Saturday in the house, I think it was the 12th of Ma-arrrrch

I have accomplished SO MUCH today! I'm exhausted and will probably die of anaphylactic shock tonight in my sleep, but dadgummit, I accomplished something! Lots of somethings actually.

The children, all five of them, woke up at the unGodly hour of 6am. That is just not right. They talked quietly for about 30 minutes and I kind of dozed in my bed and halfway listened to the silly conversations. But after half an hour they could be quiet no more and the screaming and squealing began in earnest. Agh. I got up with them. EVEN THOUGH last night I traded quickie sex with my husband for an hour's extra sleep this morning. I am so going to have to remember that he never keeps his end of the bargain. Ever. You'd think after having kids for 8 1/2 years I'd be keen to his fraudulent sex-crazed promises. I even tried to produce a tear or two, but it just didn't work. I was too tired to cry. I did whine, call him a rat bastard and stomped out of the room after I jerked the covers off of him, though.

It worked out better that I got up really. Even though it was hard getting started. I immediately started the tea brewing, then started a load of laundry. I emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, cleaned off the counter tops and table, then started making pancakes. The kids were faunching at the bit to get outside, so as soon as they finished breakfast I sent them outside. That was before 9. They were outside till nearly noon. They played in the "coop" for quite awhile. Then they played on Mr. Diva's trailer, turning it into a disco or something. Ab had her CD player outside and they were rockin' that trailer to beat the band. Then they decided to trap chicken hawks. We're down to 2 ducks (we started with 9) because of the chicken hawks. So the kids decided to rid the world of the heinous duck-eating chicken hawks. After they decided that the hawks were not going to play the way they wanted, they then moved out into the the small pasture and started digging up gopher holes. They got the dogs in on the action, too. That was pretty funny, I gotta say.

While they were completely entertained outside I decided that today I was getting rid of some stuff. Because of FLYlady, I have considerably reduced the amount of stuff in my house over the last 2 years, but today the stuff that was bugging me was books. And videos. I have been reading Stephen King books since I was 14 (That explains so much, yes I know) and have a vast collection. To be honest, I think I have every book he has written. Well, only for a little longer, because 3/4 of them are now in boxes awaiting pricing and relocation to the flea market. I got rid of some Louis L'Amour that we've been hanging onto forever and some others that have lost their allure for me. I managed to clean off 3 shelves in two bookcases and moved some things around, organized a bunch of stuff. Then I moved on to the video cabinet. (I alphabetized the videos, too. I felt so much better when that was done.) There are two trash bags full of videos sitting in my living room now awaiting the same fate as the books. Man, the living room was looking so good at that point, but the kids needed lunch and I had to quit. I usually lose my steam and quit, but for some reason after lunch I hit it again with the same energy.

I decided it was high time to give the entertainment center a makeover and pulled out the TV to find a half inch of dust on EVERYTHING back there. I'm sure that has to be a fire hazard of some kind. So I vacuumed it all really well, and then proceded to organize the mass of cords and cables back there. Whaddaya know, I pulled out two cords that were attached to nothing! Mr. Diva has an old Pioneer stereo that he bought back in the 80's. The early 80's. It doesn't have the sleek, rounded lines of new electronics, but had dangerously squared, pointy corners. It also came with a turntable, if that dates it for ya. It weighs approximately 12 tons. Well, at one time everything was hooked up to the stereo speakers for a redneck version of surround-sound. Then suddenly it quit working and we re-routed. But that also left a useless dinosaur of a stereo in the cabinet. Mom had bought me a 5-CD changer a few years back to go with that system, since we have no records. Okay, so we have a few, but they're On Top of Spaghetti and YMCA. But what good is a 5-CD changer if the stereo doesn't work? Mr. Diva refused to help me move it because I think he knew that I'd ask if we could get rid of that boxy ugly thing. And the changer. And I would've, to be honest. So out it goes today. I pulled it out, nearly gave myself a hernia doing it, moved my nice new light stereo from my office to the living room, put it all back together and then blew my nose again for the 900th time. Dust sucks.

I then plugged the stereo and changer in so I could get to all the components and see exactly what was plugged in where and maybe I could figure out why it wasn't working. And I did. I'd forgotten that three of the four speaker pluggy inny things don't work. Lightning or something, he says. But how does lightning blow out three speaker plugger inners and not the other one, not to mention all the other electronics plugged in as well? He doesn't know what happened to it, but he likes to make me think he does. So anyway, somehow, someone had plugged both speakers into the ones that don't work. Okay, so now I have out here in my office a ginormous circa-1980-something Pioneer stereo system with a 5-CD changer and one speaker. But I gots tunes, baby, I gots tunes.

I am going to make a prediction right here and now on my blog for all of the 'net to see:
Mr. Diva will not notice any of the changes I've made in the living room today.

It's now 6:38pm, I'm still in my pajamas. I have tissues stuck in my nostrils to keep the torrents of snot from drowning me. My left index finger is super glued and looks like plastic. (It is not possible for me to super glue anything without subsequently gluing myself in the process. It's just not possible.) My right index finger is cracked open and bleedy-ish. My right middle finger is also cracked open and it's wrapped up in a tissue so I don't ruin my keyboard. My children are filthy, but they are having a ball playing "karate" in the living room,wearing only their underwear. Mr. Diva is still at work and will be clocking out in 45 minutes and I have no clue what I'm going to do with the chicken that is thawed out in my refrigerator as far as dinner goes. My eyes are crossing as I type because I am exhausted. And I think I have burned my lungs with the Orange-scented Pledge I've sprayed repeatedly all day long.

But Mr. Diva is SO not getting sex tonight Because as part of the agreement we made last night, the whole quickie sex trading for an hour of sleep, was also contingent on real sex tonight, not a quickie. But since I didn't get to sleep in this morning, he's not getting real sex tonight. That'll learn 'im.