Sweet reprise

I am a girl who likes sunshine, and money.

So is it so odd that the dropping of money in our account and a sunshiny day would have made me feel so alive, and in such a good mood yesterday?

I don't think so either. 

There was a spring in my step as I grocery shopped and soaked in the blue skies in our normally cloudy, grey part of the world.

And being in such a good mood, and being tax return season and all, we took the younger kids out to Red Robin. 

The big girls were at play practice, so I appeased them with their favorite French Dip from Arbys. It was still strange not having them there. But it was certainly not boring with the other 4.

I just think Anne Marie is beautiful. And separated from Charlie by dad, she was calm and lovely all evening.

Charlie gave new meaning to the word persistence. He must have asked, I kid you not, 25 times for 50 cents to play one of the games in the lobby. 

Henry decided that it was more fun to cover his face than to let me take his picture. And it's digital proof that he did in fact spend at least a portion of the evening sitting down. Most was spent running attempting to run around the restaurant and jumping up and down on the seat and talking to his friend who just happened to be sitting on the other side of the partition. 

And Nora. Sweet, lovely, addicted to the little sugar packets Nora. It's a full time job hiding, moving and saying no to the little container full of real and artificial sweeteners. 

It was a fun evening. Marred only by the fact that I could only eat half of my food. Why? Because my stomach started to flip flop and feel weird. So weird in fact that I didn't drink the free refill of diet Coke. That is how you know that I was indeed not feeling well. 

The feeling persisted all night in fact, it's own symphony of catastrophic music, swelling and rising with the rumblings of my stomach, climaxing around 3 am. It was not lovely. 

So now Charlie, Julia, Nora and I have filled our part of the "our family gets the stomach flu every year" bargain.

I can't wait for everyone else to cash  in on this awesome deal. 

My efforts to fall asleep amid tumultuous tummy tumblings were interrupted briefly by our car alarm going off at 11:30 pm.

A  month ago our little blueberry car was the victim of a hit and run in the school parking lot. Since then, you can't lock the car with the remote key-less entry or the car alarm will go off randomly and without any warning.

Seems I forgot that when I got home from picking the girls up last night. 

So, sorry to my neighbors. But no need to worry about car prowlers or burglars. It was just our little car, letting us know that it's there. And loud. 

Now it seems I have a date with my couch. I don't feel that awful, just tired from attempting to sleep all night, rather than actually sleeping. 

But it's blue skies again, after the morning rain has dissipated, I may not be able to stay on that couch for long.

Happy Day!