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.