Sunny day spent indoors

Today was a bright, warm, sunny day. I spent nearly all of it inside. I didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter, you see.

With Elise working last night and tonight, that meant she was trying to sleep all day. We have/had a number of visiting family in town -- Elise's grandmother, dad, and our nephew. The responsibility of putting together most of the meals falls on me.

Additionally, today was the High School Baccalaureate. Each church was asked to bring some cookies. Since our church is so small, making cookies also becomes our responsibility. And again, with Elise sleeping, that means I'm the one to bake the cookies. (I suppose I could have just purchased some...)

Before going up to sleep, Elise did go out to purchase supplies for the punch for the Baccalaureate. So at least that task I didn't personally have to handle.

Anyway, from breakfast to supper, I was pretty much in the kitchen all day. The only time I stepped out of the house between those times was to go get the punch bowls from the church and purchase some ice.

Thus while in the kitchen and about the house, I could see the wonderfully warm and dry day outside, wishing I was out on the bicycle or out on the trails with a camera. It was quite grating and aggravating not being able to go out.

If that wasn't enough, trying to handle three kids running around the house added to the already stressful day. The activity level triples or quadruples (and not always in a good sort of way) when our nephew is here. If I could just go away to somewhere nice and peaceful, where everyone would just leave me alone, and where everyone would simply mind their own business, I might have taken the first flight out.

In addition to the refreshments already mentioned, I was also responsible for the invocation and the piano accompaniment for the hymns. The accompaniment went fine. Where things really took a detour was just prior to the invocation. I was informed that I was also to welcome everyone since I was the first one to speak. I began to welcome everyone when I suddenly realized that I should probably wait for the senior class to enter the auditorium. Ooops! Well, what could I do? I went ahead and gave instructions for those already in the auditorium to turn off their cell phones, and then returned to playing one more piece for the prelude portion. The senior class entered, and I resumed the welcome and gave the invocation. All I could do was to take things in stride and just go with the flow. It wasn't so bad once I was resigned to accepting the goof.

About a third of the punch supplies were used up, so the church now has a rather large quantity of leftover supplies -- 12 liters each of ginger ale and tonic water, and 7 white grape juice concentrates. That will last us a long time, I think.

It seems that with visitors coming into town immediately after we came back from our trip and the Little Norway weekend, the kids are still in somewhat of a vacation mode. There is school work to be done, but they aren't getting done very quickly. It seems there is a lot of procrastination, or simply forgetting that we are no longer on vacation. When they're reminded of it, they aren't happy about it, and it seems that it all ends up in arguments and tears. While out-of-town visitors can be nice and interesting, the disruptions that usually result to our routines is less than desired, especially when it results in very important things remaining undone.