Not only did she say yes, she mentioned it in passing to my mother, who also showed up this morning, figuring that I was insane for even making the offer. So I had an extra pair of hands all morning. And lord love her, my mother said not a word about the state of my house other than "Oh, you'll have all that time off to get everything organized." (The clutter wasn't so embarrassing, but the lack of vacuuming was.)

Three children under the age of five, though, makes for an exhausting morning, especially since one of them is still not sure what days and nights are and thinks noodling around for three or so hours in the middle of the night is a real hoot. When everyone left and it was just Leah and me and the squirt again, I was amazed to realize that it was only noon. So I made lunch, and we watched a Chrtistmas episode of The Vicar of Dibley (Leah's request) and my sister also brought me Lisey's Story, so I am going to have a kick-ass afternoon. If I feel up to it and Adam cooperates, I might even get to the vacuum.

Oh, god, this is my life? I cannot believe I am saying this, but I think I'm looking forward to going back to work. No, I know I am...because in all honesty, this will be the break I need to come back and really get re-energized for the whole enterprise. I've been burned out for a long time, and it will be nice to re-group. It's especially good because this is our major downtime right now, so when things are that dead it's really easy to slack off majorly.

We'll see what we shall see. In the meantime, I am going to enjoy my kids and uh, hopefully find something interesting to do so that you guys aren't bored out of your skulls by reading about my scintillating battles with dust and dog hair.