The paints were left over from our little handprint project from a few months ago; when the participation dwindled, Boss-Lady had pushed the paints into a tiny cupboard in the corner of the room and forgot about them. I didn't give them much thought either, until now. Thinking about how close we came to a handprinted carpet and patron makes me cringe.

The paints are now safely locked in my office. At least I've done one thing right today. Naturally, that doesn't come close to counterbalancing:

• Leaving my purse on the front seat of my car with the doors unlocked,
• Forgetting the twenty dollars I was given by a coworker for the library's Christmas charity and leaving it out on the children's desk overnight,
• Once I remembered and recovered the money, forgetting that I had recovered it and spending a panicked ten minutes frantically searching for it,
• Neglecting to contact one of the local preschools to ask them whether they would be in our preschool directory and fair this year, nearly resulting in a political catastrophe (Okay, I have no proof that I actually did this, but I wouldn't be surprised if the slip-up was mine, not the post office's),
• Continually forgetting, until her upset phone call last night, my mother's request for a Photoshopped image of the family together,
• Neglecting to do any Christmas cards so far, even though I had the best of intentions,
• Not displaying even a single ornament in my apartment yet,
• And generally displaying total incompetence in every aspect of my life. Yay, me.

This morning I decided to start getting my act together a bit, and I did several loads of laundry before leaving for work. After all, we leave on Friday afternoon for an extended holiday vacation, and we'll need something to wear. I also called to make myself a hair appointment for my increasingly out-of-control locks, and felt pretty good about my morning's work...that is, until I remembered that I promised Eric that I would go to the back, and I would be running really late, even if I left immediately. Nuts.

I'm swiftly losing my mind, and I have no idea how to stop it. If I could, I'd lock myself in my room for the next few days, just to avoid doing anything else wrong.

Try picking ten really, really good titles for each grade - ones on which parents, teachers, and librarians can all agree - that all happen to also come in audiobook format. It's not an easy task by any stretch. At this point, we're almost done, but we still need about two or three more titles for the second-graders. Any suggestions would be welcomed, but I'm warning you, I've already been through every online source I know, not to mention countless magazine-format review sources. We're genuinely stuck.

And we're also faced with the fact that this little old couple keeps sending us suggestions for titles - books that were published in the 1930's, are mostly out-of-print, and are truly horrible books anyway (a fictionalized account of the history of the San Francisco Trail?). Our saving grace is that, so far, not a one of them has come in audiobook format.

But, as I said before, the weekend is coming, and I'll be free of this whole mess for weeks! Hallelujah!

I'm already tired of winter. I just keep whispering to Little Bit, "Be thankful that this will all be gone by the time you arrive!"

Good night, all!