Second week after vacation (and Derrick's birthday somehow)

I'm still working to get caught up on this blog. I'm getting very, very close. This blog post will cover the second week after our vacation. It's from Monday April 6 to Sunday April 12. Derrick's birthday was during this time. 

But first, we need to talk about my mental state after the vacation. It was . . . not good. I thought I'd come back from vacation with lots of energy and ready to tackle everything. But instead I came back from vacation and was like, "Do I even like anything I do?"  

The vacation had been so good. It was nice to relax and just enjoy fun things as a family. And without knowing it, my internal priorities got a little shifted. I came back not as interested in the hustle I had been doing. 

Even Aspen Grove, which has been the best job that I've loved for over 7 years, was suddenly feeling like a burden. 

At first I thought I was just tired. There hadn't been much time between coming home from the vacation and jumping back into life. And yes I was tired. But even after I got some rest and got back on top of things at work I was still looking at everything and being like, "Do I really want to do this?"

And so I started making some hard decisions. 

Aspen Grove was staying. And after a little bit more sleep I did remember that I loved that job. But everything else was on the chopping block. 

I decided to step down from the Idaho Parents Unlimited Board of Directors as of this fall. That meant I would have two more zoom board meetings, but I would not attend the in person meeting. This was a hard decision, but also a needed one. That in person meeting is a good meeting, but it wreaks havoc on my schedule. It also comes about 2 weeks before I serve as an election Judge and taking time off for both those things is always hard on my work schedule. But in some ways this was an easy decision because I've found myself caring about that board less and less. I'd rather focus my energy on something more local. 

I also made some hard decisions about my billing business. The decisions were kicked off by Ivan telling me he was going to pivot more to his online coaching. By the end of May he only planned to have 6 insurance clients. So my role there would be greatly reduced. At first I was like, "Oh no, I need to find some more billing clients."  But the more I thought about it the more relieved I was. I realized that Chattertown will also be ramping down their need for me about that same time. (Andrea is doing so well!) And that just left Gaining Perspective which also really didn't need me that much any more. So I decided to not worry about getting my billing business up and running right now. I'd let everyone naturally ramp down during the spring and not worry about it during the summer. The only extra billing client I'd keep though the summer would be Jump Company. I could have a relaxing summer with the kids. And that felt important because this is the last summer before Charlotte and Lydia would have big summer jobs.  And then maybe in the Fall I'd start finding some more clients. Maybe.

I felt a lot of peace after decided to step away from some of these extra things. But it took a lot of soul searching to get to that peace. 

The ironic thing is that there was one thing I really wanted to do, but then it caused me so much more stress. I'd been wanted to take over as committee chair for the Curtain Calls for the next year. The Curtain Call Awards were on Thursday and on Saturday I started reaching out to a few people to find out if they were okay with me taking over. And that's how I started to find out about the terrible fallout from the reactions of a few people at the Curtain Call Awards. 

It made me feel awful to know that terrible things had been said. And the "victims" in the situation weren't acting very adult either. I honestly started to feel like a couldn't trust anyone. I vacillated between wanting to give up on the whole thing and wondering if I really should want to be in charge. But I also wondered if I was the perfect person to be in charge at this time because I was neutral enough to not have built in biases. But it was hard because I'm so new to the theatre community I don't quite know the history. Or to put it another way I don't know where the land mines were buried. 

I was honestly relieved when I found out on Wednesday that Diane Stevens had made the decision to shut down the Curtain Calls. By that point I knew only a teeny bit of the story and that had me stressed out enough. 

But it was also heart wrenching to have them shut down so quickly. Most of the committee was completely blindsided. Sarah later told me she felt like she'd been broken up with and then ghosted. I told her that I felt like I was a child in a divorce. I felt like everything was my fault - even though it wasn't my fault. The other adults were the ones reacting terribly. But I still felt so guilty. What if I had been able to put the set list in a different order? What if my statement at the beginning of the show had better described how the committee decided to handle to voting rules for the year? What if? What if? What if?

So anyway, all this is to say that I'm going to take you through the day to day recap for the week. And it's going to look pretty normal. But underneath that normal was a whole lot of emotional turmoil. I look back on that week as one of the hardest weeks I've had in a while. 

So yeah, let's get recapping!

On Monday April 6 I think I spent most of the day at work at Aspen Grove getting on top of a lot of different things. I always like when I can focus like that. 

That afternoon, Derrick had his orthodontist appointment. They confirmed that he would get his braces off at his next appointment. I'd long promised Veronica that she would get her braces on when Derrick was done. (I did not want to deal with coordinating appointments for two kids who went to two different schools!) So as soon as we knew that Derrick was almost done I got Veronica scheduled to have her braces put on. She would get them on the following Monday. 

Speaking of Veronica, she has spent hours and hours making a 40 minute movie. She learned a lot about editing in the process. I don't know if the movie will ever be done, but it's been a good learning experience. Her she is at the computer in Derrick's room. 

On Tuesday morning I took Veronica to the dentist to get some cavities filled. She did not like the process very much. But she put up with it. 

That evening I spent a lot of time weeding my vegetable garden beds. The weather was perfect. Charlotte and Lydia got the picnic blankets out of the car and laid in the grass in the backyard. They listened to music and worked on their stories. I think they did this every night that week. 

Brandon bought cake mix and frosting and made Derrick's cake that evening. Derrick said he wanted the cake to have a raptor coming out of some leaves. I'd already bought a raptor figurine to go on the cake. I also bought palm trees at Hobby Lobby. Brandon took care of everything else. He stayed up until Midnight icing it. That sounds terrible, but he said he had so much fun. He looked up how to make leaf details on youtube and then had fun doing them on the cake. 

Wednesday April 8th was Derrick's 14th birthday. Here's the cake where Brandon put it on the fridge when he was done. He was already at work by the time the rest of us woke up. It was so cool to see that cake in the morning. 

The first part of the day was pretty typical. I got all the kids to school and then I went out to Filer to do the bookkeeping for Jump Company. Chris Ayers and I talked a bit about the Curtain Calls, but by this point I was thinking everything would die down. I thought everyone just needed to get over their pettiness. I had no idea of the more ridiculous things going on behind the scenes.  It would come as a complete shock that afternoon when I found out they were cancelled. Chris and I had had no idea. 

I had to leave at 11:00 to pick up Veronica for her therapy appointment. While she was in therapy I went across the street to the county DMV and got a parks pass sticker for my van. I also asked some questions about the title. (Yep, that saga is still on going.)

Then I took Veronica back to school for the day. I went home and worked on writing about going to Universal Studios. It was while I was working on that post I found out the Curtain Calls were ended. I also found out a little bit more of what had been going on the past few days. And that was really hard to hear. So I spent the rest of the day being sad about that while being happy for Derrick's birthday.

After school some of the boys in the teachers quarom came over to give Derrick a balloon and some candy. That was really sweet of them. (And even more sweet of Cayson's mom Kori who coordinated the whole thing.)

We went out to eat at Burger King because they have a good deal on Wednesdays. It was like $6 for Whopper value meals. We paid less than $40 for all of us to eat. That was a steal compared to the $90 we'd paid in California.

Then we went back home and Derrick opened his presents. Derrick and I had bought most of these at Hobby Lobby after his dentist appointment on Monday. (In case you can't tell I didn't have mental space for his birthday until after the Curtain Calls and Easter were over.)

Here's a drone that he'd picked out at Hobby Lobby.

Then we went into the kitchen to have cake. But first I had to take a billion pictures. 

From every angle. Look at all the details Brandon was able to do with different piping tips. 

This cake was so cool.

He even made it so there was a game trail for the raptor to run on. 

He also made an exposed cliff face. 

Here's Brandon and Derrick with the cake. 

And here it is with the candle lit. 

Derrick loved it. 

And LOOK at those layers. Brandon really did an incredible job on this cake. 

Here's Derrick flying his drone around. 

He had a great birthday and he was so excited to turn 14. 

Thursday was the day I finally got out of some of my sadness over the curtain calls. I'd had a hard time sleeping on Wednesday night so I spent a lot of time thinking. I realized that the last time I felt this distraught over the end of something it was back in 2019 with the Radio Ronin podcast. Kenny had left/been kicked off the podcast in a messy way. Back then, I'd had this same feeling of feeling like I was a child in a divorce and my parents were fighting. That had happened pretty soon after I'd moved to Twin Falls and I remember thinking, "If I'm this upset about someone leaving a podcast, maybe I need to get some real friends." But now it was my real friends who were fighting. 

So I wanted to retreat back to my podcast friends. I remembered that I hadn't had the chance to listen to the Baconsale episode for that week. (Which just shows how weird of a week it was since I usually listen to that when it comes out on Mondays.) So after I dropped Derrick off at school I pulled up the episode and pushed play. And within 5 minutes I was smiling and laughing at the show. They were talking about the Music of 1986. The previous episode had been all about cookies and they referenced that and said cookies in such an upbeat way. It was honestly the pick me up I needed.

I was like, "Oh right, that's what happiness feels like."

I was able to get a lot of things done on Thursday without the cloud that had been seeming to follow me all week. 

(But apparently I didn't feel like taking any pictures.)

It was Brandon's pay day so that night I did a big grocery shopping trip. We hadn't had a big stock up grocery shopping trip since our vacation so we needed A LOT. It was good to get so much food. But I was exhausted by the end.

But that big shopping trip on Thursday was worth it for how much it freed up my Friday. I went to work in the morning like normal, but I didn't have to go grocery shopping afterward like I had been doing. Instead I went home. I'd had pork chops cooking in the crock pot all day so we could have pulled pork sandwiches that evening instead of taking time to make pizza. 

I went outside and pulled weeds for a long time. When everyone came home from school we had the pulled pork sandwiches and coleslaw for dinner. And then I went right back out to the garden. It was such a good afternoon/evening.  Here's the whole back area I weeded. 

Charlotte and Lydia wanted me to take a picture of the chicks. We'd had them a week and they were getting so big. 

Charlotte hadn't got eggs out of the coop in 2 days so she had quite the haul when she did get the eggs out. There's 10 there. 

At one point a big rain storm moved in for about 10 minutes. We stood on the patio and watched it. It was really cool. 

On Saturday Derrick was having a birthday party. So we cleaned the house really well. 

My tulips were looking amazing. My friend Hanah told me they looked like Temple Square. 

I love how they look.

They really make me so happy to look at them.

I love this cluster of yellow ones. 

People literally slow down as they drive past my house. 

It's just the best!

I thought I'd do more yard work. But I was tired. I tried drinking a celcius mix in, but I just got sleepy after I took it. I was like, "I think I'm tapped out." So I took a nap on the patio. Here's what the view from the patio couch is one way. 

And the other way. It's a great place to hang out and to sleep.

That evening we had three boys over. Finn J and Tyler O from the ward. And Max from Derrick's school. Max can get overwhelmed by big groups so at first we didn't invite him because I was worried the whole teachers quorum would show up. But when I found out that most of the boys couldn't make it we invited Max. He stayed for about 90 minutes and then wanted to go home, but that's a really big deal for Max. He's really come along way this year. The first time he came to my house he stayed like 20 minutes. 

The boys watched Jurassic World Rebirth. I'd really hoped that Finn N could have made it because he gives the BEST running commentary during movies and I really wanted to hear his reactions to that movie. But he didn't make it. So I just spent most of the time upstairs writing. 

And now we've made it to Sunday. Lydia had put the palm tress from Derrick's cake on the stair rail. She said, "We are all missing California. This will help." She was right. 

This was our first week back to church in five weeks. We'd last been to church on March 1st. We'd missed church on the 8th because we went to see Lindsey and Emily in Utah. The 15th had been stake conference and we just watched it on zoom. We were on vacation the 22nd and 29th. And April 5th had been General Conference. 

It felt weird to be back at church. After sacrament meeting Brandon asked me if it was Sunday school or Elders Quorum. I told him it was Elders Quorum. I thought about saying, "So that means you go to Young Mens." But I was like, "Nah, he'll remember he was supposed to go there."

But Brandon was only recently called into the Young Mens and his brain hasn't quite updated to remember that. He was running off of a very old program or something because he happily went to Elders Quorum and never gave a thought to Young Mens. 

After church I asked Derrick, "How was Young Mens?"  And he told me, "It was fun. We didn't have a teacher. So we just sat and talked."  And I was thinking, "Where on earth was your dad?"

I'm also super curious where all the other men that should have been there got off to. Sometimes I wonder who thought it was a good idea to put the Bishopric in charge of the Young Men. Those boys are NOT getting the attention they should be getting. 

Anyway, in other church news we had our Young Women Presidency and our Sunday School Presidency reorganized. Our Sunday School Presidency is now all women. The Young Women's president was released and one of her counselors is now the president. 

The Young Women were having a heartfelt meeting during their class time. It went a little long. Right at 3:30 Derrick opened the door and said, "It's 3:30. It's time to go!"  Veronica died a thousand deaths over that, but everyone else thought it was really funny.  

After church Brandon made ham and baked twice potatoes. These were what we were supposed to have on Easter, but he'd been too tired. So we had them now. It was a good meal. 

Then the kids started playing with the RC cars that Derrick got for his birthday. One was a Jurassic Park RC car and the other was a Deloposaurus. 

Then they found a bunch of toys from down stairs.

And this led to Veronica recreating the whole Jurassic World Ride downstairs. It was pretty cool, but somehow I didn't get a picture. 

I spent the rest of the night working on my Micah lesson plan. 

And that was the end of that week. 

Thanks for reading.