The last time I checked, I swear it was still Sunday.

I did take a break for Mother's Day, but it was simply a lull in the storm of activity that has surrounded our house. I think I'm managing to stay on the line where the schedule is full and I am inspired rather than full and I am overwhelmed. Of course, my tolerance for this sort of thing is probably lower than most. A full schedule on my calendar might be one major outside-the-house activity per week. This week we have managed two.

The girls gave another talk at 4-H on Monday night. It was a "demonstration" that was really more of a skit/spoof, something that my good friend Mandy and I did when we were kids in 4-H. Oldest kiddo was the speaker. She was Kansa Prairie, a long-time 4-Her who was giving tips on looking pretty for the fair. The joke was that kiddo #2, hid behind a curtain, was Kansa's hands. So as they went through their makeup demo, the short little arms fixed hair and put on lipstick and it was all quite amusing because she couldn't actually see what she was doing.

It was funny because the boys all kind of groaned when the VP announced the program as a "makeup demonstration" but then they were greatly entertained by what they got. I do have photos, but my son took them and he was apparently quite enthused by his responsibility. He pushed the button so hard to take each picture that we ended up with interesting blurs of image about a dozen times. I'll be giving him some tips on camera handling in the coming weeks so that it will be a job he is better prepared for in the future.

I can't believe how confident both my girls are about speaking in public. My stomach was nervous and in knots, but they didn't seem at all fazed by it.

Freelance projects are keeping me on my toes. I'm having to schedule in the fiction work just to keep myself on task. It's always the same cycle, for me... the more I do, the more I want to do. Funny how that works. And it seems to spread to the kids, as well. Their projects and interests seem to be branching out. Sometimes it occurs to me that keeping up with three of them is only going to get more and more difficult. But I guess that's the point of it -- that they don't necessarily need me to keep up, but to focus on being supportive and a resource as much as possible.

Right now I'm being requested for breakfast. Not to fix it, but for company. My early-bird son is up and ready to go. We've got a "war on paper" game to be played. He is forever coming up with new games to play and this is one of the more enjoyable ones for me.