Fine. We may never have running water.

I honestly don't care. We do have heat, and windows. And the floor isn't going to collapse anymore. That's more than I can say for a couple of the places we've rented in our lives. Besides, running water is so overrated. We can get a filter and haul water up from the creek. Or we can gather it from the basement when it rains. Either way, we will be living in the house come Monday, running water or no running water.

Actually, it would all be *done* tonight, if we hadn't decided to eat a celebratory meal at Fire Mountain (aka - The Motherlode of Local Buffet Joints). We went with great plans to feast, revel a bit, then return Home to complete the few menial, small -- yet startlingly important -- tasks that await before we may urinate indoors and quit freaking out the local wildlife, who are thinking, "Okay, OKAY, we get it. It's yours. Sheesh. Just quit, already."

Unfortunately, we ate until all five of us were just to the bursting point. And I mean that literally. Smidge's diaper exploded not five minutes after we left, and as the poor child had eaten himself into a coma, he never budged. Zorak only avoided puking because they did not have carrot cake on the dessert table tonight - otherwise, it'd have been a Monty Python skit like you've never seen performed live. The boys will make great farmers, if their appetites are any indication. And I? Well, let me just go on record as saying that, even this pregnant, I could eat the 72oz. steak in Amarillo in under an hour - and live to tell about it. (Well, I'd live, anyway...)

So we bailed and came back to the apartment. You know, so we could wallow in our own beds rather than on the futon or the floor. Besides, once we're out tonight, I doubt any of us would notice if the heat quit and the temperature plummeted drastically. We're really. Really. Full.

However, we're CLOSE. And it's good. And the bathroom looks quite nice (I love seeing the faucet through the doorway as I walk down the hall!) The stove was delivered successfully today. Funny little mix-up on that one - the warehouse never called to schedule a delivery after they cancelled Wednesday, so I called the warehouse this morning, just in time to receive the lovely news that our place was "the next stop on the list this morning"! Oh. Um. Should probably wake the children, then, and get out there, eh? (Did nobody tell these people we aren't living there? Guess not.) We made it out; I threw bananas and water at the boys (breakfast of recovering POWs!), dragged the commode out of the foyer (don't laugh - it's been really cold on the porch) and made way for (bugles blare in the background) THE RANGE. The delivery guys were nice enough to set it up, let me ogle it, and then put the box back over it to prevent me from wasting all day touching it, er, anything from damaging it while we finish remodeling...

We signed all the paperwork for our propane, so it'll be setup on Monday. Yippee. (I'm thinkin' we probably ought to pick up a water heater sometime this weekend. "Some Guy" has one for sale, but we can't find him now, and time's gettin' short.) We ran many errands, cleaned many rooms, and I must remember to double check pockets before doing laundry - James filled a 20oz. cup with acorns from one of his pants pockets before bed tonight.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy