Changed plans - but not all bad.

Today was supposed to be a fairly easy day. The older 3 kids were with Ex1, so I just had to get Alex and Daniel up and dressed and to Jared's basketball game by 10am. No biggie, right?

We got up, ate, got dressed, and took off. It was a fairly ugly morning and was cloudy and overcast but since we actually got rain last night, I was not complaining at all.

We had about a 35 mile drive to get to the game, and we were running right on time. About 10 minutes before we got there, my phone rang. It was Ex1, and I figured that he was just asking where we were to make sure that we were going to be there - but instead it was him telling me that the game had been cancelled.

Oh yay. Fabulous. In my mind, I started thinking about the amount of gas that I had just wasted, but he said that he'd wait there for me so that I could see the kids before they left to head out of town, which they had planned to do after the game. We got to the school a few minutes later and visited with the kids for a while before they left. After yesterday, it felt so good to hug them for even a few seconds.

After they left, the boys and I hung out in front of the school for a few minutes to check out their fully functioning oil well. It's not often that we get to get up close to these (although we see them all of the time) so it was really kind of neat.

And yes, this is literally in the school's yard. Maybe 25' from the building.

When we left there, I had to get some gas in the van. The gas station there in the tiny little town was a little higher priced than I wanted, so we drove a few miles to the next bigger city to get gas and to get something to drink. As we were cruising, I happened to notice a farm supply store that I needed to go to in order to get a bag of corn - so we got our gas and our drinks and then stopped there (although there is a similar store right down the road from me).

Call it fate, call it coincidence, call it divine intervention. Whatever it was, when we walked in the front door of the store, we were greeted by the big man himself! The boys were THRILLED! They chatted with him for a few minutes - and whispered what they wanted to him - and then posed for the picture.

Seriously - they whispered to him. Now how on earth does that help me to figure out what they want for Christmas??? Although Daniel did finally tell me afterwards that he just wants a new pair of sneakers. Gotta' love having one kid who enjoys the simple things in life. Alex still won't tell me what he wants.

Anyway, we got the corn (which turned out to be the wrong stuff, and I had to take it to the local store to exchange it)(where there was no Santa for the kids, so ha!) and we headed back home. By then the skies had cleared and it was a beautiful day.

We hung out at home for the rest of the day and the boys played and watched movies while I worked on a super-secret project that may or may not have ended up as a final something-or-other that I can't talk about or post pictures of until a certain person sees it first *hint hint*.

After I got done with that project-that-shall-not-be-mentioned, I started working on another project - that actually involved the corn that I bought today. A friend wanted me to make her one of those (I don't know what to actually call them) corn bags that you can stick in the microwave to warm up to use like a heating pad.

I made just a little tiny one out of some scraps to play around with it, and I'm already hooked. I warmed it up a few minutes ago and have it just sitting on the back of my neck while I'm typing, and I love it.

Probably a good thing since I have 50 pounds of corn to use - too bad it doesn't come in a smaller bag! The mice are going to have a field day with it if I'm not careful.

So anyway, this is the start of her bag, custom made to her measurements. I still have to make the cover for it, but I have a feeling that won't happen until tomorrow since that will involve digging through multiple tubs of fabric to get to the stuff that I want to use. But at least it's a really simple project, and one that I can make a bunch of for the next time I do a craft show.

So tomorrow's plans? Church. That's it. That's my only actual plan other than hanging out around the house and sewing. Hopefully, I can actually stick to those plans.

But knowing me, life will happen, and my plans will totally go out the window.