Various and sundry

It has been a while since I blogged something substantial.  As I think I may have mentioned, Sarah and I were writing novels last month.  I ended up having to write the final 10,000 words on the final day.  That taught me something, and no, it wouldn't be the obvious.  It taught me that, properly motivated and with the right tools, I can really write.  I haven't looked over it since Sunday because I want to give it a rest and see what it's really like when I go back to edit.  I still think that last year's novel is better than this one.  This one was way too painful to write.

Tuesday afternoon, Neighbor Lady called me and said, "I think that Son #1 broke Son #2's arm.  Could you come over?"  (I am making them sort of anonymous, if that isn't perfectly clear.)  After audibly gasping and telling the children to "STAY HERE!" I ran next door.  The arm wasn't as bad as I had feared (compound fractures were going through my head) but it was clear that he was hurt in some way so I wrapped his arm to his side in an Ace Bandage and Neighbor Lady took him to the doctor.  I stayed in her house with her babysitting girl and Son #1 who was mortified that he had done that to his brother (especially since he did it trying to drag said brother out of the bedroom of Son #1).  I called the house and told the twins to come over.  Eventually everyone but Abby drifted over for one thing or another.  The good news was that the arm of Son # 2 was not broken.  The elbow had been pulled apart and they needed to put them back into place.  Which took 2 tries (that was the bad news).  In the mean time, Son # 1 introduced me to the wonder of Wii.  And it was very fun.  And I had a sore arm and shoulder for two days as a result of playing Wii Tennis over and over.  And then Son # 1 got in trouble with Mom because he apparently wasn't supposed to have the Wii on during the week.  Ooops.  Gotta remember and obey those rules (which he has had trouble with a lot, especially with regard to stuff he does with us).

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving with my brother and his family.  I haven't seen him since Thanksgiving two years ago.  The two older girls have new puppies and we got to enjoy them.  And even better, they don't run away like Lucy the Wonder Dog, who was insanely jealous of her new cousins.  I got some pictures, but none of the food (we had a more traditional Thanksgiving this year because I love my sil and she's not much on ethnic foods) and few of groups of people.

The day after Thanksgiving we played board games.  I had bought 2 new copies of old favorites because the twins had destroyed the others (Yahtzee & Scrabble) and a new one that I'd seen recommended all around (Apples to Apples).  While I couldn't tempt anyone to play Scrabble with me until a couple of days after the family left, when Friend Husband finally threw me a bone and played with  me, we had big fun playing Apples to Apples & Yahtzee. 

Oh, and I almost forgot the morning!  Abby and Aunt Amber have a tradition of making us monkey bread to eat for breakfast, so they did that.  It was too yummy!  And since Friend Husband didn't wake up early enough to suit my tastes, I put another female in bed with him to convince him to wake up.



He woke up much quicker after Daisy visited him.



A duty well done.





Two of the cousins are the same age, as they were both born in 1999.  Cass is about 5 months younger than Abby but at least 2 inches taller.  I also thought their feet looked fun together (both were running around barefooted, naturally).



One finished monkey bread.



This is Cass and sweet Dolly (well, Dolly is the dog)



This is sweet Daisy and Autumn.

Friend Gina brought it to my attention quite inadvertently that teachers generally receive gifts this time of year.  Yeep!  I've not done it before!  So I worked hard to get some cardamon bread baked as teacher gifts yesterday.  Here are a few pics of that, without the finished product, sadly.



I thought this looked interesting.  You braid the bread from the center out.  Abby wanted to know why it was that I was posting pictures of bread dough.



Twisty braid and finished braid.



All the loaves during the final rise.

Well, I've been messing around with this for a while and need to get moving on my laundry debt and housecleaning.  Bleah.  I hope I haven't totally lost you all.  I've been trying to revisit blogs but I also have a major blog debt so that's a little difficult too.  :-)