Time’s Ticking

6:40 a.m.:  Telephone rang.  Wrong number.

7:15 a.m.:  Daughter wakes up.

8:30 a.m.:  Arrive at church with daughter (aka my shadow).

9:00 a.m.:  Fiesta! continues.

Noon:  Fiesta! ends.

12:45 p.m.:  McDonald’s drive-thru, ordering food for seven children (my four, three extras).

1:00 p.m.:  Swimming pool.  Weather?  64 degrees, occasional rain sprinkles.  No other people crazy enough to swim, so we had the pool to ourselves.

3:00 p.m.:  Leave pool.  Arrive home.  Blog.  Laundry. 

4:30 p.m.:  Daughter leaves with her 3-year old buddy.  First time she’s ever gone to anyone’s house without me.  Die from shock.  The end.  Just kidding.

5:30 p.m.:  Serve boys dinner:  baked potatoes with cheese sauce.

6:00 p.m.:  Husband returns home.  Leave to pick up daughter.

6:50 p.m.:  Drop off daughter at home.

7:05 p.m.:  Meet blogging buddy for dinner.  (Link tomorrow.)

8:40 p.m.:  Finish dinner.  Stop by Bed, Bath & Beyond.

9:15 p.m.:  Home again, home again, jiggety-job.

10:00 p.m.:  Watch Big Brother.

11:03 p.m.:  Post this.

11:05 p.m.:  Sign off.  Hooray!  Sleep!

Tomorrow?  Last day of Fiesta!  We survived!  (Average attendance?  91 children.  Wow.)  

Call the (Rug) Doctor

Before I left the house this morning at 8:30 a.m., we had a phone call alerting us to the bad news that the church had no power.  Half of town didn’t either.  (We did, though.)

By the time I arrived at church, power was on.  Hooray.

But it was raining our typical misty, Pacific Northwest “liquid sunshine.”  The kids played games outside anyway and didn’t rust nor melt.

Only two days to go.

And tonight?  What do you think I did?

Hmmm?

That’s right!  Used a Rug Doctor on my family room and living room carpets.  Because when you are already crazy busy and half-delirious from lack of sleep, you ought to deal with the sticky spots the kids left on the floor.

Three Days To Go Until . . . I Spontaneously Combust?

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!

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

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

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

Okay.  One more.

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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.

The Day in Pictures and A Few Words

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Last night, I managed to drop into bed at 12:30 a.m.  I was up at 6:20 a.m. to open the door for my 9-year old babysittee (I’m the babysitter; she’s the babysittee.)  Then, back to bed for thirty more futile minutes.  I was at church at 8 a.m. for final photocopying and troubleshooting and welcoming.  (See those flowers?  All created by Church Ladies.  We strung them on thin wire into garlands. My friend, Jenn, and I painted the little village on giant sheets of foam insulation.)

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I had 78 children preregistered by last night.  This morning, another twenty arrived and when it was all said and done, we ended up with 90 children in attendance.  As far as I know, we encountered no major problems, aside from a three-year old who was distraught for an hour.  We called her parents who picked her up. 

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My daughter shocked and awed me by agreeing to attend the preschool class with her best friend.  His stepdad was her crew leader and she followed along and participated as if she’d been going to preschool her whole life.  (She’s never even stayed with a babysitter, other than her grandmother.  She refuses to stay in the church nursery without me.)  During the closing program, the speaker asked for volunteers to come onstage and sing and dance.

She went up and sang and danced!

Furthermore, she is completely ready to do it all again tomorrow.  I could not be more surprised.  Well, I could be more surprised, say if a caterpillar crawled out of my ear right now and turned into a butterfly large enough to spirit me away to a tropical island.  That might surprise me more.

Only four days to go.  Though, actually, my work is pretty much done.  When you are the behind-the-scenes organizer, the weeks prior to the event are the real work.  The actual event is a pleasure to behold from a chair while sipping a Diet Coke.  With lime.

Countdown

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!

The Sun Set While I Drove

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.

Written with a Yawn

I muddled through half the day before I realized today was Thursday, not Wednesday.  Independence Day completely threw me off schedule.  Add to that my evenings at the church painting foam insulation with latex paint and you  have one confused blogger.

I fully intended to be in bed, half-asleep by now, but when you decorate the church from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., then go to Target and return home at 9:30 p.m., the leftover night is abbreviated.  And I had to watch “Big Brother” (I videotaped it).

I have been writing in my other blog.  (I am contractually obligated, you know, to write over there.  Not that I wouldn’t want to anyway, of course, but you know.  When the night is late and my brain is limping, I write over there before I write here.)

Um, what else?  That’s all for tonight.  Though I should mention that the children all played so cooperatively in the back yard today that I only shook my head and rolled my eyes when I realized they were intent on creating a moat or a pond or something muddy back by the fence.  They shoveled and sprayed and dug until they were all coated with dirt and drops of water. 

My husband said, “Well, if you can’t dig around when you are a kid, when can you?” 

Indeed.

A Sign of the Times

My boys sat on the curb this afternoon, watching the parade go by. And I noticed that my 13-year old twins didn’t jump up to grab scattered candy. Meanwhile, their 8-year old brother jumped up, snatched candy from the street and sometimes, caught it mid-air. His little paper sack bulged with candies.

I nudged my husband and said, “Look! Your boys are growing up!” No more mad candy scrambling!

Next thing we know, they’ll be too cool to sit on the curb near their family, watching army trucks, clowns and decorated bicycles roll by. A emotional little part of my heart thinks I ought to be sadly nostalgic, but the bigger part of my logical brain assures me that they are right on track. Knowing that they are growing up–so far, so good–feels pretty great.

(One of them even helped me clean out the van today . . . without my asking!)

* * *

The other day, we were driving in the van on the way to the pool. The boys made a comment about how unreasonable their sister is and it’s true–because she’s three years old, the Unreasonable Age if ever there was one. Anyway, I said, “Have you heard that saying–never try to teach a pig to sing . . . because it wastes your time and annoys the pig?” I explained to them that try to reason with their sister is like teaching a pig to sing.

And one of them intoned, “Yeah, mom, it’s like trying to teach a chicken to whistle.”

At which point, I abandoned my lesson and made a mental note to remember the crazy things kids say.

Then I heard one of them say, “That’s stupid. A chicken doesn’t have lips. It can’t whistle!”

“Does, too!”

“You’re stupid!”

“Mo-om!”

So I turned up the radio extra loud and pretended I was alone.

Where I’ve Been. What I’ve Done.

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?  

See Mel Work and Play and Try to Drive a Car

The smallest project can turn into a sprawling time consumer.  At least it can if you are me. 

At 8 p.m. last night, after my daughter went to bed, I headed for Home Depot to pick up the foam insulation and assorted decorating items.  But first, I took a long look at the van’s interior and tried to imagine shoving  a few 4′ x 8′ boards into it.  I decided the seats needed to come out.

I had to look that up in the manual.  Then I unscrewed one, tilted it back and pulled and fussed at it until it finally came loose.  By the time I finished the second seat, my husband had come out to see why I was still in the driveway.

So, off I went.  At Home Depot, I got an orange cart, then headed over to the building supplies where I quickly realized I needed a heavy-duty metal cart with space for carrying things bigger than myself.  I trudged back outside to find the appropriate cart.

I lost several months of my life inside Home Depot as I wandered and priced items and searched for other items and carted four 2″x4’x8′ pieces of foam insulation.  The two-by-fours only fell off the cart three times.

A surly cashier rang up my items.  I paid.  Then the real fun began.

I reached my super-huge van, the one big enough inside for a dance party (I’m only missing a disco ball–believe me, this van is just that groovy).  I opened the back and pulled the first gigantic piece of foam off the cart and . . . not into the van.

It didn’t fit through the back doors.

No need to panic, right?  I opened the side doors and acted as if I knew what I was doing.  I heard laughter coming from an SUV parked nearby, but I ignored it and muscled the foam insulation diagonally through the door.  For a few moments, I didn’t think it would slide all the way in, but through the magic of geometry, physics and panic, I somehow fit it in.

I was sure I’d never fit the other three pieces in, but one after the other, they slid into place.  I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to get them out, but removing them at the church proved a simple task.

But as I carried the wood and foam and paint cans down the long church hallway at 10:30 p.m., I wished that I were one of those tiny, petite women who flutter their eyelashes so that big, strong men do this type of job for them.  For whatever reason, I am loathe to ask for help, even when it involves Home Depot and power tools.

*  *  * 

My husband rocks.  Today, he stayed at home with the kids while I gallivanted.  I went shopping–my closet has become bare as I’ve cleaned out clothes that no longer fit.  I especially need something to wear to church on Sundays, but I was unable to find a dress department, let alone a dress!  Do women no longer wear dresses?  Marshall’s used to have a rack of dresses, but not anymore.  The local department store has two small racks of random dresses, none suitable.

So, after shopping (I settled on capri pants and some shirts), I headed to a movie.  “The Devil Wears Prada” received a good review in the local newspaper and so I expected to love it.  I did like it–I think Anne Hathaway is beautiful to watch and Meryl Streep was fantastic in her role. 

But I was annoyed by the plot.  We are supposed to believe that the heroine in the story is wrong to excell at her job and that putting her job first (she’s not married and has no children) shows that she’s lost her soul somehow.

I didn’t buy it for a minute.  In fact, I wanted to slap her whiny boyfriend hard across his stubbly cheek.

So, after the movie, I left the parking lot by the alternative route behind the building.  As I turned the corner, I noted (with mounting panic) that my car wasn’t accelerating when I pressed the pedal.  I lifted my foot and the car idled along . . . but when I pressed again, it slowed.  

Oh no, I thought.  This car isn’t fixed after all!   I pressed the pedal once more, the car nearly stalled and then I realized something important.

That pedal, the one I pressed?  It was the brake pedal.  Yes, I seemed to have confused the gas pedal with the brake pedal.  A-hem. 

*  *  * 

I returned home to put my daughter to bed and then back out into the world again I went, this time to buy $200.00 worth of groceries.

I am utterly exhausted, but at least we have food again.  (And shampoo and cat food.)  If I’m lucky, my daughter will sleep past 7:00 a.m.  I hope I’m lucky.