Finally, the day has slowed down and I can finish my next Gems article.  I started my morning an hour late and have been running ever since.  I am supposed to take my thyroid medicine exactly on time, every twelve hours.  No problem, every mother of nine should be awake by 8:30 in the morning, right?  Ha!  Not if your husband and then your toddler keep you up until 3:30!

Sounds familiar?  Didn't I mention 3:30 in my previous Gems article?  Yep.  Even titled it appropriately: Diving for Gems at 3:30 in the Morning!  (No longer available because of the close of Themestream) But that was different.  For that article I was AWAKENED at 3:30.  This one I wasn't allowed to go to sleep until that almost habitual hour.

You should have heard my tantrum when I finally felt sleepy after an exciting and romantic evening and my little daughter decided to repeat the previous night's antics by waking up, seeing me and declaring, "I get up with you, Mommy!"  Augh!  Not again!  I can't handle this!  I loudly tell Neil that it was his turn.  He mumbles compliance.  I shake Neil.  He snuggles further into the covers.  I give up on his help.  I sweetly tell Chrystal to get into bed and I'll tuck her in but I was going to the bathroom first.  Wicked me....I waited just long enough to be sure she had fallen back to sleep...Victory!

So, exhausted, I slept right through my medicine alarm.  How important is that?  Well, since changing my thyroid medicine in May I have lost 80 pounds...pretty important I would say.  I'll have to tell you about that in another article.  Pretty miraculous from my perspective.

In a reverse of tradition, the children woke me.  They rushed me into starting life by screaming that we were going to cut a Christmas tree right away!  I'm a fast dresser and was out the door on time.  Out the door but into the mud.  We moved to six acres of dirt last spring and when it rains the ground becomes a very slippery clay.  Slipping and sliding I grumble as I climb into our van.  My whining goes unheeded.  What other intelligent woman would insist on wearing sandals through the rain and snow of Utah?  It is the last vestige of Southern California upbringing that I have left.

With our $5 permit in hand we drive up to get a Christmas tree.  Feeling organized, I bring along my cooking magazine and begin to rip out pages and pop them into the protector sheets in my personal Recipe Cookbook.  On bumpy roads.  On twisty roads.  Oh my goodness...stop the van...now...Right Now!  Shutting my eyes, holding my head, wishing I could also hold my stomach I exert will over wave.  My sympathetic husband says something about it not being smart to read while on bumpy, twisty mountain roads.  Who made him so smart, anyway?  It was probably the fact that he was asleep at 3:30 in the morning!

The children and husband pile out of the van and go hiking to the trees.  I recline in the front seat.  I would have enjoyed the silence if only my head would stop spinning.  Finally, they come return.  The children are excited and Neil is disappointed.  Next year we will go further up the mountain where the pretty trees grow.

By the time we get home I'm starved.  I have to go into town to shop.  I WANT to go into town to eat.  I'm a good budgeter and eat lunch at home instead.  Following that the next few hours were spent with three of my children and one of their friends shopping at Walmart and Albertson's and spending $50 more than planned.  I might as well have eaten in town!

The rest of the afternoon was a blur.  Showers, baths, jobs, dinner, driving a son to the play practice, helping my husband frame a room in the basement, and finally rushing everybody out the door for the church Christmas play.  My youngest son had a speaking part and Chamrie and Chiya were dancing reindeer.  Delightful!

Now, finally things have quieted down.  What does that mean?  The three teens are at a movie with friends, the four middle children are watching TV with their dad and my youngest is asleep.  The tree looks pretty sad in the fancy stand that I bought today.  We'll have to decorate it tomorrow.  I have to finish one Gems article and make my way to bed.  Hopefully before 1 am this time!