Empty Nest and a LONG Story, but I'm due for one

So I'm allowed to write a long one because my sensor is out of town so he will just have to roll his eyes about it tomorrow. So, here's the low down. I am alone in my very quiet house. It is such a stark contrast from yesterday when there were seven little monkeys bouncing around, bedtime took forever! But it was fun. We had two extras, Sweet Benja and Baby Yubyub from North Carolina. Here is a long sub-story.

I love my brothers and sisters and I have lots and lots of them thanks to the wise choices they made of sweethearts. A couple of my sisters re-gifted brothers that I already had, but that's another story. I am looking forward to having a full and complete set in the near future (Nunu, Squid, Chris - I'm talking to you). But that is off subject (neener neener neener Ryan!). The point is, my sister Cory is AWESOME and I will now tell you a tale that will make you so very grateful for your own set of challenges and difficulties. So, Army sent my brother Jake off to play in the desert for a long time and get all hairy and dirty. Leaving sweet Cory with their four boys. They were floating along until a tornado hit their town, hard. Their house was mercifully fairly untouched considering just up the road people got full on instant sky lights (their roofs got ripped off) or their house just was obliterated. Great big trees snapped like toothpicks, etc. You know, biblical type destruction. That sweet family was living right though, they had their years supply and a generator and they were prepared and while the lack of power for four days was a bit of a downer, and the fact that her oldest had to be taken to the hospital a couple of times for barfing and barfing everything he thought about let alone ate did make the experience a bit more challenging; Cory sailed thru like a champ and seriously was wonderful. The dear girl made a pancake breakfast for the neighborhood the morning after the disaster to help lift spirits for goodness sake!! Then the next week the house was flooded by torrential rainfall. Seriously. Let's just look at it like, "Well, at least we can turn in all the insurance claims at the same time and deal with contractors all at once; like ripping off a huge festering bandaid" Which is pretty much how Cory saw it. By this time her Dad had decided she'd had enough so he flew out to help, he ended up taking her van and three youngest kids home with him to AZ while Cory stayed for the oldest to finish up the school year and get the house put back together. Then they'll fly home to AZ for the summer. The summer in AZ was always the plan but if it were me, I would have been home crying to my Mom and sitting in the pool after disaster #1. But that's just me. THEN, a few days after the flood and after the boys had been sent away (you know, like they did with the kids in London during WWII and they were being bombed so they sent them to the countryside) she had a natural gas leak in the house. She felt nauseous, tired and couldn't keep anything down then she smelled gas. . . She said as she laid on the front porch on a discarded and dirty mattress that had been wrecked by some natural disaster or another waiting for the emergency gas repair person, she had fleeting thoughts of testing the gas leak theory by simply lighting a match and tossing it in the house. But she was too nauseous and sick to put that theory to the test. I might have made the effort. The gas leak fixed, she returned to work repairing the house with a gusto and effort that is crazazy to imagine. The contractors who were repairing the roof had left some debris out front that had to be moved in order to secure the perimeter (Army wife and all) so she decided to move the stuff herself. She was almost done moving it all when she dropped a sheet of roofing plywood on her very own foot. Roofing plywood is not light. Of course nobody was around so she drove herself to the emergency room (no valet parking, if that isn't the biggest oversight in the universe. . .) and had a lovely visit to the hospital. I think I've lost count but it was possibly the third in as many weeks. The x-rays revealed no breaks but her foot is understandably painful. When we talked she was camped on the couch with Olive Garden take out, Almond Rocca and a superhero icepak on her foot. She planned to watch tv, not move, and possibly nap. I think it is a pretty good plan. Don't you?

So that's why I had Benja and Yubsie yesterday. They had a sleepover and it was lots of fun. Benja's twiner Grant stayed with other Grampa because he had a sad tummy. It was sad that we didn't have the full set, but they will come play with us again next week. I had to give them back this morning so the other side can play with them too. They are sweet kids. On the way home from the big drop-off I met up with my Mom and gave her her Mother's Day gift, got my grandmother's dry cleaning from Mom and took it to GG, and stopped at a couple of stores on the way home to get stuff for the camping trip because my wonderful Ryan took our boys to the Father Son's Campout tonight, my brother David went too with his two boys. They are going to have lots of fun. I hope nobody gets lost, but since I already had to chase after them with their bag of clothes. . . I'll be doing a lot of praying tonight. Amanda took two of my remaining girls to the movies and the last little person had an invite to a friend's birthday party leaving me alone. Able to finish a thought. Able to sit and eat a plate of spaghetti despite the shambles of a house I am in. It has been a good day.