No Pithy Title Comes to Mind

1. This week has been so full of business alternating with complete exhaustion that I feel almost dazed here on Friday morning. The complicating factors were:

• Alex's cheek injury was exacerbated on Saturday night (he re-bit it and it bled all over again, much to his dismay) so I kept him home from school on Monday so I could take him to our pediatrician for examination and antibiotics. It is looking much better today, when he took his final dose of medication.
• Teacher conferences were scheduled for the school district on Wednesday and Thursday which meant Miranda had no school and Alex had early dismissal for both days. 
• I had MOPS on Tuesday morning and Bible Study Wednesday morning.
• My mother has been working to pull up the carpet in the hallway and front room to help Marshall in his effort towards laying the new laminate flooring, which has been really helpful, but kicked off my dust allergies with a vengeance. So I've been wandering around vaguely for several days on my prescription allergy medicine, but it's better than sneezing constantly. 

2. Perhaps it was not the most helpful thing, but in the evenings I've been watching Band of Brothers and catching up on the third season of Justified. I've made it through the first 7 episodes of the former, which means I've just watch some of Easy Company survive the Battle of Bastogne, and all I can think of is how can anyone who knows about this awful battle still want to declare war on anyone? But then I watch Justified (through episode 4, so far) and am reminded just how cruel and vicious humanity can be and pray for God's mercy on us all.

Justified had a killer second season last year, in more ways than one, and while season 3 so far is good and I am loving Neal McDonough and Mykelti Williamson as this year's villains, it mostly makes me want to watch Boomtown again, in which they were absolutely brilliant! But Timothy Olyphant, Walton Goggins and Nick Searcy are still as awesome as advertised.

3. My mother and I took the children to the movies for the first time ever yesterday afternoon, to see The Lorax. Alex's teacher made me promise to take him since he's addicted to Dr. Seuss books and Despicable Me is one of our favorite movies. Of course, being me, we arrived early, so the kids had to sit for a few minutes before everything started and then there were 20 minutes of trailers and commercials before the actual movie started, so Alex was pretty much done half-way through the 86 minute film. Poor sweetie. He just wasn't that interested in the story and wanted to be able to move around the theatre; sitting still is hard for him. Miranda followed the movie much more easily and her behavior was more typical, per usual. But since the theatre was mostly empty and the other patrons were families with small children, we didn't bug anyone.

4. My reward for surviving the week is going to see John Carter tonight with Marshall and my mother. I had to get a little creative in finding a babysitter since most of my usual sitters are taking the SAT's on Saturday or out of town, but it's going to be a lot of fun. Ignore the mainstream reviews and the serious lack of advertising; go see this movie!

5. Tomorrow my mother and I are driving to Morris Plains to see family and attend the bridal shower of a cousin. It should be a lovely time to visit with family I haven't seen since my brother's wedding 2 years ago. But Morris Plains is a little further afield than I had realized previously. Ah, North Jersey, a world unto itself.

6. I have been trying to go back to all of my normal activities to put additional stress on my ankle to get a serious evaluation of my healing progress and am happy to report it is doing far better than I expected. I am pleased to be able to go back to PT this afternoon (I had to cancel my appointment for Monday because of Alex's trip to the doctor) and tell them how much better I am feeling.

7. Some pictures of our changing house for you:

Marshall spent most of Sunday slaving over the new floor in Alex's room, but it looks pretty awesome now...

as you can see when compared to the hallway.

Here's the front room with the carpet torn up and lots of leftover padding to be scrubbed or sanded off. Miranda helped me Monday afternoon to do a small section, but after half an hour of serious scrubbing, I was wiped out. I'm really grateful I don't depend on this kind of activity for my livelihood. The rest of the progress pictures are here.

My first daffodil opened yesterday; so pretty!

Bonus 8. Marshall was able to fulfill a long-standing desire to buy a 1977 Volkswagon bus on Monday. You can see the first pictures here. The car isn't on our property yet, but we do have a title. He will be blogging about this on his own, so more details to follow.

And here's Jen.