The other day I heard someone say that "No one hates Laura Bush except for Teresa Heinz". I thought that was probably true. Afterall, Laura Bush is a sweetie.

But, then, in a surprise turn of events, my best friend -- who I thought I knew like the back of my hand -- announced that she voted for Kerry because Laura Bush gives her the horrors.

I was astonished. I ... I ... I couldn't even begin to imagine what she was thinnking! Well, it turns out that she was thinking Laura Bush is her worst nightmare at work. See, my best friend works in an extremely specialized field as an expert/tech-support for library networks. She's freaked out by exposure to librarians!

Although I have a hard time imagining Laura Bush going nuts on a tech-support person, I'm not going to laugh (much) at her aversion to librarians. Afterall, she doesn't laugh at my aversion to snails :)

Yesterday, I had an interesting day. (Remember the curse "may you live in interesting times"?)

I called my husband at work, to share my headache. See, the puppies are getting bigger. Much bigger. And heavier. I bought them a few chew toys, one of which is a braided rope with a tassel on each end. Kinda like a tug-of-war toy. I was busy painting, so I braided my long hair straight down my back to keep it out of the paint. (cue music from Jaws ...) Later, I went outside to give the puppies a snack. Suddenly, one lunged at my head! He grabbed my braid and gave it a good jerk/twist/slobbering. I made a sound not normally associated with a calm and happy woman. The puppy will NOT be making the mistake of thinking my hair is a chew toy ever again.

Anyway, so I called my husband at work once I had regained control of the situation. He sympathized, even trying to point out that his day was less than great too. Its possible I screamed "unless your hair has been attacked by squirrels your day has NOT NOT NOT been worse than mine", or something similiar. My memory gets a little fuzzy at that point.

But, Mr. SuperSmart Husband quickly re-focused the conversation with the phrase "I was going to save it, but I have a surprise for you". (This is the part you'll need to be sitting down for) He said "let me read an email I got at work this morning". Then he proceeded to read an email that contained most of the following words "The women from her SundaySchool class know Lucy's a little stressed about finishing the house before the guests get here, so we'd like to plan an event where we all come to your house UNANNOUNCED and surprise her with some help around the house, kinda like CleanSweep or WhileYouWereOut"

Pause a moment to let that sink in.

For reference: my house is in such bad shape that I made my best friend swear that in the event that I die in the next few weeks, that she'll break into my house and clean it before anyone else sees it.

A herd of women (some of who really want to be helpful, and one who just wants to feel superior, and some I don't know at all) are planning an invasion of my house where they'll have access to every nook and cranny in every room. And their plan was to do this as a surprise. They contacted my husband so he could HELP them give me a stroke! He wasn't supposed to tell me. Thats where the SUPER-smart part comes in, because when he read that email he suddenly knew that surprising me like that wouldn't result in a "Hallmark" moment.

When he dropped the bombshell via the phone (because he's also too smart to do that in person) I once again made sounds not normally associated with a calm and happy woman. My brain locked -up, no thoughts were possible (for what seemed like an eternity although in reality it was about four minutes). He laughed. Then the wheels spun, spinning mental gravel across the vast empty parking lot my mind had become.

The upshot is that the group will be coming by the house to offer their assistance the week before the guests arrive. This has effectively moved up the deadlines by five days.

Bwahahahahaha ....

I feel like the mad villian in an old movie that denies his own failure and downfall even as he plunges over the cliff!

The contractor thought we had decided on December/January as the deadline for finishing the house. Poor silly man! The new and improved deadline is November 18th.

Yes, thats about 29 days away. Yes, there's a reason. In-laws. Lots of in-laws. See, my husband's younger brother is taking a vacation. He only takes a vacation about every three years. He invariably visits my husband (which thrills me, because it makes my husband happy), whom he adores although they aren't as close as they could be due to physical distance and insane work schedules. But, a visit from Curt is never as simple as "a visit from Curt". I can't really blame people. He's rarely not "at work". But the up-shot is that my house will be full of non-low-maintainence-houseguests (yeah, yeah, his sister says her family won't be able to come, but ... ). And I've done no Christmas shopping. Plus, there are a few birthdays (and parties) looming on the horizon. Not to mention the corporate-wife-christmas-stuff and our Christmas carolling party! These things take time for both planning and proper execution, details details details! Not to mention the dentist this week and the vet next week, haircuts, losing 15 pounds before Thanksgiving, Awana's every Wednesday, homeschooling, trying to update my links, etc. I'm having a little stress.

I wrote this entry to say that blogging will be light, but now that I think about it blogging will probably be heavy with a tendancy toward raving psychotic. And, so, the adventure continues. Bwahahahahahaha!

I love going to Sheilah's site and finding fun quizes (mostly) (I still don't think I'm the color "blue" although I'm definitely the cartoon characters "Daria" and "Lucy from Charlie Brown"). But, some of the quizes are SO not real quizes. I think Sheilah deserves something a little more personalized than multiple choice. As it happens, I came across just the "quiz" that will reveal everything there is to know about a person. (LOL) OF COURSE, it comes from Sam!

We were sitting at Chili's, settling in to enjoy a night of whining and carbohydrates. Apparently, the boyfriend-of-the-week had explained a pseudo-religio-philisopho-visualization quiz to her. Actually, its been pretty accurate (dead-on!) for the people I know well enough to evaluate the conclusions. Its wild! Lets all take it together, then I'll explain the results and tell my results, and my husband's, and my friend's, and her boyfriend's, and I fully expect you to post your results in the comments section!

Here goes:

First, take three deep breathes, exhaling slowly after each.

Visualize a desert. Get the image fixed firmly in your head. Details are important! Now, visualize a cube in the desert. Pay particular attention to details about the cube. (It helps to take a few notes) (It also helps to think of this as a painting) Now, visualize a ladder in the scene. Remember as much specific information about the ladder and its location in the scene as possible (for example, pretend you'll need to pick it out of a pile of ladders later). Now you're ready to add a horse to the scene.

Earlier this week, my mini-van broke in such unusual and fascinating ways that the parts had to be ordered from the factory in Lansing. Apparently, no one in the entire county actually carries the parts because of the "unusual" and "fascinating" nature of the repairs. I'm sure there were guys at the factory going "HOW did THAT happen to a MINIVAN!?!"

Then I killed the vaccum cleaner. It started making a sound it had no business making, then it wouldn't make any sound at all. My Dad couldn't figure out how I did it. Eventually, he did find the problem (which is totally unfixable) and announced "I've never even HEARD of that happening to anyone else!"

I looked at my mixer out of the corner of my eye, and the gears stripped. I kid you not (well, not much) My mother loves me. A lot. She lives near a repair place, and I live hundreds of miles from one. Now, I have a new six-quart mixer and she's hauling my old one cross-country on an adventure trip (destined for repair and use as my Mother's back-up holiday cooking mixer, with extra bowls).

I better get offline before I kill my computer!

Update: I think I killed my monitor. The right side is doing weird color things. LOL! I better not hug the children!

My parents are visiting (hence my excuse for light/non-existant blogging). My Dad drives a "real" truck, a HUGE Dodge Ram (crew cab so he can haul grandchildren in comfort). Its relatively new. Certainly new enough that it has a computerized keyring. Do you see it coming? Wait for it ...