I wanted to write an entertaining story of something that happened today, something that would make you laugh or at least smile bemusedly.  But, as I ran through the events of the day, nothing popped out.  Did I go another day without hearty laughter? It seems I must have.

Yesterday I had a sugar-free day.  For many of you, the idea of going 24 hours without refined sugar products doesn’t sound so daunting, but for me, it’s a real challenge. If I ever cut sugar out of my diet, I’d drop so many calories–500 or more, I bet–each day.  (Which explains why I was starving at bedtime yesterday!)  I had my sugar-free day to hopefully counteract the extra calories I consumed during my weekend excursion–candy bars, soda, giant pecan caramel roll at Panera, and so on.  Today was a different story. David made chocolate chip cookies, and I’ve eaten, uh, well, more than enough to make up for yesterday’s lack of sugar.

I actually did some work for school today, the initial draft of the syllabus for the online English class. No, it’s not AP. I’m not even getting paid. It’s just something I want to do to motivate myself and my children to have a great year of English. I have 7th to 10th graders, and I was thinking of which books to assign for the year.  So far, I’ve thought of The Green Book, A Christmas Carol, The Diary of Anne Frank, Fahrenheit 451 (but must pre-read, I forget if there is language), To Kill a Mockingbird, and Jane Eyre. Any other suggestions?

I’m back!  We had a great visit with Valerie and Ruth and families.  The Hunter enjoyed his backpacking with avaricewrex and englishwestern.  David and Michael had a great time with  Grammy Peep and Papa John, and TGD enjoyed his math conference in TN.  Now, I’m wiped out.  I didn’t get home last night until 1:30 since I took a wrong turn on the turnpike and gave myself a 40 minute detour.  Oh, well. I’m home now!

I think I am going to investigate Fly Lady today to see how my cleaning routine can be and should be improved this coming year.  Rachel is making noise to begin school early.  She’s sitting on the couch surrounded by her school books singing the alphabet song.   Oh, wait, she’s pulled out all the dictionaries and is singing to them. 

Anybody have any last-gasp-of-summer plans?

Yes, I am tied for first with natureg0d in kleinkatze‘s first poetry contest.  Here is my prize, an e-lollipop.  Aren’t you pea green with envy? 

Another reason for exclamation points is that I’m finally done with painting the bedroom! It turned out to be much more arduous than I expected.  I got through almost five hours of Teacher Man on CD and a two hour conversation with a friend (Cindy, for those who know!), and that was just for the painting and removing tape.  The kids were very kind in helping me to move furniture, and Rachel even came in and painted!

Before I realized I won the poetry contest, I was going to have a wonderful chat about home-grown tomatoes and their incredible tastiness and even try to find an audio link for the Home-Grown Tomatoes song.  But, instead, I’ll leave it as a challenge.  Can you find an audio link for the song? 

I had no idea my regular brown tea with milk paint would be so interesting!  What’s not been so interesting is the preparation of the room for painting. I don’t know about you, but I seem to be the sloppiest painter on record.  I step in paint, I drip paint, I get paint in my hair.  Thankfully, I’m not too proud to recognize this handyman failing, so I take many precautions.

Armed with several rolls of wide masking tape and five plastic drop cloths, I attack a room.  Every piece of wood trim is carefully covered in tape.  All removable things (curtain fixtures, light plates) are removed.  I tape the ceiling where it meets the wall.  Then, as I go around the baseboard trim, I actually tape the dropcloths to the baseboards.  There is now no room for error, as it were.  But, I forgot to mention removing the curtains and roller shades and moving out all the furniture or at least covering it with yet more dropcloths (taped shut, mind you).  I think it takes me longer to prepare for painting than it does to paint! 

Thankfully, the actual painting goes quickly. I’m noted as a fast painter,  probably due tot he fact that I don’t have to be a bit careful as I’ve covered everything except the walls themselves!

On another note, I’m finally reading a G.K. Chesterton book.  I’ve never read Chesterton, and so many people exclaim, “YOU’ve never read Chesterton?” that I thought I should.  The only book our library had was The Innocence of Father Brown, twelve short crime stories.  I’m finding them interesting, but I don’t know that I’ll rush right out and find more.  I’m not really a mystery gal. But, if you enjoy mysteries of the murder and crime sort, then Father Brown is probably right up your alley–clean, intelligent, and fun.

Can you believe it?  Centre Bulldogs Football and Cheerleading begin Monday.  Where has the summer gone? Don’t get me wrong; I love this league and the great times my family has had participating in it.  It’s just here again! Didn’t baseball just finish?  Rachel is particularly excited as this is her first year to cheer. With an older sister cheering, she knows all the cheers and clapping patterns and how to do a cartwheel, one-handed cartwheel, and roundoff. She certainly doesn’t take after her mother who could no more launch herself in the air nicely at age six than she could do calculus as a freshman in college!

Sixteen long-stemmed red roses and one red rose bud to represent the promise of all the years to come. 

Awwww!

Of course, the romance of the evening was sort of shattered when we decided to watch Lara Croft:Tomb Raider as our DVD of the evening.

P.S.  Go to TGD‘s site for an explanation of the sequence.

Since you are all wondering, I’ll tell you what my “Week of Anniversary Celebration” gifts have been so far.

Monday–ONE bouquet of flowers
Tuesday–TWO $25 gift certificates to Outback Steakhouse
Wednesday–FOUR boxes of candy (Dots, Sour Patch, Mike and Ikes, and Good and Plenty)

So, I’m thinking that he is doing multiples of sixteen (1, 2, 4, 8, and 16). If my theory holds true, I should get eight of something tomorrow.  A spider? Any guesses?  Or, am I missing some other obvious mathematical thing?

Also, if someone could tell me how to successfully paste those html quiz results into an entry, I’d be grateful.  It just randomly happened by chance last time. Usually, I paste the code and it posts as the code not as the tidy bar graph thing.  Ransom?