'Cause I'm going to . . . Strawberry Fields Forever . . . and ever.

Sorry, guys. The most appropriate song lyric this week is one of the Beatles' most trippy songs. I suppose you'll forgive me. It's just too appropriate.

BUT FIRST! The winner of last week's "guess what song lyric that was" competition is . . . me! It's from Ingrid Michaelson's "You and I," which is a very cute song. The runner up was EXTREMELY close, though. But the lyric from Sonny and Cher's "I got you babe" is "They say our love won't pay the rent." See? Basically the same thing. So maybe you win too anyhow. And you win . . . another blog post from me. Aren't you excited?

Anyhow, down to the latest hooplah and hulabaloo in my life. (Those two words are fantastic. Whoever coined them should get a monument. I bet it was Shakespeare. He invented most of English, after all. I guess I'll just have to . . . well, visit the monument that already exists. Stratford-upon-Avon, here I come!)

(I'm just kidding. I'm WAY too poor to go to England.)

Last Wednesday, tragedy struck. My grandmother, bless her, came to our home in the dark of the early morning, and kidnapped my poor, unsuspecting mother and two of my poor, unsuspecting sisters, and stole them away across the whole entire country. Okay, fine. My mother and Sarah and Emma knew they had a trip to Washington, DC, and were very excited about it. They left me alone with a house full of boys for a whole week all by myself. (Katie doesn't talk and Hannah was at work or the singles ward. Geez.)

Yeah, they look all studly. That's because Mom was there for this picture to comb their hair. There are several things I have learned from this experience:

• The horrendous experience that is deciding what to make for dinner is nothing to the torturous experience that comes with having to feed people who have opinions about food.
• It is much easier to keep the house clean when you just banish two little kids outside than when there are eight people at home every day.
• Boys don't like salad until you force them to eat it (using starvation tactics) (and threatening).
• HOLY COW I'M SO GLAD THAT KATIE WAS MY FIRST CHILD. I NEED FEMININE INTERACTION.
• Trying to talk to me after a week of just being with the boys is similar to trying to hold a sentient conversation with me at four thirty in the morning when I've been awake for thirty hours straight and have read something ridiculous like Chaucer recently.
• I really dislike video games.

Yeah, I don't really need to expound upon that. At least I had Katie to keep them all in line.

When the girls returned on Tuesday late afternoon, there was hysteria. Everyone kind of had a freak out. It's better now.

But alas, here comes . . . the INVASION OF THE STRAWBERRIES!!!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

Yeah, this is what our house looks like. If any more come, we might actually turn into strawberry people ourselves.

I think my arms have been permanently stained red from topping the strawberries and turning them into jam. Also my pants. But that's not nearly as difficult as stirring the boiling pot, which makes the entire skin of your arm melt and peel off like rubber, and then you start to weep with the sheer heat of the room. It's disgusting.

Yeah, we're gonna have to eat like a gajillion peanut butter sandwiches. Good thing I've rediscovered recently that I love to have about an inch of crunchy peanut butter per sandwich. That stuff is so delicious it almost hurts.