What a morning!

What a morning! Yesterday afternoon I got an email from Cedric and Seth’s soccer coach saying that due to expected rain for today, practice was cancelled. I hadn’t checked any forecasts so I had absolutely no idea what we were looking at for the next few days. While Paul and I were sitting at the table, I asked him if we were supposed to get rain and he didn’t know but he said Walter had said it was supposed to be in the 80s and he checked a forecast. It wasn’t going to be in the 80s but there was a huge storm heading our direction. He hoped it didn’t arrive during the night because the wood and log splitters were all uncovered. Well, guess what? When my alarm went off this morning, what is the first thing I noticed? Rain. I do not know how long it had been because when Joseph came to get in bed with us at 2:33 it wasn’t. Between then and 5:20, it started. I so did not want to get up. I almost sent Joanna a message saying, “Are you up? Because I so do not want to get out of bed.” But I didn’t because I heard the rain and knew that it would take Paul a few minutes to wake up enough to cover the wood and it just generally is a good idea to get up when you need to.

I went outside after using the bathroom and decided it was too dark to do anything. I didn’t have a flashlight and the light provided by my phone was not sufficient. I figured I could park the car with the headlights shining on the wood pile and I could cover everything when I got back. Joanna came out and we left. We only had to wait a minute and then I was on my way home. I covered the wood mostly and the log splitters. I would have covered all the wood but I was working on the far side and couldn’t really see the side nearest the house. I knew I’d gotten at least two thirds of it.

When I came in, it was time to wake people up and get ready to milk so that’s what I did. I had to wash the bucket for milking and since there were a couple of dirty jars as well, I filled the sink up with hot bleach water (with dish soap, of course) and washed the bucket and filter and jars and lids and two plastic buckets and one lid for storing wheat and flour in. Then I went found a hat to wear so my glasses wouldn’t get too rained on and went out to milk. Snowflake was first, as usual. I don’t usually latch the gate when I give them their scraps and today Snowflake pushed it open and jumped up on the stanchion and began her breakfast before I got out. Not too big a deal since she’s not giving much milk and I finish before she does. Princess is usually the next one out but today Goldilocks beat her so our order was a bit off. Goldilocks was taking forever so I went out to the trampoline to make sure Seth hadn’t left his shoes out there. He hadn’t.

After milking, I was helping Seth look for his school shoes. They’d been missing since Tuesday and yesterday he came home wearing a pair he’d gotten from the school nurse. I am SO tired of this. He either loses or can’t find or hides (like he did last year when I got him a pair of shoes he said he liked but then changed his mind) his shoes and runs out wearing crappy ones that are falling apart before I realize what he has on his feet. Last year, he actually would put on the pair he didn’t like inside and once he was outside, he would change. I swear, the nurse must think I don’t buy shoes for the kids and I am tired of it. Granted, it looks like he needs a new pair almost already, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, that took some time and I finally found one on the floor between the wall and the bottom of the bunk bed he and Joseph share. I figured the other one couldn’t be too far away but it wasn’t on the floor so I looked on his bed. I didn’t see it there put looking from underneath, I could see laces hanging down and . . . behold—a SHOE!!!

While looking for shoes and making sure that people are eating, Joseph is having issues with getting dressed and Cedric bothering him (I made Cedric look for Seth’s shoes because Seth had been wearing one of Cedric’s sweat shirts and he told Seth he would tell him where his shoes were if he gave him his sweat shirt. I made Seth give Cedric the sweat shirt and Cedric said he didn’t know where the shoes were. Since he’d blatantly lied, I made him then look for Seth’s shoes.) Cedric left the room and Joseph finally got dressed and then went downstairs. He did not have shoes or socks on because he didn’t have socks in his drawers. I don’t know where they’ve all gone. We got new socks for all three boys and twice as many for Joseph as Cedric and Seth. Cedric and Seth have all their socks. Joseph’s have all gone AWOL. At any given time I can find about five socks but no matches and that’s out of about twelve pair. Amazingly, I actually found a pair in the dryer so he had clean socks (even though one of them didn’t look it –what is it with boys and socks, anyway?) and he knew where his shoes were (another amazing thing).

Somewhere in all of this, I took the payment for the electric bill out to the mail box and after they all went out to get on the bus, I borrowed another hat (the first one was Seth’s which he wore to school, this time it was Paul’s) and went out to see how well I’d gotten the wood covered. I somehow managed to do a fairly decent job and just needed to pull the tarp (which is actually a pool cover which is actually a round tarp to cover a pool) over the row nearest the house. Then I came in and realized I’d forgotten to strain the milk. Oi! So, I did that and then decided to do this and now Paul is downstairs and Laura is feeding the goats some hay because they won’t be going outside in the rain and Joanna is in bed because she stayed up too late last night as usual.

Now it is time to think of something to eat. I am not sure what I want because I am not sure what to eat to avoid feeling icky like I did yesterday. After eating at Friendlys, I felt full all afternoon and didn’t really feel hungry for supper. I felt more bloated than anything. That has gone away and I had some water and I feel fine but not too hungry.

Yesterday afternoon and evening I managed to get done almost everything I wanted to for school. The only thing I did not do was read a chapter for accounting. I will do that today along with reading something for English and most likely posting something and taking a marketing quiz and then going on to whatever I think I should do. I have a phone call to make and I need to do a run to Walmart for salt for the water and toilet paper (Grandma, remember all the toilet paper we got while you were here? There are just two rolls left which is nice because now I know how much we use in four months). I also need to get some things for the thing I use to floss my teeth.

Have a wonderful day!