I've just sung the last song of our increasingly elaborate bedtime ritual and have used my most lovingly stern voice to remind my cherubs of our shared interests in their staying in bed for the night. With that, a glass of wine and a bit of surfing I'll end my own day, a tiring (if pleasant) one that as capped off an amazingly exhausting five day stretch.

If there are any words that are beginning to terrorize me more than, say, anything that the news can drum up, they would have to be preschool rummage sale. Held in the church with which the school is affiliated, the annual sale is an epic event demanding superhuman effort on the part of half a dozen volunteers and the vast inconveniencing of an additional score. Moving a couple hundred chairs, a grand piano, bell tables and assorted altar furniture in and out of the worship space and in between holding court as several hundred shoppers poked, picked and peaked around the thousands of donated items for sale which had been sorted and tagged during the preceding five nights, well, it's enough to tire a girl out. And make her sore in all kinds of not-usually so used places.

The sale was successful so the tiredness is abundantly worthwhile. Our scholarship fund is newly plumped and community bonds are strengthened so you'll hear no complaints from me. That I was able to score a brand new Sookie Stackhouse box set of the first seven Southern Vampire Mystery books for a single U.S. dollar is icing on the rummage cake.

There seems like there's a ton more I ought to share - the linen-ish skirt I've nearly finished sewing for myself, the daisy-bedecked sundress made for the Girl, recent cooking adventures with the kids (the Boy can now make pancakes more or less on his own, shocking me tremendously...if he can feed himself reasonably well, I am very nearly obsolete, yes?), my delight that strawberry season is upon us and my increasingly desperate search for a humdinger birthday present for Brainiac. For now, though, sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.