Vampire Dreams and Flower Power

I am exhausted - totally and completely. Ugh. If I had spent my day putting up quarts of - well, whatever those uuber moms put up - deep cleaning the house, patching blue jeans, and handwashing laundry, then I could see being this tired. I did spend all morning up at City Hall, but I was primarily just doing paper work, which is hardly labor-intensive. I did vacuum up about fifty million flies and Japanese beetles, though. That took some effort. I didn't sleep as well last night, which is probably why. I've been taking oxycodein since the surgery to get through the nights. It has worked well, but the other morning Ben stood in my room, complaining that he couldn't find any jeans to wear to school. I couldn't even remember what day of the week it was, let alone why Ben thought he needed jeans. As it turned out they were in the drier, still damp. I dried them until 5 minutes before the bus came, but he still went to school with a wet crotch. Oh well - at least it wasn't freezing that day! I'm thinking an uuber mom would not only have jeans ready and dried for her beloved child, but would have had them sitting on a chair next to said child's breakfast plate (do pop tarts and fruit gummies constitute breakfast? Sure hope so!). So, anyway, I thought I might do better to just take a regular pain pill at bed time, which is what I did last night.

I didn't sleep as well, unfortunately. It was harder to get comfortable and I had scary dreams. Paul and I were vampires. In one scene, I was chucking all the bad vampires over a stairwell and growling at werewolves. But the rest of the dream was consumed with an upcoming battle between the good vampires (of which I was one, of course) and the bad vampires and how I really didn't want to fight at all. It was very detailed and eventually, the terror of it woke me up. I may do better to deal with some post-drug confusion than having to battle vampires in the dreamworld.

Speaking of bad dreams...this class I am teaching at a writer's conference is just around the corner, in a couple of weeks. I'm gathering materials for it and one day, soon, I'm going to need to sit down with them and figure out exactly what I'm going to cover in the class and the best way to do it without totally boring everyone. I dreamed last week that the day had come and the conference was being held at our church. And I had forgotten my materials! I had to stand up in front of everyone and just wing it. That was another one I woke up from, so relieved that it had just been a dream!See my new piece? Isn't that beautiful?! A couple of weeks ago I dragged Paul to an area arts and craft show. I would have been content to go alone, but I knew if I found something for over the tv, which was my purpose for going, I would need him to carry it for me. As soon as we walked in the door I saw this and knew I loved it. It had red in it, which I was hoping to find. And tulips are my favorite flower! We looked all around the craft show, though, first, before buying. And then we ran into our former pastor and his wife so we had to chat with them for awhile. It's amazing how little we really had to say. I guess time and separation does that sometimes.

I used the last of my 40th birthday money to buy this and it was so worth it. Even a couple of weeks later, I still find myself wandering into the living room and sighing in delight over that thing. I did have a huge picture collage thing there, which I liked. But I didn't like it in that spot, because, as you can see, the boys pictures are immediately to the right. And then on the wall to the left of the tv is our family picture. It was just too many photographs together and kind of looked like a shrine to my children. I needed to break it up a bit. I moved the collage frame to the stairwell, which was the only large space I had left to hang a big thing. Now, I see it every time I go down the steps, which is fine.

My latest post at Jewels went up a week and a half ago: http://www.jewelsofencouragement.com/2012/02/master-plan.html I hope that link works. I sent it to my mom but she said it didn't open for her. If it doesn't work, you can just scroll down to the Feb. 27th entry - that's me. I got an awful lot of response out of this one. I wrote about Ben and some things he honestly said to me in January of this year. I didn't make them up for writing material, I promise! Somebody even told my pastor about this piece and he emailed me telling me how much he liked it. Then last Sunday he said I really need to submit it to somebody. But I don't know who would be interested. I assume I still have publishing rights to it, but I guess I'd have to double-check on that, if I ever did find a place to send it. I thought it was really nice of him to take the time to read something I write. He told me, "You have a gift!" That's nice. Too bad it's a gift I rarely have time to use! I do seem to get an awful lot of mileage out of writing about Ben, though! I have to get my next Jewels piece submitted by tomorrow. I'm going to write about May Lemke, the mother of the famous Leslie Lemke.

We went to our first Homeschool Day at the Capital last Tuesday, the 28th. It was Paul's idea. This was the 5th one they've had now, I think. It was interesting, although I don't know that I would want to go every year. We met up with one of Paul's co-workers and his family. They are first-year homeschoolers and he had called Paul awhile back to get some pointers on the whole thing, after their boss had suggested to him that we would be a good contact for them. So that was fun. We did a tour of the capital and then afterwards, there was an assembly in the rotunda with the governor and lieutenant governor who pledged their support for homeschooling rights. I sure hope they mean it. After lunch, we went over to the Embassy Suites where they had several speakers. We had to leave before we wanted to, though, in order to get home before Ben did.

Ben's musical is next week. It has been a lot of hard work. I've been helping out as I can. In fact, after tonight's city council meeting I'm going to scoot down to the school and stay until the end of practice (9:30 pm!). I think Paul was a little put out that we were not going to go on our normal post-meeting date, but what am I supposed to do? Ben needs me, too! Besides, I missed practice the other night. I did go Monday night, but I was hurting so bad by the end of the night that I had Will fill in for me the next night.

They had pictures last week and I had fun getting Ben into costume. He is the cutest old man and is doing such a good job with his lines. However, I am having some serious reservations about the plot line. Paul sat in on practice a week ago and came home rather disgusted after seeing it and says he hates the thought of even paying money to see this thing. It's a cute play and has a lot of funny spots. However, and this is a big "however," it is set in the 1960s. The sixties was a time of rebellion, no matter how anyone would like to romanticize it. It was a time of promiscuity and rampant drug use, although that is not part of the play, thankfully. It was also the beginning of the women's lib movement, which is part of the musical. The adults in the play include a dopey sheriff, a self-important city councilwoman, and an uptight school principal. The kids, of course, are ultra-cool. At the end of the play, Grandma tricks Establishment Grandpa by lying and telling him a tornado is imminent and locks him in the tornado shelter so that the teenagers can have their "battle of the bands" on his farm. Obviously, they've got some marital issues! Maybe that will be the subject of next year's musical...

I will be relieved after next week when this is all over. Ben is going to camp this summer so I am also in the midst of helping him fulfill his Camp Coins requirements - Scripture memorization, reading, etc. It's kind of intensive.

Think I'll go fold some more laundry. I started going through the boys' summer clothes this week, figuring out what they will need in the upcoming months. Ben has grown so much in his torso this year that I doubt anything he wore last summer is going to fit. Will is fitting into size 34 shorts - his dad has worn 34 jeans and shorts for as long as I have known him! Too much growing going on! So, maybe I can work on that for a little while before the meeting tonight. I have other things I wanted to get done, but it just isn't going to happen today.

Saturday we are going to Waterloo and I am going to get to hold a brand new baby, Lord willing. Sara is 3 days past her due date (she's 40 and she went early with both her other babies - how did this happen?) but is scheduled to be induced tomorrow morning if her little girl does not get into gear before then. So, assuming all goes well I should be cuddling her little one by Saturday afternoon. Can't wait!