Hooray - Back to Work Tomorrow!

8:30 Sunday night.

Can't even remember what we did Friday night, but won't forget about getting to the rink Saturday morning and finding no one else from the team there. I had the time and the rink correct, just the wrong day. (These little problems will be remedied soon when I get my palm pilot fixed/replaced. But not soon enough)

So back home with a very disappointed Hockey Girl in the back seat. Her sleeping sister (D2) was up (woken by our phone call home to get her to check the hockey schedule). Eldest was at her first in-class driving lesson. Lucky her, she missed 4 hours of house cleaning. D2 and Rob vacummed and dusted both floors, and I spent the whole time in the kitchen cleaning counters, appliances, cupboards. Geez - that seems like a long time to spend on so little, but it was a lot of cleaning.

Hockey Girl got to take off with Omi and Opa to visit her cousins. D2 and I ran some errands (including 1 hour at the bank straightening out RESP and allowance deductions) then I was ready for a nap. We scrambled together a quick pasta dinner, watched a bit of a movie and I was upstairs and into bed by 10:00.

I may have been the first into bed, but somehow ended up the last to sleep. Rob and D2 made enough noise to wake me up when they came upstairs @ 11:00, as did Eldest when she pounded on the door and rang the doorbell @ 11:30.
She: "WHY do you do this to me?"
Me: "WHY don't you have your keys?"

And so ended Saturday.

Up and out the door the next morning at 8:45 for hockey. Hooray, we weren't the last ones on the ice. Hockey girl played a great game - she really hustles. No goals though, so Opa keeps his toonies for another week.

We stopped at Home Depot on the way home to pick up a carpet cleaner. 4 hour rental. No probs. Rob and the girls moved almost all the furniture out of each bedroom, spot cleaned the many offending blotches and coaxed the machine over all the carpets. Hockey Girl's room was the biggest improvement.

Meanwhile, I started doing the laundry, dropped off Hockey Girl at a friends, and kept tabs on what was going on upstairs. The big girls kept disappearing - to do homework we were told. Eldest was on her cell phone most of the time. About 3 1/2 hours in, she made us some grilled cheese sandwiches.

Rob finished up and raced to return the machine in time. The girls cleaned up the kitchen, I kept the washing machine and dryer well-fed, then we headed out to the local fabric store. The eldest has one last sewing project for this term.

So far she has made pyjama pants and a housecoat. This last project (I find out later) was supposed to be the most difficult. That I learned, AFTER forking out $32 for material to make placemats. Eldest says she has a way to make them more complicated. (And since she is my daughter, that shouldn't be too hard)

Back in the car and over to Future Shop. My priceless and irreplaceable Palm Pilot is unfixable so I get a store credit. The only problem is that Future Shop isn't stocking them anymore. AAAAAGH!

Finally, to the mall to return Christmas presents.

While the girls zipped through the mall to spend their gift cards, I stayed put in The Bay's housewares section.

I've been looking for some dishes to compliment our 20 year old, still complete, all white corning ware set. I imagine that most families would have had to replace their dishes by now right? Not us. Corning ware really is indestructable. I think that we have only had 2 dishes break in all this time. And while I am glad that they still look like new, I really would like to add some colour to the mix.

I found a beautiful 16 pc set for $21. Having the kind of family that takes a proprietary interest in everything that goes on, and comes into this household, I knew that I was taking a big risk in making the unilateral decision to buy them without any family consultation. But, I rationalized, I had my store credit from the returned Christmas gifts and I felt they were as nice as I had seen to date, and that $21 couldn't be beat. So I bought 2 sets and waited for the girls to make their way back to me to carry the boxes to the car.

Of course, Eldest hates them ("Blue!?! They're like gramma dishes!") Sorry Gramma.

I've only taken one plate out so far and so far, they aren't doing anything for Rob. But now that it is late Sunday evening and finally "me time", I am going to take out a full set and see how they stack up.

Then I will hop in the shower, get my clothes ready for tomorrow, try to do some stretches and get some sleep. Hockey Girl has 6:00 a.m. practice (Rob is taking her) and I'll be getting Eldest to 6:55 a.m. practice.

And before you know it, I'll be back at my paying job, finally feeling organized, in control and not so pressured.

TTIM