Where have I been this week?

Why that's a good question. One I wish I knew the answer to.

I think it all went haywire Wednesday afternoon. When we finished school just in time to meet K's best friend, Natalie, and her mom and sister at Costco. We wandered through the huge warehouse and I *didn't even buy anything*. Well, okay, except sodas on the way out since we were all parched after our long trek. Then we left with Natalie in tow and we headed for the huge, new teacher store where we wandered some more aisles, then ended up racing out of the store to pick up W from his bus stop and heading over to church for the Wednesday night activities. After all that excitement, we went home and collapsed into bed (after making one up for Natalie, of course).

Thursday morning started with school, where I was the mean teacher and made Natalie take the same arithmetic test as K. I came across the realization that these poor girls have never been taught how to take a test without reading aloud, talking to themselves, or covering their answers. It was interesting. They spent so much time talking as they did their work that I finally threatened them with the fact that we wouldn't have time to eat lunch if they didn't get a move on. At some point in the morning, it dawned on me that I was supposed to bring snacks to the Brownie meeting right after lunch. So we left the house with the intention of grabbing a quick lunch, to the grocery store for snacks, then we could scoot into the meeting right on time. Then as we pulled in Wendy's, I remembered I was supposed to bring the Brownie checkbook (I'm the treasurer) to the meeting. Change of plans! We went through the drive-thru, raced back home where I grabbed the checkbook and W's box of lunch snacks, and we headed straight over the the meeting.

Where I ate peanut brittle.

And I made the important discovery that I am allergic to peanut brittle. Either that or the grape Kool-Aid.

At any rate, by the end of the meeting, I was broken out horribly in hives and couldn't stop on the way home at the store like I planned. I didn't want to scare the other people.

So we got home and dosed up on Benadryl and sent the girls to clean their rooms while I cleaned the rest of the house. Did I mention that I was hosting a little get-together Thursday night? A few friends were coming over to put together stockings for a community service project and I was supposed to pick up chocolate and red and green trimming for the stockings. Oh well! It went well, we had plenty of other things to work with and some very creative ladies. Another busy night that sent me crashing into bed.

Friday morning. I was up just after W left for work, then I got dressed, got the girls up and dressed, and we headed out to a political rally specifically for homeschoolers. Yes, it counted as school as I had to teach K a lot about political parties, the election process, and who Mike Huckabee is. It was very cool to actually meet Huckabee and his wife. They were both very nice and his wife loved L.

After the rally, we made a quick stop at the new uptown Target, then we headed over to the hospital to visit a friend's sick baby. When I mentioned to L that morning that we were going to the hospital, she had an immediate panic attack, "Why are we going to the hospital?!", before I could explain that we were just visiting. We visited baby Blair then headed down to the new pediatric CVRU as we had promised L's nurses that we would stop in and say hi next time we were in for a follow-up. L, by the way, had no memory of who those people were or that she had been in the CVRU for 24 hours. That anesthesia is good stuff.

We ate lunch at the hospital as the nurses insisted I take some free lunch coupons (twist my arm, ow, ow), then headed home to rest and get ready for a White Elephant party that night. (Are you tired yet? Just reading about it is enough to make me wonder *what* I was thinking!) We all headed over to our friends' house where the kids and adults had separate parties. It was a lot of fun and we saw people we hadn't seen in 2 or 3 years. It was odd that among the ~10 women there, we had *2* named Valerie. And yes, we had a lot in common. Except that she has 5 kids. Good for her (and not me!).

We have 1 thing to do today and next week is *much* less crazy. At least so far.