Hiya! Still alive!

Thank you for all of your nice emails concerning my health and well being. I was at Candyland West (also known as Gray Gray and Gram's house) when not helping CRB and friends rehab her old house so that she can sell it. I am exhausted. And I did maybe a third of the work that pretty much everyone else did. But heavens! The drama! It was enough to wear anyone out. I am stunned that nobody was injured and that nobody ended up in jail. Seriously. Prima Donnas may be the death of me. But we did a kick ass job and, as far as I can tell, are all still friends. More or less.

Sadly, as I have mentioned before, Gram and Gray no longer have internet access. That sucks. I DID bring my laptop thinking that maybe I could make it to a coffee shop or something for a minute. But I am such a dork that I didn't bring the charger.

End result? I went twelve days offline. TWELVE DAYS people. No internets. If I hadn't been so busy, I would have been having withdrawals. As it is, I was so tired at night, that it didn't really affect me. Though I don't think we were home ten minutes before I turned on the computer. Ostensibly to print out the form that we need to send in for SugarPlum to go to church camp next week with her two best friends here. (And lawd, please remind me to tell you all about the insane momma of one of these girls. That woman is twelve kinds of crazy. Seriously, I may have to redefine Batshit Crazy.) But really, we all know why that computer got turned on and why, six hours later it is still on.

Two hundred fifty four emails, my friends. A great many of those were deleted w/o being read, of course. Those from amazon.com, overstock.com, eBay (are we sensing a trend?), and all that stupid spam. So, if you sent me something that needed a reply and haven't gotten it, it is entirely possible that I deleted it. I apologize. Resend it and I promise to follow up.

But not right now. Must sleep. Vacation Bible School starts Monday morning and I will have thirty second graders waiting for me. Yes, clearly, I am insane. Pray for me!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

Aren’t you glad that I left you with those questions for over a week? Did you memorize them and come up with answers in case there is a pop quiz over them one day soon?

Yes. I thought so. Because I know that legions of people come here every single day, several times a day just awaiting the precious drops of wit that pour from my fingertips. Heh.

I had no intention of taking an internet hiatus. As it turns out, Thanksgiving in Candyland did not work out, due to High School football play-offs, among other things. So, I packed up the SugarBabies and we came to my parents’ house for the holiday (actually, we went to my grandparents’ house on Thursday) and hung out there for the weekend. A good time was had by all.

Sort of.

I had forgotten that the internet at the old homestead is a bit wonky and, in fact, completely non-operative at this point. Had I realized that I might have stayed home. Okay, not really. But I might have planned my time a bit better. And possibly given someone the keys to Candyland so that they could guest post, or at least put something up for me. I have a few random things in the queue to be put up when I am at a loss for what to post. As it is, I was stuck with no internets and no blogs to read. Which forced me to (gasp!) actually read some BOOKS and even interact with other live human beings. It took a little getting used to, but I figured it out, eventually.

I wasn’t exactly brokenhearted over the family ditching me for the holiday. The task of cleaning my landfill house was becoming more daunting by the minute. This probably has a lot to do with the oh-so-tenuous grip that I have on my sanity at this point. I will write about this later as it might send me over the edge at this point to even discuss it. Suffice to say that there were moments Wednesday when we all questioned whether Mommy would be able to pull it together enough to finish packing and make the drive to Gray Gray and Gram’s house. Much less survive the weekend without strangling anyone in his or her sleep. (Names left out to protect my ass the innocent.)

Thanksgiving itself was a very nice day. I got to see my cousin who was the cute little flower girl at my wedding and is now a drop-dead-gorgeous 18-year-old senior in high school. She is just beautiful inside and out and I really enjoy every minute I get to spend with her. Also there was her brother, the devastatingly handsome 16-year-old high school quarterback who led his team to another playoff victory this weekend. Go Panthers! The SugarBabies think that these two relatives are the creme-de-la-creme of the human race. And I tend to agree. Our family certainly did well when we dipped into the gene pool! These two great kids took my SugarBabies to the park and entertained them for hours. Then the QB sat and watched the kids while they picked cotton left in the field next to my grandparents' house. The kids thought that they were in heaven. So did I! Aaaaaanyway, it was a nice, relaxing Thanksgiving with a whole family to keep an eye on the kids and give me some time "off."

I also got to spend some more time with one of my very favorite newlyweds, CRB, and even got to see one of our wonderful high school friends (the cutest boy in choir) Matt, and his partner, Andy. We had lots of good silliness and great conversation. We always do when we are together. I was hoping that I would also get to see our friend ARR, but her sweet kiddos celebrated their birthday this weekend, so her priorities (rightly so) remained elsewhere. (That's okay, there's always Christmas, sweetie!)

I got to spend time with Mr. & Mrs. Jackalord at her parents’ new home. The kids loved that, as there are animals and other kids there. Woo hoo! My boys enjoyed watching the "big boys" have a paintball war. I enjoyed relaxing and having some adult conversation!

Eventually, though, it was time for us to return to Candyland. My mom was a saint and let me sleep in on Sunday so that I would be able to drive without killing us all. We made it home in time for to make pizza and watch a couple of episodes of Zoboomafoo before bedtime. Shortly thereafter, I continued my unraveling process. Thank heaven SD gets home in 16 days. It can't come a moment too soon!

Happy Christmastime!!!!!!!