Welcome fellow jugglers!

Today's post could also be titled "A little of this, a little of that." Normally by Thursday we are on autopilot but today proved to be a bit more challenging! After another night of stress induced insomnia, I faced a day so tightly packed there was a very real potential for all the 'balls to drop'. Let's handle this chronologically. Thursday is the one day of his work week when Patrick works the 1st shift. So instead of leaving at his usual time of 1pm he leaves at 5am. Now I had only just fallen asleep at 4am so my considerate husband reset the alarm to the required 7am and headed out. In his very disciplined manner he followed up the alarm with a 7:10am phone call to MAKE SURE we were up....we, who am I kidding, of course the girls were up! I was so crazed about making all the deadlines that I went into hyper-drive...which meant we were suddenly all sitting looking at each other at 7:30am ready for school for which their departure times are between 7:50 and 8:05! So I made them chocolate chip pancakes in celebration!! This was surely going to be a great day after all...right? I had to finish off two little Disney themed Halloween outfits so as to have them in the mail pick up which is usually around noon....check. Shower, dress for meeting, and lunch by 2pm....check. Attend room mother meeting ....yeah, what was I thinking when I agreed to that??...but place a check there too. Pick-up Julia from the school playground and head to grocery store for items needed to complete tonight's Family Night dinner....check. Arrive home to find this.... at least twenty things on his Honey Do list but nooooo he washes the new baby instead! Run inside to get my camera so I can take a picture of the bird sitting on my neighbors roof... It never 'startled' at our coming/goings and not being a birder I am only guessing that it's some kind of small hawk. (Anyone recognize it???) It was watching the squirrels pretty closely though :)!! Kind of unsettling to see what I think is a bird of prey in the heart of suburbia but then again why not? The skunk, possum, raccoon, and squirrel populations are exploding around here so makes sense that Mother Nature would allow for natural predation. Any how, back in to get homework done in under an hour! Not because they were motivated or 'talented' but because that was all the time they had before 'Sunday School' which our church has on Thursday?!?! One of the negatives to switching to the public school is they now have to go to RE instead of having it during their school day....sigh. One of the positives is that their cousins Andrew and Alyssa go too and since it's right across the street from our house we have turned Thursdays into Family Night!!! Tonight's menu as you can see was the busy Mom's cop out! I would mention though that this meal which fed SEVEN people cost $8!!! Watch those sales ladies! So while they were in RE, Auntie Peggy and I made dinner so that the minute they came in we could sit down to eat.... which the girls did. Poor Andrew got the 'to go' bowl handed to him as he was whisked away to hockey practice by his mother....broken finger and all. Then Auntie Peggy pulled a great dessert out from thin air!!! We just LOOOOOVE the fall when ...... PUMPKIN PIES come back in season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just so Pavlovian that as we ate the pumpkin pie we talked the possibility of making TWO trips to the apple orchard this year instead of just one :) The weather was so great today that it makes one start to question the sanity of waiting until the Red Delicious season opens in October when we will probably already need winter coats! I'm thinking that next Friday's half day of school just lends itself to a road trip...don't you? So off track here again! I had to clean up quick in order to bust a move on over to the middle school where they were having Curriculum Night (aka. Open House). I arrived at 7:10 for an event that was scheduled to start at 7pm. My bad! Not only was I late but there was NOT a single parking spot in the lot or for blocks around!!! Thud.....that would be the balls starting to drop...no check mark here! I decided that the teachers will just have to wait to meet me on parent/teacher conference night. Drove home, supervised teeth brushing, picked out red/white/blue outfits to commemorate 9/11, said prayers, kissed cheeks, said good night...check. Made a beeline to the icebox for a cold Diet Coke and thud, thud, thud...the rest of the balls come crashing down! I am not going to sew, nor do any laundry, nor pack any lunches, nor straighten a darn thing!!! I am listening to CNN as I write this post and once I hit "publish" I intend to do a serious inspection of the back of my eyelids...which should take until about 7am when the alarm will start my Friday circus act. As Nancy Grace would say, "Good night friends."