A fellow homeschool family gave us their old playhouse last week. The catch involved was simply that we had to haul it home and then (ahem) rebuild it from a series of photos the original owner took when he tore it down.

If you know Craig at all, bless his soul, you know that “construction” isn’t one of the first words he puts on his resume, and that I am usually the one to use the tools around here (though he is stronger, by far, and very useful for lifting; he also hangs a darn straight picture).

But, as soon as finals were over, he borrowed a friend’s truck and made three trips between here and there and here again hauling all the parts of the goofy thing over here. And then, though I begged him to wait for some help, he began constructing it. Alone. And with just a bit of help here and there from Ed, and some roof raising help from Dick and Peter Schamp, he did it. He built the girls their very own Cair Paravel.

He had a coronation ceremony tonight in which he presented the four queens of the castle with flowers and led them in a line up to their thrones.

And here’s the self-titled Court Jester himself:

He did it. And he’s got the blisters, splinter spots, and callouses to prove it. The girls are thrilled and he says that he’s bought himself some time from my need-to-move-every-two-years-attachment-disorder. I just told him that I wouldn’t make him tear it down and move it with us.

*Grin*

I’m so proud of him, as he did this and we’re all still speaking to each other.

And Colorado friends, if that didn’t make you drop over dead to know that Craig did this pretty large building project almost entirely by himself, then this might: I made vegetarian hamburgers last night and after rolling his eyes at me, he tried one and said, “Okay, I guess it’s not really that bad.”

Times, they are a changing!

Or it could have just been the alcohol.

There’s a first for everything, they say. Right? I got called, “Beautiful” by a strange man in the grocery store tonight and I started laughing right on the spot. If you could only see me you would understand why. I’m wearing the shorts I wear to jog in and a simple grey t-shirt along with my bright blue Crocs. Oh yes, and a cardigan sweater because I was a bit cold when I left for the store at 9:30 tonight.

Did you catch that? It was 9:30 when I left and I went to the bank first, which put me at the store close to 10. It was 10:30 when he saw me. What mother of four looks beautiful at 10:30 at night, wearing running shorts and having just completed a full round of grocery shopping? Beautiful wasn’t exactly the word I would have used to describe myself.

I chalk it up to the fact that I never took my earrings off today. That, or the fact that he was obviously drunk and we passed each other while he was perusing the beer case which I was walking by on my way back for the enchilada sauce I forgot during  my first trip through.

“Hey, Beautiful,” he said. And I laughed. Out loud.

I'll tell you what – when going through a blog funk, a good thing to do is to crash your site. Then you can spend many  hours creating a new one and transferring old stuff over and you sort of feel like you are participating in the blog thing without really contributing anything new.
I highly recommend this.

This was the little talk we used to get at Eagle Lake, just as the campers were going home and we’d have the weekend off: be sure to use your weekend to re-create instead of recreate. It’s cemented into my mind. Yet we did just the opposite this weekend and we’re all about to drop dead. Sure, it’s a good kind of tired, but I’m bone-tired and I don’t like it that much.

We spent ten hours at Six Flags yesterday. TEN HOURS!! Because we’re nutso like that. I have brusies on the left side of my leg because of The Boss and a lingering headache from that ride plus The Ninja. I think I may be getting a bit too old for some of that stuff. Tony Hawk’s Big Spin, though, was a lot of fun, save the 45 minute line for the 2-minute ride.

The girls went to bed really late last night and we slept in a bit today, so that we only made it for the worship service this morning instead of the whole morning. Immediately after church, we had to get Maddie and Chloe ready for their spring concert with the St. Louis Children’s Choirs. That took over the afternoon. Then tonight Craig and I went to a shower in honor of our friends Tom and Christine. We left that at 9:30 which meant the girls went to bed very late for a second night in a row. Katie and Millie haven’t had naps in two days and they don’t really know the meaning of sleeping in (not like I do anyway), so their internal alarms will still go off at their normal times. Tomorrow should be a lot of fun with all of us low on the sleep-o-meter.

We didn’t listen well to the re-create advice. Maybe some of that is in order for tomorrow. As for me, I’m going to bed right now, a full 90 minutes earlier than I normally do. I’m willing to bet it won’t take me long to fall asleep.

Night.