Thirteen Things
About
MY WEDNESDAY (YESTERDAY)
Would it be accurate to say I may have cursed my Thursday Thirteen with my Wednesday comment of what today's topic might be? Read my list of "Thirteen" and see if, maybe, I should learn to keep my mouth shut!!!
1. Yesterday, I asked, "What could be worse than a stay at home Wednesday becoming a HAVE TO go somewhere Wednesday?" I found the answer . . .
Having to go somewhere early in the morning with 3 children. I am NOT a morning person and brain dead (oops, better watch my words!) until 10am. The vet wasn't in yesterday (just the receptionist), so I HAD to go in the morning to get the de-worming medicine. I came immediately home. However, I think the fact that all of us had to be dressed and somewhere early, threw off the rest of my day at home. Read on to see the details.
2. With my nerves all a-jangle, I came home from the vet, medicated 3 pets, and then decided today was the day I was going to sit at my desk and get Jesse's bookkeeping caught up. The old paper ledger sheet kind of bookkeeping. All handwritten ledger sheets, with copies of old checks (4 copied checks to a sheet) being entered in date and alphabetical order. "Copious copying" is what I call it. I prayed first that the Lord would get me through this BIG job.
3. The girls were SO LOUD and full of energy (like wild animals) that I sent them out to the backyard with squirt guns. I could barely concentrate or *see*. I think yesterday will be the day in history that I made the decision to keep my "reading glasses" at my desk. I rarely use them, but found yesterday to be an eye opening experience visually (maybe I should say eye closing, as I had to use my grandmother's magnifying glass to read the copied checks)!
4. I took a break and started to fix bologna sandwiches (gag) for lunch and make some punch flavored Kool-Aid. Luci came out wearing dry clothes and I realized her wet clothes were mysteriously absent and NOT in the backyard drying with the other girls' clothing and towels.
5. I stopped making lunch to check her clothes hamper and (sure enough!) found she's been putting wet clothes and towels in there for 3 days. I taught her about mildew and mold. I took the time to quickly throw everything in the washer to clean her laundry before mildew began to grow and permanently stain all of her clothes (albeit they were backyard "play clothes").
6. I returned to the kitchen and resumed making the sandwiches and passed them out. I turned to the Kool Aid making and realized it was Kool Aid probably leftover from last summer. The 2 packets felt like the powder had compressed, so I ripped off the tops and stuck them way down into the juice container and knocked them back and forth against the inside of the container to dislodge and break up the clumped together Kool Aid (remember, PUNCH flavor - just like Hawaiian Punch). Dust flew up from the container's bottom and I gently blew the air around me so the dust didn't gag me. I turned on the cold water, ran my hand under it to be sure it was cold before filling the container, and found I was "bleeding" everywhere. My knuckles, cuticles, the creases in my palm . . . I gasped and sucked in my breath as I quickly looked for the source of the bleeding. There was LOTS of red dripping everywhere and I was perplexed, as I hadn't used a steak knife or anything sharp to make the sandwiches and nothing on my hand hurt. It sprang to my attention that it was only Kool Aid dust (sigh of relief). I finished mixing the Kool Aid and wiped the counter top with my white washcloth. MORE red! Dust had spread everywhere! That took a while to clean up. I had a towel placed on the bar because I was going to hand wash some dishes after lunch and every piece of the counter top had a fine red powder from my gentle blowing. What a mess!
7. I gave the girls chores to do to keep them busy. It was too hot to go outside. Annamarie wanted to use the glass cleaner AND wipe down the knick knacks through out the house. Rissy wanted to dust the wood furniture. Luci wanted to vacuum. I started BACK doing Jesse's books, determined to forge forward and finish the job that day.
Luci was vacuuming the formal living room (behind me) when a sickening "something is stuck" sound came from the vacuum. I stopped my bookkeeping and turned my attention to the vacuum cleaner. She had sucked up the stylus (pencil thing) that was *once* attached to Rissy's computer game - a Leapster (not cheap). After taking the vacuum cleaner apart, I found the pencil attached to a frayed cord, hung up in the beater bar. I cleaned the beater bar of all the hair and other such stuff before reassembling the vacuum. I gave Luci a broom and told her to sweep the kitchen floors, instead. That's when I noticed Annamarie standing in the foyer wiping the same glass vase (Lori K, you're familiar with that vase - the one with the glass marbles!!! LOL) over and over and over and over in the same spot with glass cleaner and a paper towel. I corrected her and got her moving forward. Rissy (once more) came to my rescue and said she could finish the vacuuming because she had dusted all the wood in the house.
8. Once more, I returned to Jesse's books and the phone rang. It was Jesse. He'd ruined a tire on his riding mower (a necessary piece of machinery yesterday, as he was doing some commercial properties) and he needed me to copy down the tire size and call two places for prices of tires. Of course, one place was hard to locate in the phone book. It took me a while. Meanwhile I had to ask Rissy to discontinue vacuuming, so I could hear when I made the calls.
9. I made my calls from my bedroom (for the sake of quietness in the background) and Luci interrupted me in the middle of one call to inform me (assuring me first, there was a "REAL" problem), "You know Annamarie's chair in the kitchen? Welllllll, when you pull it back (over the tile) it makes a really, really loud sound and hurts my ears. Soooooo, I was wondering . . ." I cut her off with a glare and a pointed finger at my bedroom door! She turned and left the room.
10. I called Jesse back with the tire prices. I started back to my bookkeeping task ONCE AGAIN and told Rissy she could resume vacuuming. Then I remembered those dishes I'd never washed after lunch. It bothered me and I figured if I did them, I'd be better able to concentrate on the books. I quickly did the dish washing job and laid the things on the towel I had already prepared on the bar BEFORE LUNCH. Then *I* resumed my bookkeeping job.
11. FINALLY, I was finished with Jesse's books. They were all set up and current. I took a bathroom break, blew my nose, and (to my horror) found my nose was bleeding. And bleeding A LOT!!!! Before I began the "pinch technique" to stop the bleeding, I looked once more to see which side. Sigh of relief. I wasn't bleeding after all, remember the red Kool Aid dust? Apparently, I had breathed in more than I'd realized. "All is well. All is well," I repeated to myself. At that point, I told the girls to be quiet as *I* needed some "alone time" and quiet in the house. I assigned them to quiet play with each of them in a different room.
12. I was going to sit down for a bit to watch "Jeopardy!" which is a re-run at 3:30p and a current program at 4:00p. One hour of repose! It sounded like pure bliss. AND, I already had dinner plans - spaghetti.
That's when I remembered the 20 lbs. of ground beef I'd bought at Sam's the day before that needed to be repackaged. Sigh! I went to the garage refrigerator to retrieve the two chubs and brought them to the kitchen bar. The dishes would need to be put up (the ones drying on the towel) first, so I would have room for the meat chore. As I picked up the dried dishes, I saw a pink towel underneath. It had formerly been a white one with widely spaced blue stripes. Kool Aid dust that had been activated into a red dye when the wet dishes touched it!!!! At least the towel is over 10 years old, but still, one of my favorites. I put it in the stack of "to bleach whites" and began the meat division. I continued to say, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," as I felt my own strength ebbing.
I only caught 45 minutes of "Jeopardy!" and even that break was interrupted when I realized that the dishwasher was full of clean dishes. I asked Annamarie to please empty it. She did by putting everything on the counter tops for me to put away. That's our way of dealing with hard to reach cabinets. Then, it was time to start dinner.
13. I told the girls I still needed them to go to separate rooms and read or do something quiet. My nerves and body felt way past the point of over-stimulated and I needed to be left alone to cook dinner. One by one, the girls felt compelled to come out and check on the spaghetti dinner's progress. Feeling somewhat guilty, I sent each one back to their "quiet place" and tried to concentrate on boiling pasta, browning meat and flavoring the sauce correctly, as well as, make garlic Texas toast in the oven without burning it. Still more visits from children with questions & comments about dinner. Still more sending children away from my kitchen, a space I was beginning to guard, like a lioness with cubs guards her den. Finally, I called them for dinner.
Annamarie repeatedly told me she liked "ba-sgetti" and it was a favorite meal. Repeatedly. Repeatedly. Repeatedly!!! The wrongness of the word just rubbed me wrong (I guess you could say) and I stopped dishing up plates of food and turned to her. "Spa-ghetti," I emphasized and repeated over and over, until she got the "s" in the front of the word. I decided to eat my dinner at my desk alone. No sense in making them not talk or enjoy their meal just because *I* was having a not so great day.
I was enjoying the solitude at my desk when Annamarie came to me with an empty plate and said, "May I have more SPA gehtti, please?" She now was saying "SPA" (as in a place where they give facials, body wraps, and pamper you - something I was in dire need of receiving) and emphasizing the "SPA gehetti" over and over, pleased with her accomplishment. I sighed, feeling beat up and worn.
I got up from my desk chair, smiled, and said, "Sure honey!"
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I know if Jesse had asked the girls what Momma did all day, they would have told him, "She sat at the computer all day because she was in a bad mood and made us do all the housework."
And, if I hadn't written this down, I would have to say (going by appearances), it looked that way to me, too!!!!
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