A Bright Start

You know me, right? I'm the girl who'd rather go to the mall than the laundry room any day, and this day was no exception ... let me explain.

We stayed up late last night to welcome in the new year, turning on (and up!) the stereo in the games room, covering the pool table with an old sheet (because I am INSANE about anything bad happening to the gorgeous blue felt), and popping the cute little widgets shaped like champagne magnums (only on the table, please ... if you get it all over the carpet, you will have the pleasure of picking it all up tomorrow, thank you very much). Mark decreed that the darling brats could stay up as late as they liked, but I went to bed about 1:00 (oh, don't start ... you must remember that I'm the oldest member of the household).

I woke up at 7:00 (a false start; I'd been so bright as to neglect to un-set the damned alarm clock), promptly went back to sleep, and then woke for real at 11:00, getting up to feed the little monsters that populate my immediate environment. We just generally hung out till about 2:30, when I realized that the laundry room is a disaster area of the sort that usually comes with a declaration from the governor and a National Guard detail, and decided we'd go shopping so that I wouldn't have to face the horror of sending my children to school naked.

Off to Penn Square Mall we went (Quail Springs Mall is much closer, but Kieran outgrew Baby Gap a couple of years ago, and he needed stuff ... the Gap Kids that used to be at Quail Springs has been gone for a few years now, and the only one left in town is at Penn Square), gift cards and other assorted plastic in hand. Everybody got new duds (including me), K.C. scored a sound-soother that she's been wanting ever since I got mine (it's lovely to sleep through a thunderstorm, except in the springtime, when God's Own Original Light And Sound Show always brings the potential for the blaring of the tornado sirens, a thought that makes it rather difficult to sleep through thunderstorms), and StrideRite enjoyed our visit for many new pairs of footwear for the twins.

After the procurement mission, everyone agreed on Red Robin for supper. The waitress was very nice, and (warning -- Proud Mumma Moment directly ahead) she mentioned more than once how very polite and well-mannered the children are. That is THE coolest thing ... it's almost enough to make me wish everybody else's progeny were little toerags all the time (but only almost).

At home again it was time to do a bit of work in advance of tomorrow's onslaught of phone calls. I've got a buyer in a short sale that isn't ever going to happen, two brothers looking to purchase a "crash pad" (their words, not mine), a listing to do for one of my friends' parents, a really fun client buying his first house, a vast and varied assortment of other realtor-duty clients, and a stack of mortgages (both purchase and refinance). If I get bored by or finished with that list, I suppose I could always go back and clear out the laundry room.

Cheers --