When it rains, it pours.

Those five little words have become an everyday saying in my family for more reasons than one, lately. But today, the rain of all rains for southern Pennsylvania made the words ring even more true as farms flooded, roads were shut down and we ran from car to store and back in an attempt to stay as dry and warm as possible.

Rainy days are good for a few things like breakfast with the guys and trips to Borders; being lazy and spending an afternoon with Kasey; fighting Aiden in Target but finding the perfect bedspread. All in all, we need rainy days once in a while to take a step back from our hectic lives and to simply relax a little.

Despite the rain, and the start of spring break, it's been a busy weekend... Beginning with a day of house work. And not your typical "house work" of cleaning, dusting, mopping or laundry. More like work involving paint thinner and lysol, moving heavy furniture and well..

The only way to rebuild a house from the inside out is to remove all furniture and belongings from inside. Unfortunately, we have no where else to store it and so into the yard it goes. The couches are just the beginning. TVs, bookshelves, bags of clothes, microwaves, a refridgerator... everything we owned literally the lawn for the day as we worked to get as much done as we could.

We're in an odd stage of getting the house ready - between the demolition and the carpeting. Yesterday, fifteen of us gathered on my desk for meetings on just what we could do to get started. Teams were made and work got started. Somehow we managed to get brooms and mops in the hand of boys? Imagine that.

We learned that it does indeed take fifteen college-aged kids to clean one room and that cleaning consists of burning the walls with paint thinner and clearing the remaining smoke with horrible, I mean, lemon, scented lysol. A little bit like "wax on, wax off young grasshopper." I happen to have fabulous friends willing to spend their first day of spring break doing such ridiculous things in a wonderful attempt to help my family. (Thank you, guys.)

Furniture was carried down the narrow, hobbit-like, stairs and into the yard. It's a bit of a rush-hour game where we move furniture and contents from room to room as we need to. Tetris with couches or something of the sort. Somehow in the mix of things though, a day was spent in the hospital and I ask that you keep Austin Wilson in your thoughts as he spends his spring break recovering from trying to be a nice guy. So, a long day it was. A long day which was ended with an astronomy exam and seeing "Take Me Home Tonight". Why the movie was titled that? I'm really not sure but it was funny none the less. We carried the fun of the movies into this morning after a long night of sleep with the release of Pokemon.

[No, the photo on the right wasn't staged at all. I'm not sure they even know a photo was being taken. Prieless.]

After all the excitement of the cutest new pokemon, the boys were hungry and to breakfast we went. In typical Jen fashion, I had already eaten and simply sipped my hot chocolate as the boys mispronounced their orders to our rude server. Classic. The highlight of breakfast though?

"Mommy, I WANT TO WIN THE LIGHTBULB!" Real classy, Camp Hill.

In an attempt to redeem ourselves from the 10am trip to Game Stop, we detoured to Borders after breakfast. I don't know that I've ever been to Border's in sunny weather but today's rain only added to my regret for the "Store Closing" sign which hangs across the top of my favorite book store.

We are currently in the process of replacing our 280 books filled with smokey pages and the only upside of the store closing are the low prices. Unfortunately, the low prices are directly proportional to the disarray of the displays.

I panned through my favorite books - coffee table books of Pollock's works and the photography of Ansel Adams - dreaming of the day when my living room coffee table will be delightfully arranged with a handful of books ranging from Monet to the newest PostSecret addition. One book that won't be there?

I have to say that I think the 75% off has less to do with Christmas and more to do with the author but, what do I know.

A pair of ballerina book ends also caught my eye. Thirty percent off? Hm.

On the other hand, the boys learned a thing or two about Facebook and managed to pace between the CD and DVD racks for almost an hour.

The busy-ness of the day didn't end with books, though. Instead, I spent the afternoon setting up FaceTime, play Scoops and laughing (as always) with Kase. Quite possibly my favorite rainy (or sunny or snowy) day thing to do. Though I don't have pictures to prove it, believe me when I say that she looks fabulous as always - even in lime green jammies.

But like I said, when it rains, it pours. Luckily, this weekend, it was a happy rain to remind me how blessed I am to have fabulous friends, the best boyfriend, a wonderful (read: crazy) family, and Kasey (all the Griffiths, really) in my life.