Laughter and Tears

Laughter.

The Dude and I went out today to get some mulch for the church playground. Our city takes all of the branches that come down during storms or whatever, mulches them, and anyone can go and get the mulch. For free.

Of course, I had to play on the pile of mulch. Duh.

And of course, once you get up there, there's only one way to come back down.

We found a friend.

What a stud.

He had to wear his "work boots" too.

This would be *before* we broke the tailgate.
And you can get an idea of how much mulch is actually there.

Heat index of 102 degrees + physical labor =
nasty-stinky people

Ick.

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Tears. So many tears.

Jared's friend lost his battle with cancer this evening. 

Sam was 9 years old, and would have gone into the 4th grade with Jared next month.

And now he's gone. My heart is broken for his friends and family. 

It's not right. It's not fair. 

F*ck you, cancer.

Rest in peace, Sam.

Sam and Jared in December 2012

On love and marriage...

I believe in God. I go to church almost weekly (hey, I'm human). I take my kids to church. We discuss religion at home. I attend a Methodist church. The kids also attend a Baptist church with their father and occasionally a Mennonite church with their aunt and uncle. We have friends and family who are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Jehovah’s Witness, Pagan, agnostics and atheists.

All of those people are good people – regardless of their beliefs. I don’t have to agree with their religious beliefs, but I firmly believe in their right to have those beliefs and to celebrate them as they see fit. And the nice thing is that if I don’t understand something about their belief, rather than making assumptions, I can ask them about it or research it to find the answer and learn more about it. I don’t tell them that they are wrong because they don’t believe the same thing that I do, and I don’t believe that I am a better person than they are simply because of my own belief system.

This morning in my personal facebook newsfeed, there were two articles floating around that caught my eye. One was about the "Equality House" that is across the street from the WBC in Topeka and one was about a church in North Carolina that has stopped performing ANY marriage ceremonies until the right to marry is granted to ALL couples. You can go and read both of those articles for yourself if you would like - but as soon as I did, I immediately shared both of them from my personal profile because this is something that I fully support.

Wait, what’s that? I believe in God AND support equal rights for all people? How can that be?

Look at it this way.

I have friends who are vegans. They won’t eat anything that comes from an animal. Nothing. They eat fruits and veggies and tofu and weird stuff like that. I don’t totally understand it, and I’m not sure why they would want to give up the deliciousness that is bacon cheeseburgers, but they do. And you know what? It doesn’t affect me one single bit. Not one bit. What they choose to do at their dinner table does not affect me at all. 

If they come over for dinner, I can do a few things. I can ignore the fact that they’re vegan and cook up a wonderful meaty meal and make them feel uncomfortable (and hungry), or I can make a killer salad with no animal products in it that I might not like, or I can ask them what to make so that we can all enjoy a wonderful meal. One thing that I won’t do is force them to eat a burger – because even though I think it’s odd that they won’t, I understand that they do some things differently than I do.

Same goes for my gay friends and family. I can be selfish and ignore their ‘gayness’ and make them feel uncomfortable just so that I don’t have to face it, or I can love them and accept them for who they are – good people who happen to do things a little differently than I do. I don’t try to force my beliefs on them because my beliefs are no more right than theirs are.

If the kids ask me why our vegan friends don’t eat the same food that we do, I can simply tell them “because some people eat meat and some don’t, and that’s ok” and move on with it. No big deal, right? 

And *gasp* what if my kids ask why a guy is holding hands with another guy? For the record, they have asked – and my response was “because, kids, sometimes guys fall in love with guys, and sometimes girls fall in love with girls.” And you know what the kids’ reaction was? “Oh. OK. What’s for supper?” They are not scarred for life by seeing two men holding hands or even kissing any more than they are by witnessing heterosexual displays of affection. They understand that everyone is different, and they treat everyone with the love and respect that is deserved. They may not agree with it when they get older and fully understand everything about homosexuality, but at least they’ll be open-minded enough to understand that being gay does not equate to being a bad person.

Yes, I know that there is a big difference between being vegan and being gay. But you know what? It all boils down to the fact that people are different. Different people do and believe different things for different reasons – but it doesn't automatically mean that they are horrible people or deserve to be treated as though they are less than human.

People like to throw around the whole “but the Bible says it’s wrong” argument. But you know what? Not everyone believes in the same Bible. Not everyone has the same religious beliefs. All people have the right to believe in their own philosophies, whether you agree with them or not. My Bible might say that it’s wrong, but my Bible goes with my religion. Someone who follows a different religion has a different book of ‘rules’ and THAT book might say that it’s perfectly fine – but since that person has the right to believe in their religion just as I have the right to believe in mine, who is right?

No one. 

The first amendment says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”.

Let me repeat that first part: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” But laws have been passed banning gay marriage (or as I like to call it: "marriage") because it goes against some people's religious beliefs? How does that work? Doesn't banning anything based on religious beliefs go directly against the first amendment?

Your religious beliefs are not right. My religious beliefs are not right. The gay guy down the street? His aren’t right either. NO ONE’S RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ARE RIGHT. No person has the right to impose his/her religious beliefs on anyone. Period. Your religion is your own. Mine is mine. I may not agree with your religion, and you may not agree with mine, but it doesn't mean that either one of us is right or wrong.

Bottom line: You wouldn’t be free to have your religious beliefs without the first amendment protecting your right to do so – and at the same time, that same amendment gives everyone else in this country the freedom to have his/her own religious beliefs. I believe in God – or at least the idea that there is something out there that is way bigger than all of us – but I don’t necessarily believe in following every single thing that is in the Bible – and that is my right, just as others have the right to feel differently.

Human rights. Equal rights. Regardless of religion, everyone deserves to be treated equally and fairly.

People need to stop trying to shove their own beliefs down everyone else’s throats. Stop worrying about what everyone else is doing, and live your own life the way that you choose. Be the best person that you can possibly be. If you live your life in the best way possible for you, then you have nothing to worry about in whatever version of the hereafter you choose to believe exists. And hey, the entire world might actually end up being a better place to be.

It's a squirrel...it's a ghost.....it's a.....?

So I was sitting here earlier tonight just a-typin' away, with the long fake nails clacking on the keyboard, and I heard it.

Chewing and scratching. And it was loud.

I couldn't tell where it was coming from, so I grabbed the broom and started tiptoeing around the living room - because a broom is going to protect me from all that is evil, right?

*snort*

Anyway - whatever it was, it was loud. Now, I've had issues with squirrels or something in my attic, but this sound came from floor level so if it was a squirrel, I had a real problem. And I've had issues with a ghost in here too (don't laugh - I'll tell that story at some point). And of course, I've had issues with mice.

I knew realistically it was a mouse, but it was kind of entertaining to come up with the crazy versions of what was happening too.

Anyway, I narrowed the sound down to the area around the couch, so I pulled it out from its spot.

Mice.

*sigh*

Honestly, I had hoped for the ghost or the squirrel. If it was squirrels, the professionals would be called in to deal with it, and I could just go hide somewhere until it was gone. Like it was really going to be a squirrel....

If it was the ghost...meh, I've been dealing with him for a while. He's annoying, but other than occasionally throwing random objects around the house or appearing as a flying .... thing ..... he's harmless. He doesn't really bother me all that much.

But no, it has to be a mouse. Which means that I have to get traps. And I have to set them. And then I have to deal with their little dead carcasses and all of the other crap that goes along with going on a mouse hunt.

And because I tend to go overboard at times, while I had the couch pulled out from its place, I decided to tear the bottom off of it to try to fix the padding that came away from the one arm of it. I don't know how in the heck it happened, but when I sit on *my* end of the couch, there is absolutely no padding on the arm of it - it's just the fabric and then the wood underneath it. And it sucks. So I tore the bottom of the couch apart (tried to put a screwdriver through  my hand in the process) and put the padding back in place over the wood. So much better to sit there now! And then of course I had to vacuum under the cushions. And mop under the couch.

In other news of the day, Daniel and I just basically hung out. I was (overly) tired from the bazaar yesterday, so we opted to stay home from church and relax this morning. I did some laundry and cleaning (go figure) and we just chilled. Later this afternoon, we took off to get some grease and salt at the only fast food joint in town that has a playground so he could run off some steam and I could sit and relax some more. Of course I sat there and made a to-do list and balanced my checkbooks too. But he played and had fun.

We went later in the afternoon, thinking that it wouldn't be busy, but it was packed. And loud. And full of kid who were completely obnoxious and unsupervised. Really though, I should have expected it to be packed since I went out dressed in full Domestic Goddess attire - oh yeah, I was *that* mom today. And I didn't really care.

After we left there, we took the van to the carwash to vacuum the past few months' worth of crap out of it. Oh, it was ugly. But I figured that while I only had one kid and already had some of the seats pulled out of it, this was the perfect time to do it. I have no idea how many times I had to put more quarters in the vacuum - I think at least 3 - but the interior was clean when we left. After we got home, I put the seats back into it and then worked on getting the rest of the craft stuff from the bazaar put where it belonged. I got invited to set up at another one in 2 weeks, so I'm trying to decide if I want to do that one or not. I guess ultimately it depends on if I can get someone to watch the kids.

I swear, there's never a dull moment around here.

The bazaar...

So today was the bazaar at my church. I set most of my stuff up last night, tweaked it and added a few things this morning, then settled in with the hand sewing that needed to be done on the quilt to finish it.

The crowd was steady and sales were good all day long. I brought home considerably less than what I took in, which made me happy because those boxes of jars are HEAVY! My arms are sore from carrying them around - I am totally out of practice for these shows.

While I didn't bring home quite as much money as I would have liked to, I still did very well. I'm happy with it, and it already enabled me to  pick up a few little extra things that I wanted (hello, flash drives for digital picture storage) as well as a few things that we needed (hello, toilet paper).

The Dude was a huge help. He kept Daniel all day while I worked the show, and he came and got Emily from me (she was helping) and took her to Ex1's church for me so that she could attend a wedding over there. He took Daniel back over to his place while I packed everything up and brought it home - and I literally just dumped it in the middle of the living room floor before I went back over there for a while. I want to go through and sort some of it out a bit better before I actually put it away - but I'm planning on doing that tomorrow after church (if my sore muscles will let me go).

Alex won't be home until tomorrow evening, so it's just going to be me and Daniel during the day tomorrow - I foresee lots of cleaning and organizing, and maybe a nap thrown in just for good measure - and because he's the only kid who will still take a nap with me. The boys don't have school on Monday, so I'm looking forward to maybe sleeping in a little bit that day.

We'll see if that happens or not.

Random shots - because my computer is stupid.

I am having some major problems with my computer right now, so I'm just going to toss up a couple of random pictures from the past few days - partially because I've been meaning to post them, and partially just to see if I *can* post anything.

This computer is on the verge of being drop-kicked through the window. Seriously.

Sarah's newly patched (again) kneepads for volleyball. I swear we are going to make them last for one more month...

The boys found a friend to play with during Sarah's games the other night. Too bad this little girl wasn't there for the entire 4 hours, because they got really bored after she left.

Emily's first games (yesterday). She's in the back right, just in front of the line judge in the orange shirt. They won one match and lost one.

Daniel tried so hard to watch part of the race with me last night, but he just didn't make it.

Promotion Sunday at church today. Jared received his Bible engraved with his name. They do this for all of the third graders every year - this year, he was the only one in the entire church!
Hopefully, I'll figure out what is going on with this stupid computer, and then I can get back to normal again (whatever normal is around here)...but for now, I'm just going to see if I can even post this or not.

Too busy, and not accomplishing anything.

How does that happen? It seems like I've been running around like crazy for the past few days, but I haven't DONE anything. I hate that.

The kids have had Vacation Bible School this week, so there's been some extra running around for that. But I can't complain because they really enjoy it and they have a great time. Sarah and Emily are helpers this year, so they feel super important. :) One night while they were there...was it last night? I can't remember...anyway, I did some walking while they were all at the church, since I haven't really done much of that lately. I have another 5K coming up in a couple of weeks so I really need to start preparing for that.

Alex and Daniel both had dentist appointments on Monday, and both passed with flying colors!

Of course, I dealt with my usual anxiety while we were there - I swear that my fear of the dentist is just not getting any better. Every time the kids have an appointment, I tell myself that I'm going to schedule one for me - and every time I chicken out and don't do it. But one of these days, I'm going to do it....

Maybe next time. Yeah, that's it. Next time. That'll be in 6 months, and it'll take them a good 6 months to work me into the schedule. And maybe I can convince The Dude to go with me and keep me from freaking out while I'm there.

We all went to the library today, trying to get back into the swing of the summer reading programs. We haven't been in there since we got back from vacation so it was nice to do that again. The kids got treated to a puppet show while we were there and had a blast watching the dancing frogs, skeletons, ducks, and various other animals.

We have been dealing with what some people would call horrible weather - personally I like it, although we do need rain desperately. I like the heat, and I love to be outside in it, but I know that I can't take the kids out for long periods of time so we've been staying inside. However, tomorrow, we are going to the lake. We'll take lots of drinks with us, but we're going and we're going to enjoy it - and hopefully the water will be warm enough that I can actually bear to get in it this time!

Hat and glove saga, continued...

Alex has been bugging me almost non-stop since the other day when he tried to donate his own hat and gloves to charity to go to the store to buy some that he could donate. With Daniel not feeling well yesterday, we didn't get to go then.

But, thanks to yet another schedule change today, I had a little bit of time after I picked him up from school and we went shopping. I had told Ex1 the story and he told me that he had seen gloves on sale at the local grocery store for $1.00 per pair.

We got there, and sure enough, there was a big bin of them....I told him he could pick out 5 pairs. We looked for hats, but couldn't find any. Boo.

But, we successfully got the 5 pairs and they are in a bag with his backpack so that he can take them to school in the morning. Hopefully we'll be able to get up and around fast enough that I can actually go in with him and get some pictures of him putting them on the tree - I know that he's excited to do it. Although if we don't have time we'll just wait until next week and maybe we'll find some hats to add to it as well.

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In other news.....I dumped the pictures off of my phone tonight, and found some that I hadn't posted so I figured I'd amuse someone with them.

This was Daniel's Potato Head creation that he made in the church nursery the other day. He was very proud of it and had to keep it together until after the service when I could come and see it. I have to give him points for creativity, especially for the tongue mohawk!

The sky was gorgeous this morning.

But I still hate mornings with a passion.

Hate this. Even more than I hate mornings. But on the plus side, since I did do it tonight, I don't have to worry about it tomorrow *and* I was able to get my much-needed Diet Pepsi at the same time. I really need to watch my stockpile more closely. I also need to not wait until the gas gauge is below "E" to fill it, and then it won't hurt so much.

So, tomorrow, I get to get up at 5:30am, do the school run and all of that fun stuff. Supposedly, as of right now, there is no practice or anything scheduled so we should have a normal afternoon (as normal as they ever are around here) and evening. We only have one basketball game this weekend so that will cut down on some of the chaos, and no other real plans. I need to do some Christmas shopping (ugh) and finish decorating at some point too.

The fun never ends!

I'm a plumber, I'm a spackler, I'm a laundry master...

OK, imagine that title to the tune of "The Joker" by The Steve Miller Band.

It was probably funnier in my head. Deal with it.

I've actually done a whole lot of nothing today, with the exception of actually getting my butt out of bed in time to get a shower and get to church - on time, no less! Daniel played in the nursery during the service and built the most hysterical Potato Head - I'll have to post the picture of that on my facebook page because it's on my phone and it's a pain to get it from the phone to the computer to the blog, blah blah blah.

Anyway.......

After church Daniel and I came back here and just hung out for the day. He watched movies and I worked on laundry (imagine that) and puttered around online. A friend's daughter came over to drop off a dress to be altered, and I started working on that too. That's a fun project - not terribly difficult but I get to bust out my sewing skills for the greater good. LOL

Then I finally decided to tackle a couple of projects in the godforsaken bathroom. I hate that room more than any other room in this house! Even after it was remodeled, it's still had issues. One of those issues has been a hole in the drywall next to the toilet. It started out as a little hole, then the kids picked at it and it got bigger, then I patched it, then they picked at it again, then the maintenance dude patched it, and guess what? the kids picked at it again.

So once again, I busted out the can of spackling and filled it. I'm quite sure that it'll stay patched for a few days, or maybe even a couple of weeks, and then some kid will be sitting on the toilet and will start poking at it again. It's a losing battle, and I don't even know why I try to fight it, but I do. I just can't stand having random holes in my walls. I might have a ghetto-esque house, but I like to try to keep it looking as nice as I can. Too bad I don't have any paint to touch it up once it dries - but at least having the hole patched makes it look better.

The second - and much more disgusting project - was the sink. Some genius put a new drain in the sink that doesn't have anything in it to keep objects from falling into it. It's just an open hole that goes into the pipe. I've had to fish crap out of it before, and I'm quite sure that I'll have to do it again, ad nauseum....

Yeah. Gross. Nasty. Disgusting.

And I will freely admit that this particular toothbrush has been in the drain for about 2 weeks now. The kids told me when it happened, and I made a mental note to get it out, and then I promptly forgot to do it. I remembered every time that I used the sink, and made another mental note to get it out, and then forgot about it again. Every time.

But it's out now. And it's in the trash. The plumbing under the sink has been reassembled, and doesn't appear to be leaking.

Maybe one of these days I'll actually get around to cleaning the bathroom. I should put that on the list for tomorrow.

Or not.

Broken Stuff and Unidentified Objects

Welcome to another day in my life.

Sometimes I seriously wonder if I'm not being secretly videotaped for some reality show. I mean really....

It's not that it was necessarily a bad day. I had a horrible time getting up this morning - finally crawled out of bed at 9:30 (I was awake - just in no mood to move) and grabbed a quick shower before the boys and I headed for church. After the service we had lunch there and then helped to decorate the sanctuary for Christmas. I hadn't planned on doing that, but it was a nice distraction for a couple of hours.

We came back here and hung out for a while. I started some laundry and just kind of putzed around the house. Made a couple of phone calls to get updates on Mom's condition (surgery tomorrow) and to talk to Ex1 about scheduling for this week.

Which, by the way, let me ask this....if school is closed for a holiday, should sports teams practice? Curious to see opinions on that one...

Then I went to clean the boys' room a little bit and get their laundry and discovered this little gem. Luckily, it doesn't usually hold anything, but still....I wasn't really planning on doing any repair work today.

The boys had an "accident" with the eggs in the fridge. OK, I can accept the first 2 being an accident, because I knock them out of the little egg holes in the fridge door occasionally if I open the door too fast (or more often, slam the bottom of the door into the top of my foot as I try to open it) but I'm pretty sure that all 6ish of them didn't just 'accidentally' fall out of the egg holes.

Yeah, don't even get me started on this one....I mopped the floor and had it almost sparkling yesterday. I say "almost" because it's just an ugly floor, and it will never sparkle, no matter what I do. And I'm ok with that, because I don't *own* said floor.

Anyway...Alex came to me with this lovely mystery object tonight. As of right now, it is still unidentified.

If you would like to participate in the "Name This Object" game that I am currently having, go to my facebook page to see more specific information about the mystery object.

Until it is identified (or I give up and throw it in the trash) and on the off-chance that it is actually something important, I have located a very safe place to keep it. Right inside my desk with Tigger's chin and the Tooth Fairy Pillow.

This part of my desk is starting to get full. That's telling me something about my (lack of) organizational skills.

But for now, I'm going to go plant my butt on the couch and watch a movie and fold laundry. After I finish cleaning up the living room and sweeping all the rest of the crap off of the floor. Maybe I'll find some more mystery objects to add to the collection in my desk.

Our exciting and eventful day

What did we do today?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

OK, that's not entirely true. We did go to church. Ex1 got here to get the older 3 kids, and then Jared asked if he could go to church with me instead - so I got to take all 3 boys with me, which was fun. Alex and Daniel decided that they didn't want to go to the nursery and wanted to stay in the "grown-up church"....that lasted about halfway through for Daniel and then he went to the nursery. Luckily, there are crayons and paper in the back of the sanctuary, so the kids have something to amuse themselves with, other than torturing each other.

They're growing up. *sigh* Soon they'll all be sitting in the grown-up church.

After church, there was a Thanksgiving dinner, so we got to eat there. Great food, great people, and I didn't have to cook or clean up anything - SCORE! Then Ex1 came and got Jared and took him home.

Then we came home. And we became lumps on the couch. Seriously.

Alex, Daniel, and I spent all afternoon on the couch. They watched their silly videos from the library, and I dozed off and on for several hours. I'm not 100% sure that they didn't nap a bit too. But it was a calm, laid back, uneventful day - something that doesn't happen around here very often.

I'm actually kind of thinking that Alex might be getting sick - he's never this calm. And I don't mean that to be funny - when this kid says "I'm tired and I don't want to do anything" it seriously makes me worry. So, I'll see what happens over the next few days. Maybe today's relaxing helped to head off any cooties that he might have.

So, now that they're in bed, it's time for me to get busy. I need to balance the checkbooks to see if I can swing a Christmas gift for the kids this week (trying to get that crap done early and cheaply), get the kitchen and living room cleaned, run the dishwasher, do a few loads of laundry, go over my schedule for the week.....and I'm sure that I'll come up with a few more things to do in there as well.

Success at the bazaar

What a long day!

What a good day!

It was so nice to walk into the church this morning and have my table already set up and ready to go. I just had to tweak a few things on it and that was it. The morning was cold and windy, and since I was set up right inside the door, I did spend most of the day freezing my butt off every time the doors opened - which was a lot! There was a fantastic crowd, almost right up until the end.

I made lots of sales, and had quite a few repeat customers from years past - always a good feeling! I haven't totalled everything up yet, but I think that this might have been one of my most successful shows ever.

Oh, and can I just say

SCORE!!

Yes, that is a 31.79 fl. oz. bottle of real Mexican vanilla that I purchased for a whopping $6.00. I need to bake something now.

I love vanilla. I love real vanilla - not the imitation stuff. So I can't wait to test this out and see how it works.





So, once I get everything put away, I have a new project that I want to start - it's going to be fun (I hope) but I have to get it done before the older 3 kids get back on Wednesday.

What is the project? I'll give you a clue....

It's behind Door #1.

A better day

You know, it's funny. I was joking around on my facebook page last night about wearing my bathrobe to church today if I didn't get my laundry done. I said "They're used to me running in there, usually about 5 minutes into the service, gasping for air, hair still dripping wet (if I was lucky enough to get a shower)...."

Well guess what? The kids and I ran in there about 5 minutes late, my hair was still wet, and I was out of breath. But we made it. The older three were happy to go to our church for a change, and the other people there were happy to see them since they don't get to go with me very often.

After church we came home and made lunch and I continued to work on cleaning and doing laundry.

Then we went outside.

I have this corner of my yard that just epitomizes the whole ghetto-riffic atmosphere. It appears that someone in the past started chucking branches there instead of getting rid of them, and over time the pile got bigger, some beer bottles were added to it, and stuff started to grow through it. It's not a huge area, but it's big enough to be an eyesore and it's a pain to mow around (see this post for more details on this particular subject) so I decided to get rid of it.

For the record, the piles of crap behind me are not mine. Those two huge trees are the property line - that stuff belongs to the neighbor.

Jared wanted to cut something.

Something tells me that these have been here for a while.

I got a lot of the big stuff bundled up, but I need to get some big lawn & leaf type bags to put the rest of the crap into, and then I can take it all to the landfill and get rid of it, and my yard will look somewhat better - just in time for winter. But at least I'm getting it done.

I found out last minute that I had to take Jared to a Boy Scout meeting - wasn't too thrilled about doing that, just for the time factor more than anything. Ex1 and I switched some time around - otherwise the older 3 wouldn't have even been here today - so I just didn't really want to have to leave early to take him to a meeting. But I did, and then Daniel and I came back here to hang out for a while. I was going to go back outside and work, but I lost my initiative somewhere. Oops.

Alex got home shortly after we did, with a fantastic surprise for me!

Huh. He never even told me that it was loose. I just hope that the permanent one moves into the hole and lines up with all of the other ones.

Tonight was haircut night for Daniel - and it was the first time ever that he didn't scream his head off the entire time. It was quite refreshing.

He looks so much like his father here. *sigh*

Kind of hard to tell the difference in the pictures, because he's going through this I Refuse To Cooperate For Any Sort Of Pictures phase. He can be such a turd at times.

Finally, bedtime. I had to call the girls at their father's house to find out where the official Tooth Fairy pillow was hidden, but it was located, the tooth was inserted, and Mr. Big Boy went to bed with the tooth pillow stashed neatly under his pillow.

Now, just hope and pray that the Tooth Fairy remembers to visit tonight....she's been known to forget once or twice before.