Never a dull moment!

We are currently trying to get our house (not grandma's but OUR house) ready to sell. They put a for sale sign up earlier this week and things are not in tip top shape. I have hired help but it has not meet my specifications just yet. So I go over for an hour or two every chance I get. I have gone through SEVERAL magic erasers. (I love/hate those little things!)

So Monday I decide to go over and clean a few walls on my lunch break. I open the door and am hit with a terrible odor. My mind races back to our funny sounding freezer which is now quiet! I head toward it immediately and the closer I get the stronger the stench! I open the door and am just about knocked over with odor! I feel inside and it is barely cool. So I get the large outdoor trash can, the only sacks available (the old trusty Wal-Mart sacks), paper towels and a bottle of Clorox Clean Up (my favorite cleaner!) Then I touch and smell things no human should be subject to! What a lovely way to spend lunch!

A couple of days later I go over with my two young boys in tow. The older of the two is almost 5 and very busy. I get him working with Windex and paper towels. He is a good helper when directed where he wants to go! We work on several windows and I am just getting in the swing of things. We go outside to clean mud from the dog off the window and he is helping me with a wagon that I am using as a step stool. We are almost finished with the last window on the back of the house when he moves the wagon, trips backwards over the sand box (which is full of muddy water) and falls in bottom first! It is about 45 degrees and he is now crying. I don't even have a towel! All I have are paper towels. So I rush around and get the baby loaded in the car, strip him nude and put him in the car and cover him with my jacket and turn on the heat! Poor little guy was not a happy camper.

This whole ordeal puts me so far behind. I was planning on going to the store to buy fixin's for two other families that are just overwhelmed with life right now. (Been there, but no one gave me a shirt just for the record!) But I have to tend to my son first. We finally make it to the store and almost $200 later I can cook! We go home and start this least favorite process. I spend the rest of the afternoon madly making chicken noodle soup and coca cola cake all from scratch! (Just for the record, I've never made chicken noodle soup and only made coca cola cake on other time!) Fortunately, everything goes as planned until we have to stop to go pick up my daughter from school. We come home and now I am desperate to finish the cakes. The kids so want to help and I try to let them but soon realize this is not going to work. I try to gently nudge them out of the kitchen, but no one thinks this sounds fun. So I am trying to give them simple uninvolved jobs in the kitchen. I nudge more forcefully, but still not takers. They want to be right here with mommy. My nerves are really beginning to unravel. It looks like dinner will be at least an hour late to the recipients at this point. Then I hear the wild giggling and then roaring laughter and squeals! I turn around (background information: my kitchen was just swept and mopped yesterday) to find my very busy son using a bag of powdered sugar as some sort of powder puff! He discovered a pin size hole in the bag and learned if you squeeze the bag a cloud of sugar comes shooting out! At this point I lose it! According to the research that claims yelling at your child is a damaging as spanking, I might as well have been beating these kids! My arms are waving wildly in the air as I proclaim they must leave the kitchen quickly or I will not be responsible for what happens next. After the scurry out of the kitchen I look around at all the powdered sugar coating everything, even the dog, hang my head and begin to laugh! I hide the laugh though! They need to be hiding for a few more seconds anyway!

So, I finally get the soup and cakes done. I am now realizing I have made big pans of very hot liquid that must be transported. I have flashbacks of an afternoon from my childhood. It involved two beautiful little girls (me and Jana:-)) a couple of Easter baskets full of dyed eggs, and a car's floorboard and some little feet! And yes, we were being beaten half to death if yelling is as bad as spanking!!! I am still driving the Hummer. I stop dead in my tracks. I had not thought this part through! So I go to the kids room and grab a couple of plastic bins they keep toys in and just like the expert mess maker I am - I turn them upside down dumping everything in a split second. Then I put towels in the bottom and place the pans on top. They ride in the Hummer like champs! Not one drop was spilled!

Now I am pulling up to the first house (on two wheels) only 1 1/2 hours later than I planned but still dinner time! As I knock on her door I take a deep breath and pull myself together. I glance in the windows as I wait. I see my friend get up off the couch where it looked as if she was sitting reading to her kiddos. (The whole family has been sick for a few weeks.) I'm thinking about how my house would look at this point (I can tell you it would be a mess!). As she opens the door a VERY clean home is revealed! Now I am wondering which one of us should be bringing the other a meal! Anyway they are very grateful and I am off to the other friends house. After I get home I have to begin dinner for my family. I thought I had planned enough for all three families, but as I packed everything up I thought about all their kids and realized I would just have to start over for my family! I make a third batch of soup and collapse. My poor family will just have to do without cake!

So that was my day and I did not even tell you about the adorable conversations I had with my very busy, too smart for his own good son! I will say it involved the sentence, "you're a big ole person" and a discussion about a cute little night gown he found in the back of my closet and how it would not make me look pretty!