Okay, I think I need to rewind to last Saturday morning at 9:20, so you know why I am joking that I am on summer vacation tonight.  Bear with me, as I am probably going to "chase a few rabbits" before I actually get to tonight.

Last Saturday morning, DH left early to run some errands and I was home with the kids.  He called at 9:20 a.m. to say "the Big Burg" (our nickname for the car he was driving) had broken down.  Well, the car is only 12 years old with about 150,000 miles on it, so I was not surprised -- I expect it to happen periodically, and just pray that it won't happen at 65 mph on the highway.  When he told me where to come pick him up, I immediately said, "Thank you, Lord," because he was in a parking lot about seven minutes from home!

He was cutting through two rows of parking spaces in between a Panera Bread and mobile phone store, lining himself up for the drive-thru ATM at the bank next door, when the ball joint on the front driver's side of the car suddenly gave out.  The car just went SLAM!, right down on the left front tire.  The slightly funny part of the story is that there was a guy washing the windows of the mobile phone place, and the loud THUD directly behind him, just about made the poor guy jump out of his skin!

So, the kids and I hopped in our other car and headed over to pick him up.  I almost cried when I saw the car sitting diagonally in the middle of a bank of empty parking spaces, again thanking God that he was safe.  Several hours later, the car was towed to my MIL's house about 45 min. away.  She has a barn and DH keeps a lot of tools out there, so it's easier to work on cars there than it is here.   Soooo....DH has been at his mom's much of his free time since then, working on the car.

Tomorrow night, DH and I have a wedding and reception to attend, so we had already asked his mom and sister to keep the kids overnight.  Since the car is still not finished, he decided to spend the night out there, so he worked on the car tonight and will continue to work on it tomorrow.  While he was going to be there, he figured he might as well take the kids out tonight, too.  Soooo...that leaves me with the house to myself tonight and most of the day tomorrow, which -- as you might imagine -- doesn't happen very often.

So what did I do?  First, I took a nap.  An hour-and-a-half nap with about 30 minutes of hitting the snooze.    I stayed up late last night, so that I take full responsibility for, but then as I was going to bed, DD2 woke up.  She kept scratching her wrist (she has eczema), she wanted "muk" [milk], she was a bit poofy so I changed her diaper...she finally yawned...then eventually she turned over on her left side, which is usually a sign she will fall asleep shortly...but every time I would think she was back asleep and I would make one small move to get up, she would roll onto her back again and say, "Mommy..."  About two hours after she awakened, she did go back to sleep.  So I had roughly half a normal night's sleep, and I was very tired by the afternoon.  I decided I would be more productive later if I took a nap. 

Second, I drank a lot of water because I felt dehydrated after my nap.  I probably ate something then, too.  I don't remember for sure, but I eat practically all the time, so it's a good guess -- LOL.  The pickin's are rather slim in our kitchen right now since I have been without a car all week (DH had to take the other car to work, of course) and we have not made a full grocery run, so I probably ate twice as much as I actually needed because things that I wanted were not here.  Then, with having drunk so much water, you can guess where else I was a few times .  I also unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher.

Third and foremost, I put away and threw away things in the basement where the playroom, schoolroom, and storage room are.  I am ashamed to say that things had gotten so out of hand down there, I'm not finished yet.  Unfortunately, DH and I have never managed to make the "one thing out at a time" rule, stick.  Hopefully that will be our resolution for this summer, to better train the kids in this regard.

I was throwing away spilled peanuts (one of the older kids took a practically brand-new jar down there, but let DD2 get ahold of it and she spilled it ) and chunks of Play-Doh (now, I don't let the kids play with Play-Doh in the carpeted playroom, so why someone took red Play-Doh down there and left it on the navy blue carpet, I haven't the foggiest idea, and two pieces are firmly stuck ) and broken crayons and scraps of paper and string cheese wrappers, sorting Legos and Lincoln Logs and Lauri puzzles and Little People and Pop-Onz and Gears into their proper containers (why was there a large pile of little Legos waaaay across the room from the Lego table??), tossing plastic plates and fake food in the general direction of the toy kitchen, rewinding VHS tapes, deciding we can finally get rid of the wooden and plastic blocks...

The fun part was, I had my iPod on, so I was free to belt out my favorite tunes at the top of my lungs.    With other people in the house, of course, I don't do that; every once in a while, I will hum or sing verrrry softly.  I love to sing, so it was nice to be able to cut loose!  LOL

I also spent a little time reading e-mail and a little bit of news, and blogging (obviously).

Maybe tomorrow there will be a Part II to my essay.  Hopefully I will get a good night's rest and hit it hard again tomorrow.

G'night,

Lori.