Not much to talk about, but we are doing this anyway

Okay, in an effort to NOT get behind and have to do a long recap in a few weeks I'm going to do a quick post. This is about just the last week. Not much happened, but well there's still a little bit to talk about. 

First up is Brandon's new favorite book.  It's called How to Be Everything by Emilie Wavnick. She's the lady who did that TED talk I shared last week. Brandon is loving this book and is always telling me, "This describes me so much!

My mom usually send me emails with reactions to my blog posts.  This is part of what she wrote about last week's post:

Flexibility – . . . Brandon had this this week because
there he was putting together that bureau for your children’s
teachers’ lounge, a jeep, and searching for art work for a mother’s
nursing lounge! He’s probably whipped up something good to eat
in the kitchen this week too!

Little did she know that Brandon had been making this cake with the kids while I was writing the blog. 

This week Brandon added a few more things to his quest to be everything, but we'll talk about those as we get to them. 

Monday was a new short day for the kids at school. School had been cancelled due to lack of teachers and subs on Friday. They did have school on Monday but it got out at 12:45 so that teachers could have time to prep things for any of their students who were distance learning thanks to covid. 

I was at work so Brandon took care of picking up the kids from school early. 

Um let's see . . . . . I can't really think about anything else of note about Monday.  So here's a picture of my amaryllis. It was helping a lot with my winter blues. Most of the week was cold and dreary. So it was nice to have a plant to look at.  

Tuesday Derrick was suppose to have Boys activity at the church, but it was cancelled because the leaders didn't feel comfortable having it while there was so much covid going around. 

But we still went to the church anyway that night.  Charlotte and Lydia had interviews with the Bishop to get Temple Recommends. They were really excited to get them.  But I think it will be a while before we actually go to the temple.  When I got online to make appointments for Baptisms all the weekend appointments were already taken. And none of us were interested in getting up early to go before school. 

On Wednesday I had to go over to the elementary school to make copies of a flier for a "Hat Day."  The copier at the school was HUGE and super intimidating, but I got it figured out. 

When I'm at the school everyone always tells me funny stories about my kids.  Most of the stories involve Derrick.  When he gets frustrated at teachers he yells, "You're FIRED!" at them. But then the next day they are friends again.  On a positive note, the social worker was telling me about how Derrick met a new para that day.  He shook her hand and said, "Please to meet you" and was so polite. She said, "I just love Derrick!  I don't know if I could handle him after school, but I love working with him."

Brandon ran a bunch of errands on Wednesday.  One of them was to DI.  I knows I've been on the lookout for a coffee table so when he saw one for a good deal he bought it.  We put it in the living room after school. It's so the kids can build with their legos on it.  After 4 years of stepping over lego piles and creations the legos are finally off the floor.  We should have done this years ago. 

Boys activity had been cancelled, but girls activity was not.  So Veronica had that on Wednesday night. They did a show and tell.  She brought her stuffed lion. 

Wednesday was much calmer than it would have been. Derrick's behavioral therapy was cancelled due to Mr Kelly still needing some time to recover. And Charlotte and Lydia didn't have Young Womens. The Youth activity for the week was actually a ski trip that was happening on Saturday.  But Charlotte and Lydia weren't interested in that. So Wednesday night was rather chill. 

At some point Charlotte and Lydia made this sculpture of a dragon based on a drawing that Lydia did.  They made the dragon out of a paper towel tube, a graham cracker box, tin foil, and duct tape. 
On Thursday I had to be at the elementary school at 7:30 to talk to the Principal. I had concerns about Veronica's reading and was wondering where we were in the process of getting her tested for any learning disabilities.  The principal wanted to talk about it in person because it was a lot to write in an email. So we had a good discussion about that. 

At work later that day I thought the 'Rona had finally caught up to me.  My throat hurt a little bit and I felt a little dizzy.  I was like, "Well this is it then."  I finished up work and went home and laid down on the couch.  I was not feeling well at all.  But I felt better after the nap. So either that was my 4 hour bout with a really weak form of Omicron, or it was just nothing. 

It's a good thing that I wasn't sick because Friday was a very important day.  It was Brandon's first day of work in over a month!  

He still didn't know exactly what he wanted his next career move to be, but he also wanted to be earning money while he figured it out.  So he applied to be a Substitute for the school district and was hired.  He'd been nervous before his interview and I'd told him, "Basically the only qualification right now is to have a pulse and a clean background check." He said that one of the only questions in the interview had been, "What does the word dependable mean to you?"

So anyway, he'd had to complete some paperwork and training plus pass a drug test and get finger printed.  But when all that was over he had access to the database with all the available jobs in the district.  

And the first job he picked was the computer lab teacher at our kids' elementary school. He also had the option to sub Lydia's class, but he wasn't sure he was ready to take on a whole class of elementary aged kids yet.  

When I told Derrick that Brandon would be at the school the next day he told me, "No, Daddy is supposed to be at his work!"

On Friday morning we all walked over to the school like we do every day. Then Brandon went inside with the kids and I went home. 

He said it went really well. Lydia had computers for her rotation class that day so she was able to see Brandon. that was fun for her. 

Brandon said he read through the notes the previous subs had left.  One of them said something like, "In this class there was one boy who refused to do any work and just wanted to play games.  His name was Derrick Illguth."

Meanwhile I was enjoying a perfectly quiet house.  It hasn't been bad to have Brandon home the last few weeks, but it was nice to have the whole place to myself again.

Here's a picture of me studying on Friday.  I use the clipboard to take notes while I read the lessons on my laptop. The lessons were good, but also boring. So this is how I was coping. But I made it through all the reading I needed to do before another test.  So that was good. 

When I was done studying I went over to the school to collect the money for Hat Day.  This was an easy fund raiser that PTO was doing. The students could pay to wear a hat.  If they had a school hat it was only $1. If they wore any other hat they had to pay $2. 

None of my kids had been interested in paying to wear a hat and so I wasn't expecting much money to come in from this fund raiser.  But I love counting cash so I was excited about the chance to do that - no matter how small the amount might be.  

I was actually pleasantly surprised. Each class turned in about $4-12 dollars.  When all was said and done I counted $146.00!  Over $100 of it was in 1s and we had at least $20 in quarters. 

I'd had to go around and track down the money bags from a few of the teachers.  While I was doing that I ran into Derrick, Lydia, and Charlotte.  I never did see Veronica or Brandon but it was fun to know that we were all in the same building.  

I was thinking about how right now the elementary school is such a focal point of our lives. This is the first year that all the kids go to the same school full time. But in just a few months that will change. This is the last year that Charlotte and Lydia are in elementary school.  They will be in middle school next year and that's going to change our lives a lot. They will start school about 10 minutes later than Derrick and Veronica.  They will walk a different direction to get to school.  (Though the middle shcool is also really close to our house.) They will get home later than Derrick and Veronica. 

The kids will never be in Middle school all together.  Charlotte and Lydia will obviously be together.  And the next year Derrick will join them for two years.  But Veronica's first year of Middle school will be Charlotte and Lydia's first year of high school. 

The next time all the kids will be in school together will be Charlotte and Lydia's Senior Year of Highschool.  Derrick will be a Junior, and Veronica will be a Freshman. That year will be very different than this year of Elementary school, but it's still really cool that all the kids will have another year when they can all be together at the same school. 

Anyway, enough about that.  

When I was done counting the money at the school I took it to the bank.  I'd been dead on with the count this time. (I love it when that happens.)

Then I went to work and got a lot done there.  Brandon was able to walk home with the kids and when I got home from work EVERYONE told me about their days. 

Charlotte and Lydia had their first ever non-cousin sleep over on Friday night.  I've been really strict about no sleepovers and wasn't planning on letting the girls have a sleepover until they were at least in Middle school.  But I changed my mind at least in this particular case.  Charlotte and Lydia are best friends with another set of twins.  They've known them since 3rd grade and the girls have been over at our house a couple times. I've got to know their mom really well and she and I talked and decided that we were comfortable letting our girls have a sleep over. 

So at 5 o'clock sharp I took the girls over to their friends' house and dropped them off.  They had a great evening.  I'd been worried they'd stay up until Midnight, but they went to bed around 9:30. They didn't get scared, and nobody had their feelings hurt.  So it was a huge success.  

Back at home Veronica declared that she was too tired to make dinner and we should just order pizza.  Brandon and I thought that was a great idea.  So we got Little Caesars.  Derrick and Veronica wanted to watch the Lego Movies so we watched both of those.  I slept through most of the first one, but I was awake for the second.  

Derrick and Veronica wanted a sleepover too. Veronica slept on the futon in Derrick's room. 

On Saturday I decided to do a little bit of extra school work. Normally I don't do homework on the weekends, but I realized if I spent an hour on the pre-test I could start the next week with reviewing and get to the real test a lot quicker.  So I took the pre-test.  And it was quickly apparent that I would need all the review time I needed.  

The reading had been a lot of - well, reading.  And the test was a lot of doing. I had to fill in spreadsheets in excel.  I was not quite ready for it to be that hands on. I passed, but I was not comfortable at all with the material.  So I'll be watching a lot of the review videos before taking the real test.  

I picked the girls up from their sleepover.  We came home and worked on cleaning the house.  The family room in the basement had been extra messy lately so we got it all cleaned up. Last week I'd moved the bookcases down there and somehow those combined with the cleaning helped change the whole feel of the room. 

I've unconsciously avoided that room ever since the end of the school year last year.  Too many bad homeschool memories took place down there. But I realized on Saturday that I like that room again. 

After the house was all clean I got out the Valentine's Day decorations and put them up.  I also made this cute wreath.  One of the things I wanted for Christmas this year was a wreath for every season.  Brandon couldn't really deliver that at Christmas time, but he did buy me a heart shaped wreath frame and ribbon and promised me that I could buy things for wreaths all year long.  So on Saturday I made my first wreath of the year.  I used flowers that I already had.  I think it turned out really cute. 

When I was done with that project I moved onto one I'd been avoiding for a long time.  I needed to go through the kids school papers.  We have a box on my desk where I just toss all their papers.  It was starting to overflow. So sat on the floor with the box and starting grouping the papers into piles for each kid and a throw away pile. I made it through that whole box.  I put the papers into folders to deal with later. 

Then I went into the basement and found the box with the homeschool papers.  I've purposely avoided this box, for the same reason I've not liked the family room.  There are just too many traumatic memories in there. 

But enough time has passed now that I could go through them without feeling hopeless and overwhelmed. I got those all sorted and then went digging and found another box with more homeschool things.  These boxes have been haunting me for a while so it was nice to finally deal with them.  

Eventually I'll add the papers to the binders where I keep the kids school work and art, but that's a project for another day. 

Brandon had his own project going on. We'd moved a bookcase into Veronica's room last week and Veronica had VERY specific ideas about how she wanted to display her animals on the top shelves.  She told Brandon her ideas and he drew up some plans and got to work. He even had Veronica help with some parts.  

Here's the before picture. 

And here's the after. It's a "Zoo" with chicken wire cage doors. The doors open on hinges. Veronica still has plans to make cardboard dividers on the shelves. But in the meantime she's very happy with these cages. 

Saturday had been such a good day. I think what helped was that it was actually a SUNNY Day.  It was bitter cold outside, but at least there was Sunlight.  I felt better on Saturday than I had in a long time. 

Today when we woke up Derrick was already playing with his Hotwheel cars in the living room.  He wanted Brandon to help him take slow motion videos of the cars so Brandon sat down and did that with him for a while. This is going to sound a little selfish - but I'm so glad that Brandon doesn't have a demanding calling that requires him to be at the church on Sunday morning.  He can just sit on the floor and make silly little movies with his son for as long as he wants. 
Here are the girls hard at work on their lego creations.  This coffee table has been great so far!Our church doesn't start until 1:30 so we have nice looooooong mornings to just relax.  I decided to make a huge batch of banana bread.  I made 4 regular size loaves and 6 mini loaves.  We devoured them!  The mini loaves didn't stand a chance.  They were gone during lunch.  Two regular loaves were gone right after church.  The other two probably wouldn't have made it to bed time, but I hid them in the fridge.

 
And look!  We made it to the end of the post and that only took like 90 minutes to do.  I need to remember how much easier this was. 

As always thanks for reading. 

First three weeks of the year

I know I'm tempting fate by posting this meme, but it's how I feel right now. The highly contagious Omicron Variant of COVID has been in the US since around Thanksgiving time. And it's been affecting my life most of January. My parents had COVID (they are fine now), some of my coworkers tested positive last week, and on Friday the whole Twin Falls School District cancelled school because so many teachers and staff were out sick. 

Today is Sunday and our church has cancelled the second hour of classes. We'll just go for Sacrament Meeting today.

And I'm looking at my healthy family and thinking, "I can't believe we are not sick."

When I took Derrick to his Speech/Occupational therapy appointment on Thursday I had to call the front desk before actually going into the clinic. This has been the check in procedure ever since we started therapy in June of 2020. Every time they ask, "Is anyone in your household sick?" This week they added, "Has anyone in your household been sick in the last week?" I answered, "No, and I have no idea how."

I attribute some of our luck to the vaccines.  The kids were vaccinated almost as soon as they became eligible and were technically "fully immune" the week before Christmas.  Brandon and I also made sure to have our booster shots in December. But we know many people who were vaccinated who had break though infections. 

It's also likely that we had some mild form of COVID and never knew it. They kids did have some suspicious coughs for a few weeks in December, and there've been several times where I felt sick for a day or two.  But none of those things ever seemed to be like what other people described when they had COVID so I can't say that we already had COVID. 

At this point I'm just kind of waiting for the inevitable. We are going to get it. Quite possibly in the next two weeks.  And in the meantime we are just kind of going about our lives as best we can.   

So let's go back and recap the last three weeks shall we?

Three weeks ago was Sunday January 2nd.  Our church time changed to 1:30.  We had this time a decade ago when the twins were toddlers and I HATED it because it interfered with nap time. But now I love it because it's so nice to have a long relaxing Sunday morning.  Brandon and I can sleep in, the kids can take long baths, we can do a Come Follow Me lesson over a long lunch, and we still have time to leave for church 30 minutes early so we can get a spot on a soft bench.  (I'm sure our ward leaders think we are so faithful because we show up for church 25 minutes early, but really I don't like sitting on the folding chairs and so we get there early to make sure we have a spot on a bench.)

On this day I also had time to take down the Christmas Tree.  The kids and Brandon took off the ornaments and I grouped all the ornaments before packing them up.  Brandon's mom makes each of us an ornament every year so we have many sets of 6. I like to pack them up in sets because that makes it easier to hand them out when we decorate the tree.  

I'd already been slowly packing up one Christmas thing a day for the whole week so there wasn't much else to pack up besides the tree.  We got everything back into the big storage totes and the totes back in the storage space under the stairs.  

I like when the tree is set up because it's pretty, but I'm always happy when we take it down and I feel like we have our living room back again. 

Derrick got a little remote control car for Christmas.  Someone put it inside an empty cheese puff container. Then Derrick would drive it around. It was like one of those hamsters balls. 

Sunday was Charlotte and Lydia's first day attending the Youth Sunday School. They were really nervous, but I told them they would be with the same kids from their Primary class and that their teacher had recently been in the Primary Presidency. When they went to class they ended up having a great time. Not only were they with the kids their same age, they were also with the kids one year older.  I think the girls liked being with older kids instead of little Primary kids. 

Derrick moved up a class and his teacher is one of my friends.  I told her that if Derrick acted up she could come get me right away.  But there weren't any issues.  Derrick is actually really good about sitting through class, and it's helpful that class only lasts about 25 minutes now. 

Veronica also moved up a class.  She's in Derrick's old class and she's pretty proud about that. 

I'd been a little worried about the cough that had been spreading through my kids over Christmas break.  First Veronica had it after the Living Nativity. Then it moved onto Lydia who had it on Christmas Eve.  Then Charlotte had it by New Years Eve. On New Years Day I was considering taking her for a COVID test.  I couldn't imagine the school letting her stay at school with the way she was coughing. 

But on Sunday the cough decreased and by Monday she woke up without much of a cough.  So everyone was able to go to school on Monday morning. 

I had a big day at work. The office was technically closed, but most of the receptionists were coming in so we could all work on verifying and changing insurance for all the clients.  Insurance is kind of weird. You can know that someone's insurance is changing in January, but none of the insurance websites allow you to look up coverage for a future date. So we had to wait until January to actually look up the insurance benefits. So we spent the morning verifying insurance coverage and updating our office billing system. 

Fortunately we'd done a lot of preliminary work in December that made the process go pretty smoothly.  It took 4 of us about 2 hours to get through everything. I was so impressed by how well it went. I'd been worried we'd run into a lot of snags, but it went fine.  

Brandon was the only one of us who didn't have to go anywhere on Monday. He's in kind of a weird spot employment wise.  Technically he's still employed at the RV place.  But they just haven't had enough work for him lately.  Last year he was the only full time employee so there was work for him. But this year his boss added two other full time employees during the summer. Those two keep things running at the shop and Brandon mostly took care of mobile calls.  But there haven't been many mobile calls lately.  

Brandon's boss also seemed to be a little worried about money with three full time employees to keep on staff during the slow winter.  

And this all coincided with Brandon loosing enthusiasm for RV repair in general. He was starting to look at other job options. 

So a week before Christmas Brandon and his boss had a talk.  They were both pretty honest with each other. Brandon wanted to take some time off so he could work on his jeep and explore other career options.  His boss agreed, but also said he'd let him know if he needed any mobile calls taken care of. 

So Brandon took two weeks off of work.  When he checked in with his boss at the end of December it still didn't sound like there was going to be much work so Brandon still didn't go into work at the beginning of January.  

And well three weeks later he still hasn't gone in. 

Before you panic I just want to let you know that we are doing fine financially. Ever since COVID started I've assumed that there would be a point where one or both of us would be out sick or unemployed. So I've squirreled away a lot of our stimulus money to cover expenses in case of a loss of income. Plus I'm still working and that helps. And the very best thing is that we don't have to worry about a huge Student Loan payment every month anymore. 

And actually the whole, "we finally paid off the student loans" thing is one reason Brandon has taken this time off. 

For the first time in his entire adult life he doesn't have a massive student loan hanging around his neck. And it's changing everything about how he views working. When he knew he had the student loans he knew he had to work to pay them off. He took jobs (and joined the Army) in order to provide for his family and pay off that debt.  But now that the loan is gone he's feeling more free. And he's finally able to really take a look at his career options and think, "what do I really want to do with my life?"

It's been really good for him to have this chance to step back. He's been able to go to job interviews without the "gotta get this job" pressure. He's really able to weigh his options. He seems more relaxed than he has since the twins were born.  He's sleeping better than he has in a long time. He's also been able to discover some interesting things about himself. He stumbled onto a Ted Talk about people who are interested in more than one thing. The presenter calls them multipotentialites. 

This video helped him feel better about his tendency to get really interested in something and then loose interest after a while. It also gives some insight into why our marriage works so well.  Here's the video if you are interested.   

So it's been a very productive three weeks for Brandon, just not in any monetarily quantifiable way. 

When school was over on Monday the kids reminded us that we'd never drank the Sparkling Cider that we'd set out on New Years Eve.  (We'd been too tired to open it.) So we opened the bottle and celebrated the fact that everyone had made it successfully through the first day back to reality. 

The return to reality was short lived though. Another snowstorm blew in on Monday night and on Tuesday morning we woke up to early morning texts from the school district announcing a Snow Day. 

We all slept in.  When we did get up Derrick came up stairs and said, "What is going on!" He knew it was passed the time to go to school, but he had no idea why we weren't up. When we told him it was a snow day he was disappointed that he couldn't go to school. 

The other kids were thrilled though. They were so excited that they didn't have to go to school. 

This was something like the 6th major snowstorm in 10 days. None of the previous snow had melted yet. The residential roads still hadn't been plowed and they had something like 10 inches of compacted snow on them. All the yards had huge piles of snow from when the sidewalks had been shoveled.  I actually got one of my furring stakes out of my garden shed to mark where my weeping birch was. It was nearly covered by a pile of snow and I was getting worried that someone would try to jump on the snow and break my little tree.  

It's a good thing that Brandon wasn't working because he was able to stay home with the kids while I went to work. One of our receptionists was out sick (with what turned out to be influenza) and I'd already agreed to cover the front desk for about 4 hours that morning. I'm glad I didn't have to figure out what to do with the kids while I was at work. 

My first hour at work was spent fielding calls and messages from clients who were cancelling due to the weather or from lack of childcare. I heard from so many people who said things like, "I can't get out of my driveway." or "I live out in the country, the roads here won't be plowed for a couple days."

Back at home Marsha was having a tough time. She could not figure out what was going on in our house.  On Monday morning when we'd all been up at 7:00 she'd looked at us like, "You guys NEVER get up this early. What are you doing?"  And on Tuesday when the kids were all home she was like, "Why are you all still here?"  I think she growled on Tuesday more than she had the whole time that we've owned her. 

I could relate.  We'd just had a great Winter Break. We'd done so many fun things.  But I was out of ideas at this point.  I was like, "Sorry kids, we used up all the fun last week." 

That night Brandon and I went for a walk like we usually do.  It was snowing again and I was pretty certain that school would be cancelled again the next day. We stopped to take a picture of this giant pine tree that had been lit up all month.  It was so pretty.

And here we are enjoying the walk. Going on walks every night is one of the secrets to keeping our marriage running. It's when we can really talk about everything that we are experiencing and feeling. 

Just as we'd predicted school was cancelled again on Wednesday.  This time the texts specifically referenced, "poor road conditions, especially on back roads" as the reason. We got the text around 6:00 and I fell back asleep. I dreamed that it started raining and all the snow melted. I felt a little sad because I hadn't played in the snow yet. So I was happy when I woke up and could still see snow.  I also vowed to play in the snow a little bit. 

But I couldn't be playful right away. My school semester had started on January 1st. I'd been realistic and knew that I wouldn't actually start studying until Tuesday the 4th.  I'd had that big insurance change over project on Monday and so the only thing I'd done that day was map out my plan for my first class. But with covering front desk and the kids being home on Tuesday I really hadn't been able to get a solid start. 

That meant I had to make up time on Wednesday.  But the kids were still home. At some point I gave up trying to study in the living room, said something like, "None of you are supposed to be here!" And went to hide in the basement for a couple hours so I could read about "Business Law for Accountants" in peace.

When I was done with that I went outside and finally played in the snow. It was the perfect kind of packing snow.  I was able to roll a snowball and the snow stuck so well that there was a bare grass trail where I rolled the snow.  I love when snow does this. 

Here's Lydia working on her snowball.  That that giant snowman is our Christmas Day snowman that we'd built almost two weeks earlier. 

Here's visual proof of why school was cancelled. All the snow from all the previous snowstorms was starting to melt. The roads with their 10 inches of compact snow were no longer solid.  Now deep trenches were being formed in the snow. It was hard for small cars to get through the snow. 

Here's my snowman.

And Lydia's.

Then Lydia added faces with sticks. 

Mine looks pretty happy. 

Eventually I went to work.  I'm trying to remember if I walked or not.  I might have to avoid the crazy roads.  But I think I drove that day. 

Here's something Veronica created with her ferris wheel magnets.  I love that all her animals are lined up waiting for a ride. 

We'd put our garbage and recycling cans out on the curb on Tuesday because that's our normal garbage day.  Well the garbage truck didn't make it down our street until about 5:00 on Wednesday night.  The recycling truck didn't show up until Thursday. 

Derrick hadn't had Behavioral Therapy with Mr Kelly since before Christmas so he was excited that they'd have therapy that night.  I was afraid it would be cancelled due to the roads, but it wasn't.  Derrick was so happy to see Mr. Kelly.  He showed him some of his presents and then they went to go do things in the community. 

Wednesday night was Charlotte and Lydia's first Young Women's activity. They had some sort of "get to know you activity" night. I drove them to the church and then just stayed and studied in the foyer. I was not interested in driving back and forth on the snowy roads. The girls had a great time and are excited to be old enough to go to Young Women's. 

That night when Brandon and I went on our walk it was still snowing.  We saw a car that was stuck in the road at the end of our street, but someone was already pushing them out when we got there.  I thought, "they have got to cancel school again tomorrow."

But the snow let up over night and in the morning there weren't any cancelation texts.  So we got ready for school. The snow was so slushy and so deep that I told the kids I'd drive them to school. I was mostly worried about Derrick's shoes.  I'd thought he'd be able to squish into the size 5 snow boots I'd miraculously found at Once Upon a Child. But the boots didn't fit.  So Lydia claimed them as hers and Derrick just had to wear his tennis shoes. I didn't want him getting them wet on the way to school and having wet shoes the rest of the day. 

I assumed that I'd just drive the kids, and drop them off without getting out of the car.  But one of the kids was having a hard morning and wanted to spend some time in the school counselor's room. She wanted me to go into the school and ask the office to call the counselor to see if she could do that. So me and my plaid pajama pants got out of the car and went into the school.

I had a conversation with the front desk lady, the principal (who said she'd been stuck twice on her way to work and wished they'd just cancelled school again), the counselor, and the head custodian who is also our neighbor (he'd been plowing snow at the school since 4 to make sure the parking lot and sidewalks were clear.)  Then I went outside and ran into my friend Kaymie and we had a whole conversation. While we were talking my friend Liz's husband Aaron pulled up to drop off their son and we had a conversation. 

Then I finally got into the car and drove home. I was so happy to get home and finally have a change to get ready for the day.  Though I don't think I saw that many people after I was dressed and had makeup on. 

I spent most of the morning working on a project for the PTO. We'd officially become a PTO at the end of December and had closed our PTA bank account and opened a new PTO account. My friend Liz is the PTO president and she'd been working hard to get everything ready so we could hit the ground running in January. She'd been purchasing things all through Winter Break for a variety of projects.  She'd sent me the invoices, but I hadn't done anything with them because I was waiting for our new PTO checks to arrive. 

The checks still hadn't arrived (I'd checked while I was in the school office that morning), but we had a PTO meeting scheduled for January and I needed to know what we'd spent on all the different projects.  So I sat down with all the invoices to figure it out. 

It was a lot of work. I had to create a whole spreadsheet so that I could classify purchases as either for our Mustang Day Sales, our hat day, the teachers lounge refresh, food and drinks for the teachers lounge, or sales tax. I went over every line item on the invoices and receipts and classified them and entered them into the spreadsheet. 

The whole thing took over two hours, but I LOVED every second of it. It was one of those times when I was like, "Yeah, I should be an accountant."

That afternoon Derrick had Speech Therapy for the first time in several weeks. I thought he was also supposed to have Occupational Therapy right after, but I was told that will start in two weeks.  Still it was nice to be back in the swing of things. 

On Thursday evening the kids and I finished the book we have been reading. Months ago I reserved the book, "There's a boy in the girls bathroom" at the library and it finally came in.  I can't remember why I reserved it exactly. I think it was because the kids had liked Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and had wanted to read other books that I'd read in elementary school. 

I remembered that I liked this book, but I couldn't remember what it was really about.  Well as soon as we started reading it I remembered the book.  But I also noticed things I'd never noticed as a kid. I was pretty certain that the main character was on the Autism Spectrum. And honestly it was a little sad to read the book and realize how little support he had at school.  I wanted his mom to write a parent concern letter. I wanted him to have an IEP or a 504 plan so bad.  I wanted ANYONE to notice this boy. I was happy when he started seeing the school counselor, but she was so under appreciated. 

By the end of the book I was so happy that our ability to help children with learning and behavior problems has improved since the 80s.  

The kids asked me if my elementary school had had a school counselor and I told them it did.  Then I spent about 10 minutes talking all about Andrea Miller who had been such a great influence on me when I was in elementary school.  

A few days later I had the thought, "I should email Andrea and tell her how much I appreciated her."  I thought I'd have to do some major social media sleuthing to find her contact information.  But it turns out she still works for the same school district. So it was easy to find her. 

I wrote her an email thanking her for all she did. (Long story short, I was an anxious kid.) Then I told her a little about my life and the fact that I work with a bunch of counselors. Then I told her about each of my siblings and what we are up to.  

She wrote back a few days later thanking me for the update. She was very happy to hear that we were all doing well. 

I'm trying to remember anything special about Friday. The kids had school and I drove them again.  But this time they all got out of the car.  The roads were slightly better.  The snow trenches were widening and melting so it wasn't so treacherous for little cars. 

I think Derrick had therapy that night too.  But I can't remember anything for sure. 

Saturday was much more memorable. Every January I like to go to a Hot Spring. This year we planned to back to Miracle Hot Springs. So we got the house cleaned up and then drove out to Miracle for the afternoon. 

I didn't take many pictures because I spent most of the time in the water.  But here's one of the few I took.

The kids brought some toys and had a great time with them.  Brandon and I just soaked in the water.  I liked to go over to the really hot pool and sit in there, but it was too hot for Brandon. 

Here's Derrick getting ready to jump in.

And here's me.  It was so fun to swim outside in January. It feels so rebellious to be warm in a swimming suit. 

We stayed for a little over 2 hours. I think we could have stayed longer, but all the kids started to react to the minerals in the water.  Veronica had a rash all over her body.  The other kids had little rashes. So we got out and got dressed again. Before we left we stopped by the alligator cage to see the alligator. He's in this picture somewhere. 

We were all starving so we decided to get dinner at a local Hamburger place. We thought we'd find one in Bulh, but it turned out the best looking option was close to our house in Twin.  We went to the Burger Stop. Here we are waiting for our burgers to arrive. 

And here are the burgers.

They were huge and delicious. 

That night Veronica decided it was finally time to cash in her three teeth that she'd been saving up.  So in the morning she woke up to $1.50 and three things of mentos candy. She was pretty excited about that. 

On Sunday we inadvertently had a lesson on boundaries. We've got into the habit of watching Youtube Videos that go along with the Come Follow Me Curriculum while we eat lunch on Sundays.  We really like the Line Upon Line Series that The Living Scriptures puts together. After our official lesson the kids watch movies that they've seen before. 

Derrick really wanted to watch the "You Never Know How Much Good You Do" video. I HATE this video because the mom is portrayed as being at the beck and call of everyone around her and not setting a single boundary.  I especially dislike the part where she says yes to making dinner for a family that night - when she already had plans for something that night. 

But when I told the kids, "No, not that video."  They immediately were curious what could be so bad about the video. So we watched it and I told them that this mom was not setting any clear boundaries and I pointed out the areas where she should have said something different. Like, "I can't take dinner tonight because I have plans. But tomorrow night would be better." 

Boundaries - especially with the church - have been really important to me ever since I listened to an episode by At Last She Said it called Healthy Boundaries, Healthy Women.  In it they talk about how women in the church are conditioned to always say yes to everything and we often don't even realize we have a choice.  So I was glad I could have a conversation with my girls about that stupid video and how that mom should have created some boundaries. 

Then we went to church and inadvertently had another lesson on boundaries.  It was Charlotte and Lydia's first Young Women's class. They were combined with the Young Men and meeting in the chapel. At the end of the class they were told that they had to stay and participate in a song that would be sung in Sacrament Meeting in a few weeks. 

Charlotte and Lydia did not like that.  Lydia walked out and came to find me.  I was talking to my friend in the Relief Society Room and looked out in the hall and saw Lydia in tears.  I went out to her and asked, "What happened?"

 She told me that they'd been told they had to stay and sing.  She was like, "But I don't want to sing." 

 I told her, "Well you don't have to." 

She said, "They said I had to."  

I told her, "No it's your choice.  You don't have to." Then I asked, "Is Charlotte still in there because she wants to be?"

Lydia wasn't sure what Charlotte was thinking so I went into the chapel and went right toward Charlotte.  I could tell by her face that she didn't want to be there.  I asked her, "are you here because you feel like you have to be?"  

She started crying and said, "They told me I had to stay here."

And, in either the best or worst moment of my adult religious life, I said, "You don't have to do a dam thing." And we walked out of there. 

I got Charlotte and Lydia situated with Brandon and then went back into the chapel and made a beeline for the Young Women's President.  I'm pretty certain one of the counselors had overheard what I said to Charlotte and had told the president because neither of them were surprised to see me walk back in.  I think they were surprised at the fire in my eyes though.  

I asked outright, "Did you tell my daughters they had to stay in here."  

She said they'd been "strongly encouraged."  

I tried to explain that they are still very young and so you have to be very careful about what you say to them.  I said, "they will please and please and please and all the while be dying inside."

The President said she'd be more careful with how she worded things. And I think we were on okay terms when I left.  Later we texted about it and I told her how upsetting it had been to see Lydia crying in the hall. She understood where some of my anger was coming from. 

Why am I telling you all this?  Well for two reasons.  1. It's never too soon to start teaching about boundaries.  And 2. 11 year olds have only joined Young Womens in the last few years. I'm not sure that we understand how much younger our 11 year old young women are compared to the 12 year olds - especially the 11 year olds that turn 12 later in the year like Charlotte and Lydia.  

These girls are still in elementary school.  They are still walking into the lunch room in a single file line.  They are with one class most of the day.  They don't have a lot of experience with making choices about where to go. So when they are told they have to do something or be somewhere they take that absolutely literally. It's completely different than how a child who has been in middle school or high school will process directions. 

So if you happen to be an adult leader of young women I hope you take a minute to think about how you are giving directions to those young women. 

Okay enough about that. 

Hey look we've made it though a whole week of recap.  Let's move onto the next week. 

We started off the week with a PTO morning at 7:30 in the morning.  And yes that is a rather early time, but it was the best time we could come up with.  Parents can drop their kids off at the school for Breakfast starting at 7:30 so we figured parents could do that and then attend the meeting.  And teachers have to be at work at 7:30 but class doesn't start until 8:00 so we could have them for 30 minutes if they wanted to attend the meeting.  

We front loaded the agenda with all the info that the teachers would want to know and saved the boring stuff (the treasurers report) for last. 

And our plan worked - at least partially.  We had more teachers than we've had at anyother meeting.  But we still didn't have any parents besides Liz and I.  But I think that will change. 

Actually we did have one extra parent. Brandon came into the meeting after he dropped the kids off.  Its a good thing he came because Liz was saying that she still needed to put some furniture together for the Teacher's Lounge refresh. And Brandon happens to be an expert at putting things together.  

So after the meeting we went over to Liz's to pick up the boxes.  She was so happy that Brandon took on that responsibility. 

Brandon went right to work. 

 
I sat at my desk and read my lessons for "Business Law for Accountants." Every so often I'd read paragraphs to Brandon and complain about how much I hated the reading for this course. 

I also sent Liz text updates of Brandon's progress.  

My favorite response was when she said, "Thank the Lord I am not doing that!"

I had to go to my admin meeting at work so I left for about an hour.  When I got back Brandon was putting the last door on. 

Then we took the cabinet out to the Honda and drove it over to the school. We have a little rolling piano moving board so we brought that along to help us get the cabinet into the school.  The head custodian also helped get it in. Soon the cabinet was in place. It took the place of a table that had been in this spot.  Now there is so much more storage space. Liz had also mounted this bulletin board the week before.  Later she added some upright shelves. 

When we got home Brandon's next project arrived in the mail.  This was the rebuild kit for the jeep engine. 

Tuesday was a pretty uneventful day. Actually it was more characterized by what I didn't do.  I didn't go to Magic Valley Symphony Rehearsal.  I'd made the difficult decision not to continue the season with the Symphony.  I really, really wanted to. But I didn't think I had the capacity to attend rehearsal every week while I was in school. School had to be my first priority. I'm hoping that I can rejoin the Symphony this fall when I'm done with school, but that's a decision I'll have to make later in the year. 

Here's a picture I took one morning of me enjoying the sun with my plant while not enjoying my class.  I was really hating Business Law for Accountants.  There was a huge unit on Contract Law that had me feeling like I was learning a whole new language. 

And here's my plant. I love growing these in January. 

Wednesday night was a crazy night.  This is everything that needed to happen that night.  

1. Veronica had Girls Activity at the church from 4:30 to 5:30. 

2. Derrick had therapy with Mr Kelly from 5:00 to 7:00.

3. Charlotte and Lydia had Young Womens at the church from 7:00 to 8:00. 

Things got a little less complicated when I was told that Mr Kelly was out sick for the next 10 days. (That's code for COVID in case you didn't know.) But I still had to go back and forth to the church four times that night. 

I'd noticed that my front drivers side tire was looking a little low on air so I asked Brandon to pump it up with his air compressor.  (He always likes a reason to use that.)  When he did he saw a nail in the tire.  I was like, "well that will just have to wait until tomorrow."  But it still had me stressed. 

I took Veronica to the church and dropped her off for girls activity.  While I was there my friend Kaymie offered to bring Veronica back home with her daughter when the activity was over.  I was like, "Yes that would help me out so much."

I immediately called Les Shwaub to see how late they were open and if they could get me in that evening.  They said they had time to fix the tire that night.  So I called Brandon and told him I was going to get the tire fixed. 

After I got checked in I texted Kaymie and told her how grateful I was that she offered to help.  I told her about my tire and how it was such a blessing that I could take care of it that night instead of waiting until the next day. I felt like that was the type of service that should have been featured in the "You never know how much good you do" video.  

The tire was fixed before 6:00 and I went home to have dinner with Brandon and the kids. Derrick started bawling as soon as I walked in the door.  Apparently he'd been super upset that I wasn't home. We ate dinner and he calmed down a little bit, but not fully. So after dinner I decided that he just needed to be put to bed early.  So I helped him get ready for bed and then sat in his room a little while until it was time to take the girls to Young Women's. 

So I dropped them off and then came back and sat with Derrick some more.  He fell asleep around 7:30. 

I went back and picked up the girls. (By the way, don't feel bad that I was doing all this driving.  I was perfectly happy to be the chauffeur because I was able to listen to a podcast while I was driving.)  

The girls had been making vision boards for their goals. This was another area where 11 year olds are very different than older girls.  Lydia's goals included "buy a Barbie car." Charlotte's board was covered in magazine pictures of cupcakes.  And one of her goals was to have a pet dragon.  (She later told me, "Mom, owning a dragon will ALWAYS be one of my goals no matter how old I am.")

The next morning I was surprised to find Derrick sitting on the couch, fully dressed, and 6:30 in the morning.  I was like, "Oh I guess you aren't sick."  But he was still kind of emotional.

I texted a heads up to his team at school.  It's a good thing I did that because his teacher was actually out for the day and I'm glad there were other people there that knew to keep an extra eye on Derrick.  He had a pretty normal day, but I'm glad people were prepared just in case. 

Thursday night was the first Relief Society Activity since I was called to the Activity Committee.  We had a dinner and I was in charge of bringing a get to know you game. I used this list of 250+ questions from Women's Health Magazine. I copied them into a google doc and then deleted the questions that wouldn't quite fit our group of people. I printed out the 100+ questions and cut them into slips of paper.  At the activity. I directed everyone to pull out three slips of paper and then answer one of the questions. 

When we were setting up for the activity we hadn't been sure how many people would come.  Covid numbers were surging enough that even Idahoians were getting concerned. Also there was a Jive concert that night that the older youth were attending with their leaders. 

But 21 women did come and we had a great time. The get to know you activity went so well. It was so fun listening to what people said. 

On Friday Brandon was working on the jeep but he needed my help.  He handed me safety glasses, a welding cap, and gloves and said, "put all this on." Then he had me hold onto the drill. He had some big piece of metal in the drill and when the metal started spinning he started turned on a grinder and started grinding on the metal.  Sparks flew everywhere. 

Later I posted a video of it to my Instagram account:  Here's the link to that. https://www.instagram.com/tv/CYu1PVRI95yIcVF8ZVSIO3cQngJ8G-aXe2xgW40/?utm_medium=copy_link (But the account is private so you might not see it.)

I wasn't sure what all this was for, but soon he showed me.  He had to get some rings out of the engine.  He was using the metal to push the rings out, but the holes tapered so it was too big to fit through the holes.  So he was grinding it down. He'd knock out a ring and then go back to grinding. 

Here he is with the last ring. Who knew those were so hard to get out. 

As soon as Brandon was done I had to rush over to the school to help with our first Mustang Day Sale.  Two years ago the PTA had done Spirit Day Sales on a monthly bases. But they were cancelled when COVID shut everything down.  This was the first time we'd be doing one in nearly two years.  Liz had decided to rebrand them as "Mustang Day." And do encourage all the kids to wear their Mustang Shirts and hoodies.

Liz had bought lots of fun things that we were selling for a dollar a piece.  We were selling slap bracelets with rainbow sequins, slap bracelets with super hero logos, ring pops, giant pixie sticks, and some stickers. Liz had also found about 20 old Mustang shirts in the PTA closet so she decided to just sell them for $5 a piece.  

We sold to the two kindergarten classes and made over $50 just off of those kids. I was impressed. Liz started moving things over to the main hall so we could sell to the other kids during their lunch recesses. I ran over to work and grabbed my 10-key calculator because I was going to need it when I totalled the cash.  

Two other moms came to help with the sale. They helped get everything set up on the tables.  The kids started coming and we started selling. The kids were so excited to buy things.  Each of my kids came through. I'd given them each a dollar and then they'd decided how much of their own money they would bring. 

My kids brought between $2 and $4 each, but there were some kids that had $10. I couldn't believe how much money we had coming in. 

My original reason for even thinking about being the treasurer was because I missed counting large amounts of cash. I figured if I was treasurer I'd have a chance to count cash when we did sales.  So I was super happy to sit down and count all the cash. 

I had a blast counting and bundling the money. I know it sounds like a dumb thing to enjoy, but counting cash is one of the pure joys of my life. I love facing the bills.  I love counting out 1s into groups of 25 and then grouping those into 4 groups to make a wad of $100. I love making huge piles of cash.  And I love totaling it all up on the 10-key when it's all done.  

All in all we had nearly $800. $225 of that was in 1s. Over $50 of it was in coins.

I counted it all out and totaled it up. Then I took it to the bank where they counted it again and deposited it into our checking account. I'd been right on with the currency count, but I'd under counted the coins. (There were a lot of pennies.)

After all that I headed to work. Work wasn't as fun, but it was still fulfilling. 

That evening we took the kids to the JIVE Winter Showcase at the high school. JIVE is the show choir, but that hardly describes them.  They sing, they dance, they have a pretty decent production value.  It's a very high quality concert for the low low price of $25 for a family ticket. We went for the first time last year and we were so impressed.  The kids were so excited to go back again. 

When we walked up to the building Veronica yelled, "Oh JIVE I've missed you!"  And when we sat in our seats all the kids were bouncing with anticipation. 

All the kids had been able to watch half of the JIVE dress rehearsal over Zoom on Thursday so they kind of knew what to expect.  But I think that created even more anticipation.  When the first number started Derrick told me, "Mom, you are going to love this!"

The songs were so good. They did a Queen Medley to start the show. Then the girls sang, "Born this Way" while wearing sparkly dresses and sashes that said things like, "brave" and "creative." I got all teary eyed watching them.  (Note to self, if I cry when other peoples kids are performing I am going to be a mess when it's my kids.) Then boys came out and sang "The Wellerman" while dressed in clothes from the 1800's.  Between numbers they showed little videos of the kids doing silly things.  The kids sang a couple more numbers and then it was intermission.  

We all talked about how much we loved the show.  Veronica was already humming the songs. Derrick had worn his headphones all during the show, but he wasn't overwhelmed at all by the music. 

The second part of the show was a whole medley of songs from Mary Poppins.  Mary Poppins was played by a girl in our ward.  Her step brother played Burt. Derrick was completely in love with Mary Poppins.  He was so excited every time she was on stage. 

When it was all over we gave them a standing ovation.  Then we went out to the hall and took a picture with Mary Poppins and Burt. Derrick was so happy.  Later we wrote Mary Poppins and thank you note and mailed it. And on Sunday we went up to Madison at church so Derrick could see her again.  

Veronica kept talking about how she wanted to be in JIVE when she's in high school. (Apparently she'd forgotten all about her self diagnosed stage fright.) She sang all the songs. A week later she surprised me by still remembering the chorus to The Wellerman.

She said she was going to play JIVE in her room later.  But I think she forgot about that.  Because instead she started playing prison. She made a chain out of paper and chained up one of her stuffed animals.  

A little later she called me into her room and this is what I saw when I walked in. 

She'd made chains for many of her animals. 

I don't really know the back story to all this.  But hey, at least she's using her imagination. 

Saturday was a down day for all of us.  We cleaned up the house, but other than that we didn't do much. I had a lot of studying I needed to do in order to stay on track for my stupid Business Law for Accounting class. I'd given myself three weeks for the class and this was the end of the second week.  I was out of the unit on Contract Law, but I was still not loving the class. I'd let myself get all sorts of distracted all week long. So I disappeared into my room for a while to get caught up on the reading.  Fortunately the section I was in was all about different business structures like sole proprietorships, LLCs, and Corporations. I've studied this before so I didn't feel as uneducated as I'd felt during contract law. 

Still I was happy when I was finally done reading for the week.

That night we watched Encanto for movie night.  I made a whole bunch of home made zebra popcorn and then went really crazy by adding pretzels, peanuts, and even a few smarties to the mix.   

The popcorn was great and so was the movie.  I liked all the songs and found myself nearly in tears at the end. The big song of the movie has been "We don't talk about Bruno."  But a few days later I saw this parody video by the Holderness Family called "We don't talk about COVID" and I find it very apropos.

Sunday was a much less eventful day than the week before had been. Derrick sat right by me in Sacrament meeting and was very interested in the sacrament meeting program. I showed him the Hymn numbers in the program and then showed that the same numbers were listed on the wall of the chapel. Then we found the same numbers in the Hymn book.  He liked that.  He leaned his head on my shoulder during the songs and he watched my fingers while I pointed to each word that we sang.  

For some reason Derrick was nervous about primary so I went with him to class.  That was kind of nice. 

Monday was Human Rights Day but the kids didn't have it off of school.  It was a post office and bank holiday. I told my work that I wouldn't come in at all.  I did log in and do about 40 minute of work from home, but it was nice that I didn't have to get ready to go into work. 

I spent the bulk of the day doing school work.  I'd thought that it would take me two or three days to do the rest of my reading.  But I ended up blowing through the rest of the lessons. That was a good feeling. 

Around noon my studying was interrupted by a phone call from the school. Veronica had fallen on the playground.  I was certain the secretary was going to tell me that Veronica had chipped her tooth so when she said, "She cut her lip." I was actually relieved.  

I went over to the school and picked Veronica up. Here she is all busted up.  Her lip was cut and she had some scratches on her lip chin and cheek. She ended up with a little bruise on her cheek. But there wasn't any permanent damage. She was able to spend the afternoon watching Encanto while I did school work. 

Speaking of ice.  We had a lot of it. Those warm slushy days of the first week of January had turned to cold cloudy days in the second week of January.  Everything just kind of hardened where it was and didn't melt at all.  This the kind of winter weather that I hate.  I hate watching snow get old and gross.  Here are the deformed snowmen in our yard.  That one on the left is the one the kids and Brandon built on Christmas Day.  

The air quality also got really bad. There was smog/fog covering the town for a few days.  It did leave pretty rime ice on the trees across from my office.  But that was about the only nice thing. 

Here are the kids destroying the snowmen one day after school.

Thankfully, I had my amaryllis flower to get me through these ugly days. It's like a little cheerleader saying, "Don't worry. You'll make it to spring."

On Tuesday I took my pretest and passed it so I scheduled my official test for Wednesday morning.  My plan was to spend the rest of the day reviewing for the test.  But when I looked at the review materials I realized I didn't want to read another word or watch any more videos.  So I just scheduled the test for that evening after our staff meeting at work. 

I went to work and discovered that another staff member was waiting the results of a COVID test. I did a quick count of who would be available for a staff meeting and realized it would be less than half of all the office staff. A meeting seemed pretty pointless at this point.  So I talked with the other members of the Admin team and we decided to cancel the meeting. 

And then I figured that I might as well move up my test to be at the time that I would have been at the meeting. 

So that evening I drove over to work and got everything ready to take my test in my office. I wasn't sure what to think going into this test.  I'd hated most of the class and had literally written Blah Blah Blah multiple times on my notes.  But I also knew that I'm a pretty good test taker and so I had a good chance of passing the test.  

The test actually went just fine. It was a mix of easy and hard questions.  There were a few questions where I was like, "Huh, what are they even talking about?"  But there were more where I was like, "Oh I remember reading about this."  

In the end I wasn't too surprised when I saw that I'd passed it.  I'm glad I didn't waste any time going over the review materials. 

I'd finished the course 3 days ahead of schedule.  I celebrated by rearranging Veronica's room a little bit.  I've felt for a while that she needs some shelves.  And we have a book case in the basement that wasn't doing much.  So I moved the book case into her room. We went through the books on the book case and got rid of some of the ones that the kids were never going to read and kept the good ones.  Now Veronica has two whole shelves of books that she can read when ever she wants.  Another shelf for her police legos and two shelves for stuffed animals.  I was so happy with how this turned out. 

On Wednesday I rolled right into studying for my next class. This one is Intermediate Accounting 1.  I gave myself four weeks for this class. I'm nervous for it, but it's nice to be back in an accounting class after slogging through that legal one. 

Brandon and I went grocery shopping and ran some other errands. We went in DI to do a quick look for some furniture.  We didn't find that, but we did find some size 7 boots.  I was so excited to see those.  I'd completely given up on finding any boots for Derrick this winter.  So I bought them and later Derrick tried them on and they FIT.  

Brandon had moved onto a different problem with putting the jeep engine back together.  He needed the existing piston arms put into new pistons.  (Or something like that.) Apparently this wasn't something he could easily do.  So he had a mechanic shop in town do it for $80.  Here are the old arms in the new pistons.  

On Thursday I took Derrick to his Speech and OT appointment.  He has a new Occupational Therapist and I was really impressed by her.  She got him to work a lot and he really clicked with her.  During their session my phone got a text. I opened it up and gasped.  It said that school was cancelled on Friday for the whole school district due to a staffing shortage. This is the first time this whole school year that our school district has had to do this. 

The kids were thrilled of course.  They spent the day playing with their Barbie houses in the basement.  This is the kitchen that Charlotte constructed.  

I went to work on Friday and then just stayed there and did my studying.  It was easier that way. 

When I got home I went to work on another project.  I moved the green book cases from the living room down to the Family Room. I have plans to put a love seat in the spot where the book cases were. And to have just a small bookcase with a few books up in the living room. I was going to wait until I actually have the loveseat before I moved the book cases, but I figured I might as well do it while I had the time.  

I'm glad I did it because it was a big job.  Brandon helped move the book cases, but I took care of moving all the books.  I also went through the books and got rid of nearly a shelf's worth of books that were either given to me and I didn't read them or I was just done with them. 

I felt kind of bad moving these book cases downstairs. Putting furniture downstairs is a little bit like a demotion.  It's a sign something is no longer as useful as it once was. These bookcases have been in every home Brandon and I had together. One of them he built for me to hold all my books when we were first married.  We painted them when we lived in our town house. So it felt odd to move them downstairs. But as we moved them I realized that they are looking a little beat up.  Paint is peeling. There are pen marks on the sides where the kids colored on them. There are holes where we screwed the book cases together.  Yes it's time to move them down stairs. 

We spent the evening hanging out in the basement.  The kids wanted to watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 and I took an opportunity to nap through the whole movie. When the movie was over the kids just played.

Derrick had his bubbles out and was blowing huge bubbles the size of his head.  He was also showing off how he could move the bubbles by waving his hand through the air around the bubbles.  

I took a video of Derrick doing that. I wanted to post it on Instagram, but Veronica was loudly singing a song about Marcia to the tune of Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer.  I decided this was a perfect time to figure out how to put music to a movie using Instagram Reels.  

It took me a while. The biggest snag was I was trying to use my private account but I guess you need a public account to do a reel.  So I ended up creating it with my 51 Cent Adventure account because that's public.  The end result turned out really awesome.  You can check it out here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CZBOIurAxeF/?utm_medium=copy_link

Friday had felt like Saturday because the kids were home. So Saturday was like a bonus Saturday.  Brandon was in charge of cleaning the church and Derrick and Veronica and I went to help out.  (Veronica's sole motivation for going was she wanted to play on the stage.) 

I vacummed a bunch of the rooms. When I got to the Mother's Room I made a startling discovery. The room doesn't have any decorations, but it does have a sign that says, "Mechanical Equipment."  Yes that's exactly what every nursing mother wants to think about as she nurses her baby. 

I was loudly complaining about this and I think Brandon could sense that this was going to turn into another "thing" for me. So he told me, "We'll just go to the DI and find a nice picture and I can hang it up next week. No one will even know."  So yeah if you happen to get asked about some new art work showing up in the Mother's room in the next few weeks - you don't know anything okay. 

After we came home from cleaning the church we cleaned the house a little bit.  It didn't need much work because Brandon and the kids had cleaned the living room while I was at work on Friday. 

This Saturday was special because it was Cabin Fever Day. It's a day when several local businesses offer free or reduced price admission.  The kids decided they wanted to go skating and swimming.  

So at 11:00 we went to Skateland. Charlotte and Lydia brought their own money to do the photobooth.  They did that right when we arrived. 

While I helped Veronica lace up her skates I noticed a guy walk by with a big camera.  I recognzied him as Pat Sutphin from the Times-News.  He's the reporter/photographer who did the story about my Autism Support Group.  I pointed him out to Charlotte and said, "You are wearing that sparkly jacket. I bet he'll take your picture."

And guess what I found on the Times-News Website today. 

In unprofessional pictures, here is a picture of me and Brandon.  We didn't skate, but we had a great time watching the kids.  

And here are all four kids. They had a great time as usual. 

We went home and had some lunch.  The kids played and I worked on finally writing the checks to reimburse Liz for the PTA stuff.  (The checks had arrived on Thursday and I'm so glad I picked them up when I picked Derrick up for speech therapy.)  

At some point the girls made the cute "barbie books" out of the little pictures of books on the back of a Berenstain bears cover that had fallen off a book. 

At 2:00 we grabbed our swimming suits and headed over to the pool. Liz lives on the way to the pool so we dropped the checks off for her.  

We changed into swimming suits at the pool and then hurried into the water. We had a really fun time.  But I didn't take any pictures because we've been to the pool a billion other times. 

Derrick had recently watched a Youtube video about blowing bubble rings so he spent quite a bit of time trying to do that. Veronica, Charlotte, and Lydia all passed the swim check and went over to the deep end to play on the tower. The kids swam and swam and swam.  We were there for almost two hours. 

When we went back home we had frozen pizza for dinner.  Brandon and I always keep frozen pizza in the deep freezer for days like today.  We call it "emergency pizza."

While we were eating the pizza I remembered that I've wanted to watch the original Teenage Mutant Ninga Turtles movie with the kids.  So we went downstairs and watched that.  I haven't seen that movie since my friends had a nostalgia movie night in college.  But I think I must have watched that movie a TON as a kid because I remembered it super well. Like down to the sound effects well. 

After the movie was over Brandon put on some music and we all hung out in the basement. The girls all worked on their doll houses.  (I completely forgot to take pictures) and we just relaxed.  It was really nice. 

And let's see, that gets us caught up to today.  I'm trying to think if I missed anything.  Um, Brandon and I have been watching a lot of Frasier in the evenings.  And we watched all of Cobra Kia season 4 at the beginning of the year.  (It was super fun.)

I think that might be it for now.  

Oh we only had one hour of church today because COVID.  (Even though we don't talk about COVID.)  

The kids go back to school tomorrow, but they only go until 12:45.  They have an early out the next two Mondays so the teachers have a chance to prep work for kids who are doing distance learning if they are quarantined. 

We'll see if my kids end up being those kids in the next few days or weeks.  

I'll keep you posted.  

Thanks for reading.