1.  The dogs are tuckered. The cat is tuckered. The whole dang house needs about 24 hours of solid sleep to get back on our feet.

2.  Wanna guess the odds of our getting those 24 hours of sleep? Roughly the same as spotting a unicorn prancing through the backyard.

3.  Seeing as I’m not dropping acid the odds of prancing unicorns are nil.

4.  Does dropping acid even bring glittery unicorns? Seems like Nancy Reagan would say it’s more like zombies and axe murderers.

5.  Just Say No echoes on.

6.  We’re at T minus six days for family dinner and I should be much (MUCH) further along with the last house things on my list. I was trucking right along on Monday and Tuesday; it was shaping up to be a productive week.

7.  Then Wednesday got trashed. One kid injured his rotator cuff by 6am so a chunk of my day was spent juggling the pursuit of doctors’ appointments.

8.  The other kid had what can only be called A Day so after school we went hunting for basketball warmup pants. By store #3 I was what can only be called incoherent.

9.  I’m pretty sure I regaled the checkout guy with stories of rotator cuffs and insurance issues.

10.  But whatever, we got pants and all was right with the world.

11.  Then Thursday got trashed. The morning wasn’t bad, just busy, so no time/no things done/no bueno, man. Then the afternoon and the driving and the flash feeding and the driving again and more flash feeding then back to back basketball games – NO TIME.

12.  Pssst. If you’re coming to my house next Thursday there’s a high likelihood you’ll find piles of papers in the office.

13.  But since I’m not a spy it’s just messy and remarkably boring.

14.  So I’ve been on the hunt for good boot socks. They need to be thick – about “take up a quarter shoe size” thick – but absolutely positively cannot contain wool.

15.  So.much.itchiness.

16.  This has been harder than expected, mostly because I’m avoiding actual stores like the plague. Actual stores have holiday decorations and music and overstuffed aisles with so much crap it makes my brain ache.

17.  ‘Tis the season.

18.  But the only way to know how thick socks are is to feel them, and the only way to feel them is to be in their physical space, so it looks like I’m gonna have to suck it up.

19.  Ugh.

20.  Last weekend we tackled steam cleaning the basement carpet.

21.  Doesn’t that make me sound all industrious? “What’d I do on Saturday? Oh, not much…just steam cleaned the carpet is all.”

22.  What I left out is the ridiculous dirty paw tracks were on my very last nerve and it was that or burn the carpet altogether.

23.  I chose the lesser of two evils. Although my evil involved five hours of manual labor. Hunched over manual labor.

24.  Damn, the carpet looked pretty decent by the end.

25.  But if you’re coming to my house next Thursday – a whole week from now – and there are big muddy paw prints on the floor, just look away. We’ll pretend it’s a carpet pattern, okay?