so much for a quiet weekend

Yes, indeedidoo, it was supposed to be a quiet weekend. Dale had said "since your parents are coming, and your aunt is planning on bringing a u-haul full of fabric to you shortly, why don't you clean out the guest room properly and then it will be done." Fine. That's a weekend's worth of work.

So, yesterday, while I'm trying to clean the guest room and do 4 loads or so of laundry in time to hang out, I get a phone call from Ron. He wanted to come show off his grandson. Okay, run to hang out washing, hang out all of the towels and the really stained items, curse the flipping wind, run back in with the rest of the laundry and throw it in the dryer. Heat up hands. Then realize that the sheets are already spinning around in the washer and that now the dryer is so far behind the washloads that the sheets will have to go out on the line. Sob as I realize that my hands are going to have to freeze again. That +8 on the thermometer dropped to -9 when the windchill was taken into account. But, everything will freeze dry in 20 minutes, if it doesn't end up across the field.

Run upstairs. Don't forget, I'd been reupholstering the tractor seats (black, by the way), so I needed to run a vacuum over the living room floor to collect any stray pins (after I find the floor.) Call Dale, who was hard at work, to let him know that we're having company. He's not overly enthralled, wanted to get the harrows going (he'd picked them up that morning). But he runs home and we do the flight of the bumblebee cleanup before the neighbours et. al. come over. I didn't even hear Dale holler when they came in, so I was still vacuuming - oh well. Visit was fine, baby was cute, no pins in baby. Great!

Dale went back to work, I cooked the turkey. Was going to cook that for tonight, when the Granny & the Grandpa were coming, but they had said they were going to avoid the weather, and we thought we'd like to avoid food poisoning. So one giant bird was cooked for 4 smallish people. Then, about 10 when I talked to the Granny & Grandpa, they were on again. Okay, come up with a casserole. Um. Hmm. No recipe. Try online. 247,000 hits. Maybe we'll go back to the books. That's WAY too overwhelming.

So I went to bed early. Woke up with a crick in my neck - not sure why - I even had the right pillow this morning. And no kids in bed (yay!) Checked e-mail. Got going on the guest room again. Then had the brilliant thought to check other e-mail. Thank goodness no one phoned me at 4 a.m., but since the roads were still closed, no Granny & Grandpa. Which means I don't need a casserole recipe. That's fine. And, the guest room can move down on the priority list.

So, this morning's chores included cleaning up the playroom. The dress-up box was developing a blob type tendency, absorbing everything in its path, so it really needed dealt with. Also wanted to wash the floor (not sure why- think maybe the industrial sized glitter glue might have something to do with that...) Three quarters of the way through the room, the pile is getting manageable, we're looking at a much cleaner room. Then, the phone rings. Male voice on the end of the line goes "Hi Linda, how are you", then "what are you up to" and "okay, we're coming over this afternoon for a visit - the kids would like a play". Then "bye." No clue who I was speaking to.

Oooooh, that's one of my biggest pet peeves about living out here - my mommy taught me to identify myself on the phone! Guess that's why there is *69 - figured out that it was Jim. Another phone call to Dale. We're having company. Again. He's still not excited, still wanted to get stuff done. Anyway, another flight of the bumblebee cleanup (turkey suppers have a lot of extra washing that was just soaking on the kitchen counter). And Dale comes home for lunch. He takes the garbage out to get rid of it and then heads back to the other yard to work.

We're still cleaning, Joelle heads outside to look for a tool, and disappears. When I start hollering at her to get her butt back in here, she's running towards Ron with a rake. Then I see the flames. The garbage started another grass fire. The neighbour noticed long before I would have - I was working downstairs! So as I'm running to get coveralls, another rake, and my boots on, I called Dale. He came back, Jim pulled in shortly thereafter. End result, only one bin floor lost, thanks to Ron's blade on his tractor. We have a water tank right now, but it doesn't even have a valve yet as we're waiting on parts, so that does us no good at all.

Anyway, the girls are back downstairs, cleaning, again, since having friends over always leaves a bit of a mess. Dale's back at work in the other yard, again, and I'm going to go make fajitas. And maybe something involving tequila. And maybe, just maybe, I'll make a path to the bed in the guest room - that may just have to do.