Reporting

Thank you to those of you who commented last time (instead of clicking somewhere more cheerful and leaving me behind in my pathetic dust,) with words of encouragement and understanding. I am feeling much better now. Here's how my list is coming:

• van purchased: check (what a huge relief, inspite of being sick about spending any more money on something that will just beg to be fed with gas on a twice monthly basis.)
• house picked up for the housekeeper: check (She never came. Called and said she was sick. Argh. I am trying to bribe my children to vacuum and do bathrooms today so I can move on to other things on my list.)
• date night with Henry: check (Kimball lost the chance to come due to some unfortunate punching of his brother in the stomach. It was very sad for him and I really wanted to relent, but we knew that he needed to learn the lesson. Henry was so fun to be with. He kept thinking about Kimball and asking, "Can we take some of this home to Kimball?" We did the Mother-Son sports night, which was sponsored by Henry's school, then had a little treat of Cold Stone and chips from Chipotle. We brought some chips home for Kimball to enjoy for breakfast. Then, Henry accompanied me to the grocery store.)
• get some food in the house for Jared to eat while we're gone: check. (See above note after date night with Henry.)
• make Amish Friendship Bread: check. (One of my friends, Stephanie, gave us this fun starter 11 days ago, which made yesterday Day 10. You mostly just babysit the starter for the first 9 days, stirring it and sometimes adding flour, milk, and sugar. Day 10 is when you actually make the bread. So when we got home from our night out and I put away the groceries, I decided that I'd better make the Amish bread. The kids had lots of fun helping me with the starter over the 10 days leading up to this, and they had fun eating it for breakfast, so I don't feel too badly that they didn't get to help make the bread at 10pm. We'll take a couple of loaves to friends today, along with some starter for them to make their own. It baked while Jared and I caught up on the week's TiVo (Office, Lost, Dancing with the Stars).)
• water the garden: check. (Oops. The past two days were so crazy that we hadn't done it. And it's been quite sunny and warm. So we got out there this morning and discovered some new blossoms! Yeah! Lest this sound too idyllic, I should mention that Bronwen alternated between trying to eat the compost pile and washing her hair in the very dirty rain water basin while we did this.)
  
• park day with my friends: check. (I'm glad we went, even if the day was busy. It was nice to catch up and let the kids play somewhere other than our yard. Since most of Thursday was spent with me trying to keep them busy without actually having to pay any attention to them, this activity on Friday was a nice break for everyone.)
• library. check. (We have lots of great books to read this week while we're out of town.)
  

Here is what still needs to happen before midnight:

• buy organic fertilizer and fertilize those plants. Especially the tomatoes. I'm dreaming about home grown tomatoes. I also want to get the last plants for our garden, the fall raspberries, and get them planted. Perhaps I can sweet talk Jared into this errand.
• get another pair of wireless headphones for the road trip so that Ian can actually hear the movies on the new DVD player. Sounds like another honey-do.
• wash several loads of laundry, fold them, and put them away.
• pack for five people.
• grind wheat (honey-do) and bake bread. We decided to combine this with a science lesson on yeast, gluten, and whole wheat.
• deliver the loaves and starter from the friendship bread.
  
• take a shower (ideally) before heading off to the autism charity event. Avoid using the word "just" to describe my full-time job as mother all night to people who have sexier careers. I'm proud of my job and get irritated at myself when I find myself downplaying that.
• post our weekly report on the homeschool blog. Or at least have the pictures taken so that I can post from my mom's.

So I guess I'd better get away from this computer and get going!