Hoo boy! Things have been wild around these parts for the past few days and they're gonna get wilder. As you know, Busy Girl's party is this afternoon and we have a metric assload of things to get done beforehand. I was counting on using yesterday evening to prepare, but somehow, I (instead of their father) ended up taking the older kids to the football game. It was about 45 miles from home, so we had to leave early, and wait in traffic forever but I also had to get party shopping done. So, I raced from work to Target and the grocery, came home, dumped the stuff off, packed for the game and we booked it on up north of here.

I know I write about it every year at this time, but I love high school football. Busy Dad is a high school teacher, so we do have reason to go to the games. It's funny, I grew up here roaming those games "looking for people" and now I'm still going to those same games, only now I'm taking my kids so they can "look for" the kids of the people I used to "look for". Weird. (insert some kind of philosophical "circle of life" comment here). Anyway, the game last night was one of historic proportions as it was the first meeting of the two Catholic high schools in town. It was very exciting, there was huge crowd. We had to park two miles away and take a shuttle to the game. All well and good until it started pouring down rain. But, alas, I had packed just the right totebag (see, I do too use all those bags) and we had umbrellas and ponchos. Not that the kids used them, though. We hung in there until it started lightning so we left during the 4th quarter. Alas, we lost even though it started out as a very exciting game.

Busy Girl's party is this afternoon, and indeed, the weather is questionable, but the rains have held off thus far. Thanks so much to all of you who gave great advice about what I can do with these kids in my house when they were supposed to be outside! It is cleaning mayhem here today, all for a bunch of 11 year olds.

On top of all this, a good friend's mother died suddenly a couple of days ago and it's been really bad. I was worried the visitation was going to be planned for today, but I think it's tomorrow. I really haven't had time to process the whole thing, but this friend has been a primary source of support to me since my mother has been so sick, and, who would have ever thought that her mother would die before mine.

Even more stuff going on? Why yes! We just got a call from friends in New Orleans who are being evacuated and they are coming up here to stay. A family of 5 and a dog. Hmm...we loaded up the guest room with "stuff" in order to clean up for the party. If we have to clear that room out, we're out of places to put "stuff" and we'll also have to feed them something besides birthday cake and chips, so...I guess it's back to the grocery store!