busy busy busy..............

Unlike the Fed Ex commercial I am poking fun at with the title of this post, we have been busy lately.

Our furniture finally arrived, two click-clack sofas, one trundle bed (which is two beds in one) two book case/cubby hole things and ceiling fan all needed put together and installed in their new homes.

Definition of fantasy: assembled furniture at a reasonable price sold by rational mature sales people and delivered by competent professionals to the location of their use in a timely manner.

Definition of reality: a 21 year old boy sells you the furniture that you have to assemble all of and tells you there is no margin so no room for negotiation, takes 3 weeks longer to deliver it than he said, delivers it after hours and charges you cash as long as you help him carry it, and (for the piece of resist-aunce) shows up with your stuff stacked 10 foot high in the back of his Toyota pick up with his girl friend in the passenger seat. He of course charges you cash on a COD so he doesn't pay taxes or have to go to the bank. My neighbors were sitting in the driveway laughing............

So me and wonder boy carry the furniture up stairs to Gracie's room and downstairs to the basement, and while I am still gasping for air I hand him 60$ cash for his 8 minutes of labor and the 3 miles he put on his Toyota. For that kind of margin you would think some fish nets and red lipstick would be involved, but no. Does anybody know just how heavy a trundle bed is? I think this thing was shipped from Vietnam in the center of the ship to keep it from listing to one side or the other.

Once Mr. Clampit left our house, it was time to put this stuff together. I was warned to read the directions first. This was odd because the directions had no words to read. No words, just pictures. No numbers to tell me what order, just pictures. I end up putting the couch arms on backwards because in order to put the screws in you must be a master of yoga and be able to stand on your head and wrap your leg behind your head while holding the couch up with one hand and putting the screw in with the other. I am not good at yoga, but I manage to get everything put together and install the ceiling fan without electrocuting myself. This was a plus.

What else can I share, ah, the Tick. We have removed not one but two ticks from Gracie in the last couple of weeks. It would seem that the playground at school is near an open field of tall grass, tall grass that is full of ticks. The first one I pulled out of her ear, not to bad. The second one set up residence on the crown of her scalp. That one pulled a lump of flesh off with it and bleed a lot. Bad bug, SPLaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaT!

Let me see, what else has happened, oh yes, I am now the proud parent of a 1st grader. Gracie not only passed Kindergarten, but she did so brilliantly. She achieved at or above every benchmark that was set. This may sound like "no big deal" but for us, this was tremendous. Angie and I deliberated diligently over a long period of time about when to put her in school. We fretted about her being too immature, and at times that is still an issue. We worried that due to her speech problems and being so small and so young that she would not be able to adapt and flourish just yet. All of our worries and concerns vaporized one at a time, she became more confident, more mature and she learned to read and her extra work in ESL classes has been so helpful with her speech, its just amazing to us. I am so proud of how well she is doing and how much she loves school. She was a sad little princess-eta today, she cried because school was over and she will miss her friends and her teacher. She wants to get together with her teacher this summer for a picnic or something. Her teacher did an excellent job with her, I cant say enough about her, she was just priceless. We were so blessed to have this set of circumstances for Gracie, the teachers, the coaches, the neighbors, her friends, they have all been such a blessing to us, and it just feels like God put us right in the middle of where we needed to be, right in His hands, amongst a group of great people who really do care about Gracie and us for that matter. I couldn't ask for anything more. Even the neighbor boys look out for Gracie, its just way cool to see them with her, and her BFF down the street really does protect her and help her try to find her way.

Well, enough of the melancholy goo goo, time to hit the sack and try and get some sleep. I hear Angie upstairs sniffing and sneezing, sounds like another summer cold has hit ye ol ranch.