Cory has been working since 11 a.m. delivering pizzas and is scheduled to get off at 4 p.m. When I talked with him earlier, it sounded as if it was a pretty slow day. He also worked Friday and Saturday nights, and Friday was nuts because of a basketball tournament in Yankton on those days.

It'll be so nice to have him at home for the evening. He's craving spaghetti, so that's what we'll have for supper. Since Cory likes his spaghetti sauce best, that means he'll be the one making the meal instead of me. Nice. Having Cory around also means I'll get to take a shower with the door closed since I won't have to listen for the kids. Well, I don't have to listen for Accalia or Cole, but I need to keep the door open so Ella can come in and out. Ah, the simple pleasures in life that you don't even think about when you have no children or at least have another adult around more often to help out.

I really wish I could report on exciting happenings this weekend, but there hasn't been much. Today the kids and I went to the dance studio to buy recital tickets and then we went grocery shopping. We're stuck in a bit of a rut lately since grocery shopping seems to be the big outing and one that no one seems to particularly enjoy.

This week will hopefully be a little more interesting. Keep your fingers crossed that the Cubs start off the season with a win tomorrow. I might have to find something to take the kids and myself out of the house during the game. Cory doesn't exactly relax when the Cubs are playing. I'll have my prenatal appointment in the morning. Accalia will have ballet and I'll have her recital meeting for that class at the same time - this time sans the other two children. Accalia is supposed to have her first soccer practice on Tuesday, but the forecast is calling for freezing rain tomorrow and Tuesday with snow possible on Tuesday. We'll see if the weather allows. Wednesday will be storytime for Cole. Thursday we have nothing scheduled. Friday will be art and tap for Accalia. On Saturday, there's an art reception in a nearby town for the show that Accalia contributed a picture to a while ago, so we'll try to go to that in the morning. Then, on Sunday, Cory and Accalia are driving over to Pipestone, MN, to watch Myron perform with the Al Opland Singers. Accalia is really excited about this daddy-daughter trip. It'll be interesting have just the two younger kids for most of the day since that rarely happens.

So that's what on the schedule for this week. That, along with the rest of life.

Apparently I just need to blog about the baby not moving enough and the baby gets the hint and starts kicking and/or punching up a storm. Cool.

We're still mostly hanging around home and running errands when necessary. For a few days this week, Accalia and Cole actually played with the two neighbor girls. The younger one (5) came over on Monday and asked if they could play. I was shocked since we haven't seen them since last November. After supper, both girls were over for a while. Same thing Tuesday. We didn't see them Wednesday, Thursday or today, though. Accalia and Cole were thrilled to see them again.

Accalia had tap tonight and I had the informational meeting to go to to pick up her costume, find out all of the details about hair, make up, etc. Cory had to go to work, so I wasn't able to leave Cole and Ella with him. I was a bit concerned that they'd be too big of a distraction, but it worked out just fine. I brought along new coloring books and crayons for both, and Cole spent the entire time sitting on the floor and coloring. I had to wake Ella up to go to dance, so she just sat on my lap the entire time. I'll have to repeat the entire thing again on Monday for Accalia's ballet class, but this time Cory will be home and can keep Cole and Ella with him. I'm already exhausted thinking of everything leading up to the May recital and I'm not even dancing in it. Lots of rehearsals and so on, especially with Accalia taking two classes this year. She's loving it all, though. If she ever gave any indication she didn't want to do this, she'd be out of there as soon as she wanted to be.

Speaking of Cory and Monday, he's taking the day off. Why? The Cubs open their season, of course! It works out really nicely since I have a prenatal appointment in the morning. I think it'll just be me going alone this time. I'll have to leave the house around 9 a.m. and it'll just be much easier for everyone. Happier kids, too, not having to get up and go at that time.

We've spent a lot of time this week cleaning. It hasn't been any major deep cleaning, but it's nice just to get things picked up and organized. I've also been washing all of my maternity clothes and getting that hung up or put in drawers. It's sad, but I have more maternity clothes than regular clothes.

Ella is starting to say more and more full sentences. That's a lot of fun. We still don't understand a lot of what she says, but she's becoming more and more verbally clear to us each day. Ella and Cole are spending more and more time playing alone together. They'll disappear upstairs and I'll hear them laughing and running and making up all sorts of games.

That gives Accalia and myself the opportunity to read without interruption - at least for a short while. We've started reading the Little House on the Prairie series. Cory had read the first in the series, Little House in the Big Woods, a year or more ago to Accalia. She really enjoyed it and wants to read it again. All of this was inspired by me showing Accalia and Cole a pamphlet about the Laura Ingalls Wilder pageant in Walnut Grove that Cory had picked up for me on our trip to Mankato. That definitely peaked their interest. They don't care about the pageant itself, but they were excited about the different things at the museum and in and around Walnut Grove. So the kids and I may try to do that this summer. I'm not sure if Cory would be able to come or not.

I feel like there's more I wanted to write about, and I'm sure there is. I need to take care of some laundry, though, and start cleaning up the living room.

There are times where I can see so clearly how Cory comes through in the kids. Take the following dialogue between Accalia and Cole as they were performing a finger puppet show for me that involved small animals in the forest.

Accalia: Hi, we're a couple of married animals!
Cole: Yeah, we live in the ground so don't dig down there. That's our duty!
Accalia: You said duty. Heh.

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These last few days have been filled with doing things around home. Everyone is trying to survive this cold, although I'm pretty much finished with it thanks to being the first to have it. Ella hasn't really seemed sick - no stuffy, runny nose, etc. However, she's sleeping a lot more. Ella's taken a super long nap in the afternoon every day this week, which is highly unusual for her. Last night, after a monster nap, she decided she was ready for bed pretty early for her. Every time she heard someone say the word "bed", she'd run for the stairs. Then she'd get distracted by something and stay awake. At one point, she brought me the sweatshirt and pants I usually wear to bed and said, "Mama! Bed, bed!" Poor thing.

Today we all agreed it would be a good idea to stay home from storytime with all of the sniffling and coughing and Ella's extreme crankiness. Accalia and Cole asked me to make up our own storytime at home, so I did that and they've been busy much of the afternoon with all of that fun.

Yesterday was my grandmother's 82nd birthday. She's still going strong and told me this weekend how blessed she feels to be this age and still have my grandfather with her to share it. Today my dad and a couple of his brothers (I think) are in Sioux Falls for the funeral of one of his cousins. We were talking this weekend about how, as you get older, funerals start to take on the quality of family reunions many times.

I'm 19 weeks along now and everything appears to be going well. I have an appointment next week. I do wish I felt more movement, though. Every once in a while I'll feel a little bump or shift. I really can't remember how much movement I've usually felt at this stage, but for some reason I was expecting more. Maybe that's because I'm apparently looking so big that I must be carrying twins (according to someone at church). I should go upstairs and change the bedsheets in the guest room (aka Cory's bed when all of the kids want to sleep with me). Then I have to get an early supper in the oven since Cory is heading off to deliver pizzas by 5 p.m.

Oh, please keep Cory's coworker's father in your thoughts/prayers if you're so inclined. There was a bad bus/car crash near Madison (SD) this morning that killed the driver of the car and for sure injured most of the 56 passengers on the tour bus. The coworker's father was apparently one of the passengers with minor injuries, but I'm waiting to hear from when Cory gets home.

We made it back safely from our Easter weekend trip to Mankato. The kids were all so excited to be back at Grandpa and Grandma's and to see all of the cousins. We got to my parent's house while everyone was at Maunday Thursday church services, but after that everyone came over for a while. On Friday, we ran a few errands and came back shortly before Anthony, Kathy and the kids showed up. They were here until after supper. My grandparents and uncle came over on Saturday morning to visit for a while. On Saturday afternoon, we all met at the Lake Crystal Area Recreation Center to swim and then stopped back at Anthony and Kathy's place for a short time. The kids were so exhausted by then. Cole was definitely not in the mood to go back to Grandpa and Grandma's and trip on the stairs and walk away with a fat, bloody lip. Poor guy. It took him quite a while to recover from that.

We woke the kids up fairly early on Sunday for church, but they didn't mind too much once they saw their Easter baskets. Ella threw up twice before church, though, and this was without the benefit of eating anything. I'm not sure what was going on, but she was fine for the rest of the day. Just exhausted like the other kids. After lunch at my parents', we headed off to Lake Wilson. Myron had planned a big turkey meal for 3 p.m., so none of us were terribly hungry after recently having lunch. Cory's brother and family were there, so the kids were able to see their cousins that they rarely see. We also met Joanie, Myron's new friend. She seems nice enough. Mark and Shannon had huge Easter baskets waiting for the kids (put ours to shame) and had an Easter egg hunt. The kids loved that. They would have loved it even more if it hadn't been hovering around 30 degrees, I'm sure. We just stayed a few hours in Lake Wilson and make it home between 8 and 8:30. We were all so tired last night and all came home with colds. We also came home with a tv (that will go in Accalia and Cole's room once that's ready) and a printer/copier/scanner courtesy of my grandpa. He was getting rid of them and gave them to my parents to either find a new home or just set them out for the citywide junk days coming up.

Returning home ended up being fairly traumatic for Accalia because we discovered that her fish, Little Cinnamon, died while we were away. She hadn't been looking very good in the week before we left, so I'm not sure if she was sick or just old. Accalia didn't mourn nearly as long as I thought she would, and I think that's partly because Cole asked her if she wanted to share his fish, Little Blue Sunset. We're going to put LBS in a smaller tank today, and Accalia and Cole are excited about the change.

The next time we'll see the grandparents is when they come the first weekend in May for Accalia's dance recital. Then I think the kids and I will come back to Mankato the third weekend in May to celebrate Anthony's graduation. He'll have his RN degree and already has a job lined up at the Mankato hospital.

Today we need to pick up a few supplies at the store. Both Accalia and Cole have money they want to spend, so I'm sure we'll spend a good deal of time looking at toys, too.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Anthony and Kathy gave us part of the baby's present. They passed along the cloth diapers they had been using with Lizzie - a few Mother-ease diapers and a few covers. What's great is that these will actually fit Ella right now, and she really needs to move up a size in covers.

Better go. It sounds as if one of the kids is waking up.

Now that I got my current events rant out of the way...

I am so, so jealous of Ella right now. She's been napping for the past three hours. Three hours! I guess that's a good thing to do when you're ready to hop out of bed at 3:30 a.m.

It's been a pretty quiet day around here, especially with the two-year-old asleep. Accalia spent some time playing around on the San Francisco Symphony Kids website. Cole has alternated between experimenting with watercolors, salt and pepper as well as filling water balloons in the kitchen sink. I had a friend drop something off and we chatted for a few minutes. Right now Accalia and Cole are putting together an old Imaginext castle that we gave Cole one Christmas.

Tomorrow shall involve packing and story time. The kids are so excited to go to Mankato.

Dear Relative Who Is Not a Barack Obama Supporter,

I've been up since 3:30 a.m. with a two-year-old who decided she was not meant to sleep any longer. That means that your email about Barack and his hidden Muslim agenda really didn't put me in a better mood. I get it. You don't like Obama or, most likely, any Democratic presidential candidate. You know what, though? Is it really helping your cause to tell me that Obama, who does indeed attend a Christian church, is actually trying to spread the Muslim agenda? I was shocked to discover that all Muslim are intent on killing anyone who does not believe in Allah, including babies. That must have been very time consuming to interview all estimated 1.2 billion Muslims in the world.

I would certainly never tell you not to feel free to express your own opinion because it is a free country and I enjoy expressing my opinion. Perhaps, though, if you really want to spread credible information about presidential candidates, could you reference non-partisan sources? Please?

Thank you.

Your Relative Who Will Not Be Voting For John McCain In November

On a related note...

Dear Barack and Hilary,

I'm not saying that either of you is perfect or will be able to successfully bring us out of the hell hole that W has dug us into over this last eight years, but I'm really not enjoying watching the two of you self-implode as you and some of your supporters continue to focus on race and gender rather than the issues. Could you please knock that shit off?

Thank you.

A rare non-Republican in South Dakota

Cole is turning into a miniature version of my dad in regard to this blast of cold weather over the weekend. Those of you who know my dad may either find that hilarious or damn frightening. Poor boy. He has all of his destruction (as he refers to it) vehicles in our front flower bed and has been busy digging and building. Ella has been thrilled to put on Accalia or Cole's bike helmets and be pushed around on the various wheeled contraptions we've taken out of the shed. All three kids have been loving the new sidewalk chalk purchased over the weekend. Unfortunately, all of these things have had to be done in short bursts over the weekend because it's in the 30s and hands get a little cold without mittens still. Tonight and tomorrow we could end up with more than 10 inches of snow. Nothing like late winter in South Dakota!

Cory has been working a lot this weekend. I think we're all looking forward to our break in Mankato. We're leaving at some point on Thursday and coming back on Sunday. It'll be really nice to get away and see everyone for a few days.

I felt a mild cold coming on a couple days ago, and that's all it seems to be at this point. No one else seems to be sick. Hopefully it stays that way. I have noticed that even being just a little sick has also brought back a bit of nausea. Isn't that lovely?

My fingers are dyed green because I was busy rolling tiny marshmallows in green food dye so the kids can discover leprechaun "poop" tomorrow morning. I know, aren't there better ways to celebrate St. Patrick's Day? If I could partake in alcohol, I'd definitely be downing some Guinness. Hopefully we'll be able to get out tomorrow so I can at least get some for Cory.

Today is a really, really nice day - sunny and probably close to 60 degrees. Yesterday was a bust for most of the day. It was cloudy and cooler and started raining while I was pulling Ella around in the wagon. We still have some snow in our yard - in the back by the pop up camper and along the side of the house where it's less sunny. Still, there's less mud to maneuver around. That could change over the weekend, though. I think Sunday or Monday (or both!) we're supposed to get a storm. I hope most of it comes in the form of rain so we don't have to wait for a bunch of snow to melt once again.

I have been craving egg salad lately. So, how pleasant for me that the kids dyed Easter eggs yesterday!

Cory just has one client to see tonight and then he'll be home for supper and an evening of watching Survivor and Lost. Yay!

I'm really, really falling behind on responding to emails, most of which are LLL related. I know, maybe I should work on that instead of blogging, right? LLL work seems to go in cycles. I went for a few weeks without much in the way of work (at least immediate, have to do work), but now it's picking up again. Hey, at least all of us involved with LLL are mothers and know sometimes other things take priority. Like blogging!

Accalia is still on her cleaning kick. She's been emptying the dishwasher and loading it back up and has also reorganized several kitchen cabinets. No complaints from me! It's a pretty cool feeling to have to ask your eight-year-old where she put such and such a dish.

For the past few days I hadn't been feeling much if any baby movement. At 17 weeks, of course, that's not really a big deal, but it still worried me just a little. Today, though, I've been feeling a lot more movement - a few flutters and lots of shifting - so that's a relief.

Since it's been nice these past two days, we've been spending more and more time outside. We took a walk around the neighborhood, too. The downside is that it's so muddy since there's still plenty of snow to melt away.

Guess I should go back to working on some things that need to be done!

This weekend has flown by. It's too bad it wasn't actually warm like the forecast first predicted. It's been cold (20s), cloudy and windy.

Yesterday Cory worked from noon until 8:30. I had La Leche League in the morning, so he dropped the older two off on his way to work. The meeting went well. There were three moms there and we had a nice discussion about nutrition. In the afternoon, Accalia and Cole decided they wanted to go out that night and look for owls. I said I wasn't exactly sure where the best places would be for that and I really didn't want to take the kids out to isolated country roads in the dark with just me, so I suggested we go out right them and do some bird watching. That was just as good to them, so we headed out around the Gavins Point Dam area along the Missouri River, Lake Yankton and Lewis & Clark Lake. On our way to the dam, we saw a bald eagle. Down by the lakes, there are tons of geese and ducks heading north and stopping here for a bit. We got out at one place and watched the geese for a while. We were there when they all took off, and it's always such a neat sound to hear the whoosh of the geese taking off. I think I even got video of it, but the camera battery is low and I need a new one before being able to transfer anything. After the bird watching, we stopped at Wal-Mart for a few things. Ella had fallen asleep in the van and didn't really wake up when we got there. My back and arms still ache from carrying my 40 or so lb girl through the store. I tried to lay her down in the cart, but she would have none of that.

Today Cory is working from 4-8, so we've had a little more time together. After lunch, I ended up taking Ella grocery shopping and Cory took Accalia and Cole to the dollar store because they wanted to spend some of their money. This afternoon I made fruit salsa and cinnamon chips, something I've been craving for a while. Yummy.

We have a quiet night planned around here. There's nothing crazy planned for the week either, so we'll see what happens.

I don't know why, but lately I've been waking up earlier and earlier. Today I popped out of bed at 7 a.m. It's probably not pregnancy related since I'm far from the stage of being unable to stay comfortable in bed. I'd say it has more to do with the approaching spring and the mornings getting lighter earlier. This week all of the kids have been getting up earlier, too, but not necessarily going to sleep any earlier at night. I can tell it's starting to wear on them a bit. I'm sure we'll all get our body rhythms straightened out before long.

Last night, after Ella fell asleep, I took a shower. When I got out, Accalia was taking clothes out of the dryer and folding it while Cole was washing dishes. They had both decided it would be fun to "do my chores" and let me have a break. Isn't that sweet? After they finished there, they decided to empty the dishwasher and load it again.

This morning I have La Leche League, so I need to get moving and get ready. Cory delivers pizza today (noon-8:30 UGH), so he'll need to drop off Accalia and Cole at the meeting on his way to work since I probably won't be back yet. I'm not sure what the kids and I will do today. We may go to the store to pick up a few things, but I'm not in the mood to do a big grocery shopping trip today. We'll have to do that tomorrow, though.

After yesterday's cold temps, I think we're all going to enjoy the warm up that begins today. Don't forget to set your clocks ahead one hour!

Isn't it fun to see how your kids pick and choose patterns of speech and certain words as they grow older? One thing that kind of surprises me with Accalia and Cole is how they don't use a lot of brand name terms despite plenty of exposure to and access to all sorts of media - commercial or otherwise. Accalia and Cole never say Kleenex when they ask for something to wipe their nose. It's always tissue. The other day at the store we bought grape Jello to make Jigglers, yet they never use either of those terms. They always ask for gelatin.

Cole especially picks up the oddest phrases or words, things that aren't usually said in our house. Yesterday we made brownies and Cole said he didn't want to eat one until they were cold because "when they're warm they burn your mouth like the fires of hell." I could barely tell Cory that one because I started laughing so hard. Then the other night Cole challenged me to fisticuffs, which he told me later he picked up from the cartoon Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

Yesterday was supposed to be warmer than it turned out to be - only in the mid 30s and light snow in the evening. Today it's colder and windier with a little bit of snow once again.

I have to remember to be very careful about using the word nap around Ella. For some reason, she always hears "bath" and runs for the tub as soon as I say it. Yesterday Ella was nursing down for a nap and I happened to say the word when Cole came into the room. Ella was close enough to sleep at that point that she didn't insist about taking the bath. When that word mixup occurs, it reminds me of our dog Lucy and how excited she would get at the word "walk." If Cory or I would say something that sounded almost the same (talk, etc.), Lucy would cock her head and her body would start to tremble with excitement. We only did this intentionally right before we were going to walk her anyway. It would have just been too mean otherwise.

Cory has to work for a bit tonight but will hopefully have an earlier evening than last night. Poor guy is really tired this week.

I made two quick trips into the basement today without seeing a bat. I'd be a lot more worried finding a bat awake during the day and worry about it being rabid, so that was a relief. It's possible the bat is sleeping down there somewhere, but I'm really hoping it went back to wherever it came from last night. This spring Cory and I will have to go around the foundation of the house on the outside and down in the basement to patch up any entrances we find.

I was so distracted by the bat situation last night that I didn't feel like blogging about anything else, even though yesterday happened to be Dr. Seuss' birthday and the kids collected all of our Dr. Seuss books and movies so we could read/watch them. Here's what we have in our house:

Movies
- Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat (the Mike Myers version)
- How The Grinch Stole Christmas (includes Horton Hears A Who)

Books
- A Hatful of Seuss (includes If I Ran The Zoo, Sneetches, Horton Hears A Who, Sleep Book, Bartholomew and the Oobleck)
- Gerald McBoing Boing
- Green Eggs and Ham
- Happy Birthday To You!
- How The Grinch Stole Christmas!
- Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?
- My Many Colored Days
- Oh, the Places You'll Go!
- One fish two fish red fish blue fish
- There's a Wocket in my Pocket
- The Cat in the Hat
- The Cat in the Hat Comes Back
- The Foot Book
- Thidwick The Big-Hearted Moose (Cory's favorite)

Mary and Myron gave Accalia that Seuss treasury when she was really young. Mary told us she wanted to give Accalia the entire collection of Seuss books. I always try to remember to tell the kids things like that about Mary so I can try to keep her memory alive. It's hard because Cole doesn't remember her and Accalia says she doesn't remember her. She was five when Mary died, so I suppose that's possible.

Cory went in to work early and has left early so he can get a couple tires replaced on his car. He found out that one of the tires is wearing really horribly and he wants to take care of that before tomorrow when he drives up to Sioux Falls for a meeting.

Accalia has ballet tonight, but that's the only thing we have going on today.

Yesterday Ella fell asleep close to 6:30 and was down for the night. She woke up extremely early, though. I got out of bed with her at 2:42 a.m. I'm not sure how long we were downstairs, but it wasn't too hard to get her back upstairs to sleep after a while.

Just a few minutes ago I opened the basement door and turned on the light as I was getting ready to bring a few things down, and I saw a bat fly by the bottom of the stairs. We've had problems with bats on and off since we bought this house, and a couple years ago we paid a company to "bat proof" our house, which should have consisted of them finding the main entrance for the bats and fixing it so the bats could get out but not in again. Oh, and plugging up any holes that bats could get through - anything as small as the size of a dime is a possibility. Obviously they didn't do a very thorough job. Yuck, yuck, yuck! I hate bats! Thankfully the bats don't seem able to get into the rest of the house, but there is some way they must be getting into the basement from the walls or wherever they happen to be calling home.

So much for a peaceful end to the day.

Did everyone have a fun Leap Day yesterday? When I told the kids that they would have to leap around like frogs all day, they seemed unconvinced. I had a prenatal appointment in the morning, and everyone came along. All of the kids thought it was neat to hear the baby's heartbeat and loved that Dr. M. said the baby was moving around because you could hear the heartbeat fade and grow loud again through the doppler. Ella even had Dr. M. check out her belly and wasn't too upset that there were no babies. Everything was fine - blood pressure good and all of that. I gained four pounds since my last appointment and have gained 11 pounds total. I'm not looking forward to the weight gain, especially since I always seem to gain so much. With Ella, I think I gained around 50 pounds. I do lose almost all of the weight, but I think this last time I still had about five pounds hanging on. I suppose it would have helped to actually exercise, but that's never been a huge priority.

After we got home, Dr. M. called and said after looking at my urinalysis said it appears that I have a UTI. Did I have any symptoms? Uhm, I guess I have to pee often, but I am pregnant. So this weekend I'm drinking lots of water and cranberry juice and will call on Monday. I have a feeling that I'll probably end up on antibiotics anyway, but I suppose that's preferable to getting a kidney infection. I don't even remember the last time I was on antibiotics.

The rest of the day was busy. Accalia had art and then tap. We received the tentative dance recital schedule and were not happy to see that Accalia's performing in both of the recitals (2 and 5 p.m.). We were hoping she'd have both dances in one recital. So we'll have to figure out what we're going to do and what the grandparents will do. Cory worked last night and didn't make it home until 12:30 a.m. The kids and I were all in bed at that point.

Today has turned out much differently than we had planned. Cory had today off, but around 10 a.m. he got a call that one of the driver's called in sick and could he come in just for a couple hours? He did and was there for maybe two hours. It was super slow and he came away with maybe $5 in tips. After he came home, Accalia, Cole and I went out to do our planned shoe shopping while Ella hung out with Cory. We first stopped at the children's clothing consignment store where I found a new spring jacket for Cole for $5. Then we moved on to look for shoes and found exactly what both kids wanted. Accalia said she wanted a break from tying shoelaces and found a pair that requires no tying or velcro use. Then Cole found what he was looking for: shoes that have velcro and that light up. I also found a pair of dress shoes for Accalia on clearance for $5. Then I just happened to find winter jackets on clearance for $5 and picked one up that should fit Accalia next winter. She's fit into the same jacket for the last two years, so I doubt she'll be able to do that three years in a row.

Once we got home, Accalia and Cole put on their new sneakers and went outside to play, and Ella went down for a late afternoon nap. Then I went out and picked up pizza from Little Caesar's for supper. Just as we were finishing, Cory got another call from Pizza Hut. One of the driver's on tonight had thrown up four times since getting to work but apparently didn't feel bad. Could Cory come in and work until 10? Apparently three driver's who had all recently worked together were all sick. I just hope that Cory doesn't bring it home. Our plan for tonight had been to watch 30 Days of Night, but that probably won't happen. Maybe if I can stay up late enough tonight it will. The good news about Cory working unexpectedly is that, when he called me after being at work for almost an hour, said he's already made nearly $30 in tips. Not too shabby.

On a completely unrelated note, does anyone keep up with celebrity baby news? J. Lo and Marc Anthony recently had twins - a boy and a girl - that they named Max and Emme. Did it pop out at anyone else that their twins have the same names as the characters on the PBS Kids show Dragon Tales? I doubt that was intentional.

Okay, there are about a million things to do around the house, and now I don't have the promise of a movie to use as an excuse from not doing any of it.