I'm happily exhausted. I had a very productive day today. I like it when I can say that. And, I figured if I'm going to shoot my mouth off regarding the lives of others, I'd better be working my own program. (Ooops! My alcoholic roots are showing!)

Boy woke up and plopped his sweet face in front of mine to utter, "So...where are we going today?"

"Nowhere." I said, trying to look around his large head to see Paul Newman.

"Nowhere? You mean, not even the beach? Not even the video store? What about lunch?"

"No, Sweetheart. We're staying home today. Mommy is going to do things about the house, today. You can always go outside and play..."

Uh-huh. Like that would happen.

He did go over to his friend's house to see if he wanted to play. At 11:30. He was still in bed. Sorry, kiddo. We here at the House of Caribou prefer to do our sleeping at night.

He was so unhappy with me all day that you'd have thought our family trip to the grocery store involved a side trip to Disney World.

That's okay. I managed to get through the whole day without spending a cent (if you don't count the funeral flowers I ordered or the groceries we bought, which I don't).

I astonished Hubband, too. He came home and said with wonder, "Did you do laundry today?" Indeed I had! I changed all the sheets and pillow cases on all the beds, washed the dirty ones and went through the linen closet to get rid of all the old, crappy ripped sheet sets that we've been keeping since Boy was four and hand the every-other-day flu for a month. And while I was doing laundry anyway, I cleaned all the gunk from around the washing machine (because it looked gross when I noticed it at our last cookout).

Then, still full of energy, I cleaned out the two glass cupboards above the computer desk. This included getting rid of two years worth of old planner pages (wtf?) and a bunch of other crap. I found my m-chip to my digital camera. Yay! Then I came across my old 35mm that I keep loaded with B/W film. I had thought it was broken but it occurred to me today that it just might need another Lithium Battery. (Is Lithium in the gold family because those damned things are expensive.) Turned out to be the problem. Yay, again!

By mid-afternoon, I was getting tired and suffering from TV withdrawal, so I settled down with my collection of miscellaneous recipes and my Longaberger Recipe Basket (it was an illness that I am now over). I sorted through all of it and came up with a nicely organized file of recipes I've either made in the past or feel I might actually really make in the future. Again with the Yay!

I've picked out two recipes to try this week and prepared the Ham Noodle Thing tonight. It was way yummy. Ham and scallions in a parmesan cream sauce over noodles. And I have discovered that if I truly want a cream sauce, cream is the key ingredient. The whole milk and butter and flour thing just turns into paste when it sits in pasta too long.

I sense the beginning of a beautiful friendship here. :)

Topped it all off with Cal Ripken, Jr. and Kirk Gibson at the All-Star Game. Fills me with awe, Mr. Ripken does. But he did look so funny standing on a baseball field out of uniform. And Mr. Gibson, well he's our hometown boy. Hubband treasured the sympathy card Gibby's mom sent to his mom when his Dad passed and the only light moment at his Mom's funeral was when Hubband realized Barb Gibson was indeed THERE in the flesh. (He's so cute!)

So, now I'm going to grab a snack and kick Boy out of Big Boy's room so I can watch unhealthy TV in the form of the last episode of "Real World - Chicago". How can people that beautiful be that pissy?