And the angels sang...

Be still my beating heart!!!!!  I thoroughly enjoyed Lego Indiana Jones, and mostly enjoyed Lego Harry Potter.  A couple of months ago, I was telling my sister that I wished Lego would make a "Lord of the Rings" video game, because then I could enjoy it without the gore and first-person-shooter or whatever that a non-Lego game would have.

And look!  Glorious day!  My wish has been granted, or will soon be, because the game doesn't come out until October 30, and we won't buy it (barring some awesome coupon or something) until after Christmas, because it will probably drop in price $15 or so.  But still!

(Yes, I freely admit being a nerd.  And playing Lego video games.  I'm unashamed.)

While I was sleeping

I've been battling this virus for a couple of days now, and yesterday I was actually feeling worse than I had the previous day.  I was miserably counting the minutes until my big kids came home from school.  

Zee, almost nine, is big enough to keep tabs on the younger kids while I nap.  I don't expect too much from them--just keep everyone alive, no juggling knives or lit matches--and we don't do it too often.  (The state my house is left in after such a nap is scary to behold.  It really better be worth it.)

I love that my kids are big enough for this!  My Zee is so responsible and gentle with his younger siblings.  Em is growing so compassionate as well.  I put Yummy down for a nap at the same time I went downstairs to sleep, but she wasn't really impressed with that idea.  Em begged me for the chance to stay with Yum-Yum and rub her back until she fell asleep.  I agreed, and went to my bed.  Not ten minutes later, Yummy was sound asleep and Em was tip-toeing back upstairs.  Stuff like this makes my heart just sing.

I slept for four solid hours--it was 7:15pm and Bradley had been home for an hour before I woke up.  Zee kept the kids happy and not bothering me (and not technically destroying the house; after all, it's still standing!) for three hours.  And what a difference it made for me--I feel nearly normal today.  Still tired, still a little shaky, but the horrible headache and sore throat are gone.

Zee even answered texts from my mother!  I found these on my phone this morning:

Mema:  Can I come do laundry tomorrow?
Me, except really Zee:  It is [Zee]
Zee:  yes mom is a sleep
Mema:  Hi how are you?
Zee:  Good
Mema:  Good maybe she will feel better when she wakes up
Zee:  Bi
Mema:  I love you.  Bye.

I don't know why I find that incredibly adorable, but I really do.  He's such a good kid, and a keeper.

Brought to you by the letters F, L, and U

(Or maybe C, O, L, and D.  It's hard to know.)

I have lots to say, maybe, or maybe not.  Right now, my head feels like it is full of cotton.  And yet, unaccountably, I can still smell the fire to the west of Utah Lake.  That doesn't make sense to me.

I'll leave you with this.  It's almost the official start of autumn, and I, for one, can't wait.

So it turns out they need me...

Last night at about nine, I realized that the slightly-runny nose and barely-there tightness in my throat -- that I had been ignoring for the last several hours -- were not, in fact, going to go away.  Instead, they were getting worse and my head was starting to ache.  So I did what all reasonable people do:  I drank two large glasses of raspberry lemonade and went to bed.

Of course, I woke up feeling pretty miserable.  My family went off to church and a family event without me, and even while they were home, they were under strict orders to let me sleep.  This has been agonizingly hard for them.

So now it is 6:35 in the evening on Sunday, and Bradley up at the stake center helping take down chairs.

And four of my five children are currently laying in my bed, each trying to have my attention and/or touch me in some way.

Awwww.  I think they missed me.

Basement

It is amazing just how fast things start to happen once you get all the permits.  I know that not everything is going to be as obvious and visually exciting as this particular part, but oh boy! Are we enjoying it!

This was Friday--all the footings poured.  (This was also the day that we met our future Bishop and his wife; remind me to tell that story later!) 

On Saturday we visited the lot with David and his crew, Telima and Tyler and their crew, and most of my crew (Daddy was home with a sick Yummy).  I didn't get pictures on Saturday, but the construction company had already started getting the forms up for the basement walls. 

On Sunday we rested.  (Oh, naps, how I adore thee...)

On Monday we visited the lot again (pity that gas is so dang expensive right now, or I think we'd be up there daily).  This time, all the forms were up and FILLED with glorious grey concrete.  It was very exciting.  (And very wet, with marvelous lightning-thunder-rain storms coming AFTER the concrete was set.  Whew.)

And this is today, Tuesday.  The forms are down, and the walls--complete with windows--are up.  It is amazing and thrilling to behold. 

We lifted the kids into the hole and through the Spare 'Oom's window, and they had a fabulous time playing inside our basement.  There was a very noticeable echo, and the kids used their voices to very good effect.  Our neighbors will be glad when we get windows and a roof.

World War II

Much to my husband's amusement, I've been on a World War II kick of late.  I found an amazing podcast (The History of World War II), and I have been just loving it.  Mr. Harris is very thorough, and although his podcast series is on episode 59, we're only in August 1941.  So.  I'm all caught up, and needed something else to listen to, while I'm cleaning, packing, driving or whatever.  Continuing the WWII trend, and taking advantage of a sweet free Audible books deal, I have made my way through three new books, and I'm just starting a new one.

In case anyone cares, here are the books I've been listening to, and a rough review of each:

 The Miracle of Dunkirk (Walter Lord)
Dunkirk and the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Forces in 1940 has long fascinated me, but until recently I knew very little about it.  This book turned out to be an excellent overview, with enough individual vignettes and interesting stories to make it difficult to stop listening to.  The narrator (Jeff Cummings) is excellent, as well.  Five stars!

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (William L Shirer)
This book, published in 1959 and over 1200 pages long, is considered a classic in WWII histories.  Although the events are occasionally colored by Shirer's own experiences in Nazi Germany (he was an American press correspondent prior to the US entering the war), most of the information draws on documentation seized from the Nazi government after their downfall.  Despite the length, I was completely fascinated by this book.  Like in The Miracle of Dunkirk, the narrator of this 57+ hour book (Grover Gardner) is perfect.  (And you have to admire his stamina!)  Five stars.

D-Day:  The Battle for Normandy (Antony Beevor)
Having read about the arc of the Nazi Party, and the escape of the British at Dunkirk, I wanted to know more about D-Day.  It was a little harder to find a good D-Day book, and I'm not 100% sure I've found it yet.  This book disappointed me slightly--it was a little harder to follow, much emphasis was given to troop movements (nearly impenetrable in audio form, without a map or a working knowledge of the area), and, sad to say, the narrator (Cameron Stewart) was not as good as the other two.  He tried to change accents every time a different nationality was being quoted, and I thought that his American accents were--to put it mildly--really, really bad.  (I wonder if his German, French, Australian, or New Zealand accents were as grating to a native speaker of those countries.) I still listened and enjoyed the whole book, but I think I'd have to give it three stars.

The Guns of August (Barbara Tuchman)
I've switched gears with my current book, moving over to World War I.  I've discovered that the underpinnings of WWII are fairly understandable--broadly, the end of WWI lead to WWII.  But what was the cause of WWI? (Not just poor Ferdinand.)  This Pulitzer Prize winning book has been highly recommended for understanding what led to WWI, and the first month of the fighting.  So far -- I'm only 1/5 of the way through -- I'm really enjoying it.  The narrator, John Lee, has been doing a great job thus far.


P.S.  I noticed that, in this post, I've used four of the six sounds that "ough" makes in the English language:  thorough, through, thought, and rough.  Once I realized that I had so many of them, I tried to get them all.  But, try as I might, I just couldn't find a use for "bough" or "cough".  Sorry.

Happy Birthday

To my Daddy.  I miss and love you.