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hey y'all.

i need to get to bed cuz it's 4 a.m. and i know it will be another busy day in the land of bliss.

yesterday was unexpectedly busy. i knew i had some things to do but it just got out of hand once i walked out the door.

it started with a call from grandma. she wanted to come over to help baby bliss clean her room. baby bliss said yes because she hates cleaning her room more than getting her hair combed. and she wanted to swim but knew she couldn't go unless her room was neat and tidy.

i'll take the blame for everything that followed.

we got grandma from her house and i dropped them both here around 3. grandma said she had a pressing engagement around 5:30 so needed to gone and back by 5:15, latest.

my first stop was the library to return 20 pounds of borrowed materials. (i'm not joking.) a few items i'd reserved online were waiting for me so i got those. then i popped over to walmart (a 3-5 minute drive) for water and fertilizer spikes for my peace lilies.

my walmart allergy didn't kick in at all (thanks for the joke nurse so-and-so!) and i was in there longer than i wanted. i picked up an extra pair of shorts for me and one for baby bliss, 4-5-6 gallons of water, and two boxes of capri sun for baby bliss and i.

the bank (my next stop) is another 3-5 minutes up the road. i parked and sashayed across the parking lot and before i could reach the sidewalk, my phone rang. it was baby bliss calling to tattle on grandma: grandma was washing our dishes; grandma was doing our laundry; grandma was putting stuff away in the wrong place(s).

yeah, i knew it was coming. it happens every time grandma comes over to help. she knows no limits on what she's here to do.

not that i don't appreciate her help because i absolutely do. it's just that we have to do additional work after she leaves, to put things in the places we're used to seeing them and/or finding things that we missed and having to find them days and weeks later.

everyone in the bank probably heard me yelling at baby bliss (who had put the phone down) to give grandma the phone. i could hear them in the background, baby bliss talking to grandma like grandma was a 2 year old, trying to get her to sit down and watch t.v.

grandma wasn't having any of it. she fussed and fussed and would not come to the phone. i knew i needed to get home before grandma put baby bliss in the oven.

but i wasn't done running my errands. so i went to the post office to mail my sister's birthday gift (we share the same birthday) and check my p.o. box.

on the way home i passed my cousin who was headed to her house. we waved and i turned around and went back to her house, where we gossiped and talked to neighbors for about 30 minutes.

it turned out that grandma's pressing date was cancelled and she stayed here with us for another few hours.

baby bliss talked grandma into taking her to the pool and i had some peace and quiet while my arms regained their blood flow (after i carried several gallons of water up umpteen steps).

i was doing good until #2 auntie called to ask what i was gonna fix grandma for dinner.

say what?

good that she called tho because grandma had been here all day without eating. (she does that all the time. she eats well but not a lot. i have never seen her eat more than one plate of food ever in my life.)

now y'all know y'all have never seen a blog post about me cooking. but while #2 auntie was on the phone, i checked the freezer. thank God mr. bliss buys so much food. we had chicken breasts, corn on the cob, and green beans in the freezer.

i put the chicken in a bowl of water to thaw out, tossed the corn and green beans in the steamer, and heated up the counter grill. i thought i could just grease the grill with olive oil and things would progress naturally.

ha!

i didn't have enough oil and what little bit i did have rolled into the gutter because unbeknownst to me, our building and/or kitchen counters are not level. i put the chicken on the grill any way and it stuck to the grill in an unappetizing manner.

impromptu thinker that i am, i grabbed the butter and began greasing the griddle. it worked well enough and by the time i was done cooking the chicken, all the evidence was gone so i didn't tell anyone.

when i went out on the balcony to flag down baby bliss and grandma at the pool, i saw mr. bliss rounding the corner into the parking lot. there was enough for us all and i knew he would be totally surprised that his wife cooked a real meal.

the pool people couldn't hear me so i went down to retrieve them. baby bliss the water nymph was pissed. she didn't want to leave her wet habitat and refused to eat after her shower and shampoo.

grandma and mr. bliss munched happily on their vittles. i was too busy to get a real plate so i chomped on a chicken sandwich while cleaning and trying to coerce baby bliss into eating. then i remembered that the food i fixed wasn't exactly to her liking: she's not a big meat eater, green beans usually upset her stomach (for years and years), and eating corn usually makes her itchy around bed time.

she decided to make bean burritos for herself.

grandma and i snuck off to baby bliss's room for additional cleaning. we bagged all her winter clothes and extra blankets to be moved to storage later. i also pruned her clothes, toys, and jewelry stashes and filled a small bag for goodwill. i added it to the big bag of stuff we should be taking up there towards the end of the week.

by the time we took grandma back home, it was after 9 p.m. baby bliss teased her about it because grandma does not play being out in the street at night unless it's church-related.

i think we're leaving thursday (baby bliss and i) and neither of us is packed. i did find time to pull out 20 outfits though. now i need to weed through to see what i'm really taking to wear. i want to take the small suitcase and one other medium-sized bag.