real world vs. the Internets

That's basically the battle being played out in my life right now, and I've got to say that the real world is winning.  Well, winning is an interesting concept, because one would think that if the real world is winning in my life, then things must be completely put together and organized and settled.

One could kiss my butt, okay?

Chaos seems to be the order of the year, because it just seems like we can't get and keep things in a constant state of calm.  Hubby has been building away again, and the result is an awesome loft bed for Red, who now has a single, while the boys are bunking together.  After the construction was finished (well, mostly finished... there are still some steps to be completed in time... but thankfully, everything is fully functional), it took me two full days to switch items among the bedrooms- toys, dressers, a desk, more toys, clothes, etc- all while a cold descended upon our family. 

Then of course, some weird electrical stuff started on Friday morning.  By Friday evening, we weren't sure what was going on... Was the fridge breaking?  Was the whole electrical system in the house going?  After the summer of DIY hell this year, I couldn't fathom being told that we need to replace the house's wiring.  The first step, though, was to contact the power company.  The good news?  The problem is on their end- the wiring coming into the house wasn't giving us full power, so that's why everything was dimming and we couldn't even run the microwave.  Apparently, their guess is that there may be some underground fire that shorted the wire, but we shouldn't be concerned about that.  (Okay...)  The bad news, at least to me, was that the entire day Saturday was spent Amish-like, which meant no using a dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, or vacuum, and unfortunately, I'm not in possession of a washboard.  (Not in any way.)  The result?  No weekly cleaning was done on Saturday, which totally bums me out.  (Maybe I'm weird that way, but I so desire to wake up Monday morning to a clean house-- that literal clean slate on which to start the week.  I'm kinda alone on this in my family, I believe.)

I could have spent Sunday getting this stuff done, but hubby had gone to great measures to farm our kids out to various friends for the day so that he and I could have a date that we'd been hoping for since the summer-- an adult trip to the Maryland Renaissance Festival.  Nice, huh?  It was a beautiful day, very generous and capable friends agreed to care for our children for an entire day (!!), and we were off.  It would have been a much lovelier time, though, if I didn't feel like utter crap with this friggin cold.  Today, my steak on a stake and pirate peanut butter chocolate pie was washed down with Dayquil and nasal spray.  I know that I wasn't peppy or terribly fun to be with, which bummed out hubby, so it just didn't work out the best way that it could have. 

The real world is certainly still getting more of my attention than this here bloggy blog or my reading/reviewing, but I'm going to bed tonight (care of Nyquil) with the hopes and desires to wake refreshed and ready to kick the real world's butt tomorrow.  Lists will be scratched off, my friends, by sheer determination.  Things will be put away, cleaning will be done, and there WILL be personal reading accomplished.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.


If wishes were fishes, I could have a gorgeous aquarium set up,