today

I just came in from taking Puppy for her nightly puddle jump and in case nobody noticed, it's raining. Our entire yard will quickly turn into a shallow pond in a few weeks, and I hope by then the camera will be fixed so that I can take pictures. The bad thing about all the water is that it is the greatest breeding ground for those mosquitoes that start coming in spring. We have been able to go out to the ditch or to the puddle in the front yard and gather mosquitoes larvae to feed the fish, there are millions of them. I just hate protected wet lands.

As soon as I got up this morning I knew it would be a busy day. For one thing its Wednesday and that means prayer meeting, and then my parents left and then Josiah left. So it was Elijah and me (me and Elijah?) taking care of five kids (of the human sort). Elijah made cornmeal mush for breakfast and since it was lumpy I opted out and decided to have my devotions in peace and quiet, which rarely happens. I really needed that today because certain of my siblings were rather trying and I was tempted to lash out at them. So after that I had to figure out who was doing breakfast cleanup, and since Mom was gone that meant the one of the boys or me had to fill in. Ok, I washed dishes yesterday for lunch and Abby hadn't washed dishes for a while so I asked Abby to wash dishes. But no she was adamantly refusing to wash the dishes so I said to do the table, but no she didn't want to do that either. So I said do the table or do washing and she said she would do the table, Lizzie would dry and I would wash. I was relieved to have that worked out so I went to put a load of laundry in when I see John not getting dressed and Tim walking around with a sagging diaper. Man, where are those "responsible" boys? One is using the computer and one reading a book under the disguise of doing the recyclables. So I tell John to go to the bathroom and get dressed and tell Ben to get Tim dressed and then take the garbage out, but Ben has to come up with all sorts of reasons why he shouldn't have to get Tim dressed and bla bla bla. I finally get the laundry going and then I get a shower. Then I see Lizzie doing the table and Abby standing on my football listen to her tape in my room. So I ask Abby what she is doing and all I get is a shrug of the shoulders and then I ask about the table and she tells me that she wanted to do drying so they traded. So I have a long discussion with Elizabeth on how she is able to empty the big pot out and that I don't want any messes made on purpose just to prove that she cant empty the pot out and if there is a mess then she sits on a chair for five minutes. Then I start lunch, cut Tim and Abby's hair, have John sit on a chair for hitting, pushing and spitting, try to talk to the midwife person while Tim and John are hanging on my legs (I thought I told John to sit) while Abby is driving her remote control ATV and while I am trying sweep cornmeal mush globs of the floor, all at the same time. Nobody tell me I am not good at multi tasking. Pretty soon after that my parents came home so things returned to normal, whatever that is and we had lunch. And then I took a big breather and the started supper (have you noticed, I forgot about the laundry) and then came to church.

Elijah popped a water balloon all over my laptop so I had fun taking it apart and drying it out. If anybody takes a keyboard off a laptop, try to remember the screw in the back that holds it down in the middle, it's very important to remove it before you try to take the keyboard off. I figured out how to put the keys back on, but it's to late for the x key, thats already broken beyond fixing. But at least I was able to fix the space bar and one of the arrow keys. I am tired so goodnight.