This week was such a survival week. Nothing extremely special happened this week. I spent a lot of time working. And a lot of my free time was spent doing really boring stuff with the new van. Case in point, I took more pictures of the new van's title than I did of anything we did this week.
But there were little important and fun things that happened so we are still going to do a recap.
On Monday my friend Andrea came to watch me at work at Aspen Grove. I'm helping her learn how to do the billing at her husband's speech therapy practice. She was starting to seem really overwhelmed so I invited her to see what it looks like when everything is going smoothly.
So she came to my office and spent about 90 minutes watching me and asking questions. It was really informative.
At 11:00 I logged out of work, but stayed in my office and attending the IPUL board meeting over zoom. It was a good meeting. Kind of boring at points, but overall really good.
Then at 1:00 I logged back into work and tried to get everything done in the last hour before I had to leave to get the twins. I was mostly caught up.
Lydia needed special plyers for her welding class. Brandon was going to take her to Norco for them, but he was busy at the verizon store trying to figure out some phone stuff. So Lydia and I just went together. She drove. At Norco she found the plyers we needed and the employee who was helping us said, "You can either get these, or these that are half the price and are pretty much the same." He also gave us a student discount. I told Lydia, "That's why small businesses are the best in these situations."
At home I had one job planned for the new Honda for each day. The job for Monday was to get the Bill of Sale and the Title figured out. Since we'd bought the car from my brother we'd kind of skipped those steps on Saturday.
On Tuesday I spent about and hour and a half finishing cleaning out the files in Ivan's office. It took a long time because I was trying to keep everything organized. He told me, "I was just expecting you to just dump all this into this box." I told him, "Well, I was tempted to do that. But then I figured that was making more work for someone down the road if we ever needed to go through these things." So I took a lot of time to group the files by insurance company and by 6 month period.
When I was done at Ivan's I went home and picked up the blue van. I took it to the Sherriff's office for a vin check. This is something that Brandon and I learned about with the silver van. In Pocatello the DMV would do the VIN check for us at their office, but in Twin Falls, the DMV employees don't do that. We'd shown up at the Twin Falls DMV with the silver van and they were like, "Did you get a Vin check?" And I'd been like "don't you do that?" And then they told us to go to the Sherriff's office downtown. So this time around I knew that I needed to get that done before went to the DMV.
It was really quick and I went back home to switch vans. Then I went to work at Aspen Grove. We had a really productive admin meeting which was good. But the downside was that was another hour that I didn't actually get work done. I was feeling very behind by the time I was back at my desk. And even with two more hours of work I felt very behind.
I picked up the twins and took them home. Then I drove over to County West and met up with Brandon who had just picked up Derrick from school a few blocks away from County West. Derrick had been talking about just taking the license plates off the old van and putting them on the new van so I figured it would be a good learning experience to have him come along to see how to really register a vehicle.
I had the title and the vin check paperwork all ready. The lady was super helpful, but as she was looking up things with the title she informed us that there was a newer title than the one we had. We had one from 2019. There was another one from 2023 that we needed. I was like, "I'm so glad I bought this from my brother so I can get ahold of him easily about this."
In the meantime we were able to get a 1 year "held at county title." So we were still able to register the van. And now we have a year to get the title figured out. Which shouldn't be hard since Billy has already ordered a replacement.
For dinner on Tuesday we went to some sort of fundraising dinner at Kimberly High School. My boss had 5 tickets that he got because his son was part of the national honors society. My bosses family couldn't make it so he offered the tickets to anyone who wanted them. I LOVED the idea of not cooking dinner so I asked for the tickets.
The dinner had spare ribs, baked potatoes, green beans, and a cinnamon roll. I wasn't worried about only having 5 tickets because I knew that not all 4 of my kids liked each of those things. Basically the kids just ate their cinnamon rolls. Some of them had baked potatoes. Brandon went home with a whole bunch of ribs.
We'd driven in two different cars because Brandon had a meeting at the church at 6:00. So he went there after we left the high school. He was called to be a Teachers Quorum Advisor.
I went home and then left a little while later. I had Bunco at my friend Shaylee's house. I went and sat on her couch and was like, "I think this is the first time I've truly sat down all day."
I was so happy that Shaylee was hosting. No one had signed up for January. A few weeks earlier I'd texted everyone in the bunco group chat and been like, "Hey is anyone hosting this month. I'm dying from work and need something fun to look forward to." Shaylee offered to host.
I had a terrible loosing streak. I lost something like 10 times in a row. But the people sitting to the right and left of me were having AMAZING luck. It's like my luck was deflecting onto them. Like they were rolling bunco's right out the gate or having really lucky streaks. Later I got some luck back and did have some wins. I ended the night with 14 loses and 10 wins.
Wednesday was the snowyest day we've had all winter - which isn't really saying anything, but we did get about 2 inches.
After I dropped all the kids off I went out to Filer to continue learning the bookkeeping for Jump Company. It's making a little more sense - but I still feel like and idiot in front of Chris Ayers.
Then I drove back to Twin Falls on very snowy roads. I was still driving the old van and it's old tires were not doing well in the snow.
When I got back home I started the car related task of the day. I called our insurance and added the van to our insurance.
That was going to be it for the day, but the snowy roads made me not want to drive the old van around when it was time to pick up the kids. So I decided to do Thursday's task. So I drove the Blue Van over to Jiffy Lube for an oil change. Thanks to the snow there was no one else there so the techs got right to work and I was in and out of there in about 15 minutes.
Normally I have them put High Milage Synthetic Oil into my Hondas. But this van is still under 200,000 so it didn't need High Milage Synthetic. I was like, "WHAT?"
I went back home and unceremoniously moved the old van into an uncovered part of our driveway and then parked the new van in the place of honor under the carport. The Blue van had just become my main van.
When I picked up Charlotte and Lydia from school they were very excited to see the Blue Van. Brandon had a doctors appointment after work so I picked up Derrick since Brandon couldn't do it. He was also excited about the Blue Van.
That night none of my girls wanted to go to Young Womens. Derrick did want to go to Young Mens so Brandon took him. I stayed home and read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to Veronica. We read for two hours and finished the book.
On Thursday I was still feeling behind from all the not work I'd done earlier in the week so I started out my day at Aspen Grove. I took a little break at 11:00 to go to Chattertown and help with their billing and then I was back at Aspen Grove.
I finally felt on top of things again.
That night Veronica was able to attend the dress rehearsal for the third and final cast for High School Musical. She had another wonderful night. I went to the church after I dropped Veronica off. I was meeting with the Young Women President and one of her counselors. I've recently discovered the power of a face to face meeting and I wanted to bring up the fact that my girls weren't feeling like they belonged at Young Womens. We had a really good meeting. Basically the leaders had been unsure of how to approach Charlotte and Lydia and so they were erroring on the side of not reaching out. And My girls were feeling like no one cared because they weren't reaching out. And so I was there to say, "hey everyone wants to be friends. How do we make that happen?"
The plan is for the two leaders to take Charlotte and Lydia out for ice cream. That way they can get to know each other on neutral territory. It's a good plan.
I went home for a minute and then had to pick up Veronica. Charlotte came with and drove there. When we came back home she had just earned her final 15 minutes of the required 50 hours of driving practice. That was a big deal.
Veronica had another amazing night watching the cast. She loved it again.
On Friday I went to work - again. I made myself stay for 4 hours so I don't start next week behind after a whole week of trying to catch up.
I would have gone grocery shopping, but I knew we needed a bunch of things and so I wanted to go on Saturday when I could bring a kid along to help.
I went home and worked on making invoices for all my billing clients. I still need to name my business, but it felt good to make invoices and send them out.
That night Brandon and I went on a date to see the Buhl Drama kids put on Seussical. I was going because my friend Jennifer teaches at the Buhl middle school or maybe high school or maybe both and this was her drama department's musical.
Jennifer had been in the Complete Works of William Shakespeare and we became friends through that. She's had a lot of health challenges lately so I wanted to go support her.
Brandon was going because he's on the creative team for Seussical at the Orpheum this fall. He's in charge of the set. The whole creative team was going so they could take notes.
So we drove out there and met up with a bunch of Orpheum friends. Mathieu is the director, Nate is the Assistant Director, Cameron is the Music Director, and Laura is costumes. Chris and Karin were also there because they'd done Seussical when they were in Germany and wanted to see these kids do it.
The play is really cute. It's based on Dr Seuss books. The Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2 are in it, but most of the plot is Horton Hears a Who - with a little bit of Horton Hatches and Egg thrown in.
The kids did great and there were some really solid kids in roles. But it was also very much a middle school production. But overall very worth the time.
After it was over I thought we'd go home, but then the creative team wanted to go out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Buhl. I was like, "Oh right, what is theatre without going out to eat." So we went out to dinner with everyone. Brandon and I split an amazing plate of beef nachos.
It was fun to talk about all the things we liked about the play and how people imagine interpreting it at the Orpheum. I love hanging out with such creative people.
On Saturday I woke up and started thinking about all the things I needed to do that morning like getting up and getting the kids to school. And then I realized it was Saturday. I've never been happier for Saturday.
Brandon and I slept in and then we got up and started going about our days. Veronica and I went grocery shopping. The store had recently - like within the last 7 days - been reorganized. So it was quite the adventure to find everything. But it was also a fun bonding experience with the other shoppers. One guy was like, "I'm not crazy right? This is different than it used to be?" And I joked with another lady, "At least we have a good excuse if we forget something this time."
Back at home Brandon worked on making new shelves for the garage. He'd already bought the wood earlier in the week. Here's the new bank of shelves to go with the two that he built several years ago.
I vacuumed out the vans. I started with Billy's van and I was a little snobby about it. I was like, "Oh look at these cracker crumbs under the seats - you can totally tell they had little kids in this car."
And then I moved to my old van and I was like, "Oh wait, this is disgusting. I had nothing to complain about with Billy's van." My van had like sand and dirt all over the carpet. I'm not sure the last time I vacuumed it out well.
Then I moved all my stuff from the old van to the new van. Things like the totes with the travel pillows and blankets. A garbage pail, a basket with water bottles, and my sunglasses. One very important thing was this friendship bracelet that my friend Erin made me like 15 years ago. I've had it hanging from the rear view mirror in every vehicle. The Jeep, the Pilot, the old van, and now this van.
Brandon has a TV set up in the garage. He and Charlotte and Lydia have been watching Season 3 of Stranger Things out there. They watched that while Veronica, Derrick and I watched the 2002 Spiderman inside.
And that gets us to Sunday. We were able to sleep in again today. Then we had a relaxing moment.
Brandon took Lydia around town to get the last hour or so of driving time that she needed.
Derrick remembered the church movie "On the Way Home" and so we watched that. It was kind of like playing 20 questions to figure out what he was talking about at first. He was telling me about a movie with the mom and dad fighting and a little girl who catches a fish. And a basket ball. I'm still surprised I figured out that he was talking about "On the Way Home." It's been at least 4 years since we watched that.
Around 11:30 Veronica came downstairs and was like, "Um are we going to church?' I had to remind her that we didn't even need to leave for church until after 1:00. She was like oh right.
Church was good. I actually went to Sunday school and actually made a comment. But I also spent a lot of time prepping things for my study of Amos.
And that gets us caught up. This week revolved around getting the van registered and ready to drive. Next week revolves around the Twin's driver's licenses. They are going to take their written tests tomorrow after school. And if they pass those we'll schedule their driving skills tests.
I'll update you all about it next week.
Thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment
What do you think?