Trivia

No snow, so far.

I just finished my December article and am finally coming up for air and getting back to blogging. My deadline is the end of the month but my editor extended it for two days since I had a writers group meeting and wanted to present it there.

God bless those Red Moons; they are awesome critiquers. But even they couldn’t come up with a perfect ending. I like to end articles by tying everything into a neat bow but I’m afraid this one is more of a shoestring knot.

This morning I was sitting here checking my email when the front door opened and one of the boys (I thought) came in. "Ben??" I hollered. No answer. Then our resident wolf, Hansie, came into the office and poked his nose under my arm. A bit unnerving.

I once made a vow that my children would not suffer from my writing hobby/career but I’m afraid they do, on about two days a month.

I feel like the house has been overrun with big grunting furnace guys the last month. They finally got everything in and then discovered a leak deep in the bowels of the furnace and had to take it out again, all 600 pounds of it. So more grunting. Honestly, when these guys are around here banging or hauling or pushing or sawing, I feel like we have a bunch of Neanderthals around here that ought to be sitting around a fire, gnawing on drumsticks, telling hunting stories, and of course grunting.

Amy has another update.

I had a marathon Christmas-shopping day on Tuesday, leaving at 10:00 a.m. and going to the bank, the library, the Dollar Store, Jo-Ann Fabrics, Wendy’s, Big Lots, WinCo, Meier and Frank, Bath and Body Works, Christian Supply, Ross Dress-for-Less, ShopKo, Office Depot and then finally home at 7:30 pm.

I’m trying to update Matt’s wardrobe before he goes to Bible school and I really wish his sister or his cousin Jessi were going so I could have some female assistant there to make sure Matt doesn’t wear the same clothes all the time and especially not that dreadful grim-reaper hooded black sweatshirt.

Yesterday on the way to school Steven tapped Paul on the shoulder. Paul, who was driving, looked at him. His cheeks were puffed out and he made funny motions with his hands. Paul drove on. Steven likes to goof off and make funny faces with his cheeks puffed out. No big deal. Steven tapped him again, then barfed all over.

I have a distinct feeling that if a mom had been driving she would have instinctively and immediately known that this was much much more serious than mere goofing off and making funny faces.

Paul turned around and came home, and he and Emily cleaned up the van. The other kids all thought Emily was very brave. So do I.

Quote of the Day:
"As I do physical science I see more and more similarities between chemistry and life. SS and KB are very stable compounds, but me and SC under high heat and pressure have a bad chemical reaction."
--Emily