Courageous Joy

My Productive - Unproductive day

I planned to deep clean, bike, bake, make a cheese cake, wrap gifts, and pick up the girls.

I began wrapping gifts.

The day went WILD. Early this a.m. I heard that the semi truck was NOT coming in with our grain until after the New Year - shew - no need to deal with that today. THEN I heard it WAS coming in and not before noon as first expected but somewhere around 3:30 - 4:30. The pick up place is 45 minutes from my home. Unloading the truck would take time. I would not be back to pick up the girls at 5:00. I began to call my friend, Adrienne, who was my plan B on this whole grain thing. SHE was on terminal hold with Amazon trying to fix a major headache. She is pregnant and can't lift. Her dh was working until 6:30....we decided to see if we couldn't simply go out together after the girls were here....no - they really needed us to do it at 3:30. They needed the boys to come even if I didn't to help load...I couldn't possibly send the boys to miss the girls without any option. ARGH.

I decided to take my bike ride. I'm only 3 miles away from 500!!! I didn't finish because 1. it was VERY cold and windy, 2. I needed to deal with this grain thing and 3. Arielle wants to ride the last mile or so with me.

Got home and worked some more on the grain thing. The girls called and were 2 hours late out of Amarillo. They were to be in at 5:30 -6:00 now. The timing would still be close but I decided I'd load all the children into the van and pick up my grain and the grain for two others....and Adrienne went too to pick up hers. She and I had lots of grain and it wouldn't all fit even in OUR vans. ::snort:: I picked Adrienne up - drove her to base to get their van and then we headed out....this is when I discovered she is a SPEED DEMON. I was going 75 and she STILL pulled waaaay ahead of me. We decided that our speedometer is slow about 3 miles....but I think hers must be fast...because she was WAY ahead of us. We finished grain with just enough time for me to make it to the bus depot at 5:45.

We rushed in and there were hardly any people in the depot. They said the bus wouldn't be in until 7:30. I decided to treat the children to Schlotskys. We went through the drive through and came back to have a picnic in the VAN in the parking lot. The girls called and they were 40 minutes out...they would be in before 7:30. I passed the news along in the depot and that caused great joy for those who were 2 hours late to catch the bus for the next stop.

The girls arrived....lots of hugging. Non-stop catching up on trip, Master's, WA etc. They showered. I fed them steamed veggies and salad...what they requested. I took them to Chick fil A to see Cy. We did NOT have a shake or such. LOL The littles have fallen asleep and the older 5 are STILL talking in the boy's room - it's 12:27 AM.