A visit that brings back memories

So I haven't blogged for a few days. Reason is, my mind's been elsewhere. What's left of it, anyway. After FINALLY taking some cold medicine, I honestly felt my brain vaporize within my skull. (Yes, it is strong medicine -- which is why I cling to it so much!) But, also, it's because I was sick for a couple of days. Starting right on Mother's Day! *rolls eyes* And today I've been trying to get this house back in order because you know how it is: When Mommy gets sick, the whole house falls apart. Dishes don't get done. Laundry piles up. The meals turn crappy. You know Mommy is writing a book, er, I mean, Mommy is sick when the meals start looking crappy!

So today after I took Jesse to a doctor appointment, which we ended up being too late for and had to reschedule for next week (darn medicine knocked me out for an hour!), I was driving all over, running more errands, I texted hubby and asked him if he wanted me to pick up some fast food for lunch since it was after 2:30 and neither of us had lunch yet. And I was STARVING, darn it! He said, sure, get some Taco Bell. So after I ran to the store to stock up on dish/body/clothing soap, I got the food and drove home. I pulled into my driveway to see Jimmy, my best friend who used to be my neighbor, sitting on my porch. Jennifer was running around in the front yard, playing with his dog. I asked Jimmy what was up and he said he had some business to take care of with the new neighbor. So he ended up hanging around for several hours -- which was a good thing. It was great to have a friend hanging around. I have REALLY grown to dislike being alone with the kids at night (hubby works from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m.) so it was just great to have some company. Jimmy went to pick his daughter up and he brought her over to play with Jennifer. All of us just visited, talked about things, shared pictures and did stuff on the computer while the movie Robots was on the TV for the kids.

Later, I started making dinner in the kitchen. Jimmy walked in right around the time I was voicing my concern over whether I'd have enough spaghetti sauce. I thought I had a whole extra can in my cupboard in addition to what was saved in the fridge but, nope. It wasn't in there. That's when Jimmy took over and told me to just go relax while he made dinner. (I appreciated the suggestion to relax, but I did have some more housekeeping jobs to do. I just appreciated having one less thing to worry about!) Jimmy ended up raiding my cupboard and grabbing a bunch of cans to make a "special" kind of spaghetti sauce. He used diced tomatoes, chili beans, cut up meatballs, the sauce I had on hand and a can of chili. He also added a bunch of seasonings. Surprisingly, it was GOOD!!!! It was SOOO yummy. The kids didn't appreciate it as much as we grown-ups did but, hey, at least they ate the meatballs left out of the sauce for them! It was definitely filling. I even put a picture of it up on my other blog LOL: http://picturepixies.blogspot.com/2008/05/spaghetti-sauce-la-jimmy.html

After a late dinner, Jimmy had to go home and get ready for work. (He also works at night, sometimes.)

One thing about the visit though was that Jennifer ended up getting into bed late. Too much excitement, I guess. I tried my hardest NOT to let this bug me. So we have one day where we don't follow the regular schedule. It won't hurt anything. At least she STILL got her dinner, she STILL got her bath and she STILL got into bed at least before 10.

I was really happy my friends were over for a long visit with us today. It felt so good to have a house full of people again! I come from a large family, so I'm used to the hustle and bustle of a lot of people in the house. It made me miss those days when my family members came over to visit. Heck, I hardly have any company or friends coming over these days! Just Jimmy and his family. Which is actually part of MY family, too. They're not just my friends, they're also my family. Which makes that visit even better. It wasn't my real family paying us a visit (all my family live far away), but my "other" family stopping by to visit and hang out with us is just as good.