I am so busy I have to carry TWO briefcases. Seriously.

I left the house this morning at 9:00 a.m. and drove Moon to her BFF’s. JD was working and I had a morning meeting at a ministry I support. I was there about 3 hours, then ran to a meeting for my JOB, then went to another meeting with a friend. Meetings are evidently my life now. I even have one next week out of town! There are two kinds of people in this world – those who believe it’s beneficial to meet in person when talking about business, and the rest of us who live in a post-1975 world with things like the internet and email.

“I’m so glad we had this meeting where you shared information that you could have just emailed me.”

I’m just bitter because I had to shower before noon.

Once all of the meetings were over, I met JD and Moon and the BFF for Monday night BRIDGE CAMP. The girls are getting pretty good, and even JD can now sit through four rounds without complaining. I wasn’t really keeping score, but if I had been, they would have crushed us.

I’m trying to talk the girls into going to a tournament with me, hotel rooms and room service included. So far they’re a “no”.  The BFF because it would mean a sleepover and Moon because it would mean bridge. Despite my best efforts, she’s not a big fan. I blame her father. If DAD likes it – she likes it. Star Wars, check. Cars, check. Beef Jerky, check. I’ve started asking JD to at least PRETEND that he likes it so that she’ll engage. Most of the time she just sits there, suffering loudly, while the rest of us work hard and do our best to be serious.

Kinda like me at my meetings.

Friday was Valentine’s Day so the Tyres’ celebrated with a family tradition – we went to Taco Bell. Moon had her BFF over, so it was all very romantic. Afterwards, we came home and played bridge because that was the surest way for my husband to tell me he loves me. Also the cheapest. Later, after taking home the BFF, we all went our separate ways so that we could watch every single television show currently available. I went with House of Cards.

Two days later, I came out of my bedroom.

I’m still not done with the whole series, but I had to take a break for eating and work, and church. Only one of those three was actually enjoyable and I’ll give you a hint – it wasn’t the gluten-free one.

For the last week, I’ve been on the Lose-Your-Belly-And-Your-Will-To-Live-Diet. I weighed this morning and the scale says I’ve lost 2.5 pounds. At this rate I should reach my goal weight just about the time I decide to jump off a cliff.

This week is going to be another busy one as I am working, JD is working, and Moon is home from school until Wednesday. Every day on my calendar has at least ONE thing that just has to be done. At this rate, I’ll never finish all of the things I need to do.

Any by “things”, I mean the rest of House of Cards.

This might shock you, but I was wrong about something a few months ago. I blogged that I’d just seen the trailer for Frozen and that it looks lame. It. Was. Not. Because we were living our own version of Frozen, we thought we’d take advantage of a free version that was floating around on the internet. Several people posted links on Facebook, I clicked it, we watched it, all was good.

In fact, it was so good that I decided to watch a few other shows. Like Pitch Perfect, Philomenia, and August: Osage County. I highly recommend them all. You might want to be careful, though. It wasn’t until I’d watched the last one that I noticed the fine print at the bottom of the website saying that while the site I was watching was, like totes legal, the movies they’d linked to were on sites that might not be. Well, thanks for THAT!

In my defense, I’d had a hard day at work. While everyone else was enjoying the day off due to weather, I had to go into work! Sure I was going IN to the living room, but still.

Moon enjoyed Day 2 of Re-education Camp and I’m happy to report we had not one incident of whining,  attitude and talking back.  At one point she even used the word COMPROMISE in a sentence. I’d say things are going well. So much so, I’ve decided to let her go without showering the rest of the week. Those rules on her arm are working, why mess with a good thing. Plus, it’s hard to ask her to do something that I’m not planning on doing myself.

By which I mean my diet. As I might have mentioned, Kat told me if I was serious about getting into shape, I should try a No-Gluten, No-Sugar, No-Dairy, No-Caffeine, No-Artificial Sweetener, No Alcohol Diet known also as the Go Ahead and Die, Cause Life Has No Meaning Diet. That should make surviving the winter storm headed our way a bit easier. I THINK snow is gluten-free but I’ll double check.

Since the weather report says we’re all going to be housebound for the next few days, I headed to Publix to stock up on some gluten-free products. Here’s what I know about dieting – if I don’t have acceptable food within arms reach, I will cheat in a heartbeat. So I got some gluten-free tortilla wraps, gluten-free cereal, and gluten-free pancakes. I’m not entirely sure what gluten is, but it must cost a pretty penny to get rid of it. Also, it makes food tasty.

The good news is that if it actually does snow, I’ll be trapped here with nothing else to eat and won’t be able to run out for Chick-fil-A when no one is looking. Although, to be honest, who would be looking? No one seems to be worried about my dieting woes but me.

Moon was out of school today, and with teacher furlough days coming up, she’s not scheduled to be back in class until next WEDNESDAY. We could have gone on a vacation, but since she’s been exhibiting signs lately of serious TEENitis, we decided it might be a good time for Re-education Camp. We instigated a zero tolerance policy of “no whining, no attitude, no talking back”.  I am happy to report that Day One went very well.

She wrote all of the rules on her arm so she wouldn’t forget.

Next step, buy her permanent markers.

If burning the candle at both ends was an Olympic sport, I’d be earning some serious gold. I spent Friday in the office working which is about as exciting and wonderful as it sounds. Friday evening we decided to take Moon up on her offer to try something new and headed out to Red Lobster. We considered ordering the Variety Platter so she could try a little bit of everything but that was 467.00 so we went for the Variety Appetizer. It was a good call since she didn’t like the coconut shrimp, or the boiled shrimp, or the stuffed mushrooms. She DID like the popcorn shrimp, but since she’s had that before it didn’t really count. Oh well, she’s agreed to try a hamburger next so we’ve got that to look forward to.

I spent Saturday cleaning the house, finishing some work, and generally just schlepping around. When the door-to-door evangelists showed up at 11:00 a.m, I wasn’t embarrassed at all to go to the door in my bathrobe. It was SATURDAY. When my nephew called at 2:00 to say he’d be over in five minutes, I felt the same way. But since he had a group of coaches with him, I ran in the house and changed clothes, combed my hair and brushed my teeth. I mean there’s only so far a Saturday excuse with get you. Saturday evening, I met Kit for dinner and we decided we’d get healthy and start a new diet right after we finished our chicken and pasta and cannoli.

Sunday I missed going to my church for like the 18th week in a row, but I was helping a local ministry represent at a mission’s conference. I did get to see a few members of my church family later while Moon was at youth. I had a headache and considered not going but since I’d missed so much lately I wanted to squash any divorce talk. Not that I think people who miss church are divorcing. I just think they’re sinners.

After all of that, I came home and watched Downton Abbey which was GOOD, but I’m a a bit afraid to keep watching.

That face is a little scary.

So now begins a busy week which is made worse because JD has decided to work this week, too. Someone needs to tell him there’s only room for one Candle-Burning Olympian in the family. The best he can do is Silver.

My mom came to town today for a few hours so we decided to spend it bonding at estate sales. Thursdays don’t have a ton of sales, but we managed to find one near the airport that was selling everything in the house from wall to wall, then they were selling the walls! The house was going to be torn down after the sale so we were pretty sure we’d find SOMETHING.

I found a bookshelf/desk combo for Moon, while Mom picked up a few odds and ends. No walls, unfortunately, but enough stuff to fill the van.

We found another sale closer to home where I placed a silent bid on a piece of artwork that was so much more than they obviously expected that they chased me down and went ahead and sold it to me, AFTER talking me DOWN. And to make it worse, my offer was only $42.00 to start with.

I plan on making all my money back by letting people throw tomatoes at it for $5.00 a pop. Who’s foolish, NOW?