Catching Up

This is bound to be the most confusing blog post in history, but I have lots of thoughts and updates swirling around in my had that I need to put onto this virtual paper.

It's Monday again!  The weather is crisp and the wind is blowing at just the right speed so that there's no doubt it is autumn here in northern Virginia.  I love it.  And just like last Monday, here I sit, blogging and eating candy corn (the last of it) while Ford naps and the girls are at preschool.  I planned to go to the gym (I even made a childcare reservation!), but Ford seemed really tired and in need of a good crib nap (as opposed to a short carseat nap), and the house looks like it imploded, so I decided to stay home and get caught up.

We all seemed out of sync this morning and were almost late to school, which is probably why my bed's not made, why there's still applesauce smeared all over the kitchen table from breakfast, and why there are two adult-sized sleeping bags, among other "treasures," littering the floor upstairs.  Random, right?  Lorelei is the queen of random, and of Making Messes, and of Rearranging the House, and when left to her own devices, is usually the main culprit responsible for an imploded house on a Monday morning.  Or any morning, really.

Anyway, one reason we may be so out of sync is because, last weekend, Chet started a prep course that will get him ready to take the Professional Engineer exam at the end of October.  The class convenes every Saturday and Sunday, for five weeks.  ALL day Saturday (9 a.m. - 6 p.m.) and most of the day on Sunday (8 a.m. - 3 p.m.).  This means, quite obviously, that we don't have much of a weekend.  In fact, Saturday is the longest day of the week for us, because Chet doesn't get home until nearly 7:00 p.m. after class, whereas he is usually home from work around 5:30 p.m. during the week.  "Yikes" is one word you could use to describe the situation.

Anyway.

I'm glad he's taking the course, but let's just say that two Saturdays in a row of taking three kids to the grocery store is not exactly my idea of a good time.  Although, this past Saturday's trip was a minor success, in that Sydney spotted "flutes" for sale on a grocery store aisle (you know how they have random items hanging from the middle of the shelves? like straws or oven mitts or devices that will make your sandwiches in the shape of a heart? that's where the flutes were displayed).  By the way, they weren't real flutes, they were cheap plastic recorders.  But Sydney has been saying for weeks that she wants a flute for her birthday, and I wasn't sure how to go about dealing with that.  But she solved the problem herself when she spotted those "flutes," and I'll be a monkey's uncle if those puppies (flutes) didn't only cost $2.88 and are the sole reason for Sydney's and Lorelei's immaculate behavior for the rest of the shopping trip.  No matter that the recorders were bright yellow with Spongebob Squarepants painted on them; they were an answer to prayers I didn't even know I was praying.

My plan was to update you with some pictures from our TX trip and talk about Chet's and my trip to Myrtle Beach a couple of weeks ago, but I really need to get to it.  And by that I mean I need to get busy stuffing sleeping bags back into their tiny little cases so that no one (me) breaks their neck tripping over them.

Happy Monday!