Monday

Okay, I have to say it--I THINK I'M BETTER!!!! I just feel optimistic about life in general. The days have been beautiful, and I've been loving my morning runs. I'm coping with life in positive ways. Oh yes, and I'm eating--and liking it!

I got up, read blogs, did my devotional, and went for a long, wonderful run. I took the kids to school, went home, showered, and went to work. At 1:00, I went to the school and met with our new library volunteer. We did training till 2:30. I left then, and went to the store to get some stuff for dinner and other necessities, and arrived home at 3:30.

Annie was supposed to come play today, but Tabitha had a project to finish up. Annie called me at 3:30 to see if Tabitha was home. I told her I'd make sure Tabitha called when she arrived. When she got home, I could see that it was going to take longer than the hour Tabitha had planned to get the project finished. I had Tabitha call Annie to talk to her about it. They were discussing things for a while, then Tabitha said that Annie's older sister needed to talk to me (she's in charge while the parents are gone). She said that they were going to the library, then the store, so maybe I could pick up Annie when they got home. I said that would be fine, then asked if she wanted to bring the kids and come to dinner tonight. She thanked me, but said they were just going to microwave some dinners and eat at home. I said maybe we could have them come another night. We hung up--two minutes later she called back. She said when David found out she'd turned down my cooking for a microwave dinner, he was extremely disappointed--and was it too late to say yes? We laughed, and made arrangements for them to come at 5:30.

I ran to the store to pick up a little more food (we now had double the number of people to feed and 4 of them were teen-aged boys). On the way there we stopped at Annie's house to see if she wanted to come. I saw David wandering into the backyard. Feeling a little vengeful, I walked quietly behind him--and succeeded in scaring the life out of him. Turnabout is fair play! No Annie, though. She was still at the store. We went on to the store, got what we needed, then stopped once again to pick up Annie. Scott and Gary came with us. The other two followed in their car.

I put the kids to work immediately. They chopped tomatoes and artichoke hearts, and pressed the garlic for the pasta sauce. They cut up fresh pineapple. They helped wash and cut asparagus. We had dinner ready in 20 minutes. It was really fun to have them all with us. They ate a respectible amount of food, then finished off two cartons of ice cream. Then we sat around the table just talking and laughing. Scott tried, unsuccessfully, to teach us to whistle through cupped hands. They all had some weird trick they could do with their tongues or their eyelids. I just laughed. I sent them all home, except for Annie, at 7:30. Annie was told she could stay another hour.

After they left, I remembered that Adam had left his CD player in their suburban when we were sitting in it on Saturday. I called Julie and asked to talk to David. I mentioned that when I dropped off Annie, I'd like to pick up the CD player--and if he wanted to, I'd stay a few minutes and we could talk briefly. He said he'd like that.

I took Annie home a little before 8:30. David and his older sister were outside. We chatted for about ten minutes, then the girls went inside. David and I talked till around 10:00 (so much for being brief), and he did most of the talking.

As I drove home a huge storm broke--tons of wind and rain. Darrin was waiting for me when I got home, wondering why I was gone so long--I forgot to tell him I was going to stay. We went to bed, talked about our very fun night, cuddled, kissed, and slept.