Civilization as we know it.

It is a very lonely house when momma is gone. It hasn't helped that school is so slow and boring this semester. I almost have 4 day weekends every weekend and it feels like I'm only going to class once a week. At the current rate of 2 pounds a weekend I should be up 36#s by the end of the semester.

The puppies have been a complete fiasco. The second puppy returned home because the young couple didn't realize how much work it would take and didn't want to commit to the time. Then a puppy mysteriously died. I suspected that it got hurt, stepped on or played with too rough. The next puppy left and returned. The young girl claimed the puppy had parvo. In reality she had cold feet and the puppy was fine when it returned. It goes on...and I still have 4 left. I might just keep them. I don't know.

Kerri left on Thursday and we haven't had solid food since she left. It has been corn dogs, pizza and Dairy Boy. (Well maybe not that bad.) The kids said on Sunday that they missed Mom's Sunday tacos. Yeah, me too.

The house is quiet. I'm up at 6:30 giving orders to the kids. They have the routine down better than I do, so they pretty much tell me what they have to do to get ready for school. They get home at 3:20 and we do our normal after school rituals of homework, game cube and tv. At 5 I scrounge some dinner around. Normally 5 is our vacuum, do-the-dishes and take-the-trash-out before mom gets home time. We all know what a lovable creature she becomes when there is towels behind the bathroom door, backpacks on the couch and a sink full of dishes. Especially if dinner is not started on top of all that. In that case, there is plenty of love to go around for the whole evening.

So Tomorrow will be the unpleasant day of cleaning up before Mom gets home. Out with the stack of empty pizza boxes. The laundry will have to be caught up. The book piles in the bedroom will have to be repositioned off her half of the bed back to the floor. The Laundry on the couch will have to be folded and the stack of knives and pans scrubbed. I will have to clean the Sonic bags out of the car so she can get in when I pick her up at the airport.

It will be back to the daily grind of living like civilized humans when she gets home. We'll have to have spaghetti, grilled chicken salad and bbq ribs for dinner. It will be tacos on Sundays again. Shoes will have to go back to the closet and towels to the laundry basket. Can you imagine if she was gone for a 2 weeks or a month? We might completely convert back to Neanderthals.