I Survived.

Valentine's Day is officially over. The children have all had their outings. Mr. Happy & I have had a datenight. It is over. I am tired.

Valentine's Day - The Weekend...

Yes, it says Valentine's "Day" but for us it is more of a weekend this year. A LONG weekend. It started Thursday when I was the helper at preschool. It was cute to watch 3 and 4 year olds grasp the concept of "LOVE". One child didn't want to give valentine's to any one else but her "Bestest Friend in the World". So the concept was explained that all of our friends should be loved (at least at school from 12:15 - 2:15) equally.

On Friday - we had the pleasure of having 7 3 & 4 year olds over from Dance class (and one that I hope someday will be in our dance class since they are so cool) to share valentines, food, & conversation. The party turned out to be really fun (and heavily loaded with chocolate & treats). I am truly amazed (and slightly awed) that all the girls were able to get along so well. I look forward to doing this again sometime in the summer when they can play outside as well. (Marga - tini's on deck anyone?)

Saturday - despite the glitch of my car not starting it went well. (Somehow my hatch was opened on Friday and left open for 3-4 hours before my departing guests noticed and told me. My battery was drained but I didn't know it until 5 minutes before it was time to take my MIL to the beauty shop on Saturday) Mom was visibly relieved that she didn't have to leave the house, and I wasn't too panicked because I didn't actually have to be anywhere critical. The day was spent peacefully picking up and reading a love story. Later that evening - Mr. Happy and I went to dinner, the movies, and then out for coffee. The dinner was good, the movie was excellent, and the coffee was "Blessedly" decaf.

Sunday - Even though I am starting to feel really nauseous from all the extra goodies, I'm excited for Happy girl and her friends to have their slumber party tonight. Happy girl and her friends have very definite ideas on what a slumber party for 13 year olds MUST consist of: Heart Shaped champagne goblets with their names written on them, Sparkling grape juice Punch, Pizza (Preferably shaped into a heart) Paper hearts completely decorating the upstairs, and of course home made strawberry cupcakes personally baked and decorated by Happygirl and friend the night before while babysitting Princess Happy. I'm on my way in a few to pick up a few things from the store:

Pink Plates, 7 up, stuff to decorate the paper hearts, Breakfast items, and Tums (for me).

It has been a "LOVE"-ly weekend.

Crazy....

What a crazy day! It started off fine. Coffee, solitude, the last chapter of a book. It's all good. Princess Happy showered and dressed in a timely manner. Grandma Happy was coherent and pretty lucid. We got to dance class on time without driving like a maniac. Dance class went well, enjoyed some conversation with other moms, got out of line dancing, and had a fun lunch/play date with a few of the other moms/students in the class.

THEN we came home. We arrived just in time to watch Happy Girl's bus deposit students along Fair Street. I honked as I got closer to my street so that Happy Girl would see me and I could offer her a ride. She never turned around. She a few friends from up the street were deep in conversation while strolling down the middle of the street. I pulled up quietly behind them. Still - nothing. Didn't turn around. Didn't get out of the middle of the street. Just kept on walking and talking. So I laid on the horn. I've never seen 3 - 13 year olds freak like this. I think that they thought I was gonna hit them with the car (I was about a foot or two directly behind them) and they also realized that they were walking in the MIDDLE of the street. One boy even pushed his way past the two girls to get to the side of the road - but his eyes were WIDE OPEN CRAZY at the same time. Ha ha ha - it was funny. The girl's lectured me a little and up the street older sister also told me that if she ended up in the hospital because of her heart attack - I was getting the bill. Of course they were laughing hysterically while they lectured (I think it was the giddiness you feel when you thought something awful was going to happen and it didn't.) Ha ha - I laughed all the way home, while unloading the car, and cleaning the house.

Around 5 pm - Happy Girl decided to take the dog out for her evening potty break. She went out on the back patio to put the dog's leash on when I heard this blood curdling scream. MOOOOOOOOOM, HELP!!!!!!!! So I rushed to the back door to find my daughter screaming about a furry face behind the grill and that it had glowing red eyes and it was gonna bite her and don't let it into the house, and how does she keep Jetta from it .....(And she screamed all this so loudly that it brought everyone over to the back door to "help") I'm concerned, not because my daughter thinks a wild animal is going to bite her, but because the grill is less than 3 feet from my back patio door and I think this animal is going to rush in from outside into the warm house. I'm not quite sure what it is at the moment - but I yell for Happy Girl & dog to run into the house RIGHT NOW because I'm not holding the door open to talk them in slowly. They get in and as the door is shutting - Happy Girl is freaking, Princess Happy (Who is NOT a big animal lover to begin with) starts freaking out because she thinks it going to get in the house and bite her and she's crying.

OMG! Mr. Happy looks out the kitchen window and announces that it's a Opossum. It's peaking it's face in between the slats of my patio. So what do I do - I grab my camera of course. I climbed up on my kitchen counter to get several shots of the animal that caused all this confusion while I left my husband to calm down the girls. He can't. They are totally freaked out and hysterical. Of course, I'm starting to laugh at this point and I asked if anyone wanted to go camping. Mr. Happy shot me dirty look and kept trying to convince the older one that it was okay. He even offered to call next door to our retired police officer neighbor to see if Mr. Dave would "remove" the animal from our yard. Happy Girl then freaked - she said that we weren't allowed to kill "Pablo". PABLO????? WTF! Now she's naming this animal? I'm glad she didn't want it to be killed - but naming it? The little one is still screaming about "Oposs-I" and how horrible they are and do they eat children or dogs? I took the opportunity to look up Opossum on the Internet and discovered that they like to eat slugs, spiders, mice, rats, and snakes. They are "nature's gardeners" and the "Sanitation workers" of the wild. Oh Brother!!!!!!!!!! Eventually I got the princess to LOOK at a picture and announce that they aren't so bad.

So here is a picture of a "child eating" Opossum named "Pablo". I hope he doesn't stay too long. I think that I will have a hard time getting Princess Happy out into the backyard to play this spring. Forget about any snow fun in the backyard. I don't think I will tell her I found tracks on the driveway and on the side of the house. She might never go out again!

Random thoughts for the day

1.) I was totally surprised by the amount of snow we got. (shocked is more like it) When Mr Happy called to check out our itinerary, I was surprised because I hadn't been upstairs to see what a mess it was outside. Our plans were cancelled because we couldn't get the car out of the driveway. I'm also grateful to my neighbor across the street for driving Happygirl and all the other middle schoolers to school instead of making them wait in a snowdrift for the bus to pick them up. Thanks Amy!
2.) Didn't have much to do today because I planned to be out of the house most of the morning and to have company afterwards. The house was clean, laundry was mostly done, and I was (dare I say it?) caught up. I read a whole book (Thanks Mr. Happy for letting me get to the library on Monday "BY MYSELF". I am totally stocked up!) played some games with the princess (although none of them involved laundry and standing on a chair - LOL), read a few books with her, and then watched her take a 4 1/2 hour nap that refused to be interrupted by "dinner". Needless to say - Now she's up and ready to go and I'm tired from doing "nothing" all day.
3.) Saw some television tonight. Love the show "Lie to Me". Happygirl hates watching with me since I can guess the plot. Ha Ha HAH!!! Maybe she will take this as an omen about lying......
4.)I'm worried about my MIL. She seems so much more disoriented lately. Yesterday at the foot doctor - she complained of pain in her right foot because her toes were curling up tight and it hurt to manipulate them. He then explained to her (I was sitting next to her so I heard and saw EVERYTHING) that he would numb the foot, make a small incision on the bottom of the foot by each toe and this would do something to help manipulate the toe. He would only do two toes at a time -three weeks apart. She seemed to understand, watched him do this, and had a detailed discussion of it in the car with me on the way home. Today - she can't understand why her foot hurts and is shocked that the Dr. did something to her toes. She was horrified that he cut her foot. My hubby and I were there checking her bandage and all we could do is look at each other. This gloomy weather is not good for her. When the sun is shining, she is more "in the world" and can have a reasonable conversation (at least what limited hearing and limited vision will allow) otherwise she lives in this "bubble" that only she understands what is going on - and it isn't always current or relevant to any conversation being had. I'm very worried for her. I might make an appointment to talk to the nurse practitioner privately to see what I should be watching for.
5.) I started scrapping my TSO pictures. I found some neat paper that isn't very christmassy -is in all the same colors as the light show of the concert. I am almost done with my 2007 pictures. So now I have to make a few title pages and year in review page. Then I can work on January 2008. It's a minimal month for pictures so it shouldn't take too long. I don't take a lot of pictures in February either. So - I should be able to get caught up to where I want to be in a few evenings.
6.) I am praying for a school day tomorrow. If we have a snow day - it might interfere with my plans for the afternoon. (Which reminds me - I have to get my yarn ready. I also have to make Play dough for school tomorrow.)

Otherwise - not much happening around here. If it does end up being a snow day tomorrow, I will make my play dough, scrap my pictures, and possibly put up some Valentine's decorations.