If you were worried . . . I'm BACK!

Admit it. For a moment you wanted to come to Huntsville and take me away to that nice place we like to call "the home" or "the nuthouse" (we have experience, okay). Fear no longer people, I'm back! I just spent FIVE (that's the number of fingers onone whole hand) DAYS in DC with my husband, in a hotel with a rented Ford Focus WITHOUT MY CHILDREN! Before you become concerned, they were in Mississippi with my sister having not been removed from my care by law enforcement! What a fun time!!!!!!! Not exagerating, I was in the supine position from the time I arrived until a good 40 hours later only getting up to walk downstairs three times to eat! H-E-A-V-E-N, right. here. on. Earth! After that, I rented my very own fire engine red Ford Focus and spent the next day searching out exciting shopping venues! I spent the entire day in a mall and I didn't even darken the doors of Gymboree, Children's Place or Talbot's for Kids (even though I wanted to really bad because they had some really cute stuff in the window). I got a make-over so that my make-up no longer resembles Casper the Friendly Ghost, but now is a nice shade of Casper the Friendly Ghost post walking through a slight dust storm. I went to a movie (Knocked Up), and although I thought it totally sucked except for a couple of kind of funny parts, I was there alllllllll alone, basking in the the glow of the theatre lights on my fantastic Estee Lauter dirty ghost makeup with freshly painted toenails and no food particles on my WHITE shirt!

The next day, Jonathan and I spent the whole day in DC looking at stuff. At one point, we sat on a park bench for roughly an hour. Just sitting. Not answering any questions. Not wiping anyone's butt. Not putting out any fires. If I didn't tell you already, I enjoyed myself! I even had a good time when they announced that my flight was going to be two hours late departing. Everyone is flipping out while I am calmly reading, and just so you know, I was NOT reading a smart, politically correct, current issues type book-it was a really cheesy romance novel!!!!!!!!!!

While I was in DC, my loving sister was caring for my children, even going as far as schleping them to swimming lessons at her pool. Of course, when I was allowed to step off the plane and turn on my cell when I first arrived in DC, I received a message that Charlie's temperature was 102. I mean, the kid always has had great timing.

Now, I am home trying to deal with the 17,000 issues that have been sitting here waiting for me to return. Like, what am I going to do about my passport that has expired and will take an eternity to replace when I am supposed to be going to Nigeria in January or my kitchen floor that has been waiting for me to seal it with this special tile sealer forever or my carpets which desparately need cleaning or the seven gifts I need to monogram/make or the baby bed that is sitting in my dining room waiting to be taken out to the attic or the suitcases ready to be unpacked or the budget I need to revamp for AWANA or the 700 phone calls I need to make.

I am SURE everyone has a list like mine, probably worse, but my question is . . . how can I keep my vacation-type, care-free, loving life attitude and still manage to accomplish some of these things?