A Quiet Evening at Home

For some reason, what appears on the surface to be a quiet evening at home, is sort of chaotic in how it gets there. I think the only reason it was quiet is because each of us was off on a different tangent, doing our own thing in our own corners of the house.

Carter was on a mission to finish a book so he could test on it tomorrow. He practiced his trumpet, ate his supper then said he was going to his room to read at 7 p.m. until it was done. He just finished about 10 minutes ago.

It's Thursday night so hubby didn't want to miss one of his favorite shows, The Office. He watched that down in the basement where there were likely to be fewer interruptions. Later, he proofed an English paper son #2 emailed him. Then he got his "stuff" together for an early morning road trip. He's leaving at 4:30 a.m. to head up to my neck of the woods, Rice Lake, to visit a job site for photos and a story. So he's trying to force himself to fall asleep at my bedtime. It ain't working.

The second reason Jim relegated himself to the basement is so that I was upstairs on Schwan's watch. I didn't mind. Then I got the couch and blanket to watch Grey's. It never fails, though. The Schwan's Man always shows up during Grey's. I thought if I had my list ready, it would be a quick order and he'd be gone. But we had to talk football and baseball and weather. We're so close, ya know!

The strangest thing about our evening at home together is that both the boys are in bed before me. And I could actually sleep in tomorrow since I just have to walk to my desk and not drive an hour to it. It sounds good, but it's not.

When the garage was changing our oil today on the Civic and checking over a few things, they realized we need a new water pump. I can't believe a vehicle with just 186,000 miles would need anything new. But whatever. Here's your 500 bucks. Unfortunately, they can't install the new pump until tomorrow so with Jim leaving town, I am without wheels.

Good thing I recently subscribed to a special GoToMyPC connection so I can work from home. (It's quite handy!) I might actually be more productive. I'll have only the cat to talk to and I won't be distracted by those tempting chocolate treats at my desk.

See? There's a bright side to everything. I just hope in the future that my expensive "surprises" are more in the line of jewelry or clothes or airline tickets -- not water pumps.