It's late on a Monday, and my husband is working late (rather unexpectedly), leaving me home alone with the kids. Neither of whom are cooperating; my son is chunking toys at his sister's head, and my daughter is unhappy that I won't let her play with a plastic bag. I've got a 7 am meeting tomorrow that I'm presenting at, I need to prepare, and yet, I just can't bring myself to do it after wrangling these kids this evening.

Over the weekend, we made our first trip as a family: we drove to Houston to visit a friend of mine from the first time around in college. She has three children of her own, so we let the kids have the run of the house, along with some other families that were over, and it was relaxing. I can't believe a trip with my kids can be termed "relaxing", but so be it. We had a good time – everyone slept when they were supposed to sleep, played when they were supposed to play, and ate when they were directed to. We returned feeling happy and grateful that this is a possiblity in our lives; we can leave the city and not end up hating life by the time we return.

So right now, sitting here typing this, is a hard return to reality. Bryan did not nap at all at school today, so we're dealing with an overly tired preschooler and an almost-toddler (yay for standing up all by yourself!) who is constantly frustrated by her brother, who yanks toys out of her hand, tries to pull her away from things that she's interested in, and basically tries his best to boss her around as much as he can.  But this is the day to day stuff that you push through, that you deal with, in order to have the fun times. This is normal, even if it is hard to handle when I'm still tired from the traveling and from a day of work myself.  This is the true test of being Mom. 

Life: 1 
Blog Updates: 0

Sarah's party went really, really well. We bought too much food, which is pretty normal for us (I seem to be in constant fear that we're going to run out of food for some reason, like everyone will swoop in and demolish the food and then be all, HEY, WE ARE LEAVING NOW, YOU LOSERS) which means that we ate hot dogs for two days afterwards. No matter. Sarah was gifted with mounds of clothes and plenty of toys, and everyone had a blast. The Wii Fit was put to good use in entertaining some of the older kids at the party.

The bakery did a fanastic job with the cake; I was very impressed that they were able to do all of that from the napkin that I handed them. She did the dantiest cake smash ever; I gave her a corner peice, and she picked the little pink edging parts off and stuck them in her mouth one at a time. She had a little icing on her mouth and her hands, and that's about it; it's like she knew we were giving her permission to be a total mess, and she decided to do the exact opposite. And she refused to eat any of the actual cake; she would only eat the icing.

The combination of school and work and kids and husband and…well, LIFE, is kicking my ass right now. Time is at a premium. I'm not sure what happened, but somehow I'm scheduled solid from the time I wake up until the time I collapse in bed at night. I just keep telling myself that I can get through these two classes; but there are days when I stop and think about how stupid I was to take them at the same time in a shortened semester. There is nothing I can do about it now but muddle through as best as I can, but next time I come up with some hairbrained scheme to "knock out those two classes", please pick up the nearest heavy object and wail on me thoroughly. With gusto.

I was a part of a fantastic stitch marker swap on Ravelry, and somehow I ended up with the greatest assortment of stitch markers ever. My girls did a FABULOUS job; each set was made by hand, and will be put to good use if I ever get out from under my life. 

There is one additional set that I can't show you here, because y'all, this is a FAMILY SHOW, and two of the stitch markers may be shaped like a part of the male anatomy that rhymes with SCHMENIS. And others are a little more gross than that. I had a picture of it up on Flickr, but I took it down for fear that it would violate their terms, as well it should. Dirty, dirty stitch markers that I'm not sure should ever see the light of day.

Next up: the BIG BIRTHDAY. Of which we do not speak. But I think I did just speak of it. Crap.

I've been tagged by Squib-Stitcher (who has a lovely photograph of herself on her blog, by the way), so here goes:

What was I doing 10 years ago?
I was still in college, hating life and wishing that I was out of school. I quit soon thereafter, and here I am today. Back in school. Wishing I was out of school, but I'm not hating life. Baby steps, y'all.

What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?
1. Grocery store, because we have no food.
2. Fold a load of laundry when I get home so that we're not living like a bunch of hobos with clean laundry piled up all around us. Well, I guess hobos don't have clean laundry around, but you get what I mean.
3. Read a chapter of my accounting textbook. Try to stay awake.
4. Bathe the kids. See hobo comment above.
5. Knit on the cardigan that I started a few days ago.

Snacks I enjoy:
You would be hard pressed to find snacks that I don't enjoy. Salty and sweet, breads, ice creams, crackers…you get the idea. And you also see why my ass is expanding.

Things I would do if I were a billionare:
Quit work. Go to school full time and get it over with. Buy a big, new house, and then set out to do good things with the money. Feed the needy. Wipe out all of the people who hurt children. And somehow, convince Cold Play and Keen to quit making music. IT IS FOR THE GOOD OF THE WORLD, PEOPLE.

Places I have lived:
Texas, Texas and Texas. Did I mention Texas? Because yeah…Texas. I'm not what you would call a "world traveler". Or even a country traveler. I've been out of Texas a few times in my life. I KNOW. I am working on it!

I suck at tagging folks, so if you're reading this, you're officially tagged.

The verdict is in: I have a compound sprain, and I managed to fracture off a tiny peice of bone in the process. I have to wear a brace for the next four weeks and attend twice-weekly physical therapy sessions, and at the end of all of this, we'll reevaulate where I'm at and what to do next. The doctor was really fantastic, explaining everything in layman's terms as much as possible and only giving me a little crap for waiting for two months to come in; I'm glad that I finally got off my ass and did it, though. Maybe in another four weeks this will be all behind me, and I can go back to…well, doing nothing, just like I was before. How the hell did I chip off a peice of bone? And sprain it that badly? WHILE WALKING IN MY OWN HOME?

Yes, I know. I'm the picture of grace.  

This does mean, however, that I will be able to sport some hand knit socks for the next few weeks. When I went into the doctor's office this morning, I was knitting on a pair of Wollmeise socks, with only the toe to go on the second sock, meaning the first was kitchnered and complete in my purse.  I slipped that baby on before they put the ankle stabilizer on me, and I walked around in the sock all day at the office. The brace does not allow for my normal shoes, so I've purchased some Crocks, which I will be sporting like a weirdo in my office for the next month. I even went as far as to go to a Crocs store, hoping that they would have black. Not only did they NOT have black, the only colors they did have to fit me were light blue, psycho green, and silver. I walked out of there with silver Crocs on my feet and a pair of turquoise sandals in a bag. You know, for when I have to dress up.

It is a big relief, however, that no one said that dreaded surgery word in regards to my foot. The thought of having my ankle operated on when I've got two small children and a full time job just made me want to dissolve in a puddle of stress, but as of right now, we're not even looking in that direction. That's a load of worry off of my mind, for sure.  Now on to worrying about important things, like why my son has a strange fascination with cramming his finger up his nose to the point that it bleeds. That has to mean something, right?

…also known as How I Do Dumb Crap and Injure Myself.

Two months ago,  when my husband was off at an all day meeting on a Saturday, I managed to screw my ankle up but good. Both kids were down for a nap, and I though, SWEET, FINALLY I can get a quick nap in, too! Except I forgot about The Girl's ability to sense any time I have to myself and to interrupt it in the rudest of ways. Right as I was dropping off, she began screaming like her eyelids were on fire, and in the sleep state I was in, I immediately jumped up and ran to her room to find out what the problem was. 

There's a reason why sleep running isn't an Olympic sport, y'all. Right as I got to her room, I stepped down on my foot wrong, and YEOWSA, pain shot up through my ankle. I sat there for five minutes, clasping the ankle and sucking air in through clenched teeth while i waited for the pain to abate. When I finally was able to get myself up again, the damn thing had already started to swell; I had to take care of both of the kids on my own until my husband decided to come back home (I wouldn't blame him if he just decided to run for the border, honestly), and by that time it was ENORMOUS. His first comment was along the lines of "But how did you get an entire orange shoved under your skin?"

It has been hurting on and off since then, and this week has been worse than usual. I've got an appointment tomorrow with an orthopedic surgeon to figure out just what in the name of Charlie I did to it, and how to best fix it. I'm hoping he'll just massage it and then send me on my merry way; I don't want to think of any alternatives that might require my flesh to be opened up and disturbed by sharp, pointy things.  I don't do well with needles and surgery in any way, shape or form. I'm honestly amazed that I'm going to the doctor at all.

Details will follow tomorrow, unless he DOES massage my feet. If that happens, I might possibly be arrested for molesting him.