I’ve been sitting here for the past 30 minutes trying to figure out what to write about tonight.  The fact of the matter is, I’m exhausted.

The kids, thank God, are finally healthy enough for Mary to come back full time.  But the Bean- oh, the Bean- is wearing me down.  I forgot just how batshit crazy almost 3 year old;s can be.  The most difficult phase with Scorch was this age too, so I know it’ll pass- but difficult for Scorch meant a grand total of a half a dozen crazy meltdowns.  Bean averages 4 of those a day.  I love so very very much, but she’s making me crazy.  She’s fighting us over everything, screaming the house down and  hitting her brother.  The Hubs and I haven’t lost it yet with her, but she is going to bed a good 30 minutes early every night for the sake of our sanity.

So, that’s the long way of saying I don’t have it in me to come up with a gushy, funny post today.  I love my kids and I’m thankful for them, but I’m just as thankful for bed time and ice cream tonight!  But, there are a few random things I’m loving right now:

1) I got invited to a Post-Rapture Looting Party- where we’re invited to take all the good stuff left behind by those called up to Heaven.  I laughed for 5 minutes over this.

2) I am taking 3 hours of me time tomorrow to shop for Baby Lala’s Baptism! Sweet baby girl is doing wonderfully- growing fast, smiling & laughing. I can’t wait to get to hold her again in a few weeks!

3) Between my travels and the kids being sick, I’ve been able to read a lot lately:

• I read the first two books in the Millennium Trilogy- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo & The Girl Who Played with Fire.  I liked them both, although the first one had a lot of financial crime info that I had to slog my way through. The second one was a much faster read!
• The Scorch Trials– This is the 2nd book in a series that started with The Maze Runner.  Again, I liked this book better then the first and am looking forward to reading how this all gets tied up!
• The Brave– I normally like this author (Nicholas Evans) very much.  But this one wasn’t as good as most of his works- the characters weren’t nearly fleshed out enough and the plot harped upon in the summary (Iraq veteran accused of horrible war crimes) was barely touched upon.
• Past Perfect by Susan Isaacs- another author I normally love with a book that felt flat. One of my biggest annoyances in books/TV shows/movies is when the main character doesn’t tell the people around him/her what they are doing for no good reason and then get stuck in horrible situations because they didn’t speak up. That happened a lot in this book, so I spent most of my time reading this yelling at the main character in my head.
• The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons.  I have no idea why I got this book about WWII in Russia, but I generally liked it. But lordy, it was depressing!  Not something I’ll be in a hurry to read again, but it kept my attention.
• Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver.  This book was recommended to me by the Children’s Librarian at our local library, so I checked it out and I’m glad I did.  It’s a YA novel about a 17 year old girl who gets to re-live the last day of her life 7 times to get it right.  At first I didn’t like it- the main characters were harsh and the look at high school was pretty unflinching- but then I got sucked right in. Yeah- the kids were mean, but they were honest and the book didn’t pull any punches.

4) I was asked today to be a Running Buddy for Girls on the Run at a 5K walk/run in 2 weeks. I’m so excited about this because I’m hoping it’ll be the kick in the butt I need to start running again. Maybe this time I’ll enjoy it!

5) The sunset tonight is gorgeous (pardon the quality, best I could get with my cell phone). I’m so glad we have green trees around again.