Baileys Basics News

There is new information on my business blog. Please pop over and check it out. It's what I've been working on that's kept me from here lately. I'm a bit sad. I will, however, be saving the vitriol that I have been spewing aloud for a few days and not post it all over the internet. As things change for my business, I'll probably be posting updates like this that ask you to head over there more often. If you subscribe to both blogs, you may be confused, but I hope not. I just like to keep my "business self" separate from our family blog. And, you know, the infertility stuff off my business blog. So when you see that ultra-cool logo up there, you know there's a post or something cool to check out over on my other site. Thanks!

Oh, and I'm working on a big, important-to-me post that has been rattling around in my head for a few weeks. I want to do it justice, so I've been a bit absent. Maybe this week, we'll see. Nothing life-changing, just close to my heart. Happy Sunday to you all!

A Day In The Life

As Brian and I were talking the other night, we realized that most of our friends and family don't have a clue how our days are organized. As people with non-typical jobs and non-typical hours, we sort of operate a bit differently than most folks we know. For me, this seems totally normal; my mother has had a daycare in her home for 31 years (apparently she started when she was 8 years old...), so my daily schedule is the same one I grew up with.

So, because I thought it might be entertaining, and because Snowpocalypse has kept me from doing anything any more entertaining, it's a Day In The Life. I'm using Tuesday as an example, with bits of Wednesday and Everyday.... This is in no way to say "look how much I do all day. You're a slacker". Rather, I find other peoples' daily routines interesting and thought you might, too.

6:55 smack cell phone snooze button until 7:15

7:15 drag my carcass out of bed, check fertility monitor and perform required actions (pee on a stick! Yay!), get in the shower. Lately, I field calls and texts about who's coming or not, depending on the weather.

7:30 dress, check fertility monitor results, and ask Brian to turn off his alarm clock that has been beeping since 7:25.

7:35 grab a bowl for the baby's cereal and head downstairs to open up the house for daycare.

7:40 straighten up downstairs and shovel any snow that has gotten dumped on the walk. Salt the sidewalk to avoid lawsuits when someone falls.

7:45-8 Baby E arrives. We play for a while.

8-8:30 Big P, Miss A, and Mr. A arrive and begin playing. I organize bags and lunches, put away shoes and coats and anything else lying around.

8:30 feed the baby, and change her diaper.

9 Baby E goes to bed upstairs. I start a load of laundry, depending on which basket is full,and make our bed. I get milk cups for the kids on my way back down.

9:15 change two more diapers and send Miss A to the potty. Fix my breakfast while the kids play (I found organic Pop Tarts! Yay!).

9:45-10:30 Miss M arrives. Chances are Mr. A needs another diaper change. Tuesday we made bags for Valentine's Day. This involved supervising each child, one at a time, as they go nuts with glue, paper hearts, and stickers. While I discussed a cell phone and internet outage with Brian. Most days we also read books, practice counting/ABCs/colors/etc and I make mental note of any developmental stuff we need to work on. I also break up a lot of fights over toys and snarky three year old stuff.

10:45 Baby E is awake. Change her diaper and warm water to heat her bottle. When I go up to get her, I also put the clothes into the dryer.

11:20 big kids clean up, and the baby takes her bottle under much duress and threatening. I micromanage clean up and answer 428,340 questions about what to pick up next.

11:30 kids settle down to watch a little PBS while I pack up lunches to go upstairs and change 3 diapers. Take Miss A to potty and send both big kids (M and P) to potty on their own. Brian leaves for work if he works 12-10:30. I remind him to take lunch, cell phone, and keys. 258 times.

12:00 I pop the baby in the highchair and settle the other kids with blocks in the dining room while I heat up their lunches, get nap spots set up, and start unloading the dishwasher.

12:15 call kids to the table for lunch. I micromanage lunch-eating, fielding a billion comments about who's done with what and who thinks they're full and assuring three year olds that they can't possibly be full after 1/8 cup of corn and yogurt. Eat your chicken. Spoon any food into Mr. A that he can't finger-feed himself. Feed Baby E, moving her fingers out of the bowl every .056 seconds. Unload the dishwasher and begin any dinner prep that can be done ahead of time.

12:45 clean hands and faces, wipe the table, distribute milk cups to kids. Clean off plates and load the dishwasher. Prepare snacks to save time later. Send Mr. P and Miss M to the potty. Change Mr. A and Baby E's diapers. Settle big kids for nap in the living room, Mr. A and Baby E in upstairs bedrooms. Start folding laundry after checking email, Twitter, and facebook via cell phone. Go back into the other room 234 times to flip Baby E over and tell her to go to sleep, and tell Mr. A to be quiet 182 times.

1-3 Finish folding laundry and do any chores that need to be done to keep us on schedule. This is things like cleaning bathrooms (4), dusting, cleaning the kitchen, sweeping, or whatever. On Wednesday it involved making cookie dough to chill and sweeping the snow off the front porch. By 2 or 2:30 I'm usually eating lunch. Some days I sew.

3:00 Send P and M to the potty, wake up the babies. Mr. A walks down the steps himself while I carry Baby M. If need be, I also start a new load of laundry that will get dried overnight. Change three diapers and send Miss A to potty (we're working on it!). Brush everyone's hair so they don't look like ragamuffins.Set everyone to their snacks, and finish dinner prep. Tuesday we had tortellini, so there was no prep. Wednesday was roast beef, green beans, and potatoes. I get it all in the oven and set the automatic oven controls to turn on while I'm teaching. I clean hands and faces, clean off plates, serve milk cups, sweep the floor, and pack up to go downstairs.

3:45 The hoard goes back downstairs to put on shoes and put away their bags before their parents come. When everyone is ready, we play. During this time, I usually field a million calls or texts about lessons if it's Monday through Wednesday, and parents start coming to pick up kids. Baby E takes a bottle around 4, and she fights me. At least one child always melts down when their parents come. Ideally, toys get cleaned up.

5:25 I send the last kiddo out the door. I clean up milk cups and head upstairs to change gears. I usually have enough time to go to the bathroom and get my chair set up and drink refilled before my 5:30 lesson comes.

5:30-8:00 Piano lessons on Monday-Wednesday. On Thursday, I usually clean or do some sewing during this time, unless I have make-up lessons scheduled.

8:00 finish dinner preparations, change into pajamas, remove contacts, manage any laundry that is left in the system. If need be, I sometimes do some cleaning at this point. I eat dinner around 8:30 or 9 most nights.

9 - 10:30 or 11, or 11:30 or whatever: I read or surf the web, or do something crafty like sew, crochet, or embroider. Whatever project I'm working on right now. I watch a little TV or whatever until Brian gets home, if he worked the late shift. We usually head upstairs between 11:30-midnight and go to bed between midnight and 12:30.

Broken down, it looks like this:

cups of milk poured: 11

bowls of baby food shoveled: 3

diapers changed: minimum of 12, more like 20

lessons taught: 5

questions answered, fights settled, judgments doled out: 9,428,750,245

How does a Day In Your Life look?

Heeding a Warning

I love it when God nudges me in a direction and then reaffirms His prodding at every turn. Recently I was talking to a friend about natural living and nutrition. Her family's experience helped us to decide to switch to home-milled, whole grains. She hooked us up with both our beef and milk providers. I pray I've passed on even a tenth as much good information to her as she has to me. About a year ago (maybe more? I don't remember) her daughter contracted a nasty chronic disease and they made some huge lifestyle and diet changes to support her body in fighting this illness. I do not fault her for anything she's doing; she is keeping her children and husband healthy and providing for them in a very appropriate way. But when I talked to her last, she reported (as though it were totally normal and even to be praised) that her family can no longer eat out at all, cannot have any white sugar or processed food, and must take their own food to any carry-in or when traveling to see family. Otherwise they become very, very ill when eating foods their body can no longer process due to their dietary changes. Basically this extends to anything not completely natural, whole grain-based, and completely free of any preservatives, and about a million other things. While I would love to be as healthy as her family, I cannot imagine not being able to enjoy myself when I wish to visit family or go to a restaurant as a treat occasionally. That may make me weak, I'll give you that. But if Brian looks at me and tells me he desperately wants the Cajun chicken pasta at Red Lobster (for which his little heart pines about once every three months or so and makes him soooooo happy), I'm not going to tell him that I can't eat there because they use junk flour and fake cheese in their cheddar biscuits. Heck no, I'm going to be too busy getting in the car to say much of anything. I totally embrace the changes we've made, but moderation in all things, you know?

Along the same vein, when talking with friends or family about our decisions or facts we've gathered in our research, I often feel like they think I'm judging them. That would never, ever be my intent. I never want to say that my choices are better than yours, or that you are somehow a horrible parent if your fully-vaccinated child is munching on Doritos for breakfast with her coffee. Your kid is your kid, your family is your family, and your health is your health. I am responsible for absolutely no actions other than my own. I am far (far far far) from perfect and never want to judge anyone for their own decisions. However.....it is terribly easy for us to cast disparagement on someone else's practices, isn't it? Of course we're the best, smartest, most healthy people ever, right? Certainly we're assured a special seat in Heaven because we've been such awesome stewards of what God gave us, yeah? No. Not one bit. I don't want to even sort of sound like I'm judging someone else for their decisions, so I need to learn to hold my tongue. It is not my job to preach. I need to learn to trust that if someone wants the knowledge I've gained, they'll ask for it.

I was thinking about these things already. And then the other night a Facebook friend posted a link to a very good blog post about natural living becoming an idol. Whoa. I feel that nudge, God. Gotcha. Definitely check out that link and search your own hearts. I know I'll be searching mine. Will I suddenly revert to my old ways of sulfate-laden shampoos, fake body washes full of fragrances and chemicals, harsh cleansers for my house, processed convenience food and flu shots? Not a chance. We've seen too many good results from the changes we've made to ever go back or stop learning for the future. But I will take careful stock of where my heart lies and make sure that I'm only being a good steward of the body God gave me and the health of those he puts in my care, as well as our resources. What a fine line there is between being careful and worshiping one's own green-ness.

The Grinch

Has anyone seen my Christmas spirit? I seem to have misplaced it. I have a hunch it's in the very same place as my patience, my compassion, and my motivation. I haven't seen any of these in several weeks, so if you happen to find them, please send them back to me.

I'm serious, ya'll. It's been a bit ragged around the Baileys household lately. At first, I was stressed out from Mama's surgery and from having extra kids around the house. They filled up all the bedrooms and the front room and I couldn't do any cleaning at all during nap time. I don't like to leave the kids alone when they're playing, so that was out, too. Nothing got done around here and I was perpetually in a bad mood. Soon enough, though, I was back to my normal four kids each day with nap time to myself. Even the baby had the good grace to start taking normal naps almost instantaneously.

Then, Brian's work schedule kicked up for the holidays. If you've never been around us during the Christmas season, you can't really comprehend it. He works six to seven days each week, 11-16 hours each day. Most of the time he works from 1 PM until 12:30 AM, getting home just as I go to bed, provided I've been able to stay up that whole time. He comes to bed around 3:30 or 4 AM, usually turning the light on in the bathroom to brush his teeth. No big deal -- a man's gotta see, right? But I sleep facing the bathroom.... I get up around 7:15, and he sleeps until about 11 or 11:30 and starts the whole cycle again. If we're really lucky, he gets to open the store at 5 AM, or gets to go in at 7 AM, and gets home from either of those shifts around 6:30. On those nights we actually get to see each other. Work takes precedence over everything else, and the schedule is subject to change at a moment's notice. The only thing that keeps me sane is the knowledge that as much as I hate it, he hates it 100 times more. It's Sunday, at 11 PM, and he's at least two hours away from coming home. Strangely, being alone this much makes me irritable and depressed, and unmotivated to do anything at all. I don't like alone time. If I did, I'd still be single.

Because Brian is gone so much from mid-November through early January, all the Christmas prep falls to me. Usually I don't mind. Usually I revel in the whole Christmas thing, decorating and baking, crafting and shopping. This year, I didn't buy a single gift until sometime around Thanksgiving. Our tree has been sitting in our living room -- scratch that: laying in our living room in its big storage bag -- for over a week now. See, we have a little cat pee problem. Someone (we think Belle) is peeing along the baseboard. Not huge amounts, but really frequently. It seems to be an attitude issue. We've cleaned the carpet and walls and tried really hard to get rid of the smell, but she keeps doing it. Somehow she managed to get pee behind our bookshelf. All that needs to be cleaned before the tree can go up. It's December 6 -- at this point, why are we bothering?! Luckily, I have most of the shopping done that needs to be done. Of course, that's nothing for Brian's family since we don't see them until after Christmas, and a lot of the gifts we still have undone are ones that I'm making. Did I mention I need to make about 12 dozen cookies, too? Yeah. And a lot of candy. Meanwhile, I haven't packed up all of the Halloween decorations yet.... Did I mention I'm in a really bad mood like 99% of the time?

Today was no different. Things were going fine, and then they all went straight to hell in a hand basket. It's a long story, but several things went very wrong all at once. I lost it. I was not nice. I was definitely hateful to my husband, and to anyone else around me for a while. Why am I putting this out there? Because I have a hateful tongue, and I need to deal with it. I'm done hiding it, pretending that I don't, and I need some accountability. So here it is. Brian reads this sometimes, and all of my closest friends and not a small amount of family do. I have not been nice lately, and I need to fix that immediately, if not sooner. Keep me accountable, please. Even more important, please pray for my wicked sharp tongue and some self restraint. Lord knows I need it. Lately I'm overwhelmed by life itself, and when I get overwhelmed I get angry. I need to fix all this and get myself under control. I'll be cutting out a few things, cutting out some of my commitments, saying "no" more often, and trying to remind myself that the important things are those I do right here in this house, for my husband, to make it a better place to be and his soft place to land. Somewhere along the line I forgot that and started feeling entitled. It's time to find Simple again. Maybe then I'll feel like celebrating Christmas and being all warm and fuzzy. I sure hope so.

Is There A 12 Step Program For This?

Hello, my name is Andrea and I'm an addict.

I'm addicted to really trashy TV. Nap time = trashy judge shows around here. I heart Judge Toler, ya'll. I think Judge Joe Brown may be going senile, and at the very least hates his job. I think Judge Judy is rude...and I love her for it. I seriously wonder where on earth they get the people that are on these shows!?!

Right now, I mean right-this-minute I'm watching my newest fix.... Toddlers And Tiaras. Ohmygosh. Do not get me wrong -- I was in pagents as a child, and two of my sisters in law were in pagents all the way through high school. But if you haven't watched this travesty of human social interaction and child rearing....oh, you are missing out. Last week a child started out her dance routine wearing a coat and then took it off to reveal her little bra-and-pants combo. Um, that's called stripping, folks. She was something like seven years old. Future Strippers Of America, here we come.

The commercial is off...gotta go feed my habit. Goodnight!!

Saving The Best For Last

I've always been a saver. Not money, heavens no. That I spend like I can freely print more in my basement. No, what I've always saved is "The Best". I eat sandwiches systematically so that the center is left for last. That's the best part, you see. A wonderful synthesis of everything that's on that sandwich all at once, in one bite. I do this with a lot of food, actually. I'll save that little bit of steak that's always more tender than the rest, or the center of just about anything because it's the best. I've also always saved "one for later". As a child this resulted in a lot of single pieces of Halloween candy floating around in a bag in my room for Mama to find.

The main problem with saving the best bite for last is that usually you're terribly full by that time, and forcing yourself to get through all of whatever you're eating in order to get to that special last bite never makes you feel better. It makes you feel stuffed, bloated, and uncomfortable. Who can enjoy The Best when you really wish you'd stopped 10 bites ago? Likewise with saving one for later. Too often later never comes, or you misplace that particular thing you're saving. What good did that serve?

As we've been trying to eat healthier, and as I've been trying (trying, trying, trying) to rid myself of about 292,083 pounds of excess me, one of the things we're doing is not cleaning our plates. When you get full, stop. Simple, right? Not when you've constantly felt like you're supposed to clean your plate, or when you have The Best waiting for last. It's a huge mind-set change for both of us, so I get pretty excited when I am able to say "nope, I'm full, and I don't need the other half of that piece of whatever it is." Empowering.

However, as someone who has long perfected this saving habit, that means that more often than not that bit that's left for the garbage disposal is The Best. That's just not right! I need to learn to just eat straight through something until I'm full, and take that middle bit in the order in which I receive it. Have The Best right smack in the middle of all the Pretty Decent, I guess.

This never fails to make me think about life. How often do we wait for a better time, save The Best for last, or leave something important for a later that never happens? If we're constantly dancing around the middle, taking care of the edges first, what are we leaving behind when we run out of time? I say eat the middle of that sandwich, put the good sheets on the bed instead of waiting for special occasions, and use those linen napkins. Wear your favorite top to the grocery store just because you can, and eat that last piece of chocolate right now. Sure, leave whatever you don't need on your plate, but don't miss out on The Best just because you never got there.

I'm hoping I'll rearrange my life to enjoy The Best whenever it happens. Hold me to it.

What I Learned From My Uncle Carroll

Carroll Lee Dickenson, born August 17, 1941, passed away Sunday morning, July 19, 2009. He spent the day before his death surrounded by his family, and was sleeping peacefully when he passed. Thank you to everyone who has lifted our families in your prayers over the past 6+ months. Your calls, emails, texts, cards, and visits have meant so much to all of us.

A few things have been running through my mind for the past few days. Of course, anytime more than two members of our family get together, there is going to be some storytelling. If you’ve never heard a Dickenson tell a story…well, you probably have accomplished something with all that free time. We, meanwhile, will have started on another story mid-stream, so please jump in and catch up! It’s been no different over the past months and days: lots of stories and histories were rehashed and told, some of which many of us had never heard. And many of the “Dickenson-isms” that have become part of our family language were thrown around and explained to visitors. I started realizing many of these nuggets were straight from Uncle Carroll. So, here are some things I learned from my Uncle Carroll…..

• Tomatoes are good for you. They may taste disgusting, but you should eat at least one slice for dinner before you say you don’t like it. Especially if they came straight from the garden earlier that afternoon.
• Clean your plate…..see above regarding tomatoes.
• Do not kill the spiders in the corners. They are catching bugs, and have names. Uncle Carroll would never kill the spiders that terrorized me as a child, but told me they were his pets.
• List all the cars you have ever owned. If it’s less than 50 cars in 52 years, you have some catching up to do.
• If you can buy a beat-up, rusted-out version of the car you owned at 16, you should definitely buy it and restore it.
• No family gathering is complete without one or more of the following: country ham, deer bologna, or shrimp.
• Do NOT fill up on the cheap food. There’s something better coming down the line.
• Go out to eat after church. Spend time with your family catching up and sharing a club sandwich.
• Listen when a waitress says her name. Use it to address her so she takes your service a little more personally.
• Travel a lot. You’ll have interesting stories to tell the grandkids.
• Take lots of videos of your travels and organize movie nights to show them to your family. They’ll have more fun than they let on, I promise.
• Sing it like you know it. This was wisdom imparted during choir practice, but applies in so many places.
• Whatever song you sing, do really well at the beginning and the end. That’s all anyone really listens to anyway.
• Sing through the rests. They are only suggestions.
• Stick to the time schedule. Unless it needs to change to accommodate you!
• Every vacation should be as education as possible. Visit lost colonies, take in outdoor dramas, and go to museums dedicated to the World’s Largest Whatever.
• Trips to the beach are not for sunbathing. Wake up at 6, walk on the beach, and have breakfast followed by lunch followed by a seafood buffet. Repeat daily for 4-7 days.
• If you keep walking through the pine trees, you’ll eventually see the lighthouse, and it will be amazing.
• Bug spray on a hat keeps the gnats out of your eyes when everyone else is being eaten alive by noseeums.
• That funny spot might just be a tick, so check it out in good light.
• Make your exits gracefully, with great dignity, and surrounded by those you love. Especially that last exit.

We will all miss Uncle Carroll horribly, but know that he is safe with the Lord. He told our minister that he can’t wait to see the tree stand Jesus has picked out for him, and that’s how I’ll always think of him in my heart.

Big Honkin' Update

Disclaimer/Update: I started this post on Monday. I'll hopefully get to publish it tonight, which is Tuesday. We'll see. I also intended to have tons of links to help you better understand all the tests, results, and wildness of our week. Yeah, not going to happen. Little tip: highlight a word, right-click on it, and choose

"Search Google for...". 'Cause I'm tired!

Original post:

Holy mother of pearl, it's been a crazy week. I mean seriously-crazy-not-fun-ER-visit crazy week. I'll try to catch you up as best I can, but bear in mind that it's been so nuts that I don't have the four days it would take to do our week justice. Or ten days, to be exact. Starting in order from when last we saw our superheroes....

Father's Day was lovely. Brian worked and I had a nice day celebrating Father's Day with my family. Last Monday was fun because I had a trial run with the new baby who will start here tomorrow, and it was wonderful to get baby snuggles again. The Big Kids have gotten to the point where they don't need me at all and would be just as happy if I let them go outside by themselves thankyouverymuch. Monday was the end of any fun and normalcy around here until....well, some point we haven't reached yet. Brian mentioned in passing that he had a headache Monday night. Then......

On Tuesday morning, Brian called me around 9:55. He sounded terrible, and I could tell he had a migraine and vertigo from the way he sounded. I'm becoming horribly familiar with that sound in his voice. He said he was on his way to the ER. From what I can gather he started feeling dizzy around 7:45 and went to the break room to grab a bite to eat. He was dizzy and had a headache. When he started dropping his food he started to worry, and stood up to go downstairs. He fell, and caught himself on the wall. Knowing that he couldn't make it down the stairs, he called for his friend/co-worker who is huge and very capable of lifting all 190 pounds of him (along with anyone else he happened to pile on, too, as he is very, very strong). Big Guy helped him down the stairs, to the front of the store and into a wheelchair. Apparently at this point Brian realized that he was hallucinating. Or else snakes had invaded the store, which is unlikely. Actually, not unlikely if you know the building, but it was a hallucination this time....

When I arrived at the ER 15 minutes later, Brian and Big Guy were in a darkened room and Brian was barely able to speak coherently, and was still seeing people and things that weren't there. Whenever he closed his eyes for more than a blink he was instantly dreaming, too. When he was taken to back to the ER, they wanted to treat him with meclizine. We knew from experience that when he is seen in the ER for vertigo they just give him this drug and send him home, and that it doesn't help him at all. They did not seem pleased that we refused their panacea. Then they sent him for a CT scan. Upon returning to his little curtained area, he immediately fell asleep. Huh?!?! Who sleeps in the ER?!?! The problem here is that he was asleep and snoring within 45 seconds, and was hard to wake him up. I tried for a while, nudging him and telling him he was officially that guy snoring loudly in the ER but eventually it was impossible to rouse him at all. When I could get him to wake up at all his eyes were going different directions and he made less sense than your average drunk. Soon I couldn't get him conscious at all. I was seriously worried, but no doctors were around. I alerted an orderly (the only person I could find who would make eye contact with me) and he started monitoring Brian. His pulse oximeter kept beeping as his respiration fell into the low 80's. No one seemed concerned at all. The doctor who finally showed back up around 3:00 suggested a spinal tap to rule out an infection.

It took me about a half hour to get Brian awake enough to sit up for his spinal tap. Then he had to lay flat for an hour afterwards. It came back clear, and he was starting to be more coherent by that point. So...they admitted him to the hospital. We reached his room around 5:00. That evening, we met his hospitalist, the neurologist who would be seeing him, and had some visitors. Brian slept well Tuesday night, and I stayed in the chair in his room. Rumor has it that I slept at least 2 hours that night, but I doubt it.... As we've been talking through this whole scenario, it's becoming clear that Brian has little to no memory of anything after about 10 AM through Wednesday morning.

On Wednesday, Brian had every blood test under the sun, an MRI, and an EEG. We waited patiently in his room for the rest of the day for the results and a discharge as he was feeling better. The doctor came around 5:30 and said that all the tests were clear and that she would send us home that evening after the neurologist finished looking at the EEG. I went home to teach two lessons. Around 7:15 Brian texted me to say that he had to stay overnight again. What?! Apparently the neurologist is a very cautious man who prefers to keep patients for 48 hours instead of 24. I'm not sure why no one told us this in the very beginning. Around this point, Brian got a roommate! He was an older gentleman suffering from congestive heart failure who apparently has very little time left. It was amazingly depressing to know this from over-hearing the nurses and doctors and yet realize that he and his wife did not realize it themselves. Because of the roommate, I was unable to stay overnight. We decided that I would work on Thursday so that I could more easily refrain from killing a nurse or a doctor. Brian was released at 5:30 on Thursday evening without ever seeing the neurologist again. He spent his hospital visit playing approximately 6 hours of Final Fantasy on his PSP, watching approximately 36 hours of CNN, one baseball game, and running through two Blackberry battery charges. He was bored out of his skull by Thursday evening, still stressed, and not rested.

The official diagnosis of sorts was exhaustion, stress, and extreme dehydration. Seems a steady diet of no food, caffeine, and 65 hour work weeks will do that to you. Go figure. Brian has been told to drink a minimum of a gallon of water or Gatorade daily, to eat regular meals and not just whatever crap he can find at the store when he has a minute, to get more rest and to have a sleep study to evaluate him for sleep apnea, and to get a new job as soon as humanly possible. The doctors told him that if he doesn't change his lifestyle, particularly his stressful job, then he will be dead in short order. I really, really hope he was listening.

For now, he's still off work (at the time of posting, today was ER Day +7, so that's a huge deal for him) pending a doctor's clearance. His sleep study can't be scheduled for at least 2-2 1/2 weeks, his actual neurologist can't see him until mid-August, and he's hoping to see our family doctor later this week. Thank you all for your calls, emails, texts, and especially prayers. We will be making (more) huge changes around here to de-stress, so we'll keep you posted on our new normal.

Not Fit For Human Interaction

Like several small children in my house right now, I am apparently not fit for human interaction this week.

I'm not sure why I seem to have to have awoke on the wrong side of the bed for two days straight.

You do not want me to blog today.

You do not want me to speak today.

I promise to return when I am able to speak nicely to my friends.

I am in time out.

10-Day Crash Course in Living Alone

I've learned a lot during the past ten and a half days with Brian out of town. Some of it is very useful, and some of it is just depressing. Some of it is downright enlightening. In bullet form, here you go:

I can finally sleep with the TV off. I started this bad habit ofsleeping with it on when I was single, and I usually leave it on when I'm alone, but managed to do without it most of this week.

Brian creates most of the trash in our house.

I don't cook when Brian isn't here to eat. Maybe that explains the reduction in trash, now that I think about it.

All that mess in the bathroom sink? Not just Brian. When did I forget how to rinse the toothpaste out of the sink?

You never outgrow that childhood tendency to hear spooky noises when when you're home alone. Apparently I am still 11 years old.

Our cats love Brian way more than they love me.

My daycare kids love Brian way more than they love me, too.

The mess in the office? Totally all Brian's.

I can no longer drink a whole soda in a timely fashion. But I tried. A lot. Somebody pass the water, please.

Brian generates 75% of the laundry in this house. I've gone from 8-9 loads per week to 2....

I seriously hate cleaning out the litter boxes, and never want to do it again.

My mama is really good at picking injured people up from the Super-Mega Buy In Bulk Store, taking them to the ER, settling them in at home, and catering to their every Darvocet whim. She rocks.

So does my Daddy, for the record.

When left alone with 3 two year olds and no adult supervision, I will eventually begin talking the ear off of anyone older than 10 who will listen. This is probably annoying.

It's been a loooooong ten and a half days, folks. But my Pepsi Throwback Advent Husband Calender is starting to look promising. Here is what it looked like last night when I got my second to last (penultimate, if you will) soda for dinner.

Only one is sitting on the counter now, ready for lunch. Brian called earlier and is about eight hours away. I am so excited I can't hardly stand it, so I'm off to finish cleaning the house in preparation for the weekend. Have a great Thursday!

Thoughts From The Asylum

Just a few random thoughts and universal truths for you this morning.....

If you pack your child's lunch and place their sandwich in a handy, eco-friendly sandwich keeper, you can probably get away without also using a plastic bag. Thanks for the double packaging!

If your child can sing all the songs on Noggin and tell you what comes on next, she watches too much television. Since she's only seeing an hour at daycare tops (and usually PBS), this means you watch too much TV at home.

Given a room full of toys, books, potato heads, and friends, some kids will still choose to lay on the couch and do nothing at all. Or in the middle of the floor. This same child will yell at their friends for then walking on them.

If you and your wife/husband are going to tell the daycare provider a blatant lie about your child's behavior at home, please get your stories straight. We can remember what we heard at 7:30 when we hear the opposite at 5:30 from someone else, I promise you.

If you take your child to the potty every half an hour, she is not potty trained. You are trained.

Committees exist for a reason. They are not there to simply agree with you and to be ignored when they don't.

Cats who scratched nothing at all when you lived in a hovel will shred walls, furniture, and carpet in the house you love and are still paying for.

Your child does not need applesauce and yogurt in the same meal. He has teeth for a reason, I think.

The child who is bossed around by older siblings will boss her friends at daycare.

All the really horrible things you allow your child to say at home, or God forbid say to her, will come right out at daycare while she talks on the play phone. Daycare providers will later discuss these hilarities amongst themselves, and probably judge you. Not me, of course. I'm just saying.

When you use your Blackberry as a home phone and general lifeline to the world, it's hard to find time for a two hour software update. Thanks for making that so hard, Verizon!

Enjoy your Hump Day, folks. This is my last full day alone!!! Tomorrow, what I learned while Brian was gone. It's been a learning sort of week, hasn't it?

Surprisingly Okay With It

Last Tuesday evening one of my daycare parents told me that she's expecting. A baby, that is. I was so happy to hear it, as I love this little guy and think he'd make a great big brother. And they've done a stellar job raising their first child, so rock on.

After she told me, I had some time to think. I wonder if she was hesitant to tell me that she's pregnant since she knows what we've been dealing with, at least in part. I know if I were her, I'd be a little nervous and guilty feeling to tell an infertile woman that she'll get to take care of my next one. I really don't want people to feel this way! I hate to think that I've made someone uncomfortable or nervous. I am so happy for this family to be having another little blessing, and don't want them to dampen their enthusiasm for my sake.

That said, I do not always feel this way. I seriously hate to hear about yet another person who is having an unwanted baby, and feels saddled by that child. There are so many people who would love to adopt that baby, for the record. But, more to the point, I am infuriated by the fact that people can be so irresponsible and in return receive what I would give my right arm for and am trying so hard to achieve. That's annoying, quite frankly. So is hearing about how much someone's child bothers them. These things tend to make me react like a typical infertile.

However, I would never begrudge this family their happiness and I am so glad they've been blessed in this way. I know that this is not necessarily the case with a lot of people struggling with infertility, and I can respect that. But I was really pleased to discover just how okay I am with this news. Yay for babies!

Awesome Opportunities

Recently I've been working on getting ready for some pretty cool things.  You may be familiar with my little online store, Baileys Basics.  For right now, it's off-line, actually.  I'm finding that I've been selling a lot more product in person than I was online.  My cousin owns a local flower shop, and has offered to let me consign my products there.  I'm really excited, and need to build up good inventory to send her soon.

In addition to my Baileys Basics shop, I also have opened a card shop called 3 Cats Cards.  I've been making things like this for ages, but finally have the time to turn out enough inventory to sell.  A local shop called On The Turtle's Back has approached me about putting cards in their shop.  How cool is that?!  So I've been working on new cards and other paper products that are baby- and child-centered. Be sure to check out On The Turtle's Back, too, for great locally-produced kids' products.

Now, if I could only get up the same enthusiasm for making my curtains for downstairs....

The Soda Advent Husband Calendar

On Saturday, our community had a yard sale.  Ever looking for alternate streams of income, Brian and I set out our useless junk Priceless Treasures for the consuming masses. Ever inventive in our search for alternate streams of income, we also bought a ton of soft drinks that we put on ice and sold for 75 cents each.  We have a few (thousand cases of) sodas left over.  Luckily, Brian resists my efforts to make him give up caffeine and canned beverages full of sugar and will have these few remnants consumed in no time.  Not to mention that the bulk of the soda is Pepsi Throwback, his soda du jour.  

As we were cleaning up Sunday night, there were a few sodas left in the bucket, swimming in water.  I dried them off and we took them inside.  Since our fridge is full of Pepsi Throwback and my single-person, I'm-not-cooking-just-for-myself-but-still-need-to-be-low-carb food for this week, these sodas (Cokes, if you're from the South....) ended up on the kitchen counter.  Monday, after Brian left, I realized that there are eleven sodas on our counter.  Exactly the number of days (including the two half-days of travel) that Brian will be gone to North Carolina.  I try not to drink soda very often, and since I found a decent source for sparkling water (which I LURVE) this past weekend I'll be drinking even less.  But I've realized that if I drink one each day, I have a tangible countdown until Brian comes home.  It's an advent calendar of sorts, I guess.  Except one made of Pepsi Throwback, and Grape and Orange Crushes.  

Do you think if I drink two each day he'll come home faster?

One Is Such a Lonely Number....

Yesterday, Brian left for North Carolina. He'll be gone 10 days.  Well, ten and a half days, and ten nights.  If you're counting.  Which I am.  I'm not telling you this so that if you're some weird murderer you can come and stalk and kill me.  I'm not small, I do fight back, and I do have an incredibly large butcher knife.  Don't even think about breaking in.  I'm telling you this so that you can understand what's going on around here, and why I'll be weird if you talk to me this week.  You know, like I'm lonely and missing adult companionship!  Nothing like being surrounded by two-year-olds to make you need an adult, right?

I hate it when Brian has to leave for work.  The Bargain Basement where he works sends him all over the place to open new stores. Luckily, everything so far has been in either Pennsylvania or Virginia.  And a day trip to Maryland, I think.  He had to go to Kansas City when he worked for Circuit City (see the irony?), but that was like four days.  This is North Carolina.  For a week and a half.  One particularly long trip was to Richmond for somewhere around three and a half weeks. It was horrible, but he could come back here on his days off and I visited him down there once as well.  Of course, being Richmond, part of the fun was that the store was in an absolute ghetto and people were often robbed at gunpoint in the parking lot.  While he was there.  Gotta love Richmond.  But now, he's eight hours away, too far to visit, and gone for a long time.  

Mama swears I'll eventually want Brian to be away sometimes.  She lives for hunting season, when Daddy becomes a mountain man living in his cabin and pretending to hunt deer She loves to eat out for every meal, stay up late, sleep in late, not clean house, and basically be single for a week.  They both think it keeps them married, this system having a few weeks a year off for good behavior.  I do not think we will ever get to this point, and personally hope we do not.  I love Brian more than anything in the whole world, and could happily spend 24 hours a day with him for the rest of our lives.  We've actually talked about this quite frequently (he feels the same way), and we're so glad our marriage is so good.  He's my best friend and I want to share each little mundane thing with him. Not having him here for at least a chunk of the day makes my life crawl by in a boring, pointless blur.  If you don't know me, you may not know that I am an accomplished sleeper.  I can sleep anywhere, anytime, in most any position, and through any ruckus.  I'm really good at it.  When Brian's gone, I do not sleep.  If I can get to sleep before 1 AM, it's a good night.  And then it's only with the pillows strategically arranged, at least one cat purring by my head, and with the TV on. Then I'll wake up every two hours until 7:30.  Tons of fun.  It wears on me when he's gone for three or four days, so I can't imagine how I'm going to last 10 days of this routine.  

Before the Yaya Princess and I were married, back when we were blushing, virginal maidens (cough, sputter), (you know like three years ago?) , Brian had to go to Kansas City for Circuit City.  He had never flown anywhere before, and neither had I (I know, we're sheltered). I took the day off to drive him over to the Charlottesville airport, put him on a horribly small propeller plane, and watched it take off for the middle of nowhere.  I will freely admit that I fully expected to see his plane drop from the sky or explode while I stood by the fence crying my head off.  You see, I'm part of that lucky generation that has lived through the Challenger and 9/11.  So maybe my imagination works overtime, or maybe I have post traumatic stress. Whatever, I was scared.  I waited until that plane was completely gone from view, and then I headed back home.  I cried for the entire hour I was on the road.  I called my Yaya Princess to cheer me up.  She travels a lot for work (so not kidding....like living in a different state for a month out of the year at that point), and so does everyone she knows.  I called to ask her how on earth you get used to putting someone you love on a plane, trusting that it won't fall out of the sky and that they'll be back safe and sound. Better yet, in light of Brian's need to do this again in a month, how do you get used to doing it over and over?!  She assured me that it was totally safe, and that I'd be fine.  I think maybe she thought I was a little bit nuts.  She loves me anyway, though, and checked in on me through the week.  

Fast-forward about a year or year and a half. Yaya Princess and her Prince were engaged, and he had to go out of town for business.  Living within spitting distance of three airports like they do, the Princess dropped him by the airport on her way to work.  And then called me, sobbing like someone had shot her cat.  She suddenly got it -- it's a whole heck of a lot different when you put the person you love more than anything else in the whole world on a plane.  Saying goodbye to your boyfriend for a week? Easy.  Saying goodbye to the love of your life for 10 minutes? Enough to make you rend your clothing, break out the ashes and sack cloth, and maybe go on a hunger strike to boot.  She said it was infinitely harder than ever before, and that she completely understood why I was so upset now.  We haven't talked about the subject in a while, but I'm willing to bet it still feels the same way for her.  I know it does for me.  As I watched that Jetta pull out of our driveway I couldn't help but cry.  Forget that my husband is The Safest Driver On The Road.  Hands at 10 and 2, foot ever ready for the brake, GPS enabled and guiding him to safety, always 5 miles under the speed limit.  I don't care, I sobbed anyway.  Maybe I'll stop crying by the time he gets home.  Ugh, I hate business trips!!!

Preparing For Rain

A few months ago, Brian and I were at the Christian bookstore in our town.  We love bookstores, in case you didn't know.  We have a tendency to drop by one if we're out for dinner and just browse.  We rarely buy anything, but can spend two hours looking around.  This particular day, I did buy a book (which I highly recommend) and because I'm some manner of bonus card club member thingy I was able to buy a movie for $5.  We got Facing The Giants, because we've heard great things about the whole series.  Unfortunately, we haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Maybe this week?  A few weeks ago, I was at Brian's store and found the novelization of Facing The Giants.  Actually, I thought maybe the movie had been based off this book, so wanted to read it first.  Turns out it was the other way around, but I'm still glad I read it.  If you don't know the story of how this movie was made, please go check out the story.  

One of the concepts in this movie is "preparing for rain".  The head coach of the football team tells a story about two farmers who needed rain for their fields.  Both prayed to the Lord for rain.  One then sat around waiting for God to deliver.  The other went out and prepared his fields to receive the rain he knew God would send in answer to prayers.  The question posed in the movie/book was: Which farmer received the rain he needed?  The one who trusted the Lord enough to prepare his fields, of course.  The moral was to pray for what you need, then prepare to receive it.  Because you have to trust that the Lord will answer your prayers in order for Him to do it.  If you pray and "hope" that the Lord will do something for you, you're not trusting Him to do what He said He will.   This whole concept really spoke to me.  Expect to see more of it here on my blog, and hopefully in my life.  

What are you praying for?  Are you preparing for rain?

Terrible Loss

In case you haven't heard, Kayleigh Anne Freeman passed away Monday night. Please click her button below to visit her family and leave them words of encouragement. They have lost so much while providing so much encouragement and inspiration to so many.  Please pray hard for them as they face this horrible, difficult time. As Kayleigh's father has requested, hug your monkeys extra hard, love on your family just a little longer tonight, and be thankful for all you have.

Pay No Attention to the Woman Behind the Curtain!

I realized last Wednesday that 95% of the work that I do in a day will never be noticed. I came to this revelation while cleaning out the pantry. I try to keep it organized so I can "shop" from my pantry to keep our grocery bills down. I know it's time to reorganize when I have four cans of kidney beans and 3 packs of cranberry Jell-O but do not have the most important ingredient for dinner. So today I pulled it all out, categorized and purged and put it all back in order. But first....

I also cleaned out our hutch. Which previously contained flour, corn meal, confectioner's sugar, and a million cookie cutters. You know -- those things I use once a year but keep buying more of because I forget how much I have. See "cranberry Jell-O" above. Cleaning out the hutch led to cleaning out the appliance closet....

What's an appliance closet, you ask? (Go ahead...ask) When we got married, our registry was a Who's Who of appliances. I am a gadget-lover at heart. From our ice cream maker to our waffle iron, from our dehydrator to our blessed rice steamer. I love them all. And, more importantly, I use them all frequently. What I don't love it having 8,929 appliances on my counter. So Brian built me an appliance closet when we moved here. It's right beside the kitchen and used to be a coat closet. After two years, the appliance closet needed help, too.

So at nap time (O blessed, sweet nap time) I put small appliances in the bottom of the hutch, moved flours, sugars, rice, and various nuts to the closet, and purged the pantry. It took me and hour and a half, and no one will ever see it but me. Sure, Brian will open the pantry and maybe notice that nothing falls on his head. But by and large this is one of those things I do in my day that are strictly behind-the-scenes.

A lot of my day is filled with behind-the-scenes. For some reason, we have four bathrooms. Seriously pass on this if you ever get the opportunity to have four bathrooms. That's a lot of toilets and tubs to clean! And somehow two people manage to generate 6-8 loads of laundry each week. Each spring, flowers get planted, a grill and patio set get cleaned, windows get washed, a Christmas tree and decorations go up and down, and various gatherings get planned. This is all in addition to the general housework, cooking, caring for other peoples' munchkins, and teaching 15 piano lessons weekly. Do I want a medal? No (well, sometimes I do). My point is this: We all do things every day that no one is going to notice, no matter how rockin' a job you do. The only way someone will notice is if you stop doing those behind-the-scenes things. I have to wonder how much happier would we all be if someone noticed those little (or big!) jobs we do?

Here's your chance -- what are your behind-the-scene jobs you need recognition for?

Scratch, Ding, Scrape

This weekend, I dropped my phone. No big deal, really, as I do this all the time. However, I was outside on concrete. And it was my brand new phone, my baby. One minute it was shiny and perfect. The next minute it had a ding in the silver and a scrape on the shiny black outside. Just like that, it's not perfect anymore. Now it has battlewounds that came from my own clumsiness.

The world didn't end, of course. We took Brian's Mom and Dad's truck and headed toward town as planned. I gradually forgot about my phone as I watched the gorgeous scenery go by. Baileys Mountain is seriously beautiful, especially in the spring and fall. Suddenly I became very aware of the fact that we were in Brian's Mom's very new, very perfect SUV There were pointy, gougey things all around us! Rocks, trees, and ditches, oh my! I had visions of us rolling that Escape into a ditch and wrapping it around a tree. Dinged doors and chipped paint flashed through my head. And then it dawned on me: the world is chock full of things that can scratch and ding. And life is full of the very same - opportunities to scratch, gouge, and ding each other.

How often do you speak without thinking about how your words will be received? Words hurt. They sting, poke, and chip off little bits of someone's confidence. How often do your sharp words scratch your spouse, or chip the paint off your relationship? If we're honest with ourseelves, it's probably a lot mroe often than we'd like to admit.

I know I'm guilty of this. If I'm the least bit stressed or tired, harried or annoyed, guess who bears the brunt? Brian. I usually realize it and quickly apologize, but the damage is done; his paint is chipped just a little bit. I'd love to use the excuse that we only hurt the ones we love, but he never does it to me Never. I could take a lesson from this man, and I plan to.

Spouses aren't the only people we do this to. How often does a friend's careless word break your heart? How often does something said in jest lead to a fight or the end of a friendship? We may say that people are just too sensitive, but in reality we were probably too sharp. Thoses consant little dings and scrapes are what wear us down and take the luster off our finish. How can you go about your day being the best person you can possibly be if the first person you saw today gouged you ? Whose day did you affect that same way today? Adults are one thing, but children are another question altogether. Their little souls are wounded so easily, and a careless word from an adult could alter their very personality forever. But not for the better.

So, I'm going to plan to be a little softer. A little more gentle, and a whole lot more observant of other peoples' paint jobs. Imagine if we all were a little more considerate in our daily lives, and remembered not to throw verbal rocks at those we love.

A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger.

Proverbs 15:1

In Which Much Happens and Little Gets Accomplished

Hello.  Yawn.  I have only one questions to ask:  Is it Friday yet?  As a lot of you may know, Brian and I spent the week on the outskirts of lovely Elizabeth, West Virginia this weekend.  Basically a weekend on Baileys Mountain happens three times a year or so, and we try to cram as much as possible into the 24 hour period between car trips.  This weekend was no exception.

Brian had to work at 6 on Friday morning, so he was up and around at 5:15 AM.  If you know Brian, you know this was both monumental and painful.  He worked all day with no break, eating pretzel chips and gummi bears for lunch.  He got home late and needed some time to rest up before we headed out.  We got all cleaned up from our respective gunky days, packed the car, grabbed some dinner, and set off for West-by-God Virginia.  It's about a 6 hour trip to Baileys Mountain from here, and we usually leave around 6 PM. Here's what it looks like:

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Yeah, it's a long trip through tiny towns, up and down mountains, with stretches where you can't get gas for miles. And we do it in the dark most of the time. Fun. Actually, we travel very well together, so it is fun. But tiring.

Apparently especially tiring when you've been awake since 5 AM and worked all day. I tend to nap throughout the trip because I'm not driving. Brian's Jetta is a standard, and I don't drive stick. We hadn't made it terribly far (halfway?) before Brian needed to stop for a break. And I don't mean to pee or buy a drink. I mean for a forty-five minute nap. The first of many. Sometimes we'd just stop for him to get out of the car and walk a bit, and other times it was asleep and snoring. Thank God for cell phone alarm clocks! At one point, I desperately needed sleep as well and Brian was feeling pretty good. So I kicked my seat back, snuggled my pillow, and let the MP3 player put me to sleep. Suddenly, I was convinced that the top had ripped off the car and we were going to fly out, a la some bad plane-crash movie. Brian had opened the window to try to wake up. I, meanwhile, will now die a year or so earlier than otherwise planned. We arrived on Baileys Mountain (which does involve crossing running water without benefit of a bridge as some of Brian's friends like to say) shortly before 5. 5 AM. In the morning. As in 24 hours after Brian woke up and 8 1/2 hours after we left the house. OUCH. We met Brian's Dad as he was leaving for work.... Needless to say, we slept till noon on Saturday and still felt like death.

Upon waking up on Baileys Mountain, a full breakfast is always called for. Full as in eggs, bacon, gravy, biscuits, juice, milk, and coffee. Regardless of time, as demonstrated by our fixing it at noon.... Immediately thereafter, Brian's Mom started planning dinner. We had somehow neglected to let her know that we had dinner plans. So she moved her dinner plans to 5:00, and we planned to go out at 7 with friends and cousins and their resepective others. I headed off to take a shower, Brian headed to the car to get his phone and try to call others. Forget that we have no, I repeat NO cell service on the Mountain. No 3G. No 1G. Barely a land line, folks. Incommunicado at its bestest. When I finished with my shower we headed across the road to take a look at Brian's Grandmother's old house, which his Mom and Dad had just finished cleaning up and making somewhat liveable. Brian asked if I had seen his car key. Nope, sure hadn't. But he had just been to the car within the hour, and always lays his keys on the entryway table, so I wasn't worried. Until we got back to the house 20 minutes later and realized that we seriously could not find the car key. At all. Our only car key, at that point. We established that it had been on the table, had been seen by nearly everyone in the house, and was now gone. We turned that house up. Side. Down. Literally, as we turned sofas and chairs upsidedown to look inside them in hopes that the key was there. We looked in the trash, tore up beds, looked under things that weren't even in the house. We checked the yard, under the car, peered in windows, and interrogated small children who were in the vicinity of the key. Because Jetta keys don't look like keys. They look like this:

You know, like a toy. So we honestly thought (and think still) that some small hand grabbed it and ran off with it. Meanwhile, we needed to get in the car to get things that we desperately needed for the day, and in case we had to take the Baileys' car home instead of ours. Which necessitated calling a locksmith. We were currently 22 miles from Elizabeth, the nearest town. So we called someone up and ran to Elizabeth to guide them in. It took the locksmith all of 2.5 minutes to pop our lock and head on his way. The key was not in the car, but at least we had our stuff. We headed off to Buffalo Wild Wings for fun time with some cool folks like Ford Maverick, Ford's Sister, Cousin Clarence and His Wife, Nate the Great, and several others. We had a great time and it was wonderful to get everyone together. I could tell you tons of funny stories, but this post is already a novel.... Suffice it to say that we got back to Baileys Mountain at 3:30 AM. Yeah. As we crawled into bed, we located one missing Jetta key laying squarely in the middle of our bed, under the sheets. The bed which was made before Brian used his key to go to the car. The bed which we had torn to pieces to check for the key. The bed on which I had lain while Brian checked under it. Yeah, we'd checked the bed. I'm not even going to speculate as to how that key got there, but we spent quite literally 5 hours looking for it, interrogated small children, and spent $80 on a locksmith. Fun times on Baileys Mountain, ya'll.

We got up Sunday, fixed breakfast (see above) and got ready to head out. Our goal was to be on the road by 1, and we were ready by 2:15. Not bad when you're running on Baileys Standard Time. We headed over to The Bum and Cousin Mike's new house to hang out and catch up. Around 4:00 we headed to Morgantown to see Nurse Baileys and Coach Jimmy. We left there at 7:15...and had the absolute repeat of our trip on Friday night. Complete with naps and much anxiety over staying awake. Except that we had detoured through Morgantown/Fairmont, so the route looked like this:

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We got home at 2:30. I worked today at 7......

Is it nap time yet? Oh, wait. It is, it is! I'm going to crash!