Mercy will follow me, I'm told.

I just found out that Evie's soon-to-be elementary school starts at 7:25ish. I noticed this because I have a few different pre-k tasks to do today involving scheduling an appointment for her physical, etc. I was looking at the school's website and noticed that the bus route by our house picks up students at 6:32. And I was thinking, geez, I am not putting my child on a bus an hour and a half before school starts, guess I'll be driving her. (Which.. I most likely would be anyway.) I don't know why I assumed that schools always start at eight but mine pretty much always did. It was pretty cool because as I was looking at this chart, I noticed that the bus should go past here at 2:56 in the afternoons and it was 2:55, by coincidence. So I turned my head toward the front windows and waited. Sure enough, the bus drove by a minute later. I am dork but I thought that was pretty cool timing.

Miss E is with my parents today. She hasn't been as wild about staying with them lately, but she pitched a royal fit last night to stay for some reason. Actually, I found out today that we had some misunderstandings about this decision to let her stay. What *I* heard was heartbroken sobbing to M about not wanting to leave, and therefore, when she came into the kitchen and my mom asked her if she wanted to spend the night, I let her stay. What I didn't hear was apparently a royal-brat meltdown before the tears began about how she was NOT going home, which is exactly the sort of thing that always makes us deny her request. So, kind of a parenting mistake there because that is one rule that we are pretty firm on, that she can't just start crying and demanding to get her way, as she is a drama queen girl child and I fear the results of bending on that. However, having said that... I am pretty darn happy with how that worked out because I have been in dire need of a day to myself to get things done in peace. I have a backlog of things to do, plus a need for a little quiet time. We've had a rought time the last few weeks and it's good to have a little time at home without someone prone to break out in a fit of moodiness. :)

So, today I have done our taxes and scheduled a physical and eye exam for Evie, and vacuumed the house and put away a ton of toys and other things out of place, and ebay auctions and laundry and sheets and dishwasher, and I had a healthy chocolate breakfast. (Two Hershey's kisses. See, it was even low-cal.) It feels so great to get things crossed off the list, and to know that the rest of the week will not be spent catching up on things like this. I even put lotion on my feet. It's a banner sort of day. ;)

M has just spent the last ten minutes doing a monologue about how (in summary) it is okay that my eyesight is horrendous because neither time travel nor banjos are something I will need to worry about. I'm reading Outlander currently, or rather, the seventh in that series. helloheather mentioned it favorably at some point and I finally got around to reading them. I am really liking them except I am pretty sure that she creates plot lines and characters solely because she wants to do weird accents in her dialogue. Also, I have been using the word "wee" a lot. ;) I was trying to say that I would be totally screwed if I accidentally went back in time because I am blind as a bat without my glasses. That explains the time travel part but the banjos...ahh, well. That's a manolin guy for ya, always ready with a slur on banjos. Anyone else read them?