If she had the proper words to say,

Actual post coming up soon. But first - I must change into my jammies!

*opens dryer, vacuums lint filter with DustBuster®, unloads dryer of fresh jammies, scampers to bedroom nekkid after tossing 'dark' clothes from today in new wash load, dons warm jammies, pees and comes back*

Alrightee, so I decided to fold and put away the entire load of laundry while I was in my bedroom changing. Sue me. ;-)

Oh, and I don't want to forget this: do you ever get blisters inside your mouth where you've bitten your lip or your cheek? You know, the kind that hurt like crazy and you keep re-biting because the area is swollen and it gets in your way? Tip #1 for dealing with the pain: Squirt a teeny, tiny amount of Chloraseptic spray onto the blister or onto your fingertip and apply to the blister (cover your finger, or it will go numb also!). It works instantly! (And thus makes you wonder why you never thought of it before... grr.) Baby Orajel or something of that sort would work too, I'm sure, but I no longer have any of that stuff in the house.

Ahhhh - relief. Relief for the next 2-3 hours or so.

Today Yesterday was Sunday, so we went to church. And you know, arriving at our church for a service is a tricky thing. See, if you arrive at 10:45 for the 11am service (which allows the perfect amount of time to drop off the kids in their separate Sunday school rooms and get to the sanctuary and get settled in myself), you can't find parking. That is because the 9:30 service is not out just quite yet. But if you wait until those in the 9:30 service trickle out closer to 11, then you are late getting into the sanctuary for the 11am service, and it's nearly impossible to find a seat. You can't win, I think, unless you go to the 8:15am service... which is *so* not an option in this 'I-don't-wanna-wake-up' household. Heheh.

And speaking of church, as I was pulling into one of the secondary parking lots this morning at 10:50am (hey, I keep trying different times), I didn't notice my friend Janiece until after she'd already passed me. At least, I think that was her; she was sporting a new 'do, and it looked very good on her. Nice and summer-y. :-)

After church, we came home and had a simple lunch (corndogs for the boys and a BLT for me). We putzed around, waiting until late afternoon so we could go play. I try really hard to keep the boys inside until after 2:30pm - I don't feel that they are nearly as 'safe' outside before then, regardless of how much sunscreen they might have on. To pass the time, we did go to Wal*Mart and buy more milk. We also picked up a new necklace for Baby (aka. collar). She's the only one who wears one anymore, and her new one is blue and green, whereas her old one was purple). Jack was so proud to carry out the new collar for "[his] cat." We put it on her as soon as we got home, and I think she's thrilled. (Well, she's thrilled to have the old fuzzy-looking one to bat around the house, anyway.)

The boys played outside for a good while tonight. Marissa walked over later, and we man-bashed for a while. :-D (No, dear! I would *never* tell *anyone* *anything* that you've *ever* done - NEVER! [No, really. I was just agreeing with her frustrations for the evening. Heehee.]) I need to give her back a bowl, too. She surprised me with an awesome dinner the other night: orecchiette with spicy sausage and broccoli rabe topped with parmesan reggiano. It was SO GOOD! Spicy though, and I had to down two glasses of milk when I'd finished it. Her bowl's going in the dishwasher tonight, and then I'll get it back to her. :-)

While we were outside, I checked on the garden again. We've had so much precipitation these past 4-5 days, so there's been NO need for water. However, I did notice that a couple of the pumpkin leaves and also some of the corn stalks received a little hail damage from yesterday. Nothing huge - just slits in the leaves where the hailstones zipped straight through. The two little zucchinis that were growing (each was about 2 inches long already) had their flowers pummeled to death by the hail. Those two won't make it now, but I can already see two new flower buds that are about to bloom - yay!

( Garden pics, if you'd like to see them. )

Lastly, Philip's parents' 40th wedding anniversary was yesterday (the 5th). As such, the boys made something special for them. Earlier in the week, we all decorated two sheets of posterboard with paint and sponges. I then took a picture of the boys holding their gigantic 'card' outside in the yard (hee - that rhymes!). Then I printed the picture onto card stationery, and we stamped the inside with smaller stamps and signed our names. They should be getting it in the mail, but they've been on vacation at Niagara Falls over the weekend. :-)


Jack and A.J. wish Grammy and Papa George a happy 40th wedding anniversary!

(I couldn't get a single picture with BOTH of the boys looking and/or smiling at the camera. Ah, well. It's the thought that counts, right? You can see the rest of the attempts HERE).

I guess that's it for right now. Quite a lot of things all thrown in together. :-)

It's after 9am on a Wednesday morning, peeps. Where's the flurry of morning posts?! Oh, there are a few trickling in... but by and large, there's not yet many, to be sure.

Write, peoples! Amuse me with my breakfast!

Alright, alright. I suppose before I can razz anyone else for not writing in the morning, I'd better do the same myself. ;-)

I did end up turning off the computer last night. It certainly seemed like the safe thing to do. We had wonderful, large claps of thunder that nearly shook the house. I love being smack in the middle of storms like those. In fact, right after I turned off the computer, we hopped in the car and drove to Heather's to deliver some cake. I would've stayed to visit a little bit too, but when I rolled down my window, the air was so stinky out that direction I could hardly breathe! Heather ran back into her house with her nose buried in the cake just so she could make it inside without fainting. Ick.

Once back home, the boys and I settled in to watch a movie. A.J.'s been begging me for some time to watch Star Wars, and we own four of the movies. I've never seen a stitch of any of the Star Wars movies before, but I finally decided to give in. We all settled into the couch and began the movie (Episode Four, by the way).

I was very surprised. I figured I'd be underwhelmed by the now-cheesy 'awesome special effects' from 1977, but I wasn't. They actually WERE good. And the story line WAS engaging. I was drawn in, and I just couldn't believe it. I've been saying for years and years and years that I could just never see myself care one way or another about the movies... but I found myself eating my words.

While we were closing in on the end of the movie, Marissa stopped over to get some cake. We're watching the movie, la la la, and all of a sudden, Marissa says:

( Spoiler for probably no one but me, but there you have it, and you've been warned if you find info behind here that you'd rather not know. )

She did have the grace to look a little sheepish. :-)

Ah, well. It was bound to happen, I suppose. I mean, even with living my life in a happy abandon for all things Star Wars, I've still managed to pick up that at some point in the movies, there's going to be a big moment between Vader and Luke (ie. "Luke, I am your father.") I'd have to have been smashed by the rock I'd been living under all these years to have missed THAT. ;-)

Jack faded fast during the movie, and I ended up putting him to bed at his request before it was over. A.J. really enjoyed it, though. I'm going to re-watch the ending today sometime because I couldn't really concentrate on it once Marissa came over, and I want to be fully prepared for the next installment.

*in disbelief that I just said that about Star Wars*

Once it was over and A.J. was in bed, Marissa and I chatted. After she went home, I worked on MuggleNet for a while. We're launching a new column today, and I was doing several things to get ready for that. What can I say? My geekiness works best late at night. ;-D