My Day In Pictures, 20 November 2008, Part 5 - the Much Anticipated Grand Finale

...it smelled delicious when we walked into the house. It was my Scentsy wick-less candle thing. I had intended to turn it on before going visiting teaching so the house would smell good for when Emilie was to come over, but I had forgotten until right before she came. It didn't really take affect until after we had both left.

The first order of business upon walking into the house, was to make Sophie her bowl of cereal. The girl lives on the stuff. I'm so grateful cereal comes fortified with so many essential vitamins and minerals. She would surely be malnourished were it not the case.

After I checked my e-mail, I unloaded the dishwasher, and regretted having told Ella to walk home from school when she called. She wasn't home yet, or I would have made her put them away.

Then Eva asked me to re-wrap her wrist with an ace bandage.

Poor Eva had fallen down the stairs the day before and felt like her wrist was sprained. By Saturday however, the ace bandage had become merely an amusement. Ella became a little jealous and vowed to wear it as a fashion statement to school the following Monday, at which point an argument ensued about whose original idea it had been to wear it as a fashion statement. Eva then disappeared, hid said intended fashion statement, and it hasn't been seen since.

After bringing the groceries in and putting a few things away, I helped Sophie do a page of her homework. We did this at the kitchen table, and between math problems and helping her count, I googled 'retro fabric' and became entranced by these two websites here, and here. I fell in love immediately with nearly every sample, matched a fabric and planned an apron in my mind for each and every woman and girl I know. Since I had the fabric for my next project, why not start planning for the next twenty? At that point, I realized the house wouldn't be perfect for Marv and Joanie's visit, but again, I decided that they would like me just the same. Especially since they've liked me all these years, or at least have acted like they do :)

It was past time to start making dinner if I was going to be on time for the temple, so I whipped it up as quickly as I could, and put the finishing touches on completely destroying the kitchen.

Oh wait! I have to back up a minute. Before I started dinner, I thought it would be a good idea to do a blog style self portrait. You know, how people try to make themselves look all natural, like their not actually taking a picture of themselves? Well, I tried one of those. After about ten minutes of acting natural and discovering the best way to hold my head to avoid the double chin (as much as possible), this is the best I could come up with. And it's the reason I won't ever be doing it again :)

This is what almost 40 and no 'work' done looks like up close. I thought about photshopping myself a little, but as I stated in Part 1, it's all about uplifting other women ;-) I'm au naturale baby - and it's obvious.

Well, Nancy's dinner was a hit! Thanks Nancy :)

But there was no time to clean up (not that I would have right away anyway), and I had to get ready to go.

When I went out to the car to leave at about 6:30, Matt was outside with Sophie and Eva waiting for the Space Station to pass over. Or maybe it was the Space Shuttle, I'm not sure. It was a nice scene.

I thought about taking an artsy pic of the temple, but I was cold and didn't want to walk out to the sidewalk, so this was from the car.

I was excited to go that night because it was with the Relief Society, and I hadn't been there with the RS for a long time. I had actually mistakenly gone the previous Thursday, thinking that was the right night, but ended up there by myself :) So that was my second consecutive Thursday at the temple.

I was very happy to see that Sheila H came in right behind me, because I just love her!!! As she sat down, she whispered, "now don't make me laugh or talk to me the whole time", which of course made me laugh - but very quietly. I am a reverent person when reverence is absolutely called for - mostly. And we all know anyway that such advice from Sheila is pure projectionism ;-) To know her is to love her!

We were both well behaved though, and I had a marvelous time marinating in my own thoughts and silent prayers. It made me wonder why I have been slacking a bit with my temple attendance lately, and I vowed to be better. I always want to be a better person in every way when I'm there.

On my way home, I thought about what a stark contrast watching '24' would be to the peace and quiet I had just experienced (Matt and I had been watching season 6 to catch up for the next season). When I arrived, all the kids had been bathed and were in bed asleep! That they were in bed wasn't a miracle, but that they were asleep was. But Matt was too tired to watch '24' and said he was going to go to bed early, so I decided to clean up some messes. First I moved some laundry around

and then started with the disaster in the kitchen. After it looked a little better and like I had made some progress, I sat down at the laptop to check blogs and mindlessly surf. About ten minutes later, I heard Matt coming down the stairs for his bedtime bowl of cereal and immediately popped up and acted as if I'd been cleaning. He wouldn't have cared had he seen that I was blogging, especially since he could have picked up stuff while I was gone, but I spend way too much time on the computer, and sometimes I try to pretend that I wasn't just on it again :)

Once Matt's appearance had me on my feet and working again, I finished cleaning up the main mess. He had said good night and gone to bed by that time, so I headed upstairs to our main computer and was going to listen to some music, but Kristen Lavransdatter caught my eye and I read a for a while instead. Somewhere in there I surfed a little too, but mostly I was touched by the book and waxed a little spiritual. At about 12:30, I was fighting fatigue and keeping myself awake like a child protesting nap time, as I do most every night, when I spotted my scriptures sitting on the photo scanner. To open them and attempt even one verse at that point would have put me in a coma, so I said my prayers, which included gratitude, repentance, and pleas for help in overcoming myself, and went to bed.

The end - finally

*update: I've finished the apron I bought the fabric for that day! It is indeed a masterpiece, and its intended recipient had better think so too!!! Thanks Emilie for spending some of your last remaining hours with me before baby #4 is born, holding my hand through the neck piece and strap attachments! You went above and beyond, and it was a great time :)