Not Monday

This week doesn't sound very busy in retrospect, but I certainly was pressed for time, regardless. Much of the week was spent acclimating to Josh's hideous schedule, and the rest of it was spent in preparation of Brother's visit. Well, and his visit took some time, as well. Josh worked all day and all night Monday and Tuesday (both nights he came home around 6am and slept until 9, then showered and left for work). Wednesday he only worked at night, but spent most of the day sleeping. Thursday he left for work in the early morning, worked all day, worked all night, and then after 1 hour of sleep, worked all day Friday.

Thursday afternoon, my mom and Brother came over. Brother came with me to taiko, and then we stayed up re-introducing ourselves to Charlie the Unicorn and the like. Friday morning we had doughnuts, and then Mom took the kids to see How to Train Your Dragon, while me and Brother took Michelle to see Clash of the Titans. (Josh was at work, of course.) In case you were curious: It's AWFUL. It has nothing remotely resembling Greek/Roman mythology, especially in its anti-god themes, and is a horrible bastardization of the original movie, which wasn't good to begin with. But now I have a strange urge to watch it.... Well, we had fun, anyway. I showed Brother and Michelle the tea shop in the mall, which will soon be under the ownership of the main employees. That includes our friend, Katie. She wasn't there, and I was sad to miss her. I bought strawberry gummy candy, and we ate it during the wretched movie, and giggled. Brother bought us Charley's Steakery for lunch, and Ramune from the tea shop.

Mom and Brother left soon after we returned from the movie, but I saw them again yesterday evening. Josh was at work of course, and couldn't join us at Olive Garden. It's very sad, he's been wanting to eat there for months. For a while it was uncertain whether we were going to go to the one in St. Peters or the new one in Wentzville. It ended up being the latter. So, I popped the kids in the car early, and we visited Josh at the Wentzville Lowes while he was on his dinner break.

The Olive Garden is much bigger on the inside than I thought it would be, based on the view from the parking lot. Our waitress wasn't the most polished and professional, but she was a nice kid, and tried hard to make us comfortable. I am wishing good things for her. There was a large table behind us full of small children who yelled often, fought some, and frequently got out of their chairs to run around the dining room. Abbie watched them, and I could tell she wanted to go play with them. I whispered in her ear how proud I was that she and Grant were staying in their chairs and using their 'Big Table' manners. It worked, and she stayed. They both did very well, especially considering the bad example. They both ordered pizzas, but Abbie only ate the crusts off hers. She also had LOTS of bread sticks. Brother had the black tie cheesecake dessert, and the rest of us shared the lemon cake dessert. Yum. It's my favorite, since they don't have the chocolate lasagna anymore. I so miss it.... Mom and Brother were extra sweet and got Josh some dinner to go, so when he came home, he had Olive Garden, too.

I thought today was Monday most of the day. Josh went to work, of course. The house is wrecked; I haven't had a chance to clean it since the visitors were here. I forgot to tell you, but we had an emergency bed cleaning Saturday morning. Grant came in the middle of the night to our bed, which is fine. But he was so tired, he didn't get up to go to the bathroom. He's never wet the bed before, so we weren't expecting it. He woke up and changed clothes by himself, but didn't tell me until much later what had happened. So I spent the morning washing all the bedding.

As for today...I still don't know what I'm going to do. No taiko because I am staying with the kids. Originally, I had planned to go grocery shopping, since we are out of a few important things. Sadly, when we got up this morning, Josh had a flat tire on the truck, and had to take the car to work. Now I can't really do any shopping.

If I can ever find a morning when Josh doesn't need to be sleeping or working, I'd really like to go to the zoo.

Did you watch the Kentucky Derby? Obviously, I wasn't able to. It was on while I was having the good-bye dinner with Brother. I was particularly hopeful for a horse named Conveyance, but the race was won by Super Saver.

Tennessee is flooding, and that can't be great for the residents, and the oil spill is getting lots of press, too. Same story there....not great for the residents. Poor fish.

I brewed some iced tea. Unsweetened, because I'm a nice wife. Josh hasn't had any, though. Maybe I just should have sweetened it the way I like it. I also have ingredients for a cookie recipe that I was going to make for my parents and brother on Saturday, before I found out that they couldn't be here the whole day as planned. I don't think I'll make the cookies today, but maybe tomorrow.

I never heard from the babysitting lady again. So...no work for me just now.

Any suggestions of a good book? I feel like reading.

I hope all is well with you.