I spoke too soon about getting the twins their drivers permits. We went to the DMV THREE times this week and still don't have permits. But more about that as we go.
This was a very simple week. Blissfully simple. Needfully simple. I was so stressed in April. It's really nice to be feeling on top of things again. Also I had A LOT of time to spend in my garden. I love working on my garden so much. It's my favorite thing and if I could it's all I would do.
Monday was the first day that we tried to get the Driver's Permits. I had all the documents ready and so as soon as the twins were home from school we went to the DMV. And found the LONGEST line waiting for us. It extended through the whole Drivers license office, out the door and down a short hallway and then around a corner and down the main hallway.
We attempted to wait in line for about 5 minutes. But the line wasn't moving at all. I told the girls we'd come back in the morning before school at 8:00. The line couldn't be terrible when the office had just opened, right?
At 5:00 I took Veronica to the Orpheum for her Matilda audition. The rehearsals for the play will be in June, but since they only have three weeks to get the show together they are doing the auditions ahead of time.
I'd signed Veronica up for an audition slot at 5:35. But we got there at 5:00 so she could practice reading the script pages for the audition. They don't normally give you the pages ahead of time, but since Veronica struggles with reading I'd asked for some extra time. Emily, the lady in charge of the program, was happy to help.
She gave me the pages and said we could go upstairs to the school room to practice.
Veronica was so happy to be back up there. She was like, "Oh this is my home!" She kept saying, "I have so many happy memories here!"
I was like, "Me too kid."
We went over the script a few times. Veronica would read a paragraph and then walk back and forth across the room. She was really nervous and got the hiccups. It was kind of funny.
We went downstairs around 5:30. Another girl was getting ready for her audition. She was really nervous about it. Veronica didn't know her, but she still told her, "You are going to do great!" I was really impressed at how naturally Veronica said that. This program is really something special. The kids are taught to build each other up and to offer encouragement like that. It was really cool to see it in action.
My friend Chandler arrived with her two daughters right before Veronica went in for her audition. So we talked while Veronica was doing her audition. She sang the song, "Get Lost" from Moana 2. She'd been practicing it all weekend.
When it was over she was so relieved. It wasn't until Friday that the cast list was posted. Veronica will be the cook that serves the chocolate cake. I'm not sure if she has lines, but it's really cool that she is a named part. A lot of other kids her age only made it into the ensemble. In her last play she was one of the oldest kids. But the age range for this play is 7-15. So she's more in the middle. I think her height and her general enthusiasm for theatre helped her get this part.
In other Veronica related news - I'm closer to getting her passport stuff figured out. The rest of us all got our passports about two weeks ago. But Veronica's birth certificate is so weird that we have to provide more documentation. Remember, Veronica was born at home by accident. So even though we all ended up at the hospital afterward the hospital staff couldn't do anything with the birth certificate.
I had to fill it out - by hand. And Brandon signed it as the witness of the birth. That hand written birth certificate was such a headache. I messed it up like three times before it was good enough for the County to accept it. And then after we got the official copy from the county - the state rejected it because I wrote her birthyear squished together so it looks like 20B instead of 2013. The county clerk lady finally took pity on me and typed it. But I've never bothered to pull the typed copy from the state. The hand written county one is technically official - it just looks super odd.
I've always kind of planned to get a copy of the typed certificate if the handwritten one ever caused problems. But so far it's been fine for things like school registration.
I knew the passport office would have issues with it though. So when we got a letter from the passport office saying they needed more documentation I figured it was the handwriting problem. So I got online and ordered the typed copy from the state. (I really should have done that sooner, it was an easy process.)
But then I actually read the letter and realized that the handwriting wasn't the problem. The problem was that it was signed by a parent. That was suspicious. They needed more proof that this birth happened - specifically that it happened in America.
They asked for hospital records, a baptism/christening certificate, or any proof that I was living in America around the time Veronica was born.
I was fairly certain I had copies of the medical records from when we went to the hospital. I'm not sure why we got those after she was born, but I'm glad we did. I've hung onto them because the ambulance report is actually kind of hilarious. It's like, "We entered the home and found the mother laying on the floor with a newborn baby." I was hanging onto them for family history reason.
So I went looking for those and not only found them, but I they were still in the original envelop. Which was addressed to me and had a post mark date. So even this envelope is really good proof.
So anyway, I'm going to put all this together - along with the typed birth certificate and a letter explaining the situation. Hopefully that will be enough to convince the passport office that Veronica really was born in America so we can get her passport.
Okay enough about Monday and boring paperwork. Let's talk about Tuesday.
We wanted to be at the DMV right at 8:00 so that took some extra logistics. Everyone was up earlier than normal. Then I dropped Veronica off at her school at 7:45. This girl routinely walks into the school right as the bell rings at 8:00 so she was kind of like, "what am I supposed to do for 15 minutes?"
Then I took Charlotte, Lydia, and Derrick to the DMV. We got there right at 8:00 and were shocked to see that there was already a line out the door. It didn't wrap around the corner when we got there but within line 5 minutes it was around the corner.
I was like, "What is going on?" When I'd renewed my license several years ago there wasn't a line at all. And when I got my Idaho license in Pocatello there hadn't been much of a line. Someone a head of me in line mentioned that everyone was there for their Star Card Licenses. The much pushed back deadline was now finally happening on Wednesday. That's why the lines were crazy.
I was like, "Well forget this. We'll come back Thursday." So we left.
But then I was like, "Now what?"
It was only 8:10. We were closest to Derrick's school, but I don't normally drop him off until 8:40. I didn't really want to throw him off his groove. But I also didn't want to drive all the way back across town. I knew he could be on campus after 8:00 so we went to his school and I dropped him off and told him to get breakfast. (Later I emailed his teacher and told him to watch out for any behavioral issues because I'd completely thrown off Derrick's regular routine. He wrote back and said he seemed to be okay.)
Then I drove back to our side of town and dropped the twins off at their school. This was basically the same time as normal. I realized I could still salvage this day by going to get an oil change as soon as I dropped the girls off. I like to get oil changes early in the morning because there is no wait, but having to drop Derrick off at school has made that tricky.
So I drove over to Jiffy Lube. And the guy that came out to talk to me said that there would be a 45 minute wait because they needed to change oil filters on the car that was ahead of me.
UHHHHHH
So then I decided to go to Castle Therapy. But since I'd been planning to spend a while at the DMV I hadn't brough my laptop with me. So I just picked up the mail and went home.
Where I got back into bed and fell asleep for another hour.
When I did get up I felt like I could handle a second try at the day. I worked on the Castle stuff and then went to work at Aspen Grove.
I'd been able to do 4 hours at Aspen Grove on Friday, Monday, and now Tuesday. I was feeling much more on top of things and actually sort of caught up.
After work I drove home and got there just as Veronica was walking up to the house. I talked with her for a bit and then drove to Derrick's school for his IEP meeting. That meeting went well.
Then I was back home and I was so happy that I didn't have to go anywhere else at ALL that night.
Derrick was happy that his Jurassic World Gyrosphere had arrived. He'd bought this with the money he'd earned from going to school every day in April. (Yes, I'm still paying my kids a $1 a day for going to school. It's the best.)
Here he is playing with it. He'd called it a jop-o-sphere until I worked with him to say gyrosphere.
Here it is up close. I'd expected this to be really cheaply made for $20. So I was impressed. And as far as I know the remote control part of it is still working a week later which is more than I can say for most of our remote control toys.
Brandon was teaching at CSI all evening. He's got three weeks on the Tuesday schedule and then he's off for several weeks this summer. That will be nice.
When he got home we went on a walk and caught each other up on our days.
Wednesday was my day off and surprisingly I had nothing scheduled for the day. There were a lot of things I wanted to do, but nothing with a hard deadline or time slot. It was WONDERFUL.
I was able to go get that oil change. (I need to remember that Wednesdays at 10:00 are an amazing time.) I bought sand at Lowes. I worked on auditing the April financials for Exponent. And I worked in my garden.
My big project right now is getting plants into the area around the fire pit. I want this to be a very water wise garden with a lot of native plants. But native plants can be a little finicky about soil. And this soil is crap. So it needed some work.
On Saturday I'd gone out with the shovel and turned over the soil so that the existing layer of bark chips was worked into the soil. That will help give it some organic matter. On Wednesday I put sand into the soil to help mitigate the clay. And I added vermiculite to help with water retention.
I mixed that in a lot and then covered the whole thing over with more bark chips. So it looks like nothing really happened in this area, but hopefully the soil will be better than it was.
I did all of this for an L shaped area around the fire pit. It's the area with the darker wood chips. (They'd been in a pile slightly composting all winter.)
Most of that yard work happened in the evening because it was too hot to work out there in the afternoon. So I need to back up and tell you about the early evening.
Brandon was able to get off work early because he went into work early. That meant he could pick up Derrick from school so that Derrick didn't have to ride the bus. Derrick really liked that.
At 4:30 we were going to go to the city park for the Engage in Education event. This is a big showcase for all the schools in the district and it always really fun. Plus they had free hot dogs and that meant I didn't need to make dinner.
But right when we went to get into the car we found a dog in our driveway. The dog was walking slow and didn't seem to be able to hear or see very well. I figured it couldn't have walked too far so it probably belonged to someone on our street. But I'd never seen this dog before. One of the kids told me the thought it belonged to our across the street neighbor Karen. But I was like, "they don't have a dog."
The dog had a collar with a number to call to report it found so I called that and the lady on the line said that they would contact the owner. So there was nothing to do but wait. So we put the dog on Marsha's chain in the back yard and went to the Engage in Education event.
This was the first year that we didn't have anyone performing in it or anyone (me) in charge of a table. So it was nice to just show up, enjoy listening to some elementary school kids sing, eat some hot dogs, walk around, and then leave when we wanted to.
Derrick was in a bad mood so he didn't want to eat his hot dog or really do anything. But he did walk around a bit and we saw some of his old teachers, paras, and administrators. Everyone commented on how tall he was.
Back at home we still had the dog and no contact from the owners yet. But around 8:00 my across the street neigbor Karen called me. She said, "do you have our dog?" I was like, "This really is your dog?"
It was her dog. She was out of town, but her adult son who lives with her had accidently left the gate open. So we took the dog back over. Her name is Penny and she's 13 years old. They hardly ever let her out since she's so old and has trouble walking. That's why I'd never seen the dog before.
The kids all had youth group activates that night. Derrick's group was hiking to Pillar Falls, but he was still grumpy and not interested in that. So he didn't go. The girls were going rock climbing at Auger Falls. Veronica and Lydia went. They had a really good time. Charlotte wanted to go, but she decided she'd rather do things with her chickens instead.
The whole time I was working on adding soil amendments she was doing stuff with the coop. She divided it down the middle with chicken wire. She moved the 4 week old chicks into one half of the coop. They had half the upstairs and the fenced in underside of the coop. The big chickens got the other half of the coop with the door that leads outside. It was a really smart way to get the chickens used to living together without mixing them too much yet.
Thursday I was back to doing all the work things. They were boring. So let's just skip to the evening when I got to spend lots of time in the garden.
Oh wait we have to talk about the DMV first. I picked up Charlotte and Lydia from the parking lot when they were done with school on Thursday. We went to the DMV where the line was shorter - still out the door - but shorter and actually moving pretty quickly. After waiting patiently for 45 minutes it was our turn. And we found out that I was missing a document from the driving school.
UHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I swear Veronica's passport situation is easier than trying to get these practice permits.
Okay, back to Thursday evening. We had nothing planned for that night. I spent like 5 blissful hours just doing little projects around the yard. Watering, fertilizing the lawn, repotting basil, and transplanting 21 little sun flowers.
I have a bunch of volunteer sunflowers growing on the path in the back of my yard. I don't want them there.
So I moved 21 of them over to the new garden bed along the fence by the fire pit.
I watered them really well and hoped they would survived. They did well overnight and through Friday morning. But Friday afternoon was HOT and I came out to find most of them wilted. But I watered them again on Friday evening and by Saturday morning they'd perked back up. So maybe they will survive.
I think this area will look good with a row of sun flowrs.
Friday felt like it had been a long time coming. I did another 4 hours of work. By the end of that I'd been able to submit credentialling packets to Blue Cross of Idaho for all three of the newly licensed clinicians at Aspen Grove. Two of them have worked for Aspen Grove while they were students. I LOVE the part where they go from making basically nothing as students to when they start taking insurance and making real money. I hate the paperwork to get all that ready, but I love the literal payoff from all the hard work.
Our plans for Friday had changed a few times so we didn't really have anything planned for the evening. Brandon ended up going out to a friends house to look at some problems with their RV. They have baby goats so he took Charlotte and Lydia with him. Charlotte was in heaven. She wants a goat so bad, but we can't have one because we live in city limits.
Here's a picture of her admiring her chicks when she got home.
I spent the evening weeding more of the front garden beds. I'd weeded part of them earlier in the week and my neighbor Diantha had talked to me and helped with some of the weeds for like an hour. That had been really nice. This time I was on my own just listening to a podcast. That was fun too.
I had a lot of grass in one of the beds. I couldn't get to earlier because the tulips were in the way. Now the tulips are almost spent so I didn't feel bad leaning over them to get to the grass. I got a lot of it out. I like to put my weeds in the chicken run. The chickens will eat a lot of weeds. They also like flipping the grass around with their beaks and feet.
I'm glad Charlotte has these chickens because I love giving them my weeds and kitchen scraps and getting eggs and fertilizer in return.
Brandon made sure the kids all packed their bags that night because they were going out of town on Saturday morning. At some point in the last week I'd realized that ALL I wanted for Mother's day was to be alone and not be in charge of ANYTHING. So Brandon was taking the kids to his parents house and I was going to have a blissful two days home alone.
On Saturday morning I woke up at 5:00 and woke the twins up. They were going to Lagoon with the band and orchestra. The high school kids go every year. But the Middle school kids can go starting in 8th grade. Both girls had been looking forward to this forever.
They got ready and made sure their stuff was packed. Brandon would pick them up from Lagoon at 6:00 that night and take them to his parents. So most of their stuff was going with Brandon, but they were taking a few of their things with them.
I drove them to the high school at 6:00. They wanted me to wait until the buses left - just in case they needed anything. So I hung around in the car, but I don't think they ever thought of me again after they got out of the car.
There were four charter buses for all the kids. I don't know which ones the girls were in, but we'll pretend it was this one.
Then I went home and started working on another part of the garden beds around the fire pit. I needed another bag of sand so I ran to Lowes. When I came back Brandon and Derrick and Veronica were almost ready to go.
I said goodbye to them and then had the house ALL TO MYSELF.
Derrick is going through his dinosaur phase so Brandon took him and Veronica to the Ogden Dinosaur museum. The last time any of us had been there was Derrick's 5th birthday. Derrick barely remembered it. Veronica didn't remember it at all. I love the smiles on their faces in this picture that Brandon sent me.
And here's the one picture the girls sent me while they were waiting to get off a ride. They had a great day.
I had such a good day. I got that bed all prepped with sand and vermiculite and then more bark chips on top. This is the bed right by the new arch. I wasn't sure what I was going to try to grow on the arch, but then I remembered I'd bought pumpkin seeds a few weeks ago. So I planted pumpkins on one side and Morning Glory (the good kind) on the other.
Then I took a very much needed shower. Followed by a nap on the patio.
At 1:00 I started prepping things for a little party I was hosting at 2:00. I was having four friends over to commiserate about mothers day. I have specific reasons for why mothers day is hard, and for the longest time I thought I was the only one with those specific reasons. Over the last few months I found out that I wasn't the only one. These were just one on one conversations, but I realized that it would be really cool to get everyone together for a group conversation. So I invited those people to come together.
It was AMAZING. The four of us talked for four hours and really we could have kept going. It was so healing to hear that we weren't alone in dealing with these things.
It was my favorite mothers day thing EVER.
After everyone left I just hung out on the patio and played on my phone. I thought about going out to eat, but I'd had a lot of snacks during the party. So I didn't do that. It was just nice to be alone and not have to worry about anything.
A rain storm moved in and I liked being outside for that. The patio has a metal roof and the sound of the rain on the roof was really nice.
I made sure to check on the chickens and get them more water. I got them all locked up for the night around 9:00. Then I read in bed for a long time. I'm reading Careless People about Facebook. It started out kind of slow, but then it got crazier and crazier and I'm hooked.
And now it's Sunday and after ten and no one has come and found me to ask me questions yet. And I don't have to worry about anything.
This is the Mothers Day of my dreams.
Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you have a great mothers day however you choose to celebrate it.
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