Thanks to those who prayed for me - I survived Jo's absence, a little bruised, a little emotionally drained, but pretty much in one piece. One little Murphy's law thing though - why is it Edie was up 6:30/7:00 a.m. when Jo was gone, and this morning, after I was long gone to work, she slept until 8:30? (I know, some parents have much earlier wake-up calls, so I shouldn't complain).

A rundown of my life (who am I kidding, I don't have a life!) Let me rephrase, a quick run-down of the past few days:

-John Lee Hooker Jr. and Etta James on Thursday night with my Dad and my sister (wait! I do have a life!) this was an amazing concert and possibly the most beautiful summer night in Ottawa so far this year. A cold beer has never tasted so good.

-Friday, can't remember, must have erased it from my brain for some reason.

-Saturday, booked a sitter for Edie and took Grace to most unhappy place in the world, a place called Midway, where I later learned some shootings took place last year. It cost $18 for Grace to play on an indoor play structure (where I had to discipline a nasty little child for pushing Grace and for being a nasty little human being - where were his parents?); play some germ covered games and ride a motorized kiddie car around in circles for 5 minutes. Oh well, she had fun.

-Saturday again, felt like Britney Spears when invited for dinner to a new friend's house. This woman has two kids, 4 and 2 1/2, her house is clean, her kids listen to her, both kids still sit in highchairs where they are happily restrained, her daughter clears the table after dinner (!). Meanwhile, when I was distracted trying to discipline Grace for something or another, Edie fell down some stairs (just two, and they were carpeted, so no biggie in my books). The new friend looked a little horrified. The kicker is when we were leaving, she had the nerve to offer me homemade jam. You just don't offer homemade jam to people like me, who can't even get it together enough to make homemade anything!

-Sunday-day. Friends came over and spent the morning with us the pool....yippee! Almost had to kill their son though when he woke up Edie from her nap (he just wanted to see how cute she is when she's sleeping, unfortuntally for me, she isn't so cute for the rest of the afternoon when she only naps for an hour!)

-Sunday-night. Jonas walks through the door, and I pretty much walk out, head to Starbucks/Chapters, read Star and People for an hour and return home refreshed and in love with my kids again.

Website of the day: http://www.tistasty.com/jamstand.htm Just in case I ever have time to make homemade jam.