What a Day!

I told you about my day Saturday - fixing the casserole for the dinner to be held at church yesterday and baking my fat fanny off - making cookies. That was all a walk in the park compared to my day yesterday!

First, probably because I was so keyed up inside after writing my post late Saturday nite (actually early Sunday morning), I couldn't fall asleep till well after 4 a.m. so then I slept in and didn't make it to church yesterday. Mandy did get there though - thank goodness - since she had put flowers on the altar yesterday in honor of Kate's birthday this coming Thursday. She will be 16 and yes, I know, there begins a bunch of new problems for sure as she already has her driver's manual here, supposedly studying it. Maya calls it the "Stop sign" book because it has a big stop sign on the cover. How's that for originality, huh?

Well Saturday night was really the beginning for some of the problems experienced here yesterday as my SIL's fuel pump on his pickup truck gave out. The truck broke down about 2 doors up the street from the house so he and Mandy had to go up there, in the rain, and push the truck down here to the parking area out front. Then, he had to call and order a new fuel pump and yesterday he was busy all morning working things out to get the truck moved up to the garage where he works part-time so he could change the fuel pump. It was not a good day for Bill as he ran into problems with trying to make arrangements to move his pickup to the garage and finally ended up taking the truck apart out front in the parking area, in the pouring rain. So, obviously, he wasn't exactly a happy camper.

Then, about 10:30 yesterday morning, Bill's sister called, saying she was calling her doctor as she was having some "issues" (she's due with her second baby any day now) and might need to go to the hospital So she wanted to know if Mandy would drive her there. Mandy agreed to do that and about 1/2 hour later, Kathy called back saying the doctor said she needed to come in and be checked so away Mandy went, leaving me with the two little ones and thankfully, Katie was here so she could kind of keep a little eye on Maya from time to time so Maya didn't totally wreck the house.

I decided that I was going to try to get the molasses cookies I had mixed up the night before - which are the kind of cookie I don't normally bake - rolled cookies, ya know - done up and so I began rolling out the dough. Actually, prior to doing those cookies, I did bake up the snickerdoodles and gingersnaps I'd mixed up Saturday night too but those are no problem as you just roll the dough into little balls, dip that in sugar and then, lay them out on the cookie sheet and bake! Got them done in no time!

So there I am, up to my elbows in flower and cookie dough trying to roll out these molasses cookies and get them cut out, etc., and Maya decides then - of course - to start being contrary. Messing with the computer, out in the kitchen bugging me about all kinds of things.

About 2 p.m., Mandy called from the hospital to tell me NOT to get the kids dressed to go to church because in case she and Kathy didn't get back home on time to get there for the pageant and dinner, she figured it would be a royal hassle then to calm Maya down. So I am stressing out then because I have no clue what the heck to do -if we don't get out there, I've got this huge casserole (5 quart size) of ham and bean potpie that we would then be eating every freaking day this week for openers! So I'm not in a good frame of mind then, as you can imagine. Then, Mandy's best friend calls and while I'm griping to her about the chain of events here, the stupid old cat, Gracie - the one who is senile and often forgets the location of her litter box and seems to think then the kitchen floor - right in front of the sink and the stove - are the appropriate places to do her business - comes out and whizzes on the floor -about 2 feet away from where I was standing at the time. Damned good thing I love that old cat ya know!

And about five minutes after that, as I'm still on the phone talking with Jen-Jen, I hear this really loud crash coming from the living room, followed by Kurtis screaming and bawling at the top of his lungs. I go flying (well, flying to me is a bit slower though than flying to probably anyone reading this -but moving as fast as I could) into the living room to see what happened and there's Kurtis in the playpen just sobbing his little heart out, Maya is standing by the chest-table in a kind of state of shock and Nina, the bad little orange, still a kitten, cat is seated on the floor observing the whole mess of the tree laying on the floor! ARRGH! Just what I really needed to deal with right then ya know! I asked Maya how the tree got knocked onto the floor and she said "Nina did it." Who knows? The way I figure it, it is possible Kurtis may have been within range that maybe he reached out and got a hold of the tree and pulled it over, or Maya might have been messing with it and knocked it down OR quite possibly, Nina may have indeed been the culprit too since she loves to lay in the bow window sill behind the tree and she also likes to knock the ornaments off the tree and bat them around the room too! So, that's the mystery now for this year - "Who knocked the tree over?"

Got the tree back upright, ornaments gathered and back onto it and returned to my baking when Mandy called to say she and Kathy were leaving the hospital then and should be home in time that we can make it to the dinner and pageant. Yay, yay - or in Maya speak - "Doyay, doyay!"

But, to quote another old adage ya know, "All's well that ends well," (I'm just plumb full of "old adages" in case you hadn't figured that out by now), we got the kids dressed, I got a shower and ready to go and we made it out to the church - in the pouring rain, no less (of course) and all in time to get a good table and set up to enjoy a great dinner and another year of enjoying the beautiful pageant to honor St. Lucia - as well as our Swedish heritage in our church!

My son and his new girl friend, Teresa, even made it down to the church for the dinner and program too - which made my day as he's kind of a stick in the mud about attending church but he will occasionally break down and go to a special program especially if there is a meal involved with it too. Kids!

Maya made it through the dinner, program and all without a meltdown - a bonus for us - and actually, she was fairly well-behaved. Fairly well-behaved by Maya standards anyway means no meltdowns and not too much loud and otherwise outrageous behavior.

Back home, Clate and his girlfriend came down to the house and they, along with Mandy and I sat around the table, enjoyed a couple of beers and generally picked on each other for the next two hours! It was one of those occasions of telling stories about when Clate did this or Mandy did that with a lot of chances for each of us to rag on the others - telling stories out of school type of thing but all in good fun, overall as that is generally how things go with my kids and me -just teasing where ever, whenever possible.

If you read my post below this one, you'll see I wrote a little about the history of St Lucia and the program we have every year at our church in her honor plus I even posted some photos of St. Lucia Day programs from past years for your viewing pleasure as well.

Now, today I get to finish baking off the molasses cookies and start getting the rolled sugar cookies baked up too! Never ends ya know, it just never ends! Well, hopefully not for a long time to come anyway!

Now, have a nice day -stay out of the rain and hopefully, we won't get hit with any of the freezing rains they had over the weekend in the midwest but I fear that's going to be the inevitable weather condition du jour either later today or tomorrow, early in the morning, about the time Clate will probably have to leave to go to Hagerstown and start his run for the week!