Ain't Misbehaving....

I know, I've been a bit AWOL the past two or three days -shirking my responsibility about keeping au currant with the blogs I follow. But trust me, I haven't been up to no good, haven't been misbehaving -at least not yet anyway.

It's Tuesday now, as I write this and tonight, Mandy will return home from her little getaway excursion to spend some quality time visiting with her Dad out in Nevada.

I've been here, manning the home fort. Well, part of it anyway and that would be the Kurtis part as Maya has been staying with Mandy's best friend since last Wednesday and will return home this evening. Probably her return will also create a major meltdown because she dearly loves to spend time at Jenn-Jenn and Nick-Nick's home with their three teenage children.

Now, I do have a really good excuse as to why I haven't been keeping up with my readings the past couple of days. And considering how well-behaved Kurtis really has been to deal with, I sure can't place any blame over on to him for my being this lax and behind.

But really, I was busy. Very busy, as a matter of fact.

Saturday night, I did post about the high school play my older daughter and her son along with my son, his girlfriend and her daughter all attended. It was terrific! Those kids really put on a great showing of "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."

But prior to the play, I cooked dinner for my daughter and her son, the SIL and myself -(Kurtis had his reliable standby -some leftover mac'n'cheese from Friday's supper), so there were dishes to be done, a little picking up here and there around the place and before I knew it, the time had flown by and without my getting any blogs read.

Sunday, time to cook another big dinner with my son and his "family" here, along with Carrie and Alex. It was so great to have my older daughter and older grandson here for two days -so much fun with Kurtis too, who thoroughly enjoyed the great weather and being able to be outside with people willing to pay attention to him and him only, getting lots and lots exercise and fresh air. And boy, that really paid off in spades too because by 8:15 Sunday night, he was down for the count, sound asleep and whats more, he didn't get up until after 11 a.m. Monday morning! Wiped out, completely, that's for sure.

Sunday afternoon though, Clate, daughter Carrie and I were relaxing at the dining room table after supper and Kurtis was zipping around the room, jabbering away when my son did one of his normal (for him) things. He let out one really huge burp and when he did, Kurtis kind of glanced at him, as if he was wondering about that noise. So Clate decided that it was time to begin trying to teach Kurtis the fine art of belching. (Something my son truly does excel at and takes great pride in his long, very loud burps too.)

So Clate told Kurtis to watch him and listen carefully and yes, he let another big belch out! After which, he told Kurtis, "Now, you do that!" And to our surprise, Kurtis did try to imitate Uncle Clate but without the actual belching cause he doesn't know yet that those things can be done on command. But anyway, he stood there a second or two and then he made this loud growling sound -kind of like saying "ARRGH" ya know and I have to confess it was so comical to see him trying his best to do like Uncle Clate, that Carrie, Clate and I just howled laughing.

Then he made it even funnier too because we would say to him, "Kurtis. Burp." and he would make the same sound, over and over again. Even this morning, he remembered what he was to do if I asked him to burp so we really did have a lot of fun and laughs with him over that little bit. Probably shouldn't be teaching him stuff like that but heck, he'll learn it eventually and if he's going to truly be a part of this family, then he has to be able to compete with some of the others who take such pride in their belching endeavors.

But anyway, Monday I had to break down and do some emergency laundry -something I don't do because the washer and dryer are in the basement and those stairs have no railing for me to hold on to, plus my right leg in particular rebels about going down steps like that and I have a fear I will lose my balance and tumble down the steps. The very last thing I need to do is fall and break a bone anywhere, ya know. But since this was an emergency thing, I threw the stuff to be washed (sheets, blankets from my bed that the rotten little Tom-Kitten had sort of baptized) and then, very cautiously proceeded down the steps, holding on to whatever I could to steady myself as best I could.

While down in the basement, I came across some things there -stuff that had been taken downstairs to stash them out of sight until we figured out something to do with them, ya know. And I started to think -something that also is not always a good thing too -about ways that maybe we could use some of the materials Bill has stashed in the basement to alleviate some major storage issues in this old place.

I spied some lumber Bill has piled in one part of the cellar and got to thinking that maybe he could build some kind of shelving in our entrance way where we could put shoes so they would be out of the way, in an orderly fashion and clear up a lot of the clutter in that area. I get really frustrated with everyone's shoes just laying around there and when you need a specific pair, the mate is always missing and well, it would just be helpful to be a bit more organized.

If nothing else, maybe he could some of the wood there to build some type of book shelves into the corner behind where the tv stands now which would help to eliminate so many books and magazines being piled hither, thither and yon too. That would be a great place to have some additional shelves where we could put things that we're always trying to find some place that is high enough, with no access way for little fingers to be able to reach and get into, ya know!

That's one of the big drawbacks to living in an old, old house that no matter what one does, there is always so much in the way of storage places being available. So, to compensate, one has to try to figure out ways to utilize every stinking nook and cranny!

I mentioned the idea of some kind of shelves for the shoes to the SIL and he actually agreed with me and thought it could be done fairly easily. Now, finding a way to prod him into actually doing that -that will be the real problem, for sure. I figure I best be quiet about suggesting any more "custom-building" ideas to him as given too many suggestions about things like that will get him to feeling overwhelmed almost immediately.

Yeah -keep it simple and go "one step or one day" at a time and who knows, maybe one of these days, the idea will strike him and he'll think it was his idea all along and then, he'll hop to it and get it done.

Now I'd best get to bed so I can get up and get Kurtis ready to take to his therapy appointment and from there, to his school and that will give me roughly 3 hours of "free time" to come home and look around for maybe some more ideas or better yet, do some work on yet another embroidery project I started tonight.

Or maybe I'll just come back home and take a nap and dream about these things ever happening!