05/25/2012

1.  Friday!  Lessons went fairly well.  Especially because I didn't make the boys do piano practicing.  They don't have lessons next week, so I gave them the rest of the week off of practicing.  Brigham and Joseph both worked on a short story they are writing.  Last week and this week they've been learning about plot diagrams, and diagramming their own short story.  They've had fun with this assignment, and it was so interesting to read their different stories.  They are such boys!  Joseph's was about a sorcerer trying to take over the world, and zombies, of course.  Brigham's was about a murderer, robbers, and a giant man-eating dog.  They are both very imaginative.    Now if I can only break Brigham's habit of run-on (and on, and on) sentences!  :-)

2.  Got my hair cut this afternoon.  Afterward I failed in trying to register my car.  The place I used to go is now only serving Williamson County.  It's weird-- I've gone there several times for car-related stuff.    I sat there for about 20 minutes until I figured it out, so not too much time wasted, I guess (it was 1 minute away from where I got my hair cut).  Places like that are really fascinating for people-watching purposes.  Everyone has to get their car registered, titles transferred, etc., so there's a real mix of all sorts of people from the county.  As always, I am heart-warmed by the courtesy of the average Texan.  I rarely have to open a door for myself when people see me coming on my crutches.  And when I went inside and all the chairs were filled, two guys were quick to jump up and offer me theirs.

3.  In the evening we drove up to Belton (way up, 25 miles north of Georgetown) to look at granite.  We're putting granite countertops in our kitchen and 2 bathrooms.  Ben's been wanting to do this for a long time (I don't really care, honestly), and a couple of months ago we saw the lowest prices we've ever seen for granite in a promo that Lowes was offering.  Joseph and Mosey found a cat and a kitten prowling around.  The manager (owner?) of the granite place offered to let us take all the kittens home (there are 4).  My animal-loving boys would have totally gone for that, but I'm not sure Chrissy would ever forgive us.  As we got in the car to leave, we discovered Brigham still in the car, crying!  He couldn't find his shoes (100% typical), and by the time he found them and put them on, we had already left the car and were walking around.  He couldn't see us, since we had gone down one of the rows of big granite slabs and were out of sight of the van.  My poor boy looked briefly, couldn't find us, so he went back and sat in the car until we came back.  We hadn't gone far!  The yard wasn't that big!  He could have easily found us!  Sometimes it's easy for me to think of my boys as so big and independent, and in many ways they are, but then something like this happens and I realize they're still little boys.  He didn't want to get lost.  He felt abandoned by us.  I felt terrible.  So we waited a few minutes while Ben took Brigham out to look at the granite slabs set up in the yard.  It was totally something Brigham would find interesting (and did), and when he got back in the car he was OK again.

4.  We stopped at Souper Salad to eat on the way home.  We haven't been to that place in 5 years!  I loved it because there was plenty of stuff I could eat with my weird self-imposed restrictions (Ben was giving me a hard time about that all the way down I-35).  It was fun to see what everyone chose to eat.  Mosey ate fruit and nothing but fruit.  Well, except for rootbeer.  That is so totally Mosey-- he could live very happily on fruit and soda alone if I let him.  Joseph got salad, and then proceeded to eat it WITH HIS FINGERS!  What??  I am failing in my civilizing duties!  Brigham discovered the joys of chocolate pudding and ate 2 or 3 helpings.  On the way home, it was getting late (after 9:00) and the boys were all a little punch-drunk with fatigue I think, and serenaded Ben and me with rousing renditions of "X-O-P" and other nonsense all the way home.