"Come on, Caleb, pull!" Photo by me.

Our living room is one of the only rooms in the house that has never been re-done. I believe the floor was re-done ten or so years ago, but the walls and the ceiling have only been minorly altered, with the removal of one window and the insertion of another. That happened last summer. And it left an ugly hole in one wall and the other wall rather ripped-up. Not very pretty. So, when Mom moved her lets-get-this-house-ready-for-the-President troop into the living room, mostly she sighed and groaned and said,
"Oh, I hate this room! It is so ugly! It will be years before we can fix it! Beka, what can we do? Look at that awful hole!" etc.
And Beka said,
"Now, Mom, don't worry. We can take that down and move this here and take this one and put it in that corner and replace that with this and then it will look nice. Don't you see?"
And Mom said:
"It won't ever look nice until we can replace the wall. Oh, this is such an awful room!"
And Dad, who had been listening and eating popcorn, said,
"Why don't you replace the wall?"

After a great deal of, "Are you sure we can replace this? We can finally fix that awful hole! How many feet of this do we need? Do we have any paint? Won't that look nice!!!!", Tim repeated the same basic procedure that we used on the cupboard/counter thing and ripped one wall out. Beka had to help him towards the end, but she wasn't too much help after all. Mostly, she stood on another rickety chair and laughed and screamed, "Pull, Tim, pull!", while he yelled, "Come OFF, you Stupid Thing!" And then when the Stupid Thing finally came off he fell over onto Beka who (still laughing), caught him and congratulated him on his efforts.

Besides ripping out and replacing two walls in the living room, we also repainted the ceiling, took up old trim, attempted to get ourselves electrocuted (long story---don't ask), and covered everything within ten feet of the living room in an inch of dust. And there's even more to come on this project.

General beautification of the house has also been taking place. We've made curtains, rearranged pictures, moved furniture in/out, organized, cleaned, painted everything in sight, redecorated, and all the while we're doing all this Mom is saying,
"It feels great to get this house cleaned up! Oh, look at this! I knew there was something I was forgetting. I'll have to tell Dad to fix that tomorrow. Hey kids, lets clean this, move that, reorganize here, de-junk there, move those beds into this room, and get this house ready for the President!!!"

The Weekly Bible Verse

Proverbs 25:20: Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on soda, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.

A Day In My Week

Wednesday, September 8, 2008: At six o'clock my alarm goes off, and I hurry to get up and clean my room before six thirty. It only takes me a few minutes, and I have plenty of time to relax before the others get up.

By six fifteen Beka and Matthew are up. Beka and I sit in the living room and talk. Buddy and Farley are making too much noise, so we take them into Matthew's room, and crash with them on his bed. Matthew soon joins us and we talk until Beka has to go get ready for the day. Matthew starts school, and I go to my own room and read a little.

After our normal morning walk, I spend over an hour searching our books for an illustration Mom wants. I can't find it, so I begin the breakfast dishes. Once those are complete, I work on miscellaneous projects until it is time to make lunch.

Once lunch and the dishes are finished, I work on my school work for several hours. Then there is writing to do, some crafts to work on, a manicure to give, and a walk to go on. My evening is full until it is time to head to bed.

Bits and Pieces

First of all, I have to apologize to all my faithful readers. I have been writing very irregularly ever since spring. One thing or another has kept me from posting more then two or three Weeklies together in a row. But you have all been very patient with me, and I hope (but don't count on it) to start posting regularly again. Thanks for your patience.

Mom's beautiful fall display. Photo by Mom.

This week was unique in that we all (every single one of us---but Dad) came down with a cold at the same time. Usually we will all get the same cold, but it will be spread out over several days, and each person will be at a different miserable stage. But this time, we're all in the same boat. There are enough germs in this house to infect an army. We've spent the last two days coughing, sneezing, moaning, losing sleep, and complaining. Throat lozenges, Advil, hot soup, and tea make up our primary diet. We're a sick family. How Dad manages to survive what must be millions of germs bombarding his system is beyond me. But he does. Thankfully. Somebody has to be here to arrange the funeral once we all start dying, an event various ones have been predicting ever since we first got sick.

In other news (as they say), it is amazing how the seasons have matched the weather this year! Fall hit on September first, with the first actually chilly day we had had in a long time. That weather trend has continued. We have almost cold weather each morning, warming up to a peak of I-think-we're-still-in-summer weather somewhere between noon and six o'clock. But I like the great fall weather, and am anticipating our first frost.

Farley and Beka playing with the laundry basket. Photo by me.

School has been going well for everyone. Caleb does it in the mornings, and Tim, Beka, and I do it in the afternoons. Matthew squeezes his in wherever he can!

A Word About The Weather

We finally got rain!! And lots of it. 13 inches, to be exact. It wasn't ALL in one day, but most of it was. Everything is still a little wet, but we can walk in the garden without sinking half a foot now.

A Word Of Wisdom

Pogo sticks: the one toy I've met which is able to deliver a number of injuries equal to the number of seconds spent using it.