I just worked a lot

This week was kind of strange. I had something planned for nearly every single night. So it was really fun. But overall the days were pretty boring and I spent a lot of time at work. 

So basically this will be a very quick recap. 

Starting with Monday where I worked a ton. I went to Aspen Grove as soon as I dropped off Derrick and I didn't leave until it was time to pick up the twins. It's been a while since I had a day like that and it was really nice to finally feel on top of some things. 

I was home with the kids after school and then I went back to work in the evening for a team meeting. I haven't been able to go to a team meeting since April so it was good to be there. 

But yeah, not really riveting stuff. 

On Tuesday I didn't have to be at work until 12:00 so I decided to hurry and paint one of the walls leading down to the basement. I'd taped it off on Monday night so as soon as Derrick was dropped off I came home and started painting. 

Here are the before pictures. This is looking down the stairs. 

And here's what the wall looks like from the basement. 

I was able to get a coat on around 9:00. The paint takes two hours to dry so at 11:00 I hurried to put on a second coat and then shower and get to work at 12:00 for Admin meeting. 

I was able to put on the third coat after the twins were home from school. I basically just told them to stay away from the wall. And it was dry ish by the time Derrick and Veronica were home. 

Here's the after pictures. I LOVE how this wall looks in the basement. 

And here's looking down the stairs. I worried it would be a little too much, but Brandon didn't even notice it for like 15 minutes after he got home. So I think we are fine. 

That night I had bunco at Kori's house. I had some of my old luck back. I had 16 wins!  Another lady tied with me. I let her get the prize because the prize I'd liked was already taken. 

Wednesday was the first Wednesday in weeks that I DIDN'T have to go into work. That was nice. On Sunday I'd been talking with my new friend Elle. She has like a 3 month old baby and is adjusting to being a stay at home mom while her husband works 12 hour shifts. We started talking in the foyer at church and she was talking and talking and talking. I'd seen this before with one of my military friends who had an infant and a deployed husband. I was thinking, "you just keep talking. You've probably been so lonely lately."

In the course of our conversation she told me she hasn't been able to use her washing machine because it's in a shared space with other renters who make her uncomfortable. I told her she was welcome to use my washer and dryer. I invited her over after church because I was going to be pretty bored while Brandon took the twins driving. That didn't quite work for her, so she asked what my Wednesday looked like. I was like, "I'm actually free that day!"

So after I dropped the kids off I picked her up and brough her, her baby, and her laundry to my house. We were able to get three loads of laundry washed and dried. 

It was also the last day of my scripture study group for the year. It was kind of an odd day to have Elle there for the first time. But I don't think we scared her away and I hope she comes next year when we are studying the 12 minor prophets of the Old Testament. In any case she was able to talk to the other 3 women who came and I think she felt much less lonely by the end. 

Wednesday night all the youth in our ward went to the Burley Temple open house. But none of my kids went. There were a couple reasons they didn't go. One was that Veronica was still going to be at theatre until after the departure time. The other reason is that lines have been really long at the open house lately and I didn't think Derrick would have a good time in a long line. So instead we all just stayed home. 

On Thursday Charlotte reminded me the chickens needed feed. So I bought that and then tossed out a handful for the chickens. They were very grateful.

I did a little bit of work for Castle Therapy (things have settled down there so it's really simple again.) I checked in via email with Gaining. And then I worked in person at Aspen Grove for 3 hours. 

That evening Brandon was out in Burley for the graduation for the second year students in the CSI maintenance tech program. 

And I had the Relief Society Friendsgiving dinner. That was super fun and I got to talk with lots of awesome women. 

On Friday I went grocery shopping in the morning before work. I'm glad I did that because even at 9:00 AM Winco was more crowded than usual. 

Then I worked for 3 hours. 

I went home and took care of a few things around the house. Then I picked up the twins. This was the last day of school for a whole week. They were very happy to be done. 

I went to get Veronica and her bass. But the other kid who plays the bass had decided to take it home. Veronica was very disappointed about that. 

That night I'd been invited to go see Wicked For Good with some friends. But I didn't want to go. Mostly because I don't like Wicked enough to pay money to see it. I'm just fine getting it from the library in a few months. But also because I was tired. I'd been somewhere three out of the last 4 nights. I just wanted to stay home. 

Derrick had wanted to watch the 2005 King Kong so I'd ordered it from the library. Brandon and I had watched this when we were dating or maybe first married. I remembered like 2 things from the 3 hour movie. Mostly, I remembered that it is too long. But I was willing to watch it again with Derrick. Brandon watched it too. It was actually better than I remember it being. But it's still too long. We were just mocking the movie by the end. 

But Derrick liked the dinosaur parts - which were the whole reason we were watching the movie anyway. So that was good.   

Saturday we were back to work on the stair rail project. Brandon and I went to the store to buy more wood for the top piece. (Our original plan no longer fit the vision.)

Here's Brandon measuring the wood. 

The kids watched movies and then came upstairs and hung out. Charlotte and Lydia started a puzzle. Derrick and Veronica played chess. 

At the store I'd also bought more paint for the wall on the other side of the stair case. I wanted this wall the same color as the kitchen - dreamstress. I had a little bit left over, but not enough to cover the wall so I'd bought a small can. It's funny because buying paint seemed so hard back when Jori went with me to help me back in January. And now it's so simple. It's nice to feel that growth. 

I taped off the wall early in the day. But Brandon was all over the place for a long time so I didn't paint right away. 

He got the top rail done and I started staining the pieces. We are staining it first and then putting everything together. 

I was worried about everyone going up and down the stairs with wet paint so I had to be very strategic. We had dinner and I put the first coat of paint on while the kids were eating. Then we went to a puzzle party at our friend Cami's house while the paint dried. 

The puzzle party was really fun. It was for a bunch of our theatre friends. We were all there for about 2 hours and then Brandon took the kids home and came back. We stayed until about 9:30. 

There were two puzzles going. I worked on one that was of the Grand Tetons. We made a lot of progress, but gave up when the mountains were just colors without any real identification.  It was still really fun. It was fun to talk with people without having to make eye contact. 

Back at home Charlotte and Lydia had finished their puzzle. 

I put another coat of stain on the wood and then put another coat of paint on the wall so it could dry while we were asleep. 

The plan is for one more coat on Monday morning before the kids get up and then we'll assemble the whole thing when Brandon is home from work on Monday night. 

Veterans Day and other things

This week was relatively uneventful. Probably the biggest thing was Veterans Day but we'll talk about that when we get there. Most of the other days were normal with a few out of the ordinary things. 

So this should hopefully be a quick recap.  

I'd reset my trip odometer on Sunday when I realized I'd put another 1000 miles on the car. So it started out at zero as I started my day on Monday. At the end of the day I'd put 29 miles on the car. TWENTY NINE. And I never even left the city.  

This is my driving on Mondays. 

I drive the twins to the high school and come home. 

I drive Veronica to her middle school and then take Derrick to his middle school across town. (This is where the most miles happen.)

Then I drive to work. 

Then I drive home. 

Then I pick up the twins from High School and then drive across town to pick up Derrick. Most days Brandon picks up Derrick after he gets off work, but the kids get out an hour early on Mondays so I pick up Derrick. 

Veronica walks home so I don't have to worry about getting her. (Unless it's Friday when she brings her string bass home.) But she does have theatre on Mondays so I take her to that. I also usually go to the library after I drop her off. 

90 minutes later I pick her up. 

And that's how I put 29 miles on my car. 

Needless to say I was pretty tired. And a little grumpy. It didn't help that I decided to put the first coat of stain on the wood for the stair rail. The first coat should come with a warning label. It NEVER looks good. It was splotchy and looked terrible and I felt like I was ruining everything. 

But at least I knew that this time. I knew that things would look better with the second coat. And they did.  

Tuesday was another big driving day. Derrick had an orthodontist appointment first thing in the morning. So we went there after I dropped off Veronica. He's had braces for almost 2 years so we were hoping to get a date on when he will get his braces off. Derrick AND Veronica are very eager for Derrick to be done with braces. I don't want to deal with having 2 kids who go to different schools in braces at the same time so I've told Veronica that she can't get braces until Derrick is done.

But the orthodontist declined to give us a deadline for when to expect Derrick to get his braces off. So we still don't know exactly. That's okay because it gives me some time to save up some more for Veronica's braces. We have the down payment and a few months of payments saved up, but it won't hurt to have more saved up. 

After Derrick's appointment was over I dropped him off at school and went to Walmart. We needed a few random things and Walmart is always a great place when I need a bunch of random stuff. I bought blue painters tape, dog food, and diapers because my friend Megan was having a surprise baby shower that evening.

I went home and put the diapers in a gift bag and made myself a salad to eat for lunch later. 

Then I went to Veronica's school and picked her up. It was time for her well-check. She was super nervous about getting a shot. She'd already got the flu-mist at school so she didn't need a flu shot, but I knew it was time for her HPV vaccine.  I was pretty certain we'd declined it last year so this would be the first of the two year series. So I was actually really relieved when they told us she had the first dose last year. So this was the second dose and that meant she didn't need one next year. 

(Total side note: I have a friend who did have HPV cervical cancer and ended up getting a whole hysterectomy. So getting that vaccine is really important in our family.)

Her doctor is really good with Veronica but Veronica still cried a lot about the shot. After it was over we went to get ice cream at McDonalds and then I took her back to school. 

I dropped the gift bag with diapers off at my friend Kori's house because I wasn't sure I'd actually make it to the baby shower. (Megan was supposed to arrive at 6:00 and so I was hoping to be there about 5:50 to be part of the surprise, but I wouldn't be able to stay long and so I wasn't sure if I could make it at all.) And then I went to work. 

Whew!  After all that work felt relaxing. 

I never did make it to Megan's baby shower. Brandon and I were having dinner with the kids when I needed to be there. So I'm glad I had the forethought to drop off the present early. 

Around 6:15 Brandon and I drove out to Filer. It was Veterans Day and we had tickets to see a special performance of The Hello Girls at the Twin Falls Theatre Collective. 

The Twin Falls Theatre Collective is the third Theatre Company in the Twin Falls area. There's Dilettantes which does one show a year. They preform at the theatre at the College. There's Magic Valley Rep which performs at the Orpheum multiples times a year. And there's Twin Falls Theatre Collective. They perform in a building in "downtown" Filer.

Filer is a small town about 10 minutes west of Twin Falls. Their main street looks like Radiator Springs from the movie Cars - before Lightning McQueen arrived. One of the buildings is a two story building that extends pretty far back. Chris Ayers who started Twin Falls Theatre Collective owns this building so this is where they plays are done. 

The first third of the building is a large lobby. The second third is the theatre room. And the final third is where the actors get ready. It's also where the only bathroom is located. 

I tried to explain all of this to my family, but no one could understand what I was talking about. I kept saying, imagine a room as big as our house. That's the theatre. 

So I took pictures when we got there. There were a total of 40 chairs set up on both sides of the room. There were 20 on one side and 20 on the other. The show would be done "theatre in the round" style. There was no official stage. It was the floor between the seats and the areas off to the sides. 

One side of the room had a "bunker." This was a set piece, but it was also where the musicians sat. There was a piano player, a violin, and a cello player in this bunker. There was also a lady alternating between trumpet, clarinet, and euphonium. On the other side of the wall was another piano where my friend Rebecca played the bass part. And the was also a drum set. It would have been too loud in the main room so they had it out in the lobby area. Our friend Mitch (who is married to Britt who does the Living Nativity) was playing the drums.  The roof of the bunker was strong enough that actors occasionally went up there for certain parts of the show.  

Here's Brandon sitting in the area we chose. You can also see one of the lights hanging down from some scaffolding above. They bring that in special for the shows. 

Like I said, this was a special performance of the musical The Hello Girls. This show is about women who served in World War I as telephone operators in the Signal Corp. General Pershing was an American General in the war. He was the one who wanted women brought in to run the telephones. They could connect 6 calls in the time it took a man to connect 1. The general wanted the best in order to win the war. 

The show follows 5 women. Grace Banker, Suzanne Prevot, Helen Hill, Bertha Hunt, and Louise LeBreton. They were all real women. Grace was the leader of their unit. 

Here's the promotional poster. Our friend Breeana is in the middle. She played Grace. She was Marian in the Music Man. She has an incredible voice. At one point she sang a whole power ballad and then dropped and did 20 push ups. 

I also knew Whitney she's second from the left. I didn't know the other three actresses, but they were all great. 

There were also five men in the cast. Here's a picture of the whole cast. 

On the left is Chris Senkbeil.  He played General Pershing. I adore this man. He is so talented. He made - MADE - all the costumes. They looked incredible. I would have thought they came from museums. He's the guy who made the Cinderella set. He's also done many other sets including the ship in Treasure Island and the complicated set for The Play that Goes Wrong.  He was back stage with me during some nights of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. We had a really good time together. 

He's also a retired military service member. I think he was Navy and then Airforce. He was pretty high up when he retired. So he really knew what he was doing as he played the General. 

Next is Dale. Brandon was in Music Man and Spamalot with him. He played the commanding officer of the ladies unit, His character was so interesting. He wasn't sure it was a good idea to bring ladies into the war. He was really conflicted about it, but it was what he was ordered to do so he did it. He came to respect the ladies. 

In the middle is Chris Ayers. He and the other two men played a revolving set of service members. He normally has long hair and a beard so it was so odd to see him clean shaven. Whenever I saw him in his uniform it made me a little sentimental because he looked so real. Like that's what some guy from Twin Falls who was called up into service would have looked like. 

I didn't know much about the other two men. But they were really good. The guy on the end is only in high school. He'd been the lead in Jump Companies, Crazy for You this summer. 

This performance was free for Veterans and their guests. So we were in a room with a bunch of other veterans. As we drove there I told Brandon, "We are probably going to be the youngest ones there."  Apparently that's what Chris Ayers told his daughter. She was in charge of the list where our names were listed. He'd said, "And the Illguth's will be the youngest. They are close to my age."

Before the show started the director Karin (pronounced Corrine) asked each service member to introduce themselves and say what branch they served in and where they served. Most of the people in the room were Vietnam era guys. But one guy had served for 40 years and only got out in 2017.

Watching the show in a room full of service members was an incredible experience. The show would have been good under any circumstance, but it was especially powerful with this audience. 

The first song asked us to imagine what it was like to be in the war over 100 years ago. I found myself in tears almost right away. The space was just so intimate and the music was so powerful. 

There were so many things to love about this play. Because the space was small the props had to do a lot of work. The switch boards were much smaller than they would have been in real life. At one point they laid them down and had the boards look like beds for a scene in the barracks. At another point the square stools they sat on also opened up to become little cots for another scene in a bunker.

There were so many good parts. One of the most memorable parts was when they announced that the war was over on November 11th at 11:00 AM. This was also November 11th. Veterans Day will have so much more meaning to me after watching this play. 

Then they had everyone rise while Dale played Taps to honor the fallen soldiers in the war. That was POWERFUL. I knew what it meant for every soldier in that room. But it also made me think of when we lived on Fort Hood. We could hear Taps played over the loud speaker somewhere on post every night at 10:00 PM. I called it the "Go to sleep song" I told the girls, "It's saying go to sleep, go to sleep"

Towards the end of the show we were given cards with a different World War I veteran listed on each card. They were passed out at random. When I looked down at mine I started crying - again. I had Edward W Rucker. Rucker as in Fort Rucker, Alabama where we lived for 18 months. Fort Rucker was originally named after a Confederate General so a few years ago they changed the name to Fort Novasel. But everyone loved the Rucker name so much that they changed it back - this time in honor of this Rucker. He was an aviator in World War I. 

The show ended and the cast had all the audience members gather for a picture with the cast. This is a good group of people. 

We congratulated everyone on their performances. I'm not a hugger - unless I'm around theatre people and then I love giving hugs. So I was hugging like crazy. 

And then we went home. We got home around 10:00. It was so weird to be getting home from a theatre thing on a Tuesday. It threw the rest of my week off. But it was so worth it. 

Wednesday did not exactly go how I planned it to. I was going to host my second to last Scripture Study group of the year. But I had a slight problem. I hadn't read the chapter yet. Normally I read myself to sleep each night so normally I have a chance to read the chapter a couple times over before the Scripture Study. But I've been reading Into Thin Air with Brandon at night. And so I didn't get around to reading the chapter. 

But I wasn't worried because there would still be an hour between dropping the kids off at school and when scripture study started. That was plenty of time. 

But Veronica's nervous system had other ideas. Mid-terms are coming up and all the teachers have been giving their classes lectures on how important it is to stay on top of their work so they don't fail. Veronica is in no danger of failing, but all those lectures made her worry. 

And all that worry bubbled out on Wednesday morning. When I came back from dropping off the twins Veronica was sitting on the couch. She looked very upset. We went in my room and she told me some of her worries. I kind of got her calmed down and she seemed okay for the day. But when we got to her school she told me she didn't feel like going yet. 

I made the snap decision to let her hang out with me for first period. So she stayed in the car while we took Derrick across school. She was kind of crying the whole drive. Then she came with me as I went to Ivan's office to pick up the mail. She was still crying so we sat in the parking lot and came up with a plan. I emailed her SPED team and asked them to check in on her and see if they could help her with the assignments she was worried about. 

Then we drove to the school and sat in the car for about 5 more minutes while she tried to stop crying. She pulled herself together, but she didn't want to go into the school alone so I went along. I was hoping to see my friend Kerri, but she wasn't there that day. One of the other office ladies printed off a tardy slip for Veronica to take to her class. But Veronica broke down crying again. So I sat with her and tried to help her calm down. 

There must be a lot of kids who cry in the front office because hardly anyone was phased by Veronica sitting on a chair sniffling. Everyone just went about their days. But after about 15 minutes Veronica was still not calm. I asked one of the office ladies if she could go see if Veronica's counselor was available. 

She's a lady named Amber. I already knew her because something very similar happened with Lydia when she was in 6th grade. Lydia was so concerned about failing 6th grade. She wouldn't listen to me when I told her that she wasn't in any danger of that. So I'd requested a meeting with her counselor and Amber had been able to explain what would have to happen to make someone fail 6th grade. 

Amber was available so me and Veronica went into her room. I explained Veronica's worries and Amber pulled up her class schedule and was like, "Oh you don't have anything to worry about."  But then she took the time to explain that Veronica would have to have something like 6 F's to fail. She even explained that meant 6 Fs for the whole class, not just on individual assignments. I could feel Veronica physically relax as she said that. 

She also talked about things like credit recovery and summer school and how those would help prevent Veronica from having to repeat 6th grade if she did fail. And Veronica relaxed more and more. She found a box of Fidgets and those helped her calm down as well. 

Amber was able to get Veronica to tell her about one of the classes that had her concerned. They made a plan for how to handle the assignment that was stressing Veronica out. 

I stayed with Veronica in Amber's office for about 30 minutes. I'd texted my study group to let them know that I was hoping to be home by 10:00 but things were looking iffy. But now that Veronica was a lot calmer I felt okay leaving her with Amber. I made it home at like 9:58. 

When the ladies from my study group arrived I was like, "So I didn't read the chapter. How about you guys tell me about it."  Despite my lack of preparation we still have a really good discussion. (I mean I did read the chapter like 3 years ago so that counts for something right?)

I went into work in the afternoon, but it was a work with the door shut and my out of office greeting still on my email kind of day. I was able to get a little caught up on some things. 

When the kids were coming home from school I parked on the road by the middle school and picked Veronica up so she didn't have to walk all the way home. She was feeling much better about school. Thank goodness. Honestly, I think my number one piece of advice for any parent is to find out who the school counselor is and get to know them. I really don't know what I would do without their help. 

That evening we all went to the church. The youth activity was an event to honor the Veterans. Last year they'd done a similar activity where each veteran sat at a table and the youth rotated around and talked with each veteran for about 10 minutes. This year the veterans were more of a panel and everyone sat and listened to them. 

The sad thing is that last year there were 7 veterans. This year there were 5. Two had died in the last year. 

Brandon was on the panel, and once again was so much younger than the other 4 guys. The other guys were Vietnam era vets. They all had really great things to say, but I'm biased and think that Brandon had the best answers. 

I was there to keep track of Derrick. I knew he probably wouldn't last the whole hour of listening. I didn't want him causing problems and distracting Brandon. It's good I was there because Derrick ended up with a bloody nose. But aside from that he did really well. He made it through about 45 minutes before I took him out in the hall. 

Thursday was a very busy day. I ended up getting FOUR paychecks in one day. The first one was from Aspen Grove. That paycheck comes through direct deposit through my bank account. It's the biggest one because I work the most hours there. 

After I dropped off Derrick I went to Castle Therapy and picked up my paycheck from Ivan. He normally pays me on the first of the month. He'll put the check in a folder and I'll get it when I get the mail. But he's been a little distracted by getting ready to star in White Christmas at the Orpheum. He totally forgot to pay me and to pay his rent for his office. I emailed him on Wednesday asking if I just hadn't seen the check yet. He was so sorry. I was like, "Hey I can't believe it's November either."

My next stop was Gaining Perspective with Cassy. She also pays me monthly. I only meet with her about every two to three weeks so I told her to just hang onto our check until our next meeting. So I met with her at 10:00 and got that check. 

And then I went across the hall and met with Chattertown Therapy. Yes I have a new billing client - sort of. But before we talk about that I have to tell you about Jori's theory of me. Jori is fascinated by the way I know so many people in Twin Falls and really everywhere. She told me, you are like a whirlpool. People start out on the periphery of your life and just slowly get dragged in closer and closer. My story with Chattertown Therapy is a PERFECT example of this. 

This all starts WAY back in like 2020 or 2021. When I had Derrick start speech therapy here in Twin Falls we went through St Lukes. He was randomly assigned a therapist named Jeremy Chatterton. I was like, "Wait, the SPEECH therapist's last name is CHATTER-ton." That is too perfect. He was great with Derrick and worked with him for over a year. 

At some point Derrick was moved to a new therapist when Jeremy left the company rather abruptly. I was never sure why. When I started working for Ivan I somehow found out that Ivan and Jeremy worked together at Hansen Elementary. Ivan was the OT and Jeremy was the Speech therapist. Jeremy was also starting his own business. Around the same time I started seeing his wife's van with a Chattertown Therapy logo at the theatre around the same time I was dropping off Veronica. Their daughter Capri was in Willy Wonka with Veronica. 

Ivan and Jeremy had started out with the same biller, but Ivan had quickly switched to me. I always had a sense that eventually I'd end up involved with Chattertown's billing. But I was also like, "I don't know anything about billing for speech and I DON'T need another client right now.

The circle got tighter when I started working for Cassy at Gaining Perspective. When I went to log into her internet I saw "Chattertown" come up as an option as a wifi network. I was like, "Chattertown is in this building?" Later Cassy moved to a new office that was across the hall from Chattertown's office. 

In September, Brandon and I went to see Godspell at the Orpheum. Jeremy's wife Andrea was in that play. When we were doing the meet and greet in the lobby after the show I went up to congratulate her on her performance. I was basically like, "You did amazing! Also you don't know me, but you husband was my son's speech therapist. He was cool."

Then a week later Jeremy and Andrea were both at the 4th Wall Night for Godspell. I went over to Jeremy and was like, "Hey you probably don't remember me, but you were my son's speech therapist and I just want you to know that he talks ALL the time now. Mostly about dinosaurs."  He thought that was great. I also somehow brought up that I do billing for someone in his building and was really happy that he had his own business now.  I wasn't trying to get involved in his billing, but it just felt like the right thing to say.

Later Andrea sent me a friend request on Facebook. I thought that was awesome because usually I'm the one stalking people on Facebook and adding them as friends. So it was cool to have it happen to me. And then at the 4th Wall Night for Sweeny Todd she came over to me and we talked like old friends for at least 45 minutes. 

A few weeks later Andrea messaged me and asked me if I'd be willing to teach her how to do the billing for Chattertown. She's getting ready to leave her current job and she wanted to learn billing. I was like, "Oh heck yes I'll teach you." And on the inside I was also like, "I knew this was going to happen some how some day." 

So we set up to meet after I finished with Cassy since I'd already be in the building. Meeting with Andrea and Jeremy was awesome. I really don't want a new billing client, but I'm very happy to be more of a consultant. Andrea's first question was about modifiers and later I told her, "Just the fact that you know to ask about modifiers means you can handle the billing." 

After all the beginning billing training I've been doing with therapists at Aspen Grove it's refreshing to be working with someone who understands the numbers side of things. 

I answered questions for an hour and at the end of the hour Jeremy wrote me a check for my time. 

So yeah, I got four pay checks in one day. That was pretty cool. 

In other news I'd put a few more coats of stain on the wood for the stair rail and things were looking much better. We were able to pull all the tape off after I got home from work on Thursday. I love a dark stain so this was looking amazing. 

Friday was very uneventful. The only picture I took was of these bees that were on our front window screens in the morning. This November has been very warm, but the nights are cold. I think the bees were trying to get to the warmth of our house. 

Brandon got paid on Friday so when I was done with work we met up for lunch. We were planning to go to Kneaders, but when we got there the drive through line was really long and we figured the inside line would be long too. So we went to Burger King. We are so basic. Brandon only gets 30 minutes for lunch so our options are pretty limited to the food locations near the hospital. And I really like Burger King. 

After lunch I went to Winco. It was a two tripper. I did all the non perishable things first and checked out. Then I went back for the perishable food. 

I came home and brought all the food in and put away the perishable food. I left the other stuff for the kids and Brandon to do. I picked up the Twins and dropped them off. Then I went to get Veronica and her bass. 

Our evening was really simple. We had grilled cheese sandwiches for because everything else was too complicated. Charlotte and Lydia went to a birthday party for their friend Lily. Brandon took care of dropping them off and picking them up. 

Brandon watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with Derrick and Veronica. I spent a wonderful evening writing in bed in my pajamas. I updated my blog. 

On Saturday we were back to work on the banister.  Here's what we started with. I'd stained the bottom wood piece and the three support posts. Brandon had installed the center posts and anchored them to the floor joists, but he was using wood from an old project and the wood was a little twisted. So we decided he should buy new wood. So we went to Lowes. 

We bought a 2X4 for Brandon to cut to size. We also bought more drill bits and some little wood detail things. And we picked out a piece of trim to go under the stair rail. I actually picked it out mostly by myself. We came home and Brandon cut it to size and then nailed it in place with his trim nailer. It looked so good. So much better than the uneven edge of the drywall. 

Brandon spent a long time getting the support posts attached to the joists. One was still crooked and he realized that the joist was probably slightly crooked. So he used shims to get the post in level. Then he put the decorative posts on and screwed them in really well. 

Meanwhile I was supervising the kids as they cleaned their rooms. Veronica had a lot of trash in her room so I went around with a trash bag and got that out of there. I also helped her get her sheets straight on her bed again. 

I also cleaned my bathroom. It really needed that. 

At some point I found Brandon's schematics and took a picture. This man is a genius. 

Brandon took a break to do some math for how to space the rails and I put a coat of stain on the trim under the railing. It looked so good. 

Brandon and I realized we had two completely different visions for how close the rails should be spaced. Brandon wanted them to be the traditional 4 inches apart. I thought that was too wide. I wanted them spaced very close together. In the end we didn't have enough rails for my vision so we basically compromised with about 2 inches between each rail. I'd painted 20 rails and Brandon was able to fit 18. 

We planned on pizza for dinner because neither of us wanted to cook. So I went to pick that up as Brandon started putting in the rails with the spacers between them. I came home and walked into THIS!!!!!

It looks so good. I've been looking forward to seeing this forever. 

Here's what it looks like from down below. 

Brandon got the spacers between the rails nailed down with trim nailer and then we took the rails out and put them back in the garage. I still needed to stain the spacers and I did NOT want to get any of the dark stain on my paint job. 

Charlotte had been working some more on her lego farm. She'd ordered little lego chickens and they'd come in the mail. She gave a lot of thought to their run. 

We reached a good stopping place so we cleaned everything up. Brandon took a shower and got into his pajamas. He was like, "Now I get to relax all night."  So he was a little surprised when I came downstairs in an evening gown. 

He'd forgot it was 4th Wall night. (He knew about it, it had just slipped his mind.) So he came upstairs and started getting ready while I finished up. 

I curled my hair and it looked great at first as usual. I took a picture to memorialize the beautiful curls because I knew they would not last. 

I ended up doing an updo and I was able to save one curl. 

The theme this time was World War I victory dance and we were told to go for Black Tie style clothing. 

I bought this long dress for $6 at DI. I love it and it is now one of the most comfortable things I own. 

Here are Brandon and I attempting a picture together. I've decided that my camera and the lighting of this venue just hate me. 

Here's a picture I like much better.

Here's a picture Sarah took of us. 

We started out in this booth, but the people who were sitting with us moved to sit at the bar. So we moved to sit with Tyler and Chelsea at another table. (I'd thought they were too cool for us to sit with at first, but then no one sat with them so I remember that I am in fact cool and so we went and sat with them.) 

I've had the burger the last two times so I wanted something new this time. They had a new item on the menu, it was something tuna. So we got that. I was a little surprised when it showed up. It did NOT look good at all. But I actually really liked it with the wasabi sauce. 

This was the 4th Wall night for Hello Girls. Here is their cast photo in costumes. 

And here's the cast photo at the event. 

Chris and Karin ended up winning for Best Dressed Guy and Gal. I think this is the first time a real life couple has won. 

Tyler and Chelsea were tired and so they decided to leave. We were pretty pooped ourselves so we were going to leave, but then Brandon got talking to Kaden and I got talking to Chris and Karin and so we were there another 30 minutes. 

Then we talked to Ivan for a while too. But eventually we made out way out and were home before midnight. 

It had been a very good day and a very good week. 

Thanks for reading. 

What a strange week (Elections and going viral for the first time)

Today I had the horrible realization that it is already November 14th. Like HOW? This month is going much to fast. 

So let's recap before time slips away even more. The week of November 3-9th was weird. Everyday was like another strange adventure. 

It kicked off on Monday with my internet not working at work. 

But actually before that I had a really good thing happen. I met with my dermatologist after I dropped all the kids off at school. This was a follow up to see how well the cremes he'd prescribed me had helped with my vitiligo. They hadn't helped at all - which is what we'd expected. But we had to try them so that my insurance would then approve the medicine which would work - Opzelura. 

So basically the appointment was like, "Oh darn, those other medicines didn't work. Let me write you a prescription for Opzelura."

Then I went to work and the day went sideways. I felt like I couldn't get anything done. Especially since my internet wasn't working on my computer. It worked for everyone else. The mail hadn't come so I decided to just leave and come back later after my boss had a chance to look at my computer. So I left and took care of some errands and some things at home. I went back around 11:30. The mail had come and the internet was sort of better for me. (My boss had patched me into another wifi network.) But things were still slow, so I ended up going back home and working from there. 

I'd had big hopes for getting really on top of things before I took the day off for the election the next day, but I was lucky to get the bare minimum done. 

That afternoon I hung out on the couch and Derrick shared his Halloween candy with me. He loves to secretly give me sour candies and watch my reactions. The funniest one was a very nice watermelon candy that had hot PEPPER in the middle. It was some sort of mexican candy. I was like, "Why would anyone do that?"

Veronica had theatre that evening. Daylight Saving Time had ended on Sunday so now it gets dark earlier. It was almost dark when she got out of theatre. I didn't like that. I feel like I fall apart every night when the sun goes down. It take me like an hour to get used to it. 

I spent a little bit of time packing my bag for the next day. I packed snacks, a book, and the instructions for what I needed to do. 

I wrote out a little checklist for myself of reminders of what to do. At the end of the day I was going to have to count the ballots and then do a little bit of math to make sure the number of blank ballots we started with matched the number of blank ballots + printed ballots. I was really nervous about this step. So my instructions to myself said:

Fill out Ballot Accounting Form (Cry) 

On Tuesday I got up around 5:30 and took a shower. I ate breakfast and then drove over to my precinct. This was my fourth election. I've worked the last three elections at my voting precinct location. It's for Twin Falls 7 and 9 and is held at the Valley Christian Church on the corner of Heyburn and Maurice streets. 

I was there at 7:00 AM and went inside the little social hall area. The church custodian, Bob, had already unlocked the doors and set up some tables and chairs. He gave me his phone number so I could call him if I needed anything. 

The other members of my team showed up around this time. I was the youngest of the group, but I was the Chief Judge. I'd been a little nervous about being in charge of 60 year old women. I was worried that they would have their own ideas for how the day should go. But they were all great. 

Their names were Claudia, Mary Kay, and Denise. 

Claudia had the most experience. She worked for the county as kind of a floating employee. She helped in the treasures' office during Tax Season, another office when they were busy, and the clerks office during elections. She'd been helping with Early Voting for the past few weeks. She could do all the jobs, but on this day she was the Receiving Clerk. She stood by the ballot box and instructed people on how to put the ballot into the box. In Idaho the voters names need to be announced. So she would ask, "What is your name."  And then say something like, "Valerie Illguth has voted."

Mary Kay had worked as the receiving clerk in the 2024 election. This was her first time doing Poll Book. She was very nervous about all the steps to print ballots, but after doing a few she felt much more comfortable with the process. 

Denise had worked for Jerome County in 2024. So she knew what she was doing. She told me the Chief Judge at her location had been terrible so she never wanted to work for Jerome County again. 

We also had Vonnie as our Registrar. Vonnie has been the Registrar at this location for years. I worked with her as a Registrar in 2022. I felt so weird being her Chief Judge only 3 years later. But I think it really helped that I knew her. In 2022 and in 2024 she'd kind of butted heads with the Chief Judges. But we didn't have that issue because I wasn't new to her. 

Here's the one picture I took the whole day. This outside the door leading into the church. 

Everyone worked together to set up our equipment. I had the ballot box, 2 printers, the voting booths, and a big bag of supplies in the back of my van. A county employee came and dropped off our Cradle point (the secure internet thingy) and the electronic poll books. 

Before we put the ballot paper into the printers I counted how many blank ballots we had. They were in packages of 50 and 100. We had a total of 600 ballots. We opened the package of 50 ballots first because we didn't expect that many voters. 

The ballot box had been sealed with zip ties with numbers on them. I had to break those seals to get the ballot paper out of the ballot box. I had more zip ties to seal it back up, but I couldn't do that yet. 

At 8:00 I announced "The polls are now open."  Shortly after that our first voter arrived. The poll book workers got him checked in. After he'd marked his ballot I showed him that the ballot box was empty. Then I could seal it with the zip ties. And then he could put his ballot in the slot. 

After that things were kind of boring. We had a steady trickle of voters, but never more than 3 in the building at the same time. 

We passed the time with talking. I think Claudia and Denise knew each other already. Over the course of the early conversation I think all the ladies figured out who they knew in common and realized they'd all gone to High School at Twin Falls High School around the same time. 

I'd brought the book "Into Thin Air" with me to read. I'd read another book that had described it as a really good example of narrative non-fiction and so I wanted to read it. It's by Jon Krakauer. I've read a few of his other books, but this one quickly became my favorite. I think it was because he was part of the story. The book is about people who climbed Everest in 1996. A storm came in and killed many of the hikers. Jon had been there to write a story for Outside Magazine and ended up on the mountain as the events unfolded. It was a fascinating read and really helped pass the time. 

Things were moving pretty slowly in the real world. Vonnie actually ended up going home around noon because she wasn't feeling well. So Claudia would move over act as Registrar if any one wanted to register to vote. 

And what was I doing?  Well sometimes it felt like not a whole lot. My job was to basically supervise. And that felt really weird. But as the day went on I was like, "Oh I do know what I'm doing."  If someone had a question I could (usually) answer it. And there were a few times I had to make executive decisions. Like when someone came into vote with a MAGA hat on. Technically, clothing for a political candidate or party isn't allowed in the polling location. But last year we were instructed not to make a big deal out of it. We were told to just get them to vote as quickly as possible and have them leave. If we called people out on their hats it would probably create a bigger scene than if we just got them through quickly. So that's what I did this year. I just let the man vote and after he left I explained my reasoning to my team. 

I also filled in for the poll book workers and the receiving clerk when they took breaks. 

At one point there were some kids being a little loud in the kitchen next to the room we were in. It was around time for me to eat so I went to take a break and eat and see if I could get the kids to be quieter. 

Well turns out I knew the kids. So I probably made them louder as we talked. They were kids of a lady named Janice who we've hung out with at our friend Candice's 4th of July Parties. They also do theatre. Their mom teaches a home school music class at that church on Tuesdays so that's what they were doing there. 

I'm trying to think of other exciting things . . . . Into Thin Air was really exciting. The voting not so much. 

Still the time moved pretty quickly. Brandon had taken care of getting all the kids to school and he took care of picking them all up too. He texted to see if I needed anything. I asked him to bring me chapstick when he brough me dinner. He ended up bringing it when he went to pick up the twins. We were only a block away from the high school. In fact, I'd told the girls to just come walk over if they wanted. 

Around 6:00 Brandon brought me spaghetti and broccoli. He brought all the kids so they could see him vote. When they were all little I took them with me to vote, but none of them remembered that. So I was like, "Come see it today, you won't be disruptive."

There were only two city council races on the ballot so that's one reason things were so slow. It just wasn't a big election. 

But I was happy about that because I was still really nervous about the ballot math at the end. 

I'd warned my team that things would really slow down after dark. Even last year when it was a Presidential Election we never had a huge group of people after about 6:30. And yes, things really slowed down after 6:30. 

We kind of started cleaning up things around 7:30. At 8:00 I announced that the poles were closed. I cut open the zip ties on the ballot box and we counted the ballots. There were 167. That's how many our computers said there should be - so that was half the battle. 

Then I filled out the Ballot Accounting Form and it wasn't as hard as I'd worried it would be. WHEW. There was no need for crying. 

We put the voted on ballots into the box along with all the unused ballot paper. Then I sealed it up again. This time I used red zip ties. There were forms where I wrote the seal numbers so they could be checked by the county employees when I returned them. 

We got everything else cleaned up and put back into my van. I thanked everyone for their hard work. The day had been great. Mary Kay said that she was always willing to work whatever precinct I was in charge of. That meant a lot.

I was also feeling pretty good about how everything had gone. I decided that I'll be just fine being a Chief Judge at a bigger election. 

I drove everything back to County West. County West used to be the hospital years ago. It's where the treasurer, assessor, clerk, DMV, and a few other offices are. Many of the other county office are downtown on the same block as the historic county courthouse. But this complex is on the west side of Twin Falls so it's called County West.

Because County West used to be a hospital it actually has a really nice drop off/pickup area where the emergency vehicle entrance was. (At least that's what I assume.) There's kind of a round about right in front of the door. I got in line behind other vehicles and waited my turn. When it was my turn county employees unloaded everything from my car. I had a lot more than I started with because I also had Vonnie's Registrar stuff. One of the election clerks took the ballot box and read off the seal numbers. I signed something and then I was done!

I was back home before 9:00. That was kind of amazing. I'd expected to be stressing over ballot math until 9:00. The kids weren't even in bed yet. 

I went to bed, but I was so hopped up on election energy (and caffeine from the Celsius drink I'd finished at 2:00) I couldn't fall asleep yet. So I stayed up reading Into Thin Air for another hour and a half. I started and finished the book all in one day. It was so good! I actually loved it so much that I wanted to read it again right away so now I'm reading it to Brandon. 

It all caught up to me on Wednesday. I was so tired. I had my scripture study group. It was good, but I found myself spacing out a few times. 

I'd planned to go into work that afternoon, but there really wasn't time. Veronica had therapy at 1:00 and that was a really awkward time. So I just worked from home for like 45 minutes. 

Charlotte wanted me to do a Marco Polo for Brandon's family so they could see her chickens. Then she was able to hold Billy the Rooster and that was a big deal so she wanted a picture. 

This girl loves her animals so much. 

I spent a lot of the afternoon/evening putting the finishing touches on a blog post for the Exponent. I had a lot of ideas swirling around, but the idea that materialized the most was my feelings about Dallin H Oaks becoming the president of the church and the first talk he'd given. I didn't think it was that ground breaking of a post, but it's what I'd been thinking about and I wanted to get it written down. 

I messaged my bloggy friend Abby to help me with the title. Abby runs the Facebook and Instagram pages for Exponent so she has a good sense for these things. My working title had been "I don't want my daughters taking life advise from President Oaks." But as the post came together I realized that something along the lines of "President Oaks, Please stop telling my daughters to get married young" was more descriptive of what I was saying. Abby responded that the second option was better and to take out the please. 

Then she told me that she strongly suggested putting a picture of President Oaks at the pulpit as the main image. She told me that somehow pictures of old men encouraged people to click on and read our feminist blog content. I was like, "Okay."  And found an image. 

I wasn't really expecting anyone to read this little blog post. It was just my thoughts that I'd finally been able to gather after a month. Honestly, I didn't think the post was that incredible. I liked it, and I was willing to post it, but I didn't think it would have much of a reach. I expected it to have a handful of comments on the actual blog and then maybe 20 likes and 2 comments when it was shared on Facebook. 

Little did I know how much Abby's advice to use that picture of President Oaks would impact things. 

The post went live at 7:00 AM on Thursday. At first things were pretty quiet. But within a few hours the post started to get a lot of traction on Facebook. 

So many comments started coming in. And most of them were pretty hostile. It was very apparent that no one was reading the actual post. I'm not even sure most people were reading the three paragraph blurb that Abby had included with the post. Most people were reacting to the title of "President Oaks, Stop Telling My Daughters to Get Married Young."

So many men felt the need to comment. A few women chimed in as well. The majority of the comments fell into a few different camps. 

1. I misunderstood President Oaks and he never said such a thing. 

2. President Oaks is right and women should get married young. 

3. I was a complete apostate because I dared question the prophet whose every word was what God wanted him to say.  

For the most part I was able to laugh off the comments. I texted Brandon and told him to look at the comments. Brandon LOVES reading unhinged comments. He loves to go down rabbit holes reading comments sections. So this was basically the best gift I could ever give him. 

But it was sometimes hard to read another comment saying I might was well just leave the church if I didn't want to listen to God's prophet. I was like, "I'm actually hanging on by my fingernails here. Why am I still in this church?"

There were also comments from people who agreed with me. Those were really nice to read. They helped me remember that I wasn't crazy for noticing the pattern of what President Oaks had been preaching.  

And there were many, many, many likes.

The likes and comments poured in all day. Abby kept updating me with the stats from the back end. That night at 7:00 she sent me screen shots showing that the post had 68,208 views. That was 38.7 times more than our typical views. 95% of the people viewing it were from non-followers of the page. (Which explained a lot of the hostile comments. For some people this was their first time ever seeing content from the Exponent.)

The post was wild for a few days on Facebook before finally settling down. As of right now it has 876 reactions. 612 of those are likes and 225 are loves. It has 523 comments. FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE!!! I thought it would have two! And it has been shared 79 times. Abby says the views are at 76825.

Later it went up on Instagram. The instagram algorithm functions differently - so the post didn't go crazy wild. Instead a lot of really thoughtful people left beautiful comments. After feeling like I was getting pummeled on Facebook Instagram was like a lovely group hug. 

And on the blog itself it got 33 comments. (Technically it got 35 comments. But we deleted the two where someone said that I would have been willing to murder Jesus because I was willing to speak against his prophet. Those comments went to far.)

I'm still a little in shock that THIS post went viral. Like I'm proud of it, but it's not my best work. There are at least 5 other posts that I wish had been read by more people. I joked in an email to the other bloggers, "I keep thinking "why couldn't this have happened with my post about Abinidi interpreting Isaiah? I researched and studied so much for that post.""

Later I joked with Abby, "Now if only my upcoming series on the 12 minor prophets could have this kind of reach. But I don't think enough men will be triggered by those blog posts."

Also I'd planned to share this post to my Facebook page. But that was back when I thought like 3 people would read it. After it started going viral I was like, "NOPE this is not going on my page."  It was hard enough having the post picked apart by people I didn't know. I didn't have the emotional bandwidth to have my friends commenting on it. 

Maybe later I'll share it - along with samples of the unhinged comments that were lobbed at me. But for now I'm keeping it quite. So if you've read about it here, well congratulations. You are one of the few who know that I something I wrote went viral. 

In other Thursday news it was actually my 6 year anniversary of working for Aspen Grove Family Therapy. I planned to do a Facebook post about it anyway, but when things went nuts with the Exponent post I put up a post about my work anniversary. I needed people commenting on something that was real and not a headline they were misinterpreting. 

Work was much better than it had been on Monday. My internet worked, and I was able to dig out from being gone all Tuesday and most of Wednesday. But I really really really need to remind myself next year that the three weeks between going to Boise for the IPUL board meeting and working the election are just CRAZY.

That night I worked on a birthday present for Jori. She loves collecting shells and has boxes and boxes of them. I asked her for some that she didn't mind if they were glued and she gave me some from her trip to San Diego this year. I was playing around with how to lay them out in a shadow box. This was not the final design, but it was fun.  

On Friday I went grocery shopping and then went to work. Then I went to DI and found a dress for an upcoming 4th Wall Night. 

That night we all watched the movie "V for Vendetta."  It was the first time the kids ever saw it. There were some intense parts, but they really liked it. I was like, "When this movie came out everything felt like fiction. But now it feels a little too real in spots."

On Saturday our main goal was to make progress on the stair rail that will replace the wall we tore out on New Years Eve. Yes, I am fully aware of how long this project has taken us. 

Brandon, Lydia, and I went to Lowes and picked out wood. That's always the most boring part for me, but Brandon loves it. Then we came home and he set up a work station. 

Brandon had bought a new blade for his table saw. It was something like a "finish blade."  He said it cut wood like it was butter. He was so happy with it. 

Meanwhile I was working on painting the balusters. Brandon and I had picked out the colors and had the paint mixed back in July. But we hadn't made it this far on the kitchen project. I set up a painting area in the garage. 

And started painting. 

Brandon's main goal was to cover up the spot where the wall used to be. It was kind of tricky because the tile wasn't the same size across the whole area. The simplest thing to do was to put some cheap wood on top of the spots that didn't have tile and then lay a nice board over all of the patchwork. 

Here it is from another angle. 

Here he is putting in more of the filler wood. He also took to posts and attatched them to the floor joists down below. He'd put larger posts over these secure posts. 

I was still painting. My process took FOREVER. I only had one little roller brush so I had to thoroughly wash it out between ever color. I finished the first coat in something like two and a half hours. 

Here's Brandon with the patch work almost complete. 

I started on the second coat. This is supposed to show how much difference there is between the first and second coat. But I think it's a little deceptive because that second coat is still wet so it's much darker. 

And here's where Brandon made it by the end of the night. He had the nice board installed and was fitting the two posts (that he built). 

Charlotte had been playing with Legos most of the day. She made a barn. 

She loves the little arches over all the stall doors. 

Brandon switched gears from wood working to baking. He started making a gluten free cake for Jori's birthday. Her birthday would be in the next week, but she has a lot of birthday trauma so she doesn't like to celebrate on her actual birthday. 

I invited her over for dinner on Sunday since I knew she didn't want to celebrate on her real birthday. She and Tim and in the middle of some major kitchen updates so she really appreciated not having to figure out a meal. 

While Brandon was working on her cake I was gluing down the shells on her present. This is the final design I choose. 

On Sunday morning I worked on Exponent Guest Post stuff. A lady had submitted her own reaction to President Oaks talk. I got it scheduled and gave her a heads up that it was probably going to have big reaction on Facebook. (I was right, it went up on Facebook this morning and so far has 199 reactions and 288 comments.)

We went to church, but it felt like we were in some sort of parallel dimension for a while. 

We got there about 30 minutes early. (I'm really committed to getting a full bench and that means we have to be there early.) The whole choir area was full of teenagers practicing a song. At first I thought they were from our ward, but I didn't recognize any of them. I assumed they were from the 1st ward, but I wasn't sure the first ward had that many youth. 

As they were finishing up more and more people started showing up and sitting in the pews. But I didn't recognize many of the people. It seemed like they were there for a baby blessing or something, but I couldn't think of any new babies in the ward aside from the one that was blessed a few weeks ago. 

The speakers started sitting on the stand. I knew two of them, but the youth speaker was a girl I have never seen. 

I was like, "Are we in the right ward? Did we come at the wrong time? Or the wrong year? Or the wrong dimension?"

Then a single lady in the ward who usually attends with just her son showed up with like 9 college age girls. I was like, "Who are these girls?"  Thankfully she actually provided some explination to what was going on. All the girls who were with her were her daughters roommates or something. So that solved that.  

She also recognized one of the people from the group of strangers. She told me and the lady sitting behind me, "Oh that's my friend I go to the temple with. Her daughter and her husband live in our ward and they just had a baby. The baby is being blessed today."

I was like, "OHHHHHHHHH"  And then I realized that I'd actually met that daughter AND I'd made friends with her on Facebook. So yeah, I really should have realized it was the baby blessing for her baby that day. 

But the weirdness wasn't over yet. Just as the bishopbric member was welcoming everyone to church I looked to the pew on my left and saw Derrick's best friend Max. I waved and whispered "Hey Max!"  He had the biggest smile. He's cousins or something with the mom of the baby.

Derrick didn't know Max was there yet because he was sitting with the deacons. He was pretty surprised to walk by Max as he passed the sacrament. As luck would have it Derrick passed both the bread and water to Max. 

When Derrick sat back down with me we beckoned Max over to sit with us, but he was too shy to leave his family. 

Oh and the youth speaker was a girl who joined the church like a year ago. 

So in the end everything made sense, but wow it was weird there for a while. 

I skipped out on Relief Society because they were studying the Oaks talk and I'd said and heard everything I needed to about that talk for a while. 

When I got home I realized that the odometer had gone over 296000 miles. We'd put on 1000 miles in a month. 

Brandon finished frosting Jori's cake. She'd requested a German Chocolate cake. He'd done such a good job. This was like 1000X better than his last gluten free cake attempt. 

We had taco salad for dinner. Jori, Tim, and their kids loved it. Then we sat around and talked until we'd digested enough to have cake. Brandon had bought sparkler candles for the cake. Jori thought they were so funny. 

Jori and Tim helped me finalize the order the balusters should be in when we put them up on the stair rail. 

We talked some more and then they all went home around 8:00. 

Veronica got out her string bass. I'd recently gone through my binder of things I'd saved from Jr High and I discovered I'd saved several copies of my old bass music. (At least I really hope these are copies. I can't image that I save the real sheet music.)

I went and got those out and played them. Arlington Sketches was especially special to play. This was THE song in 7th grade. It was so fun to learn and I was so good at it. So it was fun to play it again. I was surprised that the muscle memory was actually still in my fingers. As I played the music I was like, "Oh I still remember how to do this fingering."  I would need a little practice to play it well - but I still remembered it. 

And that gets us through Sunday night. 

I'm happy to say the next week was less strange. But I'll tell you all about that in my next post. 

Thanks for reading.