Where Did I Leave Off?

Life in the "fast lane" seemed to be the track things here were taking over the past several days now. I can't seem to gain any headway this week in ANYTHING I need or want to do. Well, it seems that way to me, at any rate.

Every day seemed to hold something that either felt like it was a disaster then or perhaps, was well on the way to resulting in full disaster.

Wednesday morning, we woke up to a big branch from the maple tree in front of the house laying in the yard, branches with leaves galore all over the sidewalk and the thicker end of the branch, where the separation from the tree had taken place, was laying on the ground with that end pointing to the house. Thankfully, it had missed the roof and also the bay window in its travel down to the ground.

Thursday morning, when I got up, looked out the front window and there was Mandy's car parked on one side of our parking area and my older daughter's car was parked on the other end of the parking area but my car was nowhere in sight! Hmmmm. Where the heck had my car gone anyway?

Turns out that Mandy's care wouldn't start so she "borrowed" my car but didn't wake me up to tell me that bit of information. She did phone me about 10 a.m. though to tell me where my car was (at work with her) and why she had borrowed it, which of course, was fine with me. She had also called some one with a tow truck and a mechanic to come check it out and if need be, tow it to the garage to get whatever was wrong fixed. (I knew from the tone of her voice and with other problem she has had of late with this car that she was worried then too about how much of a small business loan she might have to get to pay to get it running again!)

Luckily for her though, it turned out to be just a loose wire to the battery terminal!

Friday whizzed by so quickly that I don't even remember anything at all of what may have happened that day! Probably a good thing though considering how the earlier part of the week had been.

Saturday, Mandy had work that day -her last day at the Diner -and when she got up to get her shower and get dressed, she had a really rude awakening as she discovered that there was no hot water because we had run out of fuel oil during the night! (Don't have to run the furnace during the summer and especially not as hot and humid as it's been here but we do have to have oil for the furnace because our hot water is heated via the furnace you see!)

So, she ended up running a tad late for work because he had to stop and ask her brother if he would please take the fuel cans and go get some fuel oil and dump it in the tank and then, get the furnace restarted so as to enable all of us to shower later in the day and get ready to go watch Maya perform in the play that evening in Philipsburg.

The play went very well! The kids, all of them, did a fantastic job with the music and dance routines and made us very, very proud to sit there and watch Miss Maya strut her stuff, ya know! Maya's oldest iter, Katie, and her little baby, Lola Rae, were able to attend the play along with my older daughter and her fiance as well as Maya and Kurt' Dad too! Nice that he was able to attend and Maya was very proud then to be able to show off her theatrical talent for her Daddy!

Here's a picture of the entire cast of the production of Freckleface Strawberry and the young lady standing on the far left is Miss Abbie Houston, the director of this play. I got a couple of videos and a few other stills of the play but they turned out very dark and difficult to see who is in the majority of those picture.

I did however manage to get this picture of Miss Maya and her sister, Katie, though and this picture i one I am really pleased with as it shows both of them looking really great!

Maya was so happy and excited to see that Katie was there -and also, that Katie had her baby, little Lola Rae, with her too. I think you can see the happiness shining through in both their eyes, can't you?

Speaking of Lola Rae -I did manage to get a couple cute pictures of her too after the play so here's a couple of the ones I liked the best. (She is growing so fast and is now five months old -already!

Isn't she just adorable though?

Sunday morning dawned and I was up, got ready to go to church and got there about ten minutes before the service started, so I thought then maybe lady luck had decided to leave us -or me -alone that day. However, about 10 minutes after the service started, my intestines decided it a time for them to wake up and create a lot of discomfort and potential problems too for me so I ended up having to leave after the scripture readings. I missed then that Pastor Matt called Mandy and Jeff up in front of the congregation to announce that Mandy was leaving the area now, moving down to Middletown, PA and thus, this would be her last service with our congregation for a while. She told me about this when she got home and said she had done really well during the service until then and that brought the tears on for her. It is really difficult when you've been a member of the same church for all your life and you love it the way she did and still does (as do I) to have to say farewell to good friends, many of whom are also close neighbors and friends of our family too.

Sunday evening, Mandy and Jeff loaded up his car as well as her car with boxes and stuff to take down to Middletown then today for the first caravan to move stuff from here to there then early Monday morning.

So Monday morning came and with it came the rain -and lots of it too -sprinkles here and there, then a shower, then sprinkles, clearing for about 5 minutes and then, a deluge and it kept up doing that almost the entire day! That could be dealt with except for one small issue and that was that both Mandy and Jeff had left their car windows down all night and so, both of them had to endure the ride to Middletown on wet car seats then, ya know!

My day here with Maya and Kurtis was something else today!

Not only was it wet -weatherwise -outside but inside the house there was a lot of wetness too as Maya developed a case of the weepies and whinies and also, apparently had declared her own private war too -against her brother! The kids were both more than a bit on the crabby and contrary side almost all day! Constant tattling on each other for totally ludicrous and very mundane things -definitely not anything indicative of the end of the world being at hand you see!

At one point, Maya informed me that Kurtis had put a disposable camera in the commode but Kurtis claimed Maya had put it in the vanity sink and turned the water on it! I'm still not completely positive as to which kid was telling the truth and which was lying but the evidence I have on that deed points very much in the direction of Kurtis being the guilty party there! (Apparently he was trying to see what it means to have a "disposable" camera is about all I can figure out as to why either of them would have been monkeying with it with water involved!)

Later this evening, water again became the overriding theme for the day as I went into the bathroom and discovered water had been splashed over a good deal of the bathroom floor! Now what the heck had one of those two hooligan done there? It turns out Kurtis was definitely the guilty one there and the water on the floor? Well that came about from his getting hold of a squirt gun, filling it with water and then, squirting it hither, thither and yon in the bathroom!

Needless to say, these two better thank their lucky stars that Grammy really, really, really loves them because today, Grammy sure wasn't on an overload of liking either much less both of them!

Since I had to make a trip into Philipsburg to take care of a few things, we then went to McDonald's for supper because Maya insisted she had to have a cheeseburger and then, Kurt could "feast" too on a kiddie meal of the chicken tenders which he loves. When I gave the attendant the order for the kids Happy Meals I asked her to please could she see to it that there was a extra large serving in those meals of the "Happy" because those two kids were in dire need of some "happy" stuff you see. And when I ordered an iced tea for myself and she asked if I wanted unsweetened or sweet tea, I told her I figured I needed some extra sweetness today too so for her to give me the sweetened tea!

Unfortunately, she apparently overlooked the "happy" stuff because although the kids were pretty well behaved while we were eating, a soon as we got back into the car, the war was on again between them!

I seriously am thinking of purchasing two set of handcuffs and attaching them to their wrists and then, fastening them to something in the backseat of the car to make them unable to reach across the seat and touch each other! I'm also considering the purchase of a big roll of duct tape and you can probably figure where I'd be putting that by now too, can't you?

But thankfully, by 9 p.m., Kurtis was ready to head off to bed with no hassles and by 10 p.m., Maya decided she was tired then too and off she went so now -for the past 3 hours, life here has become very quiet, and also, quite calm too!

Finally! Such a nice feeling to know that there is now a reprieve for me till at least 8 a.m. Tuesday morning when things here will probably continue on -hopefully not in quite as much of a trouble creating manner as was experienced most of the day today!

Stay tuned though for more of the day-to-day trials from this war zone!