Murder, Mayhem, and Sod

Okay, that title doesn't make a ton of sense, but that was my weekend.

Murder: Telima (my sister) hosted a "How to Host a Murder" party on Saturday night. Our family has been big fans of these parties since our parents first attended one in the early 1990s. (I'm not sure what it says about my family that we really love murder dinner parties. Repressed personalities, perhaps?) The game we played was called "Roman Ruins". Bradley was Caesar, so he wore a circlet of plastic ivy around his head and a huge swath of red fabric over his clothes as a toga. I was a business lady of "mature" years (well, I was the oldest person there), and wore the same red fabric as my toga, or stola, or whatever it is that ladies wore. (That same red fabric was purchased to make some baby slings, but I bought a fabric that was too stretchy. When I tried it out on Hebs, he was hanging to my knees practically and almost slipped right out in the first two minutes. Oops. Still, it came in handy.) I won't spoil the fun for anyone who might play this game later, but I will say that nobody, but nobody, figured out who the murderer was. Including the murderer.


Mayhem: I don't know what was in the air at church today, but my kids at least were crazy. Em had the hardest time, she ended up in time out and then had to take a nap this afternoon. But everyone was difficult. The choir did a women's piece between speakers, and so I popped up to sing with them. You would have thought I'd abandoned Gee for ever from the way he carried on. And then the baby started. The entire time we were singing I was thinking, "Two verses left. One verse left. Okay, we're done. Whew!" At which time I jetted out with the baby, because he was in need of a total wardrobe change (which I had to go home to do). The next two hours were not any easier. Thankfully, we could come home, eat lunch, and collapse in naps (all except Zee, who is just too big to need a nap).

Sod: At about one o'clock on Saturday afternoon, a friend called. Their family put sod in their yard this weekend, and they had about a pallet's worth of sod left over. Did we want it? Yessiree, thank you ma'am. Our poor backyard is struggling, even after we worked so hard last fall. I would have loved to sod the entire thing, but sod is expensive and grass seed is cheap. So free sod? Awesome. Of course it wasn't enough for the entire backyard, but I wanted it anyway. So we dropped everything we were doing, and rototilled, weeded, fertilized, and sodded the entire afternoon, clear up until we need to stop to get ready for the party. Although it was unexpected, it was a nice surprise, and hopefully the sod will take and we'll have at least some grass in the backyard this summer!