ACK! It's 20 'Til Midnight!!

I only have 20 minutes to get something written to keep up with my NaBloWriMo daily posting streak. Ummm... I don't have anything. Here are a few random thoughts.

~ I'm still sad about losing our cat. I'm pretty certain he's dead; several people told me cats will wander away to die and google seems to agree. I'm so upset that he died all alone.

~ But life goes on. The weather was cooler today and we had a gorgeous sunset. I managed to squeeze my walk in after The Middle Child's, aka Martha Stewart Jr.'s, Junior Girl Scout meeting.

~ Junior Girl Scouts are different from Brownies. Just in the space of one summer I can see them growing up. We had a planning meeting today where we mostly sat and talked. They would have been restless beyond belief last year and there's no way I would have held their attention. They were a little antsy today, but they followed along and participated the whole time. We were planning some of our upcoming activities, which is boring even for my Ambassador troop (11th and 12th grade), but they stuck with me. They decided on a few things for a ceremony we're inviting some other troops to attend with us as well as the badge they want to work on for the next meeting.

~ I could not survive my life without the support of my housekeeper, who has really become so much more than someone who comes to clean once a week. She's a dear friend now. My children love her. I've grown to love her too; she's a very important part of our family. With fibromyalgia, I can get drained and overwhelmed so easily. She swoops in every Tuesday and brings order to chaos so that I can breathe in my house again.

~ We have total garden fail. I had all these big plans for a veggie garden in our back yard and actually did the hard part by preparing the planting area, then I never got around to actually planting anything! The kids got frustrated with me and planted a bean, so there is one thing growing. Sigh...

~ DH is reading to the kids. Do you read to your kids? It's a night time ritual around here. Martha Jr. is more than capable of reading the books herself, but she doesn't. They enjoy the time with their dad. Sometimes I'll listen in; it's one of my favorite things about our day. I hope they are still looking forward to their night time story when they are teens.

~ DH and I read all of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy to The Eldest. DH read all of the "Harry Potter" books to the little ones. I don't remember when The Eldest stopped coming in for story time; I guess she stopped because she has a different bed time, or he was reading books to them that she'd already read. I think we only read part of the "Harry Potter" books to her so maybe that was it. She was so into them she couldn't wait to find out what would happen next! I'm not sure, but if she still wanted to listen to DH read she could.

~ Some of their favorite books:
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Discworld books by Terry Pratchett (But only the three books from the series about the Wee Free Men; the others were too old for them. Even the Wee Free Men were drunks, so readers beware!)
Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George

Are you noticing a theme here? They are all fantasy books. We're kind of big on the genre around here.

~ Amazon should totally pay me for the links today. If I were more motivated I'd give you a link or two to some other bookseller just to even things out, but I'm not that energetic.

~ I stumbled around on the internet for a few minutes today and ran across these jars that are designed for candles or potpourri or something, but you can also use them for lemonade!! (Scroll down to the third picture.) I think this is so clever and pretty. I love things that are casual and practical and pretty all at the same time.