Sparkle.

So, after I recovered from my Man Cold I picked up whatever the kids had, unless it's the same, really long crud and it just comes in waves. Alas, there's no laying around in my heavenly bed for me, because three things have been in my way for the past 48 hours:

Somehow I have to figure out how to get to the library (25 cents a book per day! 18 books overdue!) and dry cleaners today.  Mitch is out of shirts, and the only thing I hate more than ironing is glitter.  Speaking of glitter, I would really like to thank Aimee and Christi for the gift that arrived in my mailbox yesterday. These lovely ladies work at my kids' previous elementary school, where, apparently my love of shoes and hand sanitizer was as well known as my hatred of glitter.

It was this:


I Love Shoes hand sanitizer filled with glitter

 Wrapped with this:

The picture doesn't show the amount of glitter than spilled out when I opened the envelope, but the painting by Christi's daughter is a masterpiece. When my kids would come home from preschool with stuff like that we'd go in the house through the garage and I'd tell them I was just going to put their projects into a special box to keep forever, but really I put them in a plastic garbage bag and stuck them into the trash. Mother of the Year!

Yet Another Post Involving Barf

Good news!  The house isn't trying to kill us.  Grace's allergy tests came back very quickly.  It turns out all this time she's been allergic to dust mites.  Eff.  With a side of crap sauce. Because that's something we can't move away from.  Wherever we go, there will always be dust mites.  Now, if we owned our home, we'd have all the carpets ripped up by now, but for now, that's just something we'll just have to live with.  I have a good steam cleaner I can use in her bedroom, and you should see my Amazon shopping cart!  Pillow covers, mattress covers, plastic zippered pouches for stuffed animals, more Clorox wipes.  I could go to a store and buy all this stuff, but I've been afflicted with some kind of bug in which I vomit if I'm upright too long.   Olivia had it first.  She came into my bed with a tummy ache a few nights ago and I woke up with her barfing into my hair. I told you I should have named this blog "There Will Be Barf".

Props to Jack for taking care of everybody when I was at my worst. That boy can order a pizza online like nobody's business. And happily, finally, Mitch is on his way home from Nigeria right now to take in my haggard beauty. It was his first time using his fancy shmancy black diplomatic passport, so woo to the hoo!

Normally when their dad is away on a trip, the girls cry inconsolably at bed time.   Olivia cries for Mitch and Grace cries because Olivia is crying.  I think that's just a twin thing.   This time has been so much better, though.  They've been skyping every day with him, which has helped.  Skyping also serves the very useful purpose of allowing Henry to send images of his bare butt instantly to Africa.

Doing his part to make sure we are safe and protected while the man of the house was away.