let me apologize up front

Not sure what's wrong with me lately. I'd say I'm in a bit of funk, but that's not quite it. Nothing is really wrong, and I certainly have nothing to complain about. Just been feeling disjointed and out of whack, if that makes sense. Can't seem to keep things organized, despite my compulsive list making. Anyway, I'm betting this post will reflect my general feelings of disorganization. So, I don't blame you one iota if you decide not to trudge your way through this one...seriously. (But I do hope you'll read the next paragraph.)

I just want to thank everyone for their incredibly sweet comments on the last post. You were all so very kind to one sappy old mom! And I so very much appreciated that. :) And I should tell you that this sappy old mom felt so much better when she talked to her daughter on the phone after her class. My goodness, the pure excitement in Annie's voice when she told me about how her class had gone knocked all those selfish "you can't grow up" thoughts right from my head. Her enthusiasm truly was priceless! And by the way, I'm sorry if I misled anyone. Annie hasn't started college full time or anything like that. She's just taking one class at the community college. Though it is an Honors Level Advanced Composition course that I think would kick my butt. Just hope it doesn't kick hers! She showed me the writing assignment they had to do in class that first day, and whew...all I can say is "better her than me!" I'll be anxious to see what her professor had to say about it (I think they're supposed to get them back today). I really hope she did okay, as I'd hate to see her get discouraged right off the bat.

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And what about my sweet little guys? I didn't have any back-to-school photos to post yesterday morning, because they wouldn't let me take their pictures. No, my little guys definitely do not have their sister's outgoing, try anything personality. Two very shy little boys who hate the unknown. They were extremely anxious yesterday morning, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause them any more stress by insisting they have their pictures taken. I even had to carry poor little Maxidoodle onto the bus, just as I did on the first day of kindergarten last year.

But their faces were lit by smiles when they arrived home. They'd both had a good first day. As Gray said, "It was good; it wasn't wonderful." Believe me, that's high praise coming from him! And they both allowed me to take their pictures after school, so technically we've still got those obligatory "first day of school" photos to be scrapbooked.




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And speaking of scrapbooking, I'm pretty darn sure I have the best husband on the planet. He's definitely the best husband for me! :) Anyway, he took over all kid duties on Saturday so I could spend the entire day scrapbooking. It's been a long time since I've spent any real time scrapping, so it was quite a treat. Maybe one of these days I'll even get my finished layouts posted on my craft blog.

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On the book front, I did something I rarely do...I gave up on a book. It was a book (Fiscal Pear and Shimmer in the Call of the River Whale) that I was reading to the boys. It started out okay. In fact, Gray was really loving it, in part due to the fact that he is a true fan of the pear (seriously, I think they rate above Smarties on his list of favorite treats) and having a book with a pear as a main character is definitely unique. But as we continued, we just found the story extremely hard to follow. Gray, Max, and I all eventually agreed that we just didn't want to stick with it. I honestly can't recommend reading it or avoiding it, because we didn't finish it and therefore don't have the full picture.

We didn't want to end our reading last night on a down note though, so we started a new book, The Witches by Roald Dahl. Oh my, and are we ever in love with this one!

I'm still working my way through The Stand: Complete and Uncut. Have finally passed the 1,000 page mark. Not sure why it's taking me so long to read it...just too little time to read lately, I guess. But hopefully I'll finish soon so I can jump into some of my RIP reads!

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Well, this is quite a day for me...for the first time since Annie was born, all my munchkins are off in school. (Actually, that's not quite true...Annie went to preschool 2 mornings a week during part of the time I was pregnant with Gray, but I was too sick to enjoy the alone time.) Anyway, it shall be that way every Tuesday and Thursday for the next few months. Maybe I can now get a bit caught up on lesson planning, and maybe my poor family won't have to live in such pig sty anymore. :) But on slate for today is painting the boys' bedroom. Ugh...I hate painting. They've decided that they want to share a room again, so we're going to turn Max's room into their bedroom and turn Gray's room into a playroom. We already went out and found some bunk beds that we could sort of afford. Heck, any price would be worth it if they'll actually sleep in them and aren't both sleeping on the floor of our room anymore. :)

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And thus concludes this even-more-rambling-than-usual post.