Getting Creative

Sometimes you want to have a little treat and not share.

Making brownies will not achieve this purpose.

Oreos -- only if you've managed to keep them hidden from EVERYONE (and I mean everyone) else and it's after bedtime and Himself is in Wisconsin or at least locked in his garage inhaling paint fumes.

But it's 7 pm and you just want a little sumfin' . . . and you don't want to have to divide in five ways.

Solution: develop a taste for stuff you just know that they're categorically opposed to.

Chris won't eat broccoli for cold, hard cash. Therefore, his sons won't either. Obviously if Dad won't eat it, it must be poison. Suits me. Drenched in butter and laced with salt it meets all my demands in a treat. Likewise, saturated in gooey fake cheese in a Green Giant box, it passes as an illegal treat. Nothing that high in fat can taste bad.

There's these tofu thingies by a guy called Pete in all sorts of wild flavors you never knew you wanted to eat like Mango Tango or some such thing. I have to be in the right mood for these things, but in the right mood I *love* them and they are ALL mine. You can always count on tofu to look brown and disgusting when well marinated. It was my first choice tonight but the last bit of it looked like it was suffering from something deadly and the expiration date was a stand-offish August 9.

So it was green giant microwave broccoli covered in gooey hot cheese-like substance. And I didn't have to share :)

I should start marking things on the calendar though because I *still* feel like sending Chris to the store after the kids are in bed for two packages of Oreos ('cause, if I sent him for one, he would come home with just the wrapper).

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I've been flirting with Apollo lately. We've more or less stuck to our schedule. We made all our football games and did all our school work. Most astonishingly, after whipping the house into shape a week ago -- it. has. stayed. clean.

So this weekend I broadened my sphere of influence. Having successfully kept the kitchen, the living room, and the large playroom clean, I cleaned and painted the dresser my Mom brought back in July and put that in the twins room. Then I tidied IT. I scrubbed the toilets and their immediate surroundings and the sinks. Then I headed down stairs and spent :cough: 5 mere hours doing finances and cleaning off my desk.

I even got the Latin flashcard binder reorganized (too many flashcards. It wouldn't close anymore -- so I added a second one and split them alphabetically.)

Chris was willing, so I sent him off to do some banking, mail some mail, drop off some paperwork at the YMCA, and get two new piano books for Max at the piano book store.

But most of all, I cleaned my living room top to bottom last weekend. I reorganized it. I made it look great. And I kept it that way for a whole week. A whole week!

I dunno. It's very stressful this month -- not having enough work -- but God always knows what He is doing, and it may very well be that He knew I'd need the time to get the place firmly in order, establish better habits, and get some sleep.

Hopefully right before He sends me a TON of new work. Towards this end, I received a box full of [work stuff] today. That's promising. Unfortunately I don't have any directions for what to do with it yet. I don't remember praying for patience. Do you think He was aiming for Chris and missed?