Well. It's been an interesting couple of days, that's for sure.

Sunday was wonderful, which was kind of surprising considering it started off with me being a total freak. I despise being late, and although the alarm went off at 7:30 AM I chose to cop a snooze until about 8:00. Of course, then it was a frantic rush to get myself cleaned up and the two kids up, fed, and dressed so we could be out the door and hit the road by 8:45. Da Hub helped, but I still had to snark and blast and get my panties in a wad, because that's just what I do when I'm stressed. You'd think I'd learn to chill by now; every Sunday I have to be there at 9 AM for praise team practice, and nearly every Sunday we make it before anyone else, including the song leaders. Robert very firmly informed me he was not going to have me going ballistic every Sunday morning to rush us all, especially considering it was my own fault for not getting up on time. Begrudingly, I have to admit he's right. Me spazing about being late does nothing but raise the tension level in the house, and it does not get us any closer to the church; I suppose it might be nice to actually walk out the door in a state of calm once in a while.

Church was great, and Brynna and I got to do our duet of "What Child Is This". She played the harp while I sang, and it was a sheer joy working with her. She may only be sixteen, but she's very proficient on the harp. She's going to be very, very good one day and I see her giving Loreena McKennit a run for her money. She's wanting to learn LK's "Lady of shallot" and I told her once she learned it I would sing it while she played. Methinks we make a good team.:) Sunday night was nice too, for it was the children's Christmas program. They are all so cute! It was especially cute to see the little 1-5 year olds sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.:)

Monday was, well, Monday. After 37 years I have finally come to the conclusion that Monday's and I just do not get on. Things were tooling along fairly swimmingly, lulling me into a false sense of security that the day was actually going to turn out Nice, when all of a sudden it threw me a curve ball that left me standing slack-mouth wondering what else could go wrong. And to make things worse, it involved my dimpling and golden haired daughter, whose angelic appearance often shrouds the firecracker that lives within.

WARNING: what follows is TMI, especially for the queasy-minded. Read at your own risk.

I had put her down for her nap, and while I heard her quietly talking to her babies I figured it was only a matter of time before she fell asleep. Not so, Kemosabe. About an hour later I heard her come into the hall and say, "Mama, I got yuck on my hands". 'Yuck' is her word for 'poop', or for something else for the creatively minded. Not only was it on her hands, it was caked on her hands; her fingers, fingernails, the whole schmoely. I immediately knew what had happened, the very thing we have been desperately trying to break her from doing, the one thing she *knows* she's not supposed to do, that disgusting, despicable thing that just leaves me wanting to gag in revoltion: yes, she had been fingerpainting in her feces once again.

I immediately shuffled her into the bathroom and made her stand perfectly still and NOT TOUCH ANYTHING with those nasty hands. Once I got her tub bath drawn, I put her in it and went to survey the damage.

Dear.God.In.Heaven.

It was the worst I'd ever seen her do. It was all over her dresser. It was all over the carpet. It was flung on the opposite wall. It was on the closet. No kidding, no joke. I stood there like a statue, numb with disbelief. I couldn't believe my eyes, and that's when it hit me that I'm the Mom and it was my responsibility to clean it up. If I was a cussing woman, I would have been raining down fire from heaven and causing salty sailors to blush like virginal brides.

I wanted to cry. As a matter of fact, I think I did cry. I'm not sure, it's all still a blur.

At the same time as the massive scrub-down, my four cats decided to get hairs up their fuzzy butts and try to kill each other. I don't know what the problem was, but twice I had to dive in and separate roiling, hissing, scratching balls of fur as they would whiz by. I finally got them separated by shutting Gypsy up in my bathroom and Julius in my bedroom, which seemed to calm Irwin and Mulder down a bit, and then it was back to the Muck Room. Jeeze, mon!

I cleaned it all up. I don't really know how, but I did. I used Windex foaming cleaner, Fabuloso cleaner, Mr. Clean Magic pads, close to a roll of paper towels, two large terrycloth towels, and one extra large can of Apple Cinnamon air freshener. It took me forty-five minutes from start to finish to get all that muck up. My daughter looked like a extra-shriveled raisin when I got her out of the tub, because I had her soak and play in there while I cleaned up her handiwork.

Have we told her not to do this? You bet. Does she know not to do this? Absolutely. Did I spank her little bottom? Yesiiiireebob! Not to mention she was grounded to her room until supper time. I don't know what it's going to take to get through to her that this is just not acceptable, but I'm going to tow the line and stay consistent. I do NOT want to have to go through that again.

Tuesday was brighter, although I felt kind of gross when I woke up (and after Monday, I wasn't completely surprised). I felt sniffly and my throat was a tad sore, so I took it easy due to the fact that I didn't want to miss the church Christmas banquet. I was singing again, this time "Who Would Imagine A King" with a soundtrack. Not to mention I didn't want to miss the good food and fellowship. It was awesome to be with people that understand that Christmas is truly about Jesus and the rest is just gravy. As expected, it was all very nice and elegant and a good time was had by all, until I got home...that's when I started feeling gross again.

So here we are, this morning, and I'm still fighting off the ick. This time, however, it's my stomach as well as my sniffles. I think I overdid it with the coffee last night at the party, for lately I've been drinking decaf. I was in Major Coffee Overload last night and I think it's taking it's toll on my tummy. Ugh. And it's cold in my house, which does not bode well when I'm feeling sick. I know my gas bill is going to be a fortune, but I'm going to crank up the heat so at least I can feel snuggly.

I'm off to pick up David from school in about fifteen minutes, and the temperature is dropping outside pretty rapidly. It's much colder now than it was this morning when I made my Hobby Lobby run. I think we are supposed to get ice, and if we do you can count on Atlanta shutting down faster than you can say, "Look! It's snowing!", which of course we rarely say because this is, after all, ATLANTA, and we just don't get favored with snow. Whatever.

In a crafty note, I've tanked my rainbow scarf for the time being. I've made too many mistakes, sailing beyond the It Gives Character category and parking into the She Has No Clue What She's Doing one. Fine. I'm not, however, giving up! Nosireebob!
I've promptly decided on a new project and new colorway, with colors that will cheer me every time I stitch it.
Here are the new colors:
and

Meet the inspiration:


Yes, I *love* the Cheshire Cat, so I've decided to make my very own Cheshire Cat scarf. It will be a very biiiiig scarf, for I'm going to attempt to stitch it in the round and the only circular needles I could find are 29" instead of 12"-16". That's okay; any scarf this colorful named after such a character should be larger than life.:)

BTW, I've been tagged by a Soulful one to share some Useless Information, but considering this blog post is already longer than one of Santa's lists (and I ain't sayin' which one!) I figured it could wait until tomorrow.

Until then, Feliz Navidad!
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12.09.2005

Two More Days