that should have stuck out did not.  It didn’t work, either.

I thought maybe the old lawn mower would work, so I dug through the disintegrating shed, dragged out the old mower, filled it with gas (my hands still stink) and started it (much to my shock).  At last, I cut the grass.  What should have taken ten minutes ended up taking an hour by the time I used one mower, then a malfunctioning weed-eater, then the old mower.

And it’s hot today!  Really hot, especially for here.  The temperature reached 90 degrees, I think.  And there I was–while the gleeful kids sprayed each other with the hose–pulling weeds and trimming the edge of the grass with a pair of scissors.  I filled the yard waste bucket and put two bags of trash in the cans.  When I finished, I made fat-free popcorn and sprawled on the bed with a novel.  My daughter sat and crammed popcorn into her mouth while I tried not to be distracted.  

Just when we were ready to go to the pool, my daughter fell asleep (at 4:30 p.m.).  Her nap delayed our departure, so we ended up at the pool from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.  My daughter, the non-swimmer, the formerly cautious girl, now spends her pool-time jumping from the steps of the “big” pool into the deeper water.  She grips her floating tube tightly, but doesn’t mind the splashes to her face or the other swimmers.  She jumped non-stop for half an hour at a time.

And where was my husband during all this fun and frivolity?  He was at the church for about fourteen hours, minus a twenty minute visit home (in time to witness my frustration with the so-called lawn) and a couple of meal breaks.

Rose asked me to do this meme.  And since she asked so nice, I agreed.  Without further ado, I offer proof of my weirdness:

1)  I don’t like putting my face under water at the pool.  I never mastered that holding your breath and breathing periodically thing they tried to teach me at swimming lessons.

2)  I had an umbilical hernia repair when I was a year old.  That’s the only time I’ve been hospitalized.

3)  I gave birth at home, twice, on purpose, in rented birthing tubs.  That’s right–no drugs!

4)  I’d rather do almost anything than make a telephone call.  (But I love when people call me on the phone.)

5)  I hate watching DVDs/videos at home.  Hate it.

6)  I cannot stand to hear people clink their fork or spoon on their teeth.

7)  I never went to a high school dance.  I only went to one high school football game.

8)  I am a pianist, yet I can only stretch my fingers across one octave, maybe nine keys on a good day.

9)  I wrote music in college and haven’t written a single song since.

10)  I’d love seeing movies in the theater alone.

Consider yourself tagged if you’d like to play along.  And thanks, Rose, for asking.

Nothing makes me feel better about the world in general than. . . cleaning.  You’d think I’d clean more often, wouldn’t you? 

Without forethought this morning, I launched into a frenzied cleaning of the twins’ bedroom.  Soon, I had swept the most enormous pile of dirt, trash, toys, cards, and a few coins into a frightening pile.  The boys picked out valuables, then the rest went into the trash.  I sorted and put away their clean laundry.  They picked up dirty laundry. 

(I also made the twins study history for an hour and made my 8-year old practice handwriting and multiplication facts.  My daughter insisted on having some work, too, so I set her up with an activity coloring book.)

And it’s almost as if I removed the clutter from my brain.  I feel less panicked about the Fiesta now that their room is clean.  I worked steadily until the living room and kitchen were clean, too.  If only it would last.  (It won’t.)

Then, we went to the pool for a couple hours, came home in time to put my daughter to bed, and then, went grocery shopping.

I returned in time to watch a television special about the murder trial of this guy, accused of killing Florence Unger and while I watched it, I paged through an In Touch Weekly magazine.  The last hour of the night zips by in a flash.  I hate that.

Now.  Wouldn’t you like to do me a favor?  Will you please add my “other” blog to your blogroll?  And tell your friends about it?  (Yes, that was shameless begging.  If I have 200,000 hits there a month–ha ha ha ha ha ha ha–I get a bonus.  Ha ha ha.  And then the world will implode and I’ll become a supermodel and kids will start picking up after themselves without being told.  The end.)