A Day in the Life of a Mother

I am certainly gaining a greater appreciation for mothers! It's pretty tough to be busy and working all day, then have to take care of kids, plants, and animals in the evening. I've gotten too used to my quiet evenings here by myself after work! Things are going well with taking care of Bailey and Abby, but yesterday was just a really long day, and I woke up with a bit of a headache this morning. First of all, work was crazy yesterday--nine tours (eight is usually our maximum) went out!! We had a group who was scheduled for 3:00 p.m. show up at 3:20. So, Sharon had already started the regular 3:00 tour, and because we can only have 20 people in the house at a time, we had to wait a few minutes before I could take the big group in. Their advisor was kind of a grumpy man, and he was mad that it was taking so long to get started, but I was feeling grumpy too, and was mad that they were late. So between the two of us, it wasn't the happiest tour in the world, but everyone survived. Then I went over to the Wesselman's house (it's about 15 miles outside of Natchez), and Bailey, Abby, and I went to dinner. Then we took Abby to Young Women's and had to pick her up later, then we had to have bubble baths, read, do laundry, water the garden, and . . . clean up after the dogs. When I took care of the Wesselman's animals, their big dog Gracie was staying with someone else, so I just had their little dog Cocoa plus the cats, fish, and turtles. But now Gracie is there at the house, so there's quite a crowd. It was seeming like it was going to be a pretty quiet evening, but then I went into the kitchen and there was this pile of foamy stuff on the floor. Cocoa was standing by looking very guilty. I thought, "Oh great--this is not what we needed tonight!" It appears that Cocoa must have eaten something when he was outside that caused him to throw up. It was totally disgusting, but I got it off the floor and sprayed everything really well with Clorox cleaner. Then, at about 4:00 this morning, I was awakened by Milo, one of the cats, who started licking my face. He started out the night in Bailey's room with a closed door, but somehow made it down to the room where I was sleeping--where the door was also closed. Milo seems to have the ability to open doors. He slept by me for the rest of the night. Well, I'm heading back to the Johnson house for the afternoon, and then it's spaghetti and bowling tonight with the kids. The fun never ends!

Mammy's Makeover

The headline in the newspaper this morning was: "Keeping that Girlish Figure." It was talking about some revamping work (including giving her a painted belt) they're doing on the exterior of Mammy's Cupboard--one of the most famous Natchez landmarks. Mammy's has delicious food--I'm an especially big fan of the chicken pot pie which is served on Fridays, but I haven't been there yet this summer. I'll need to do that one of these days. Hmmm, birthday lunch on Friday? :-) We've decided that Mammy's skin keeps getting progressively lighter. Ranger Sharon suggested that maybe we should start calling the place Mamacita's, as she's starting to look a little more Hispanic than African-American.

Today I'm heading over to the Wesselman's after work to take care of Bailey and Abby for the next few days. Brother and Sister Wesselman are out of town, so I'll be staying with the kids in the evenings and someone else will be with them during the day. Tonight our plan is to go to McDonald's, so that should be very fun. Well, I'm off to make a PBJ for lunch. Oh, I almost forgot--there was another funny thing in the newspaper today! This guy got shot in the leg the other day, and his original story was that he got out of his car, heard a gunshot, and then, TWENTY MINUTES LATER noticed that he had been shot in the leg. Yeah, right; like that sounds legitimate! So, he finally came clean and admitted that he shot himself in the leg. Either way you look at it, this is obviously not the brightest person in the world.

Fruit in the Attic

Today it was Jessica, Gerald, and myself holding down the fort at Melrose. Luckily, only 4/8 tours went out, so Jessica and I only had to do two each--instead of four. Even though I only had to do two tours, I still kind of ran out of steam on the last one. I meant to say that since the attic is quite hot, the family would store extra clothes and furnishings up there, while storing fruits, vegetables, and meat in the basement. Instead I said, "Since the attic is hotter than the rest of the house, they would store their fruits, vegetables, and meat there." Then I thought about what I said, realized my mistake, and tried to correct it. :-) I'm scheduled for a four tour day tomorrow, but then I'll get a little break on Thursday when I'll be at the Johnson House all day. Well, I'm off to go show Gerald the way to get to the William Johnson House from his house--he has to work their tomorrow and has no idea where it is. I think we're going to go to Smoothie King afterwards, so that should be fun.

Wasp Adventures

Look at the cute little turtle that came ambling up the driveway here at Routhland yesterday! I don't know where he was heading, but he was making pretty good time for a turtle.

Today was what you would call a crazy day. It started out as a nice peaceful day off. I was planning to go into work to help with the scavenger hunt for the Junior Rangers, but that wasn't until 10:30, so I was looking forward to sleeping in. However, Angie called at 8:30 this morning in quite a panic. Ranger Sharon was still sick, and even though all of the other rangers were there, Angie still didn't have enough people to run camp and keep the park open. We all know I'd do anything for Angie, so I went ahead and worked all day. It was fine except that by the end of the day, I was feeling a little irritable. This six-year-old kid, who was literally five feet tall, named Nathaniel, went on my 3:00 tour with his family and was a little out-of-control. After listening to him play his harmonica outside the visitor center for about 40 minutes after the tour, I was about ready to pull my ears off--but I didn't. I just kept reminding myself that a full day of overtime pay is a good thing. :-)

As if things weren't crazy enough at Melrose today, we had some serious wasp issues. If it's not birds, it's wasps--isn't that how it always goes? It seems that all of the wasps that have been hiding out in obscure wasp nests chose today to come out and attack people. We had a Junior Ranger emergency when little Madison got stung by one. Tim didn't want to deal with the situation, so he brought her into the visitor center and told her that Ranger Tiffany would take care of her. Thanks, Tim. Thankfully she wasn't crying and/or screaming, and Ranger Melissa soon came to the rescue. We found some sting relief wipes to clean off the wound--which was on Madison's stomach and looked painful--and once we wiped it off and gave her some candy and water, she seemed fine.

Since today was supposed to be my day off, I had planned to meet Sister Wesselman at the Castle at Dunleith for lunch so that she could give me the low down on taking care of her kids, Abby and Bailey, which I will be doing later this week. Unfortunately, I realized that my lunch break wouldn't be sufficient time to enjoy lunch at the Castle, which is a really nice, formal restaurant, so we met downtown at the Marketplace Cafe instead. Ranger Melissa came along with me, and the three of us had a really good time.

I'm going to be working for the next nine days straight, because my days off are changing in July, but it will be worth it because on July 4, Angie and I are going to take a road trip to Natchitoches (pronounced Nack-a-dish--weird, I know!), Louisiana, to visit the Cane River National Historical Park and see fireworks over Cane River Lake! I made hotel reservations for us at this cool little place called Church Street Inn, which should be a really fun place to stay. Good times are coming in the future! Ranger Jessica told me that on Friday she wants to make me a birthday cake from her new book called "Naughty Novelty Cakes." Thankfully, I was able to tell her that we've already got the cake department covered because my mom is going to have a cake delivered. Thank you for saving me from the naughty novelty cakes, Mom!

Sunny Rain

This afternoon it has been raining outside, but the sun in shining--and it didn't do it just once for a second like you sometimes see, but it's been doing it on and off all afternoon. There are dark clouds around, which is where the rain is coming from, but the sun is still shining. Crazy, crazy weather.

Speaking of crazy, church was really funny today. :-) It's the same religion, but a whole different ballgame down here than at home! I was asked by a member of the bishopric two weeks ago to speak on June 24 about the importance of keeping a journal. He told me to plan on speaking for 8 minutes, then he pulled out an envelope from his pocket, wrote my name on it, and stuffed it in with some other papers he was carrying. Well, I think that the envelope never again saw the light of day. Sister Wesselman told me that Brother Wesselman was going to be speaking today too, but then when I went up on the stand before sacrament meeting, with my talk all ready to go, there were three other people up there who were supposedly speaking today too. The only difference between them and Brother Wesselman and me is that their names were on the program and ours weren't! The man who had asked me to speak said to me, "Uh oh, did I ask you to speak too?" Anyway, Brother Wesselman and I ended up not speaking in church today. The bishopric person who asked me to speak wondered if I can give my talk another Sunday, but today was really my last "for sure" Sunday that I know I'll have off of work. The schedule is going to switch around a bit in July, so while I imagine that I'll still get to go to church sometimes this summer, I won't know when until the beginning of each week. I was also supposed to teach primary today, but there were only four kids there today, and none of them were in the age group I was to teach, so I got put in the nursery with this little kid who wouldn't take his binky out of his mouth or even respond to anything I did or said. The joys of a small ward. :-) It was a little different than when I've spent time in the nursery at home.

I had to go into work this afternoon to do some overtime because not only are we short on staff, but Ranger Sharon got really sick yesterday and wasn't able to come in today. So it was good that I was able to both go to church and come in and help out at the park. It will be good to have a rest from giving tours tomorrow though!