Korea 2014: Week 14 - Starting the Second Trimester

Monday marked three months since Brandon left, and roughly six months until he will be home again.  So we are now in the "second trimester" of this deployment.  (You know you've been pregnant a lot when you divide time into trimesters.)

I took the kids to McDonalds for ice cream cones to celebrate the fact that we have survived the last three months.  I didn't bring anyone along to help with the kids.  I think that speaks volumes about how well the kids and I have adjusted to life without Brandon during these last 14 weeks. 

I ordered French Fries and Chicken Nuggets for us to share.  Charlotte ate most of the fries and Veronica helped me with the Chicken Nuggets. Lydia and Derrick were just content with ice cream.

The rest of the week was fairly routine, and not particularly note worthy. I didn't even take many pictures. Here are the few things that I got the camera out for.

Derrick has FINALLY warmed up to his birthday presents.  He loves his Cars cars - especially the two Lightning McQueen cars.  He carries them all around and lines them up. He likes to sleep with the cars.  He took both Lightning McQueens to the Doctors office when he had to get shots this week.  He took one of them to church today.  I'm glad he finally likes his cars the way I thought he would.

Veronica is EVERYWHERE.  She loves to crawl.  She especially loves to crawl  onto the linoleum.  I don't know if it's because we have a bigger house with more space to crawl, but she seems to explore more than the other kids did at this age.

This week I solved two major problems that have been plaguing me for months.  1. Is that I finally found a way to deodorize my garbage disposal.  For months its been a disgusting cesspool of stinky smells.  I found some tutorials on pinterest and cleaned it out, but within a day it would be stinky again.  

Maddy told me about these things called Plinks that deodorize garbage disposals.  I've been looking for them at the store for weeks, but I haven't been able to find them.  I have a hard time finding things in stores because I'm really unobservant.  Like REALLY unobservant.  Brandon once hid an ice cream birthday cake in plain site in the freezer and I never noticed it.  So it took me a while to finally find the package of Plinks.  But once I found them and used them - WOW.  My garbage disposal doesn't stink anymore.  Success!

The other big problem I solved involved my vacuum.  This has been an ongoing saga starting over two years ago when I killed our vacuum by sucking up a table cloth on accident.  This was when Brandon had been unemployed for four months, so we couldn't afford to buy a new one.  Fortunately Brandon was doing odd jobs for my Jr High TLC teacher Mrs Snowden and she gave us her old vacuum.  

That vacuum worked great up until a few months ago when it needed new vacuum bags.  I couldn't find them anywhere.  And it wasn't just my obliviousness causing the problem.  Elder and Sister Coombs were helping me track them down and we couldn't find them at any stores in the area.  I ended up ordering them off of www.totalvac.com/.  

The vacuum bags arrived, but then the vacuum was clogged.  And after I fixed that the belt started breaking.  It officially broke last week when Elder and Sister Coombs came over to help out while I took a nap.  I sent off a text to my neighbor Ange asking if we could borrow her vacuum.  She'd offered her old vacuum when I'd been having vacuum bag problems.  I went to take a nap.  When I woke up Elder Coombs was bringing a new vacuum inside my house.  

I assumed it was from Ange.  That evening I saw her outside and told her thank you.  She looked confused and told me that she hadn't had a chance to bring it over yet.  I was really surprised and confused myself.  I was wracking my brain trying to remember my conversation with the Coombs'.  Had they brought their vacuum and I assumed it was Ange's but they were too polite to correct me while I put it in my closet?

I was baffled until the next morning when I talked with my new next door neighbor.  She said something that made me realize I had her vacuum.  I'm still not sure how I ended up with it, but I'm glad to know that I have awesome new neighbors.  

Anyway, Ange brought over her vacuum and I gave back the other one.  I thought we'd just use Ange's for the time being.  

On Monday my sister Emily called me for my opinion on a vacuum that she was thinking of buying to go with her new home.  She told me the features and the price and then asked me if I thought it was a good deal.  I replied with "Yes, and I'm going to buy one too!"

So anyway, long story short (too late - I know) I now have a brand new Shark Lift Away Vacuum.  I think our carpet it like 6 shade lighter now that all the dirt from the last few months has been sucked up.       

And lest any of you think I'm a different person buying new appliances and all, here are some pictures of things I have pulled off of the curb lately.  I found this twin bed head and foot board that came with the sides and the hardware just sitting on the curb.  I thought that I would grab it for my sister's son, but after I got it home I found out he didn't need it.  So now I'm just saving it for when my kids start out growing their cribs.  (Yeah they are all still in cribs.)

I've been looking for chairs at yard sales lately, but I haven't had any luck.  Then I found this chair a few houses away from the bed.  Yes it's missing the seat, but everything else is solid.  The seat will be easy to replace.

That isn't the only chair I've found on a curb. I found this one the same day.  The front legs aren't attached to the seat, which would be a problem for an adult. But they are still strong enough to support a baby.  So now Veronica has a real chair for her high chair.

Today I saw another chair on a curb on the way to church.  We were running late so I told myself that we would pick it up if it was still there after church.  At church my friend Ashley asked if I'd seen the chair.  I said yes and she said that she'd put it in her car for me.  That's friendship for ya.  So now my search for more chairs is over and I didn't have to spend any money.  Yay!

Here's a cute picture of Derrick sleeping with his cars.  It's been kind of hard for Charlotte and Lydia to remember that the cars are really Derrick's.  They had a lot of fun with the cars while Derrick was indifferent to them.  They would put them to bed and feed them and basically treat them like dolls.

And here is one of Veronica sleeping.  She's too mobile for swaddling anymore so that's been kind of an adjustment for us.  We are getting it figured out though.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for this week.  It's nice to know that we have made it this far through the deployment.  I'm fairly certain that we will last through the next six months.