I have gotten quite a bit done, although not as much as I would like

So much bending has my back hurting, so I'm taking a break. The bedroom is in good shape; I've done pretty well with the bathroom, living area, and dining area. The kitchen's still a mess; I need to run a load of dishes and do some hand washables as well. I have one bag of trash and seven bags of recyclables plus several cardboard boxes that need to go (all the time I was laid up, I had one hamper of recyclables that went out--otherwise they've piled up). (They're not huge bags, but it's still a lot.)

I've been following a news story all day, and apparently it still hasn't been resolved. It is very scary. I hope things will work out so the little boy is saved and the gunman can never menace anyone again. I'm amazed he was free and still had guns after some of the stuff he has been doing: Suspected Alabama gunman holed up with boy in bunker after school bus shooting

A gunman holed up in a bunker with a 6-year-old hostage kept law officers at bay Wednesday in an all-night, all-day standoff that began when he killed a school bus driver and dragged the boy away, authorities said.

SWAT teams took up positions around the gunman's rural property and police negotiators tried to win the kindergartener's safe release.

The gunman, identified by neighbors as Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 65-year-old retired truck driver, was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a shotgun.

He had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning to answer charges he shot at his neighbors in a dispute last month over a speed bump.

The standoff along a red dirt road began on Tuesday afternoon, after a gunman boarded a stopped school bus filled with children in the small town of Midland City, population 2,300. Sheriff Wally Olson said the man shot the bus driver when he refused to hand over a 6-year-old child. The gunman then took the kindergartener away.

"As far as we know there is no relation at all. He just wanted a child for a hostage situation," said Michael Senn, a church pastor who helped comfort the traumatized children after the attack.