What a Day!

I tried to write this post last night. I sat in front of the computer at 1:45 AM. That's when Bossy sent me the text telling me she arrived home safely after our jam-making party. Wait, let me back up to this morning...

So Friday night Princess and I were up until almost 3:00 AM finalizing everything for her bake sale. It was a LOT of work! She had 120 donated cupcakes plus the hundreds of cookies and treats she made herself. We made signs and bagged treats. It was crazy!

But that didn't change the fact that Sport had a 9:00 football game at a different school. My sweetie ran him out there early, but I didn't want to miss the game so I was still up at 8:00. We woke all the kids, including Princess as we headed out the door. She was hoping to set up a little earlier than the 11:00 we were advertising.Thank goodness we packed everything into the van the night before.

Princess, the Dog Walker, and Crafty took off for Les Schwab to set up as Teach woke the little kids to take them out to the Lowe's class. Bossy was headed her own direction for Burrito's last flag football game of the season (he scored a touchdown!).

Gamer brought Taco by so he could go to the Lowe's class and then he ran Fajita and Scout to the high school for a 4-hour softball clinic. Bossy also dropped Bean Dip at the church for a merit badge pow wow. Yeah. we were all running.

Sport's team won their game and we rushed to the car hoping he could catch the last hour of the merit badge pow wow but then we got a call from Bossy telling us they had finished up an hour or two early so we didn't need to hurry. So instead we headed straight to the bake sale to see how the girls were doing. The Dog Walker helped them with the table and canopy and then took off for his math class.

Princess was such a professional and her booth looked awesome! She was every bit the Distinguished Young Woman with her medallion and her service project. After buying a bunch of her goods (that I donated... how does that work?), we ran back home. I had gotten a call from the Gym Rat and he wanted to borrow the truck and pick up a couch that we had been storing for him. OK, we were using it, but his roommate moved out this week and he needed it back.

After helping him load that up, I put Teach in charge of lunch, my sweetie and Sport drove the truck back to Gym Rat's house and he ran me back to the bake sale so he could buy all of the cake drops. It was about noon.

Princess and I went over her packing list and wrote down what we still needed to do before she leaves Monday for the pageant in between customers. I frequented the lacrosse yard sale and bought a couple of chairs to replace the couch from my living room. I got a stellar deal at $20/each. I also let Crafty buy a few things. She got some really cute dresses and a leather jacket.

Then Bossy showed up and took me over to the Nutcracker parent meeting at the studio. I was so glad that no one had rehearsal today! Well, both Bossy's kids did, but none of my girls. We finished up the meeting just in time for her to drop me on the corner and I walked the couple of blocks back to the bake sale just as Drama Queen showed up with her friend.

They hung around with us until 2:00 when we finally gathered up everything and loaded the van. Our last amazing customer gave Princess $25 and we loaded her with a bunch of cookie bags. Princess counted money and she had raised nearly $200 for the Make-a-Wish foundation! Thanks, everyone for supporting her!

We dropped off the canopy we borrowed and took some treats to a friend's house. Then ran home so Princess could get to the studio in time for her last run through of her talent number with the director. I checked two homework assignments for the Dog Walker that were due by midnight, gave him the thumbs-up and then Princess, Teach and I took off to buy her some shoes and pantyhose. We got some of what she needed at Kohls, but shoes were still a problem.

We walked next door to the Shoe Carnival and found her the perfect pair of cute silver sandals. I called the Dog Walker to make sure he had finished his final draft for his paper and gotten off to his choir party. We still had to run by the grocery store and pick up meds and pectin. It was nearly 8:00. I called Bossy because she was home setting up her Halloween display and wanted to join us for jam.

At Smith's I sent Teach to the pharmacy and Princess and I stopped by the deli. Yeah, you guessed it, I had no dinner plans. I love it when the deli person wants to cut me a deal because it is late and all that chicken is just going in the garbage soon. For $8 bucks I got a huge box of chicken! Princess waited while it was packaged and I ran to the canning aisle for pectin.

Bossy showed up about 8:45. The kids were just finishing dinner. Princess and Crafty took off for the stake dance and the Drama Queen agreed to check Dog Walker's draft of his proposal paper that was due at midnight.

Bossy set up the canning station, but we couldn't get the peaches to blanch. I called the Dog Walker to tell him he needed to make some revisions so he better be home by 10:00. Bossy and I started peeling the peaches by hand. We had 4 five-gallon buckets the kids had picked from the neighbor's tree. They were a cling stone so they were more labor-intensive than we were hoping, but as we started chopping and stirring, we could see that they would make some good freezer jam.

Teach cleaned up dinner and joined us. I was hoping it would only take a couple of hours, but our progress was much slower. At some point Bossy jarred up the 5 pints of beans we had picked yesterday and I put them in the pressure cooker. The nice thing about freezer jam is that it doesn't have to be processed.

The girls came home from the dance and the Dog Walker came in a some point and made his revisions. He got his paper submitted on time. The kids had on the My Little Pony movie until Bossy said, "NO MORE!" I think it was driving her crazy...

Something was anyway.

We took a short break for scriptures and family prayer and then sent the little ones off to bed. Bossy finally left after we finished the last batch at 1:30. I cleaned up the kitchen and waited for her text telling me she was safely home. Drama Queen was still sewing a costume she had been working on all evening in between edits. I was tired.

I sat down at the computer at 1:45 to write a post for you. The next thing I knew I glanced at the clock and it said 3:00. I dragged myself out of the chair and got myself to bed. I'm so glad it's Sunday and we don't have a party tonight. We can all use a day of rest.