Blame it on Lent

Well, maybe not. I'm not sure how God is with the whole Striking With Lightning bit these days.

However, I did decide to stop vying for time *alone* in the evenings. Something had to give, but what? Reading time with the boys? No. We're not giving that up, and we can't really shorten it. (They keep adding to the stack, anyway. I'll be reading to them from my death bed if I shorten our nighttime reading.) Time spent tidying the kitchen? No, that one is a sanity-saver come sun up. Time with Zorak, alone, together, speaking in full sentences? Somehow, I don't think sacrificing that is the best thing in the world for a marriage. And I like Zorak. I want to keep him, always.

The only thing left was my late night foray to stay up and blog. It wasn't working, anyway. The Bigs' read-aloud time lasts longer than the Littles' does, so Zorak gets done first and beats me to the computer. (My grand plan to hook up the old computer in the basement fell tragically short because I can't get it to connect to the internet. I seem to have misplaced... the modem. Yeah, not sure how that happened.) Zorak and I are both night owls, so in order to get time alone and on the computer, I'd have to stay up until well past two in the morning. Even then, there was no guarantee. After falling asleep on the couch several nights in a row, waiting for the computer, I realized I was being silly. Very Silly, Indeed. *sigh* That's always embarrassing.

Lent just happened to be an excellent opportunity to quit being Silly. So far, I've been a'bed by eleven six nights out of seven. The extra rest helps. I'm more productive in the morning, able to spend time in study more often. I'm a much nicer mother before noon, too. But boy, does it make for a dull blog. And no photo editing time, either. I'm not sure why I feel pressure to include photos with blog entries, anyway. (Yet I do! Just a peek into my weirdness, I guess.)

So here's a quick recap of the last week or so:

~ We fed a stray. Turns out my Mother was right. They do stay if you do that.
~ Jase is LOUD. I mean, unbelievably LOUD. ALWAYS.
~ Baseball kicks off today. (*whimper*) It will be in the low-low 30's at practice tonight. One kid has practice, another, a meeting.
~ James is anxious (both excited-anxious and fretting-anxious) about taking golf lessons this Spring. No clue what's up with that.
~ The Pinewood Derby is this Saturday. The boys have done amazing things this year. It's not unusual to go to the basement and see a boy with a torch, melting weights, or a boy with a drill press, making holes. They may not win, but they will have learned a great deal, and had a lot of fun, and that is, for us, the point.
~ Netflix really needs to get Season 4 of Big Love on DVD. Seriously. This is important.
~ EmBaby knows where to find, and how to use, the shut-off valve on the toilet! I don't think I've ever been so proud of the sense and composure of a four-year-old in my life.
~ We've had company every Saturday for the last month. As of Monday, the boys have officially petitioned that we re-define "Company Clean". They say this pace is killing them, and that someone will figure out The Truth, eventually, so why not just use that to help weed out the weak ones. (Yes, I'm both proud and horrified at the same time. Parenthood will do that.)

And, I think that's it.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy