Blessed by Fairies

AKA The Beauty of a True Friend

By 3:30 pm, I was pretty ready for a quiet evening. Of course, I walked in the house and realized I was going to spend all night just hoping to be able to kick my way into the kitchen. Home schoolers will do that to you- trash the house in the name of science, and those with ADD are even worse, as they move onto something new right in the middle of whatever they are doing. And I hate fighting them. And I hate cleaning up after them.

So, I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and told everyone to get to work. I shut of guitar Hero, I took away the gameboys (I believe Ellie was trying to figure out how to say "I hate mom" in French just about then) and I set the timer and turned on the radio. They had done very little when there was a knock on the door.

I probably would have ignored it, but of course my very helpful children always open the door.

In waltzed my fairy friend and her fairy kids. They had cleaning supplies in their hands and got straight to work. The oldest boy even cleaned the dog poop up in the back yard. That is true friendship right there.

Because other kids were happily working, mine put in more effort than ever, and before I could squeak, all the bathrooms were cleaned, the kitchen was spotless, the floors were mopped, and my pit of a craft cupboard is now beautifully organized. I am blessed beyond belssings to have such a great friend! And her kids.

#@&#%*&#*@*&#@#*&*@

Please excuse my language. And so much for feeling powerful.

I just got an email informing me that our 10,000 ping pong balls cannot be included in bag inserts for our conference and I will have to hand them out on the floor at the expo. This is bad for several reasons.

1. We have no booth
2. I have to find another company willing to store our ping pong balls
3. I have to hope same company will let us hand out ping pongs at their booth
4. I have to stand on the conference floor for 3 days, or until the balls are gone
5. I have to go shoe shopping

I think the shoe shopping is actually the worst part of it. And the standing. And the months of planning falling apart at the last second. I'm now taking bets on how many ping pong balls come home in my suitcase. Place your bets now. Winner gets- you guessed it- ping pong balls with our logo on them!

Educational?

Thinking I was going to "trick" my kids into learning a few things, I purchased My Spanish Coach and My French Coach for the DS. Here's the blurb from the maker, Ubisoft:

" Playing My Spanish Coach for 15 to 20 minutes a day is all you need to become fluent in Spanish."

Rebi sure has been playing this game tonight. And she sure can say, "I am drunk; I am sad; I am dizzy; I am angry; I am sick; I am jealous". . . and many other choice phrases.

All I have to say is, "Como?" Clearly, this product is aimed at those children spending Spring Break at Senor Frog's.

I am a little worried about what My Word Coach might teach them once it arrives.

Oh Melissa!

My phone rang today. It was a friend.
Friend: Can I ask you a question?
Me: Sure (you wouldn't be my friend if you couldn't ask me a question!)
Friend: What do you know about stitches?
Me: Lots. What questions do you have?
Friend: Do you know how to take them out?
Me: Sure. Who has stitches?
Friend: Me. Can you come over and take them out for me?

So I did. It was easy. She was a little freaked out, but she said it didn't even hurt. Go me.

Puppies are going fast!

Katz, if you want one, you'd better let me know and FAST!
I can't believe they are old enough for adoption already.
You can download an application here.
They are probably around $400 each.

I LOVE Media Buyers

Contrary to all of the other posts such as this and this, I should sing praises for the people who pay my salary. I really love love love love it when large contracts come through.

Do you want to go to the mall?

Rebi is busily concocting ways she can travel outside of the US. One idea is to spend some time in Korea, where Dave knows the language and the kids can experience a different culture.

Rebi was taking that thought and running with it, contemplating how she would make friends and what words and phrases she already knows in Korean. Very seriously, complete with eyebrow knitting, Nate stepped in towards her and said, "Do you know how to say, "Do you want to go to the mall?" in Korean?"

Everyone knows that this is the only phrase any teenage girl needs to know the world over. To be sure he got his message across, he even brought one of Dave's Korean language books to her.

ADD you plague me!

(Attention Deficit Disorder, not addition or address or addendum)

A follow-up to the lack of sleep would be the ADD. Naturally, when your brain is tired, it makes it hard to concentrate. So, I have missed an appointment with Evan, and have gotten virtually no work done this morning, in spite of the fact that a rather large sum of money rests on me focusing on work today. I should be motivated, but thanks to the misfires in my brain, I am just distracted. Perpetually.

Insomnia

For the record, the frog song is getting stale really fast. I didn't know it was going to stream every time my blog launched. And I didn't know how many times my kids will check the blog for comments each day. I might have to change that so it's just a link.

That is not really the topic of this post. As you can tell from the title, I am having a little trouble sleeping tonight. It happens fairly often. I don't love it, mainly because I know how wicked tomorrow is going to be. However, I don't hate it because it is so easy to focus on tasks and get them done while all of the kids are sleeping.

Tonight, as is uncommon for most nights, I was feeling a little melancholy when I finally gave up on sleeping and came downstairs. I logged into the computer to stalk a few blogs (which, I have to admit feels a little bit like peeping. I was able to reconstruct nearly an entire year of some guy's life based on the photos he had stored in Flicker and linked to on his blog. It was too creepy and I felt evil for doing it. I don't even know which of my friends knows him for real). I answered an email or two and one of my friends answered back fairly quickly.

We exchanged a few email and then decided to talk over the phone. For two hours, I was entertained and did my dishes, some laundry, a little picking up. I didn't feel creepy at all! At 2:50, I even feel tired, which I assumed was still hours off. If you ask me, this is just one of those sweet blessings which occur when you pray to Heavenly Father to make up the difference.

And thank you to my friend who reads this blog and gave up at least two hours of sleep to lift my spirits.

I am not a coward!

This one is just a nicer photo- not so reminiscent of Stephen King's "IT" and the big scary clown. . .