Uninspired

Yes, I realize this is the final week of voting in the Okie Blog Awards. Yes, I know I haven't posted in, like, forever. All I have to say for myself is this: I've had my sister's kids since last Wednesday. Now, if you're someone like Michelle Duggar who has 18 kids of your very own and a super-human uterus that is obviously made of steel or maybe platinum, five kids isn't a big deal. But if you're like me, a normal woman with a very squishy uterus and even squishier patience after two days of snow days.....well, I just haven't had much time to blog.

(Those of you who are my friends on Facebook don't need to go and blab about how I've managed to be on there every dang day, though. We'll just keep that little bit of info to ourselves, right?)

Here's a not-so-quick rundown of the week. If you are desperate enough to read it, well, God bless you.

Monday - Paul worked evening shift and it just stared doing a freezy misty thing as he left for work at 2. School let out two whole minutes early because of the ice/snow/sleet stuff that was falling from the sky. We watched and listened to the impending doom that rained down on us from above while the kids and I sat here alone, husbandless and fatherless. Boohoo. Tater picked up her kids early. When my cousins came to pick up Nonner I asked Cousin Chad to show me how to start the generator since it had kind of slipped both Paul's and my mind and he called me in a panic from the casino to try to give me a crash course in Generator Starting 101 over the phone and it just didn't sink in for me. They skidded home and again left us here husbandless and fatherless. Boohoo again. He called me around 8pm to tell me they had sent home all the GSRs and needed him to stay til 3:30am. I was not happy. I cried a little bit even. I was kind of pouty and whiney. He got off work at 3:30 and made it home at 4:50. It's normally a 15-20 minute drive. I was just glad to have him home.

Tuesday - School was canceled, but Paul went to his optometrist appointment, once again leaving us husbandless and fatherless. His glasses are wrong in so many ways and poor guy was really determined to get new ones. He also got contacts and he's having a heck of a time seeing clearly with them in. I have tried probably six different times in my life to wear contacts and I'm just one of those people who can't wear them. Apparently he is, too. We hung out here all day long, bored and stuff while it sleeted and iced, so the kids and I gave Paul his birthday presents early - Ravid Rabbids and Raving Rabbids TV Party for Wii. We called Cousins Chad and Courtney and asked if they felt like braving the slick roads to come play with us. Heck yeah, isn't that what 4WD is made for? They got here around 4pm and stayed til nearly 10. We played Wii with our butts and shot plungers at rabbids....it was good times. It also snowed.

Wednesday - No school again. There was moderate sleeping in by me, but Paul had to go to work on his regular day off. Guess who wasn't real happy about that? Tater and Gentleman brought the Tots out around 3 and they headed for Tulsa so they could fly out bright and early the next morning for Vegas. Yes, Vegas. Where there was no snow or ice. Wednesday night Mom & Pops brought out the Tots' backpacks (because heck if you haven't had school all week why on earth would you need your backpacks for the rest of it) and some groceries, including four boxes of cereal, which those ravenous five children have nearly decimated in a mere five days. Abby got a text message declaring in all caps with 97 exclamation points behind the words NO SCHOOL. I kind of just let the kids keep playing Wii and didn't make any one shower because heck, we were just going to be staying home all day anyway. But then we noticed that their school wasn't included in the crawler on the bottom of the local channels. I called Queen Tammy who said that as far as she knew we were having school. Turns out, some older girls thought it would be HEElarious to text a bunch of underclassmen a bogus message about another snow day. I found it not to be HEElarious at all because now all of the sudden I had five stinky kids who were going to school the next day. Then I hurried them all to bed because it was past their school-night bedtimes.

Thursday - I started my van 30 minutes before I headed to the end of the driveway to meet the bus and it only melted the ice enough that I managed to scape a teeny tiny peep hole right above the steering wheel. After the bus picked up the kids - I had given them the instructions to "Sit down, hold on and shut up" - I went back up to the house to finish the fourth Twilight book, the books I had sworn I wasn't going to read, the books I swore I wasn't going to enjoy, the books I was only reading to make sure they were appropriate for my tween daughter who acutally has no desire to read them anyway. Yeah, those books. Nonner came out around noon, so I had the entire morning to myself to hang out in my pjs and enjoy the quiet. Thursday night Sam had basketball practice and Paul said he couldn't take him because he was busy. If by "busy" you mean "had plans to take a two hour nap" then yes, he was busy. I was grumbly that night. And apparently if you write that you are grumbly on your Facebook page, people get concerned and send you private messages asking about your mental health and well-being because I'm guessing that there's some unwritten code where "grumbly" means "could open fire in a shopping mall at any given moment". Who knew?

Friday - We had plans to go see Mall Cop but those plans were foiled when TotTwo's teacher called to see if I was aware that the wee tot was supposed to go on a field trip and wouldn't be back home till 8 that night. Ab went to spend the night with a friend (and got to see Mall Cop) and the remaining kids played Wii with their butts pretty much the entire evening because hey, Paul and I are nothing if not fun parents/babysitters.

Saturday - Sleeping in was foiled by bickering children. Imagine how happy that made me. We played more Wii then traveled to Welch, America, for Sam's ballgames. I grew up in this area, particuarly Wyandotte, but in all my 36 years I don't recall ever going into the town of Welch. I put in a worried call to Mrs. Coach when the directions I had been given clashed with the directions Paul had been given. We decided to go with mine and made it to Welch just fine. En route, I got a tweet from Tyson Wynn of the WynnBlog saying they were in Welch and wanted to try to meet up for awhile. He and his lovely wife, Jeane, ended up coming over to see Sam's second game, which was a close game. They got to witness my intermittent Tourette's Syndrome which I only seem to get when my son is on the basketball court. We discussed the upcoming Okie Blog Awards, the hobo referee, my horrible satellite internet, among other things. I really like them.

Today - I managed to get five kids up and out the door for Sunday School and we even made it on time. I got my toes stepped on during Sunday School and then again during Pops' sermon. Of course, when your toes get stepped on at church it's because they're out there needing a good stepping-on anyway. After church we hit the McD for some McFood which gave me McIndigestion then to my niece Makenna's birthday party. It was while the five kids were running around smacking each other with balloons and blowing bubbles into my hair and Mom's hair and Pops was just there rootin' 'em on that I told Mom I didn't think we'd make it to Bible Study tonight. She gave me a sympathetic look and said, "Oh honey....I don't blame you at all!" Our water heater is acting up so we can get about one shower every 45 minutes if the showeree expects any hot water. I started running them to the showers at 5 and Abby finished up at 8:30. We watched the first Narnia movie and I wish I'd paid more attention to it from the beginning because it was really good. It's one of those I didn't want to watch the movie until I had a chance to read the book. Abby got them all for Christmas, so now I guess I'll start them.

The tots go home tomorrow after school and maybe, just maybe I'll blog again soon. I wouldn't hold my breath, but stranger things have happened.