The inverted schedule week

Here we are at the last post I need to write before I'm officially considered "caught up." It has been quite the endeavor. This will cover the week of Monday April 13 to Sunday April 19th. 

My normal work schedule at Aspen Grove is Monday and Friday mornings, and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. I try to keep Wednesday as my day off. But I managed to completely invert my schedule for the week. 

Monday was the day Veronica got braces put on. They only do that appointment in the morning so instead of going to work I took her to the Orthodontist. She's already had two or three consultations with them so we were pretty solid on the plan. But since it's been a year since her last consultation we still had to redo that part. The office manager, Crystal, helped talk lots of picture and some x-rays. Then we had the quick consult with the orthodontist. And when we were done I made the down payment and then it was time for Veronica to get braces on. 

She was a good sport through the process, but she also was pretty vocal about things that bothered her. I'd given her Ibuprofen before the appointment, but she was still in a little bit of pain. She complained about her teeth hurting for the next several days.

She was also immediately self conscious about the braces so I didn't take a picture of her with them on.

She only has top braces for now. She'll get the bottom braces put on at her next appointment. She and Derrick are both scheduled for the same time. He'll get his off, and she'll get her bottom braces on. 

After Veronica was dropped back off at school I went into work and got things done. 

While I was at work I got a notification in the Curtain Call Committee Group. My friend Sarah was reaching out to see if anyone else on the committee was interested in meeting to talk about what could be done to either bring back the Curtain Calls or create something in their place. I was really happy to see that. When everything fell apart I'd told Brandon that it would take either Sarah or Dusty to save it. And here was Sarah doing just what I'd hoped. 

Lots of people were saying they wanted to be involved, but I wasn't so sure. It had been a rough few days and I felt like I was finally getting back to normal. I wasn't sure if I wanted to be involved again. 

But Sarah reached out to me in particular on messenger. I was touched that she wanted me involved. And so I said that I'd be at the meeting. At this point even though I didn't want to be involved I felt like I HAD to be involved. 

That evening we had a very special family activity. On Sunday at dinner Brandon had told me that he really wanted to see Project Hail Mary in theatres. I was like, "Yes we should make that happen. Let's go tomorrow night."  Charlotte and Lydia also wanted to see the movie so we made it a family activity. 

Derrick was not excited at first. He's like me and likes things scheduled on the calendar. At first he did not understand that we were just going to see a movie. Like how could we do that if it wasn't on the calendar? I assured him that he would like the movie. 

It was really fun to go to the movie theatre on Monday night. There was hardly anyone there and that was nice. The movie was really great. The kids loved it so much. I'm so glad we made this happen. 

When it was over Derrick turned to me and said, "Mom you were right. I really liked that." He also told me, "The end made me think about the end of Lightyear when Buzz says, 'for the first time in a long time I fell like I am home.'" I was really proud of him for making that connection. 

We came home and quoted the movie to each other the whole way home. The kids had loved every single thing that Rocky did. 

On Tuesday I would normally have gone into work in the afternoon, but because I'd had a shorter day on Monday I made sure to go to work as soon as I dropped Derrick off. 

In the afternoon after school I took Veronica to theatre. Then I took the three older kids out to Tubbs Berry Farm for their summer weed crew job interviews. They were all hired on the spot. I'm really excited for Derrick to have this job this summer. And it will continue to be a good fit for Charlotte and Lydia. They are also old enough to work a few other places around town, but those places require weekend shifts. And the girls aren't interested in that. So we are sticking with this one that is just Wednesday mornings. 

I picked Veronica up from theatre. She'd had a great time as usual. 

On Wednesday I had my second half of scripture study group for the month. It was the second part of Micah. Which I still don't love. But the lesson went okay. 

After that I had to go into work for our monthly team meeting. I wasn't presenting at this one. But we had a potluck. That was fun. The meeting was half team meeting for everyone and then half consultation time for the therapists. I was excused for that second half. I was like, "good, I don't want to know all this mumbo jumbo." Everyone laughed. 

I was going to go back to my office and work, but I had a call from Derrick's school. Earlier his teacher had sent me a picture of him asleep in the calm down room. He'd slept for like 2 hours. They'd woken him up for lunch, but he was shivering a lot. It seemed like he was getting sick. So I came and picked him up. 

I'd checked out the old movie What's Up Doc because I remembered it had a lot of really zany scenes and I figured Derrick would like those. So we snuggled up on the couch and I helped Derrick warm up while we watched it. That was fun.

By the end of the movie he was back to being warm enough and really didn't seem sick the rest of the day. So he went back to school on Thursday with no problems.  

When Charlotte got home she showed us the hurricane proof house she'd made for her science class. 

On Thursday I had my second to last zoom board meeting for Idaho Parents Unlimited. The meeting was right in the middle of the day from 11:00 to 1:00. So it was easiest to just plan to work from home all day rather than try to make that work. 

It was also a really random snow day. The weather had been great, and then temps dropped from the 70's to the 30's. 

I'd been worried about the night temperatures which were supposed to be around 27 degrees. I'd even covered one of my cherry trees with sheets to protect the fruit. But everything seems to have made it home okay. 

Here's what the garden looked like. 

The tulips were covered, but they were fine when everything melted. 

Here's more of the back yard.

And more of the front yard. 

It was really nice to spend the whole day working from home. And the zoom meeting went well. (Though I might have fallen asleep at some point.)

That evening I took Veronica to theatre and returned a book to the library. I'd finished it a few days earlier, but I didn't take a picture until right before I returned it. This was The Third Pole and yes, it's another Everest book. This one was all about an expedition in 2019 to try to find the body of George Mallory's climbing partner Sandy Irvine. I really liked this book. There were a few things that made it really interesting - even though I've read similar books. 

1. This expedition took place in 2019.  It was cool to see how much modern technology has improved climbing Everest. (Though bad weather is still a factor they can't control)

2. The expedition was on the north side. Into Thin Air had been about the south side. Dark Summit was also about the north side so this wasn't my first north side book, but it did a better job of explaining the topography. 

3. The author expertly weaved the story of his expedition in 2019 with the story of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine in 1924. I learned a lot about both expeditions. 

4. There was a lot of explanations about little details about what exactly causes HAPE or about different oxygen sets or why Sherpas do so well at high altitude. It was all really informative.

I still think Into Thin Air is the best narrative about Everest. But this one is the best if you want to know more about Everest.  

I went grocery shopping on Thursday night again because there would be no time on Friday.  

That's because on Friday I was going on a field trip with Charlotte and Lydia! The whole 9th grade class was going to CSI to learn about their CTE courses. CTE stands for. . . . . Career and Technical Education. So basically all the trades, and the business department for some reason. 

They needed three parent volunteers and I volunteered. Charlotte and Lydia were both in my group. Along with 21 other students. But fortunately 8 of them didn't show up. So I was only in charge of 15. 

Brandon went into work late so he could take care of dropping off Veronica and Derrick at the middle schools. 

I met up with the parents and teachers going on the field trip at 7:45 in the big gym at the high school. The lady in charge had a list of all my students as well as sticker name tags for each of them. Everything was in a manilla folder with my name on it. I held that up and the kids came and found me. 

At 8:15 we went to our buses. We were on bus 6 with another group. We arrived at CSI and went into the Fine Arts Building Auditorium. A college recruiter type guy gave a speech about how much CSI had to offer. 

Then we were divided by group for our tour. We were the agriculture group. We went to a building and went through three thirty minute rotations. I thought they were SUPER boring. But the kids seemed to be okay with them for the most part. Charlotte said she learned a lot. And really when I looked at it from a 9th grade perspective it was probably really informative. But I've attended 4 different colleges so there really wasn't much for me to learn about the process of getting into college. I did learn two things though. 

1. Sour Dough creates lactic acid. (The food science teacher said this one in passing and I was like, wait what?)

2. The vet tech program is really hard to get into. I'd been talking to Veronica about that program. So that was good to know. 

At 11:45 we got back on the buses and went back to school. All morning long I'd been counting to 15 over and over as my group moved around. When we got back on the bus and I counted 15 one final time I was like, "Good job group! I didn't lose any of you!"

Then we went back to the school and that was it. I made sure my kids were back in the school, said goodbye to Charlotte and Lydia. And then drove to work. 

Work was great. After feeling out of my element all day it was nice to be back doing what I knew how to do. 

When I got home from work I went outside and did some yard work. I trimmed a bunch of dead branches out of the big tree. I still had a lot of other branches that needed to be burned too. So I decided to plan a real improptu fire pit night for Saturday at 6:00. I sent out a message to the ward facebook group for moms. 

Almost as soon as I planned that I got a message from Jared at the Orpheum. He and Diane wanted to meet with Heather, Sarah, and me to explain some of the things that had happened in the aftermath of the Curtain Call Awards - specifically why they had been shut down. I could not for the life of me figure out why I was involved in this meeting. I'm pretty small potatoes in the theatre community so I didn't think Jared or Diane needed to explain anything to me. I'd never actually been the committee chair for the Curtain Calls. But he wanted me there for some reason. He originally wanted to meet on Saturday night at 6:00. But I had plans for that time and really most of the day. Sarah couldn't make it either. We set up the meeting time for 8:00 AM on Sunday because that's the time we all could make it. 

On Friday night Derrick, Brandon, and I watched the old Poseidon Adventure. Derrick likes disaster movies so I'd ordered this one to watch. He liked it. He calls it the upside-down boat. 

Saturday was a day we had an adventure planned with Jori's family. We drove out to Black Magic Canyon north of Shoshone.  From the parking area it doesn't look like there is anything to see. 

But if you go down a small slope you see a canyon with volcanic rock on either side. 

We came here 6 years ago. This was our first time back. (We'd kind of lost the guidebook with the directions for a few years.)

Jori and her family went nuts for all the cool rocks. I joked, "How do you make a 2 tenths of a mile hike take 2 hours? Fill it with cool rocks."

The canyon was full of interesting features. 

When the water flows through the canyon it changes the shape of everything. So this was both familiar and foreign at the same time. 

Here I am. 

I think my favorite features were the big holes filled with things. 

I liked the dry ones that had rocks in them. 

This one was really deep and had sand in the bottom. 

Look at this lambs ear growing in a crack. 

Lydia found a cave. 

She, Derrick, and I had waded through all these weeds to get there. 

Here she is in the cave. 

I liked how the rocks had a sheen on them. 

We left that area and came home and took little breaks. Then at 6:00 we had our fire. Jori's family was there and so was our friend Brad with three of his four kids. One of his kids was in the hospital and his wife was with her. I was glad that I'd planned the fire because it seemed to be a good distraction from a really stressful situation. We had a great time. And I burned through my whole pile of sticks and other yard stuff. The kids had fun playing. Charlotte let some of them see the chicks in the garage and pet the big chickens. 

On Sunday I was up early to be at the Orpheum at 8:00. Jared and his wife Emily were there. So was Sarah and Heather. Diane had to call in because her husband has some health issues. 

Jared and Diane told us all the full story of what had happened. I'd known about a third of it going in. By the end I knew probably 90% of the story. And it was A LOT. 

I also learned why I was there. Jared wanted me to know for two reasons. 1. He knew how much I'd put into the Curtain Call Awards. When decisions had to be made he was really sorry that I wouldn't know the full reasons. He hadn't planned to tell anyone, but when he realized he needed to have some people know he wanted me to be one of those people. The second reason is that he just really admires my family. He LOVES Brandon. And so that meant he trusted me. I was really touched by that. 

The meeting lasted two hours and it was full of a lot of heavy things. But we left on good terms. And with some hope. Jared wasn't willing to support an award show like the the Curtain Calls again. But he was interested in supporting some sort of community theatre celebration type show. So that was promising. Sarah and I would take that information to the new committee meeting that afternoon. 

Back at home I needed to prep for Sunday school that afternoon. My friend Jeff teaches Sunday school and he had asked me to do a 10 minute presentation to get the class caught up on where we were in the Old Testament Timeline. Thanks to Stake Conference, Palm Sunday, and General Conference we hadn't had Sunday school since MARCH 1ST! At that point Isaac was still a kid. Now we were in Exodus with Moses. 

So I prepared a quick genealogy lesson tracking Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Then I showed how Moses connected to Jacob's son Levi. I also threw in quick geography lesson showing how Jacob had traveled east to marry Leah and Rachel and then come back to Canaan before moving to Egypt. 

And I threw in the theology of how younger brothers often superseded older brothers. I pointed out that this was representative of a small kingdom like Israel being great among much bigger nations.  

It was a lot to cover in 10 minutes, but I hoped some of it stuck. 

We went to church and sacrament meeting was good. Our friend Brad and his kids sat with us. The youngest loudly announced, "I want to sit with the one with braces!" Meaning Veronica. 

When it was Sunday school time Brandon got the white board and drew a map of Canaana and Egypt on it. He also was my scribe and wrote down names as I said them. That was really helpful. 

I had my phone set to chime when I hit 10 minutes, because I didn't want to go over my time. Also the Committee meeting started at 3:00 and I didn't want to be super late. I went through my whole presentation in 8.5 minutes. I probably could have talked slower, but I was so keyed up from the adrenaline of trying to get through the presentation and make it to the other meeting. 

Jeff's wife Lindsey had actually gone into labor that morning. So a member of the bishobric was subbing. I think he kind of wished that I could stay and teach the rest of the lesson. But I was like, "peace out, I need to be in filer."

I left and made it to Filer by like 3:08. The meeting hadn't even really started when I got there. 

And I'm so glad Sarah made sure I was there. Because that meeting was cathartic. We mostly talked about what we wanted to do to replace the curtain call awards. There were 8 other people there and it was so nice to be around people that wanted an event to continue. We'd all kind of been suffering alone and in silence for the past week and a half.

We also had some good laughs. Sarah kept saying that the problem with the event was we held it on a full moon. So I joked that should be part of the marketing for next time. It would say something like, "The Shemertin Smalls: Totally not on a full moon this time." 

The meeting was two hours and I left feeling so much hope. We don't have an official plan or a name, but we have another meeting planned to get that part figured out. 

And then I came home and discovered that I'd broken out in hives from all the stress of that day in particular and the last three weeks in general. So that was fun. 

But despite my body freaking out - I was actually feeling pretty good. The some sort of community theatre celebration event was in the works again. I'd been trusted with information. (I hate the information, but I appreciated the trust.) And I had a normal week coming up for once. So yeah hives were just a minor annoyance. 

And that gets us caught up. 

Thanks for reading.