Do Not Disturb

I don't want to say this too loudly, but all three of my children are downstairs playing.  Together.  Peacefully.  Without me.  My mom brain says I should check on them to make sure they aren't destroying anything.  My pre-mom brain says "Are you out of your mind?  Enjoy it!  Who cares if you have to recarpet the basement afterward?"

You can remind me I said this when I actually do have to recarpet the basement.  I might hit you, but that will be your fault -- blame the messenger, you know.

Fall seems to have returned to our city after winter made a big show of superiority by dumping snow on us a week ago.  Yesterday I made a picnic lunch for Michael to enjoy on the front porch while we huddled up in a blanket together and watched the construction workers next door play Who-Can-Fit-The-Most-F-Words-Into-One-Sentence while they poured the driveway.  Luckily the noise of the machinery was loud enough to drown out most of Michael's R-rated education, and after awhile, I heard one of the shovel-wielding guys tell his tattooed charges to watch their mouths.  I was tempted to ask if he could do anything about the abundance of plumber's cracks as well, but figured it is never wise to irritate a man who looks like he is two strikes short of a life sentence.

Today's activity: paint pumpkins.  And make ghosts to hang on the front porch if I can find the old white sheets we inherited from David's grandmother, which is a pretty big "if" considering the state of my storage room at the moment.  A place for everything and a thing in every place, as my sister likes to say.

Have I mentioned that I hate moving?

Plus, David and I are in the middle of painting the garage, which I have never done before and plan to never do again.  Normally I like painting, but I think that has always been because I've only had an occasional need for a ladder and I could finish a whole room in a few hours.  We are two days into the project and still have two more to go.  Long days involving strained necks and doing battle with persistent moths who are determined to be part of our bug mausoleum.  ("And on the left, entombed in primer, you'll see the popular Idia Aemula, who refused to part ways with the light bulb even as her death loomed ever closer.").

And, in honor of the fact that it is October, which means the stores are already celebrating Christmas, I signed up for the "random selection process" to get tickets to the annual Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert.  So I'm in a sing-songy sort of mood at the moment, especially because Leah has been wandering around the house lately singing "Bum bum bum, bah bah bum, bah bah bum."  Sounds harmless, right?  Well, set it to the tune of Darth Vader's Imperial March (no lie) and it's a lot funnier.  And creepier, considering she has never heard it before.  I have no idea where she came up with it.  Still, it's somehow a lot less scary than the fact that Matthew was clapping and squealing with glee over the latest Selena Gomez video.  He loves her like a love song, baby.  I think we're warping our children.

Well, not "we."  I blame David.  He's the one who turned on the Selena Gomez video.