The Mother of all excuses for not writing this weekend.. pun in tended.

It's been a little while - things have been hectic and nearly non-stop both at home and at work.

On the home front, Aura moved in with her man - we will call him "Mario" for now. Mario sold his condo in Everett, and bot a house in Marysville - which is still a long long way from the community where I reside at the southern end of Lake Washington. We helped move most of Aura's stuff out then in two weeks ago. I don't think any of us knew how much "STUFF" she'd accumulated over the 4 years she's been here. And I'm not even talking about the 6 boxes of unread books (probably more like 8 all told) that were packed and moved. When we were done, there was an empty wall in the pool room (I have a pool table in my living room), a blank spot in the TV room (so then the TV is in the dining room), and the Master bedroom was now empty (I gave it up to her when she moved from Florida, so she could lock herself in her room to work on her book if it was necessary, but so there wouldn't be puddles on the floor. ~ Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! ~)

We cleaned away the accumulated dust and cat hair then re-arranged the furniture in the front two rooms while we decided what to do with the Master bedroom. I have plans to make it an office space or den, somewhere I can go to work from home or where I can write. Neepers computer is in the pool room at the moment, so we've also talked about putting her computer in the office.

Then, all hell broke loose with one phone call on Friday evening ..... Yeah, Friday, April 13th! Buffy called and said that she'd bot a ticket to come home (to stay) and would be arriving on Sunday, April 22nd, and would that be ok Mom? STUNNED. I did my best to contain my shock while we were on the phone and then after we hung up, I sat on the couch for several minutes watching my office plans melt into nothing.

See, when PFC left for boot camp in August 06, he didn't pack his all his stuff, so his room has been mostly untouched (and unusable) since his departure. Sure, he comes home every chance he can, and uses the mess as his base of operations, but there is no way anyone else could use that space... for anything. Before Buffy left for Florida in October 06, we had planned to pack up the rest of the PFC stuff and use his room as the new Neeper space. Having a 10 year old in your room tends to CRAMP your style when you're a social diva like Buffy. So when Buffy left, we allowed Neeper to keep the 'girl' room, and left the PFC mess as it was, as I had a hard time going in there without thinking about how empty the house was and how much I missed my kids. Of course, this was all when we still had Aura in the Master bedroom. Are you following?

SO, this weekend, we decided with Buffy returning we should go with the initial plan and clean out the PFC room (move his desk, bed, TV and bookshelf) into the Master/Office/Den/Guest Room and make the switch to from PFC Mess to Nice and Neat for Neeper. PFC can stay in the guest room when he's home, and when he's not around, it can still be an office or den.

MANY boxes of DVD, VHS, game systems (I think I counted 6 consoles), books, computer CRAP and electronic gizmos later we can see the floor, but the desk(with 2 computers) and bed still need to be moved. Oh, and the posters - the rooms walls are covered with Anime posters. We're going to prep and paint (maybe Tuesday or Wednesday) then look for a new bed and dresser for Neeper to start her bedroom transformation.

So, being a Mom is my excuse for not writing this weekend.

Buffy ~ Mom can I come back home and go to school, I didn't believe you when you said it's tough out here in the real world.
PFC ~ Mom, can you store my stuff for me while I'm in the Marines?

One of these days, I'll be able to start actually writing my book... instead of thinking about it while I'm supposed to be working.