Oh, Sunday

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

A quick note, first. On Thursday evening, I opened up TweetDeck, and when I got a prompt to update Java, I said yes.

And then my computer died.

Ok, it wasn't quite as quick as that...but it started going slower...and slower...and then I started to get error messages. "XX program has encountered an error and has shut down." "Virus protection has encountered an error and has shut down." "Media Center has encountered an error and has shut down." And on and on. I couldn't stop it and I couldn't figure out what was going on.

By Friday, the computer was just limping along enough to get some files backed up. I was able to run a virus program, and it pulled out two trojans and a few "exploit files", all (oddly enough) named "Java".

On Saturday afternoon, I wiped the computer clean and started over. That means all the blog posts I had started are gone. All of my pictures are now safe on an external hard drive...but getting them into these blog posts seems a bit tedious at the end of the day. So, just bear with me!  (Saturday night was much nicer - my blessed mother stayed with the kids while Lo Gung and I got dressed up and had a night on the town. A fabulous dinner at SeaStar, some shopping at the mall, and just some time to catch up. In honor of our fifth anniversary, I picked out something nice and wooden at Crate and Barrel - a bamboo honey twirler. This, of course, left Lo Gung free to pick up something he'd been eying last week - a beautiful bright red vase, on sale for just $12.95. It looks great on our mantle. We came home to find the kitchen clean, the children asleep, and my mother...who had just woken up from a nap. As it turns out, if the kids cooperate with bedtime, the rest of the night is quite relaxing for her!)

I'm a bit scattered tonight. My Sunday morning began at 7 am with an alarm, followed shortly by a flurry of crazy e-mails after I realized that I was heading off to lead a choir rehearsal at 8 am....that nobody else knew about. (Niiiice.) Sent off some e-mails, showered, dressed, got things as ready as I could for Lo Gung (who would have to get the kids dressed, fed and off to church without my help!) and snuck out the door. Off to church...and everything's locked up. An angel named Rebecca showed up with keys, and we got the party started. All four of us. For choir rehearsal.

Let me just insert here that church? Lately? Is just plain Crazy Ville. I can remember, when Ming Wai was too old to sit still and too young to attend the nursery classes, thinking how pointless church was. Because I spent three hours in the hallway, chasing after a cranky toddler. I remember kindly grannies pointing out that it WASN'T pointless. I was setting a precedent - on Sundays, we go to church. Simple. As. That.  Well, I'm now well out of that crazy in-between stage with both of my kids, but church still takes on a smidge of the manic every week. Choir rehearsal at 8 this morning, followed by Sacrament service. I conduct the music, which leaves Lo Gung alone in our pew with both kids. Generally, from my position on the stand, I can hear Siu Jeun belting out complete nonsense during the hymns, while studiously poring over the hymn book. "We thank thee oh God for a prophet.." "GAAABWWWAAAAALLLLA HAA! HAA! HAA!!" It's touching, really.

I come back down for about 20 minutes while the speakers are....speaking, and then head back up for the closing hymn. Today, though, the music included a choir number. Miraculously, the choir grew in the ten minutes before church, and we actually sounded very nice! Sacrament Meeting was followed by two hours of subbing in the Primary, teaching the 5 year olds. (With one short break while I changed a messy diaper.) (Are you doing the math, yet? By the time Primary was done, I'd been at church for four hours.)

Primary was, of course, followed by a choir rehearsal. (The morning one was an emergency rehearsal because the choir was scheduled to sing, and only two people had shown up to our last rehearsal.) At one point during the rehearsal, both of my children were wrapped up in curtains behind me, screaming and laughing as loudly as humanly possible. Why? Why not?! They'd been in church for three hours and their "lunch" was granola cookies I'd brought to lure hungry, tiredpeople into choir. Several minutes later, Siu Jeun came up and pulled on my skirt. "Mommy? Go...home.....now??" (If any of you have met Siu Jeun, you know that is how he talks. There are pauses between each word as he carefully constructs new sentences. It's pretty cute...and highly imitable.)

So, there you go. Sunday. This evening, I hosted the weekly family meal. My parents, my four siblings, plus a roommate, a girlfriend, a husband, and two daughters. We were 14 tonight. And we ate ribs and pumpkin pie and laughed and talked and my children slowly melted down into screaming, sobbing, laughing piles of pajamas and pie-smudged faces.

They're asleep now. They both went down without so much as a peep, and I believe were both passed out within ten minutes. The house is quiet, and I've stayed up way too late. Around 11, I convinced myself that I'd earned a bite (or four) of leftover apple pie. (It was delicious!)