I'm toe tired!

It appears that I've broken my little toe. And, as usual, my timing is impeccable. Tomorrow is the Christmas Faire. I'll be on my feet from 9:00 a.m., when we start working to light and decorate our booth, to 9:00 p.m., when we finally call it a night and turn the whole mess over to the Take-down Crew.

It all started last week. Don was off work on Wednesday and again on Friday, due to the Thanksgiving Holiday. On Wednesday, he decided that he had had enough with the Toy Room and went to Sam's, returning home with a 6-ft. rolling shelf with pull-out bins. He put it together, starting on Wednesday and finishing on Friday, and then began the job of organizing the Toy Room. For nearly a week, all the large toys were lined up neatly all the way down the hall into our bedroom and around the side of our room. However, at night, after turning out the bathroom lights and heading to the bed, I inevitably tripped over something. Is that when you broke your toe, you might ask? No. Not then. But, after several days of this, I got frustrated enough to move all the toys back into the remnants of a Toy Room.

Don finally finished the job this past Sunday and threatened anyone who left it a mess ever again for the rest of their lives, including me. (The man's starting to sound more and more like me every day.) Then he decided it was time to work on the boy's room. While I vehemently agreed, I was secretly afraid to let him touch it. The truth is, the Boy's Room, while looking terrible, really isn't as bad as it seems. The biggest problem with their room is that they have a lovely, natural wood, 3-shelf bookshelf full of children's books, coloring books, Highlights, and puzzles. And it's impossible to keep them neat. I even find it a huge challenge. I can't blame the boys that the books are piled into little mounds and strewn across the floor. They have too many books, they're all too small, and far too hard to keep standing while you load more onto the shelf.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands and move their bookshelf into the now clean, neat, and spacious Toy Room. Okay, so you dropped the bookshelf on your toe, right? Wrong. While Dane was home sick with his asthma kicking up this week, I had him and Daelyn remove all the books from their bookshelf. Not wanting to block my path from their room, down the hall, and into the Toy Room, I gave some thought to where to stack the books. I finally decided the best place was the floor in the Children's Bathroom - out of the way, two others to use until I got all the books back on the shelf, etc. Dane obediently (now that he was caught up in the neatening craze) removed all the books and piled them in small bundles on the floor in the Bathroom. Then we ran out of the house to something or other. When we returned, it was time to get Daelyn down for his nap, and the bookshelf didn't get moved. Two days later, as I was attempting some laundry, I stuck my head into the Children's Bathroom to discover wall to wall books. Mixed in were dirty clothes and discarded shoes.

How can you live like this? Easy, I respond. I don't ever use this bathroom. Truthfully, I hadn't realized it was that bad because I hadn't been in it. I was ashamed and appauled when I saw the condition and, immediately, moved the bookshelf into the Toy Room. Then I began re-stacking the books, sorting a few of them, and taking them into the Toy Room and placing them on the shelves in neat stacks to be stood up later. Once again, I got called away from my task. By this morning, the floor in the Bathroom was again covered in books (they seem to multiply like rabbits - do books breed?) In frustration, I was determined to make a dent in the Bathroom books before we launched into the Christmas Faire and then preparations for Christmas itself. I grabbed a huge stack, which towered above my eyes, and headed out the Bathroom door when, bang, I ran smack-dab into the doorjam or, at least, my little toe did. I smacked it so hard, it hurt all the way down into the middle of my foot. After shrieking and dancing around on one foot like an Indian at a Pow-Wow for a few minutes, I bent down and tried to move it. I'm sure it's broken. And, the more I walk on it, the worse it feels.

Tonight, in 41 degrees, I was out at the school asking our Set-Up Crew to move a 12' X 20' screened room for me, because it was angled wrong. By the time I got home 2 1/2 hours later (they weren't really THAT slow - I had other things to do, as well), my foot throbbed just sitting still.

I'm drinking a cup of hot decaf Earl Grey tea with cream and sugar. Next, I'm going to take some pain medicine and try to get a good night's sleep. Lord knows, I need one more than most. I have to be prepared to hobble all day and into the night. I wonder if Colonial's wore clogs?