illguthlife: As simple as it gets around here

This week was defined more by what didn't happen than by what did happen.

What didn't happen was a concert. The Magic Valley Symphony was supposed to have a concert on Friday, but our piano soloist - who the whole concert revolved around - got COVID. So that cancelled the concert. That also cancelled the dress rehearsal on Thursday night. And it cancelled the pre-concert slideshow I was in charge of making.

So that opened up a lot of my week.

Also Veronica is done with Physical Therapy. So I didn't have to worry about taking her to that two times this week.

So my week felt very relaxing. I mean we still did a lot, but it felt relaxing because we didn't do as much.

I didn't take a lot of pictures from the week, but I'm still going to do a post today, because I don't want to get behind again. Getting caught up took a lot of time last week.

Actually I'm still trying to get caught up. Because I realized I forgot a few very important things in the last two posts.

One is about my birthday. When I put Derrick to be that night he gave me a great gift. Usually I sing him a bedtime song like Itsy Bitsy Spider, I'm a Child of God, or Edelweiss. He asked for Edelweiss on my birthday. And he sang it with me. It was the cutest thing ever.

The second thing I forgot is that my blog post for East Idaho Mom's was published. I'd asked my sister Lindsey to help me write this one because the topic of the post was her idea. It was really fun to collaborate on an idea with her.

The third thing I forgot is something that put me in a great mood for an entire day, and I can't believe I forgot to mention it in last week's post. I even set it up, but forgot to write about it. Let's see if I can get it right this time.

Last week I wrote this about Friday Morning:

I was checking my email and found an email from the school district with the finalized 2021-2022 school calendar. There had been some debate about what the first day of school should be so I was curious what the decision had been. So I downloaded the calendar and was happy to see that the first day of school will be August 16th. We have an end date. The kids will be back in school on August 16th.

Then I was going to add this story to Saturday Morning:

In the morning I stayed in bed for a while. I wasn't sleepy so I was playing on my phone. Our trip to the cabin had put me in the mood to plan a few more trips. I have trips booked through May, but haven't pinned anything down for the summer. So I was looking at possible places and trying to come up with a plan for the summer. I realized the big wild card was a trip to Yellowstone that we'd been thinking about. I needed to nail down the date for that trip and then I could plan around it.

I thought, "We've always wanted to go to Yellowstone in the Fall. Last year the school district gave the kids the Tuesday after Labor Day off, but it didn't work for us to go last year. I've been waiting to see if they'll do that again."

Insert long pause here.

Then I realized, "Oh My Gosh, I looked at the new calendar yesterday. I didn't even think to look at that weekend!"

I immediately pulled up the calendar again. Yes, the Tuesday after Labor Day was a day off of school. And the Friday before was an early out. I started looking up Yellowstone campsites right away. It was hard to do that on my phone so I hurried and got up so I could use my laptop.

I looked up a few things, talked to Brandon to make sure he was on board, and then booked 4 nights at the Canyon Village Campground for Labor Day Weekend.

This put me in SUCH a good mood. This summer will mark four years since we lived in Yellowstone. We've talked about going back for a visit ever since we moved away, but it just hasn't worked out. Now we are finally going to go back.

With the Yellowstone Trip finally on the calendar I could begin to see when and where our other trips could happen. I penciled them in, but didn't book anything yet. I wanted to, but couldn't. We know we want to go to the Utah Side of Bear Lake in July, but those reservations don't open up until 4 months before the date of stay. And our trips for June and August are to places that don't fill up super fast so I don't need to make reservations for those places yet. Plus we are kind of waiting to see what's going on with our extended families' plans before we set our summer plans in stone. But at least I have a tentative plan.

I was in such a good mood the rest of the morning. Brandon told me, "I love it when you plan things, it makes you so happy. It's worth the money just for that."

Okay, now we can talk about what happened this week.

First up, I have a new office at work! And I completely forgot to take pictures of it. Oops. But let me tell you about it.

I had been sitting at the front desk. When I was at work I took care of the receptionist duties while also taking care of the billing side of things. The company was small enough and the phone didn't ring that much so it wasn't a big deal to balance the two jobs.

That is until January. January was a busy month. I felt like I could never get on top of things. I only work about 12 hours a week so I'm busy the whole time I'm at work anyway. Plus we added two new clinicians so that increased my workload. And the phone seemed to be ringing a lot more than usual. Every phone call for a new client seemed to take about 20 minutes. And I just didn't have that kind of time.

Thankfully my boss noticed my growing stress levels. Before I even asked, he proposed a schedule change. He'd have our afternoon receptionist increase her hours so she could work in the morning at the same time I was working. This was great!

We had an extra computer in our breakroom so I moved in there while the receptionist used the front desk. It was so nice to have someone else covering the phone. I could focus on taking care of billing and payments without being interrupted. But I felt kind of cut off in the breakroom. We keep the door closed to the breakroom (so clients don't see the fridge when they first walk in) and I didn't like having a closed door between me and the waiting area.

Fortunately for me, one of our offices became available. When we first moved into our new office we'd rented out the smallest room to another therapist from Burley who was trying to build up some clientele in Twin Falls. The room was more of a glorified closet and we weren't even fully using the three big rooms yet so it made sense to rent it out. But now our company had tripled in size. (From three employees to nine.) And that glorified closet was looking like it would be nice to have available. At the same time the therapist that rented the room decided that he'd rather work in Burley 5 days a week. So he decided it was time to end his rental agreement. He's a nice guy so it was sad to see him go, but that didn't stop me from putting dips on the tiny office.

We decided that I'd use the office in the morning and then it would be available for therapy in the afternoon. Over the weekend my boss was able to move a small desk, a futon, and my filing cabinet into the office. When I got to work on Monday the office was ready for me. I hunted around our back rooms and found a few pictures that hadn't been hung up yet. They made the office look great. But one wall was still blank. I planned to stop at DI and see if I could find a nice picture for a couple dollars.

Anyway, having the office was super nice. I could still hear what was going on at the front desk and help out if needed. And I could talk to clients about their bills in privacy. That actually came in handing the very first day. I haven't had an office with walls since I worked in Yellowstone so I'm super happy about this change.

Back at home, the kids had to take their I-Station tests for the month. They hate these so I try to keep the rest of the day pretty easy if it's an I-Station day. Derrick will usually buckle down and do the test, but this time he was not interested in it AT ALL. He sat at the computer and didn't answer any questions. When I tried to prompt him he just started yelling "No" over and over again. So we paused that test and tried again another day.

Derrick's obstinate mood lasted through the rest of the afternoon. We had horseback riding lessons scheduled for that day and it was supposed to be Derrick and Veronica's turn. But when we got out to the ranch Derrick refused to get out of the car.

Veronica went first while we waited to see if Derrick would perk up. Mary, who is the lady who owns Saddle Up Kids, is so good at her job. She started Veronica out on the same lesson Charlotte and Lydia had had about guiding the horse forward, back, and side to side. But she quickly noticed that Veronica was much more nervous and also slightly off balance. So instead she walked around and led the horse with Veronica riding on the back. While they walked she told Veronica to do things like hold one arm out to the side, touch her head, hold both arms above her head, and other things to help her feel more balanced. It looked an awful lot like the types of exercises Spencer had Veronica doing in Physical Therapy. This is just another way Veronica can work on teaching her wonky vestibular system about how to balance.

Here's Veronica at the end of her half hour lesson.

Derrick still refused to get out of the car so Mary offered to do 15 minute lessons for Charlotte and Lydia. They jumped at that chance. Here's Lydia doing her lesson. She's at the point now where she can walk the horse away from Mary, go around a barrel, and then come back.

And here's Charlotte. I think she can do the same thing as Lydia, but I was busy taking Lydia to the house to go to the bathroom so I missed most of Charlotte's lesson.

Here's Charlotte posing again.

The weather on Monday was an absolutely gorgeous day. It was 50 degrees which felt amazing. It was hard to believe that we'd been sledding only a week earlier and had spent the previous Thursday at a snowy cabin.

Back at home the girls spent a lot of time organizing their room. I'd bought them regular sized hangars earlier because I realized that all their dresses were sliding off the hangars they'd used since they were babies. The girls LOVED the new hangars and were inspired to hang up a lot of their shirts and other clothes. This kicked off organizing a lot of things in their room. The best part was I didn't have to do any of it.

Okay, the next three days don't have any pictures. I'm sorry.

There really wasn't anything too remarkable about this week anyway.

Derrick had speech therapy on Tuesday. I had rehearsal on Tuesday night, but it was nice and laid back. We turned in the awful Gershwin Suite in F Major (that is only in F Major half the time). Our director said that the soloist was able to reschedule for November so we'll be playing that music again later in the year. One of the college students in front of me turned to her friend and said, "We'll I'm graduating this spring, and I won't be looking back." I laughed.

We got new music for our April concert and it's much much more do-able. I felt like a halfway competent musician while sight-reading the new music.

Wednesday night I had an Autism Support Group Meeting. It was the first in person meeting since the fall. Only one other person was able to come, but it was so good talking with her. She made me feel like this is still a good use of my time. And there were several of the regular attendees who would have come, but things came up at the last minute. So I'm feeling hopeful for our March meeting.

Thursday was errand day after school. Charlotte and Lydia didn't want to go so I let them stay home while I took Derrick and Veronica around. Our first stop was the library to pick up some things I had on hold. Derrick wanted to find The Meg movie. But we couldn't find it. He ended up in tears about it. I just couldn't win with that kid this week. He was fine for all his therapists, but for me he was falling apart.

I ended up taking him home and plugging him into Youtube to watch clips of The Meg. Then Veronica and I finished our errands. I'd ordered office supplies for work and needed to pick those up at Office Depot. She was planning to buy stuffed animals. So we still went and did our errands even though no one else came with. I got the supplies and she bought a few stuffed animals. I checked DI for a picture and was surprised to find that all the large pictures were $20. Even the ugly ones. I'd been hoping for something along the lines of $5 so this was more than I was willing to pay. I started to think of other ideas for office art work.

Thursday evening I made dinner and put it into the oven to cook. Then I sat on the couch and read a book. I looked up and realized the sky was still light even though it was 6:15 in the evening. This made me so happy.

On Friday I had a little bit of end of the month stuff to do for work, but it was all stuff I could do from home. So I just took care of that in my pajamas while Brandon took care of his school stuff with the kids. Then I took care of school after he went to work.

Our big focus this week was reports. This is what I later wrote to our mentor when I reported on our weekly work:

Writing/LA: We kept working on reports this week. We checked out books from the library and used those for our reports.

For Derrick and Veronica we read the books and then I just had them tell me about the pictures and things they remembered. I typed up their reports pretty much word for word with what they told me. Derrick liked doing that so much that he actually "wrote" two reports.

Charlotte and Lydia each wrote handwritten notes. Charlotte was able to get her' organized and typed this week. Lydia is still in the handwriting phase. She has 9 pages of handwritten notes. (I suspect that she's doing a lot of word for word copying, but I figure it's good handwriting practice so I'm holding off on a big lecture about plagiarism.) We'll proofread these drafts next week and then make a final draft.

These are Charlotte's notes organized.

And this is Lydia working on copying down things for her report.

Here's our weekly work for the week. (I don't talk much about school but we do do it every day.)

After we were done with school and after I'd reported our work to our mentor I took the office supplies over to my office building. Then Derrick and I went to the Library to pick up The Meg. (I'd requested it on Thursday after I got home from errands. I'd assumed it was checked out and we'd have to wait a week to get it, but I guess it was somewhere in the library because the email saying it was waiting for us came in right away.) This made Derrick much happier.

It was really snowy on Friday afternoon. For a while there the snow was blowing sideways. Lydia called it a blizzard.

After dinner on Friday we watched the second Croods movie. The kids had been eagerly waiting for this to come out on redbox. I wasn't expecting much from this movie. But it was delightfully funny. Also I really really appreciated that the two girls in the movie didn't fight over the one boy. That was a very refreshing storyline.

When the kids were in bed Brandon and I watched WandaVision. AHHHHH so many answers and yet so many questions. Then we watched Captain America Civil War to catch up some more on Wanda and Vision's past. Civil War is super long and talky so we fast forwarded through a lot of it to focus on Wanda and Vision more than Captain America.

We didn't have much planned for Saturday. I told Brandon that basically all I needed done that day was a shelf put up in the bathroom. Last week Brandon had been complaining about our crowded counter in the bathroom (again). I remembered that we had some shelves that we weren't using. I was able to find one of them (the other is MIA somewhere in the house) and stained it. I'd let it dry, but Brandon hadn't had a chance to put it up after it was dry.

So he put it up first thing on Saturday. And it changed the whole feel of the bathroom.

Here is the before picture.

And here is the after. Brandon is so happy to finally have a clear counter.

Last week Charlotte had been jealous when she heard that Lydia and I went to Artic Circle and had shakes. So she wanted her own one on one lunch. So we did that. Then we went to buy paint for an idea I'd had for my office.

When Charlotte got home it was time for me to spend time with Brandon. We've realized the kids are finally old enough that we can leave them home with out a babysitter for a little while. This makes it so much easier to go on dates. This week we walked over to the new D&B store that is super close to our house. D&B is a garden/farm/tool store. I bought a lot of garden stuff at the old store last year. Now that they are open right by my house I'm sure I'll buy even more stuff there.

We had a lot of fun walking around the store and looking at EVERYTHING. Brandon asked me if I could have anything in the store what would it be. I told him I wanted the bags of cow manure for my garden. He said, "I'm looking for Mother's Day ideas here, I can't get you manure for Mother's Day."

Then we walked to Smiths and bought a bag of Peanut M&M's. We ate that while walking home. This date may sound lame, but it's actually the type of date we would do before we had kids. It was so great to feel like we had the freedom to take our time walking around stores again.

Back at home the kids and I went to work on the idea I'd had for art in my office. I asked each of the kids to paint a picture of a different season. Charlotte did Spring, Lydia did Summer, Derrick did Fall, and Veronica did Winter.

Everyone had fun doing this project together. Derrick needed a bit of help, but he followed directions really well.

Here are the finished paintings. I love them all so much. I'll put them up in my office next week and I promise I'll remember to take pictures.

I'd told the kids I would pay them for their art work. But I didn't actually have any cash on hand to pay them. So I wrote up little Bills of Sale as IOU's.