Busy busy busy...

It's just been another one of those days. The kind where I don't sit down until late at night because I've been too busy running around getting stuff done, yet I don't feel like I accomplished much of anything.

I started out this morning by walking Alex and Daniel to school, which is about 3/4 of a mile. After I got them there, I took off on my own and walked/jogged just over 4 miles. It felt so incredible to get out there again, and I'm hoping to do it again tomorrow.

Almost as soon as I got home, the guy from the garage called me and wanted to come and get my van. He showed up just a few minutes later, and between the two of us, we were able to get it loaded onto his trailer - although it was one heck of a job to get it done! His trailer that actually has a winch on it was loaned out to someone out of state, so we had to do it without a winch - and it wasn't easy. But, we got it done and he took off with my van. Finally. It's kind of strange to look out my kitchen window and not see it sitting in the backyard - but hopefully I'll have it back on Friday. Worst case scenario *knock on wood* is early next week.

After we got the van loaded up and out of here, I went to take The Dude to work and then picked Daniel up from school. He and I spent the afternoon cleaning and straightening up around the house. I finished up the smoky laundry (except that I just remembered that there is some still hanging in the girls' room, darn it) and did my own after that. Next thing I knew, it was time to go get Alex, so Daniel and I walked back up to the school to get him and then walked back home. We hung out for a little bit, then went to the library to return some stuff and get some more stuff, and then went and picked The Dude up from work and took him home before we came back here.

Supper...pajamas....bedtime....

32 pints of sand plum jelly later, and I still have 2 (or maybe 3) gallons of juice in the fridge. I swear I am never going to get done with this stuff! What makes this worse is that I'm using a new kind of pectin, and so I had to remake a couple of batches that I had already made in order to get enough pectin into them to get them to set correctly. But, I think I have it mastered now. I hope.

All I know is that I need to get the jelly done so that I can work on the apples and pears that were brought to me the other day!

Tomorrow - I'm going to try to go walk/jog again in the morning and then get to the grocery store at some point. The older 3 kids will be back tomorrow evening, so I have to prepare for that chaos. Sarah has her first volleyball game on Thursday, and we just found out that there is a possibility that Emily's volleyball team will be having practices on Thursdays.

Life is about to get really really really crazy around these parts.