This week was so odd. Most days felt like both a Monday and a Friday. Tuesday felt like a Saturday. But Wednesday also felt like a Saturday. On actual Saturday we did everything out of order.
And everything is kind of hazy and blurry. I'm looking through my pictures and thinking, "Oh right, that did happen this week."
So let's go back through and recap what happened before it slips further into the haze.
First up we have this very pretentious picture of what I've been reading lately.
I'd finished the second stormlight book but felt like stopping and doing some homework before jumping into the third. I've described reading these Stormlight books as "A college course where I didn't do all the homework." I want to really enjoy this re-read and so that means doing my homework. And that means reading other books that tie into the Stormlight books.
So that meant reading Edge Dancer because it takes place between books 2 and 3. And reading Warbreaker because the sword in that book showed up at the end of book 2 and will be in book 3. And reading Mistborn Secret History from Arcanum Unbounded because I wanted to remember the stuff going on in the cognitive realm in that story.
If you are wondering how I have time to read all this - well it gets dark at like 5:30 right now and my garden is dead. I have sooooooo much time.
I went to work on Monday morning and struggled through work. It felt like I hadn't worked in a week. When really I'd been there on Friday. I ended up just taking care of the deposit and then going home.
Then I went to DI to buy some things. Veronica had asked for a lamp for the area under her loft bed. I found that right away which was great, but also kind of stupid because then I was doing the rest of my shopping while carrying a lamp. Then I found new tennis shoes for Veronica. And then a new coat for Lydia. And then I found a dress for me for something later in the week. I wanted to try it on which meant taking a lamp, shoes, and a winter coat with me into the dressing room. I really did that all out of order. But the dress fit and the shopping trip had been a success.
Brandon took Derrick grocery shopping and they bought us food for the week. When they got back I took Derrick, Charlotte, and Lydia over to the middle school. We were helping a friend decorate her room.
The friend is none other than Miss Natalie. She was one of Derrick's therapists several years ago. And she was probably one of the BEST ones he had. She came up with so much stuff for them to do and really went above and beyond for him. Derrick LOVED her. They had a really special bond. We've stayed in touch over the years and she always seems to pop back up in our lives.
Well the most recent time she popped back up was the beginning of this year when she became the Special Ed teacher for English/Language Arts at our middle school. Derrick is at a different school so unfortunately he doesn't get to have her as a teacher, but she will most likely teach Veronica next year. (Which is super cool because years ago she noticed that Veronica had a few little autistic traits and told me that she would love to work with her if she ever was officially diagnosed and needed services. We never did get that diagnosis, but now Miss Natalie is going to work with Veronica anyway.)
She'd posted on Facebook that she was going to redecorate her classroom over winter break and asked if anyone wanted to help. I volunteered and said I'd bring Derrick. Then she told me that it was Harry Potter Themed. She asked if the girls would come too because she needed their creativity.
The girls were a little hesitant, but the words "Art Project" and "Harry Potter" got them interested.
So at 1:00 we went over. Veronica was invited too, but she decided to stay home for some reason.
It was really fun to help get the room decorated. Charlotte covered this cabnet with brick wrapping paper to make it look like platform 9 3/4.
I put the fabric on this bulletin board and then Lydia added the mirrors.
There were also a lot of little things like moving the furniture, putting up some LED lights, putting batteries into candles, and other things that aren't as cool to take pictures of.
Derrick had got an airplane for Christmas and had been eagerly waiting for the rain to stop so he could fly it. This was our first sunny day since Christmas. So I told him to bring it and we'd fly it in the field after we were done with Miss Natalie's.
At the hour mark Charlotte and Lydia were still deep in their projects so I left them in the classroom and Derrick and I went out and flew the airplane.
It had a little pump that let you push air into a tube. Then the air made a propeller spin.
Derrick had a lot of fun with it. It only really worked about every 5th throw, but it was cool when it worked.
Derrick was done with his plane before the girls were done with the classroom. So I took him home and then came back for the girls. After I picked them up we went to Fred Meyer to buy some things with a gift card we'd got for Christmas. Charlotte needed new winter boots so we picked those out.
Then we also bought more treats for New Years Eve because Brandon and Derrick had missed a few things.
Back at home I took some before picture of the wall in our kitchen. Brandon had emptied out the cupboard. We still weren't quite sure when the wall was coming down. But it's days were numbered.
On Tuesday Brandon was feeling about 85% well and that meant he was feeling well enough to take down the wall.
I had to run into work so I missed the first part where he took down the doors and the door frames. This is how things were looking when I came back home at 11:00.
They'd just started removing the drywall.
I climbed up in the cupboard and started working on the drywall in there.
It was very satisfying.
Here's Derrick working on removing the drywall from the stairwell side of the wall.
Charlotte was working a little lower than him.
Here's Veronica taking a turn in the cupboard.
There's Charlotte from the view under the cupboard.
Charlotte and Lydia both went up in the cupboard when it was time to pull down the drywall on the stairs side.
It was really freaky when that area was just studs.
It opened up over the stairs.
Here are Derrick and Veronica posing up there.
We paused on the demo for a bit and cleaned up all the drywall. This is when we realized we'd made a big mistake. We had completely overestimated how much garbage was going to come from this demo. Our garbage can was full of drywall and we hadn't even started on the bricks yet. We really should have ordered a dumpster like we did when we pulled down the gross ceiling in the garage. But that had never even crossed my mind. So we just went ahead with everything and made a pile of bricks behind the house.
We'd removed all of the drywall on the stairwell side, but things weren't looking too different on this side of the wall yet.
Here you can see Charlotte hanging out in the cupboard. Our original plan was to take that cupboard completely out. But the kids really liked hanging out in there. So we started to think about keeping it.
Brandon pulled out the boards that made up the real wall and then started sledge hammering the bricks in the decorative wall. This went really quick. I was worried about the bricks hitting the tile floor so we put down the jean quilt as floor protection. It must have worked because none of the tiles cracked.
Here's Brandon prying at more of the boards in the wall.
It was really cool to start seeing this space open up. We would gain hardly any new floor space, but we wanted the room to feel more open.
Here's what the back of the brick wall looked like.
Brandon let the kids each take a turn with the hammer, but he did most of the work. He'd knock a bunch of bricks down and then take a breather while the kids and I cleaned up the debris.
Here's Charlotte watching from inside the cupboard.
Here's a picture after we'd cleaned up all the rubble on the floor.
And more of Brandon working.
See how big that pile got in just a short amount of time.
Here's a
link to a short on Youtube. This was a Marco Polo video I sent my siblings. This shows a big chunk of wall coming down. It goes for about 2 minutes because I wanted you to hear the kids in the background. They were all so happy and excited during every moment of this project.
And here's what the wall looked like after that big chuck came down.
The rubble pile was quite impressive.
We took another break to clean up all the rubble. Then it was time to tackle this piece that was above the cupboard door. It was supported by a big metal shelf type thing above the cupboard. So Brandon had to get into the cupboard and then punch through the wall there. It was really scary and it was the only thing I didn't film or put on Marco Polo. I basically had my hands over my eyes as I watched all those bricks fall. I screamed when they fell. I just KNEW this was it for the tiles. But somehow they survived just fine.
Here's Brandon after he poked through. He said, "Here's Johnny."
Here's the view from the stairwell side of things. Despite all the rubble this view is INCREADIBLE. I loved how open it felt as soon as I came in the side door. I could actually see the WHOLE kitchen instead of just a little sliver.
Here's the view down the stairs.
And more rubble.
We cleaned up and then there were just a few more brick that had to come out. Derrick took care of those.
Here are Charlotte and Lydia cleaning the stairs.
And here's the after picture. What a difference. I don't miss that wall AT ALL.
It was 4:00 at this point. That had been my stop gag point for this project. Brandon and I had somewhere we needed to be at 6:00 so I'd said that no matter what we'd stop at 4:00 and clean up the room and ourselves.
Part of me hadn't realized just how much we'd get done by 4:00. I'd been surprised by how easy that brick wall had been to take down.
And where were me and Brandon going? We were going to a New Years Eve Murder Mystery Party!
Our family tradition for YEARS has been to watch a movie trilogy on New Years Eve. This year Brandon and I decided to watch the three Bill and Ted movies. But NONE of the kids were excited about that plan at all. We kept trying to convince them it would be fun, but they were not buying it.
On Friday my friend Sara messaged me and asked if Brandon and I wanted to come to a Murder Mystery party on New Years Eve. I was at work so I texted Brandon about it. He was sending texts back that were like, "Um maybe, that sounds like it could be fun."
I could not read the tone of the texts so I called him to make sure he was actually excited about this. He was. And he'd talked to the kids and they were like, "Please go. We don't want to watch your stupid trilogy."
So I told Sara we'd be there. She send out our characters on Saturday. I was Freddy Franklin, a movie producer from LA. Brandon was Chappy, a rich British guy. The mystery was set in the 20s so we had to find clothes for that. Once again I was in a position where I was like, "I can't even dress myself in this century, how am I supposed to figure out how to dress like the 1920's."
But I did okay. I found a black dress at DI. I meant to shorten it or something - but never got around to doing that. I borrowed a stole type wrap from my neighbor Diantha. Jori lent me earrings and a necklace. I tried to do pinned up curls in my hair, but decided that it looked like weasels had styled my hair.
So I changed the hair to be more like what I normally do. It was not very 20's but it looked better.
My friend Amy Toft had given Brandon an old tux about a month ago. At the time we'd been like, "What would we do with a tux?" But this was a perfect opportunity to use it. Brandon looked so good! He'd also shaved his mustache into a Clark Gable style.
I wasn't loving my outfit, but it was fine.
And here we are together.
Here's the whole group. Sara is one of Brandon's theatre friends so this was a big theatre party. It was even held on the stage at the Orpheum. I knew most of the people there, but there were about 4 people who were new to me.
I was a little worried about not being as good of an actor as everyone else as we pretended to be our characters. But the vast majority of us were flipping in and out of character the whole night. (Except for Jarod who stayed in character the whole time.)
We had a lot of good food and during round one I joked, "Um my main objective is to try all this food." Brandon and I had brought shrimp because it's not New Years Eve without shrimp.
I also talked with the people I was supposed to talk with. Some people were really good at doing their objectives without it seeming scripted. But others (including me) had our papers and were like, "Um I am supposed to ask you about um this thing." And then the other person would look at their paper and say, "Oh well my answer is this thing."
The set up was that this was a party at Jay and Daisy Gatspy's house on the East Coast. My whole deal was that I was a movie producer who had come from Hollywood to keep track of one of my stars. She was dating a boxer who wasn't very good for her and I was concerned.
Brandon was there as one of Jay's old friends. He'd apparently saved him in the war. Later that story was questioned. One of my favorite parts of the night was when someone yelled, "Well then who the heck is Chappy?"
At the end of round one the murder happened. Then we spent round two reacting to that and trying to figure out who did it. And then we wrote down who we thought did it.
My character was something of a red herring so I spent a lot of time defending myself and not enough time trying to figure out who did it. At the end when we found out who the murderer was I was like, "Oh that was a completely different storyline that I never even heard about."
Anyway, it was SUPER fun. I really can't say enough about how fun it is to be part of this theatre community.
The party wound down by 9:00 so Brandon and I went home. We were so tired! Taking down a wall and then going to a party is not something I recommend.
The kids were happily watching the Disney Zombies trilogy and eating lots of snacks. Brandon went to watch the movies with the kids. I went to bed. I read until about 11:30 and then fell asleep. Midnight was just not in the cards for me this year.
Brandon and the kids on the other hand stayed up until 2:30!!!!
Wednesday was a recovery day in so many ways. Even though I'd been the one with the most sleep the night before I still took a super long nap at like noon.
Brandon and the kids took out the boards in the ceiling and the floor.
We'll patch this drywall . . . eventually.
They also took down the last of the drywall around the cupboard.
At dinner time we all ate together at the table and this is when I was like, "Oh yes this was WORTH it!"
The way our kitchen was set up meant there were always issues with getting the door, the chairs around the table, and the fridge door to get along. We were constantly pushing the table away from the fridge so we could open the fridge. But then we'd have to push it back to be able to shut the door that led down the stairs. It was a constant back and forth.
Well now that door down to the stairs is GONE. And so now we don't have to worry about the chairs and the table being too close to that door. So now the table can be pushed just a little bit further that way and stay there. And that means we can open the fridge - EVEN IF SOMEONE IS STITTING IN THE CHAIR BY THE FRIDGE. This is a wonderful change. Its really all a matter of about 8 inches. But it's made such a big difference.
I'd been sweeping a lot, but the floor needed a good mopping so I did that in the evening. I also scrubbed all the stairs.
But mostly I spent the day reading. Around 10:00 I was reading in my room when Veronica came in. She was saying she felt really weird and a little crazy. I was like, "When was the last time you left the house?" All the other kids had left the house for some errand or other. But Veronica hadn't. She had been home since we got back from Utah on Thursday night. And now it was Wednesday night.
I was like, "No wonder you feel weird. Let's get you out." So we went for a drive to look at Christmas lights downtown and then just drove around talking.
She felt better, but we decided we still needed to go somewhere during the day time.
So on Thursday morning I took her to Great Clips for a haircut and then to DI to buy a hoodie. She said she felt so much more like herself after that.
Brandon needed to do some pre-employment things for his job. So he went somewhere for a drug test and then a flu shot. He was already home when I got home. He was wrapped up on blankets on the couch. He'd been feeling better from his cough and cold. But we both knew a flu shot was not going to be great for him. For some reason his body reacts terribly to shots. It's always kind of hilarious to me. He's this big strong man who can knock down brick walls. But he's powerless after an immunization. He was kind of like, "Well there goes this weekend."
But he was still feeling okay so he wanted to go to Lowes with me. We looked at somethings we'll need for stair banisters and for the drywall. But those projects felt too big at the moment. So we settled for buying new lights for the kitchen.
Here are the old lights. Big ugly florescent lights.
We also wanted to replace this little light over the stairs.
Here's another before picture.
Brandon went to work taking down the florescent lights. The kids all watched.
And Lydia even got up and helped him put in the new light. She'd been helping him with moving the outlet and the light switch from the stairs and she'd liked learning about electricity with him.
I went to work before the lights were fully installed. So I never really got an after picture. Also Brandon still hasn't done the one over the stairs so we really aren't done with that project yet anyway. I guess you'll just have to wait until next week to see the final result.
Work on Thursday was so odd. It felt like Monday. But it was Thursday. And the first work day of the year. I got stuff done, but I felt really off all day.
Friday was . . . I don't have any pictures from Friday so I'm struggling here. What did we do on Friday?
I went to work and probably had more working brain cells than I'd had all week.
After work Derrick and I watched Godzilla vs Kong. Which means he watched it and I took a nap and woke up occasionally. I was very impressed that a lot of the fight scenes took place in the daylight. They really did a good job with the CGI.
Charlotte made cookies. I went to the store and bought things for a Veggie Tray.
At 5:00 we took the cookies and the veggie tray over to Ivan's. His family was hosting a game night. It was really fun to hang out and talk with a few other families.
At the end we played a game called the Great Delmody (or something like that.) I barely understood the game the first round, but ended up winning. And then I TOTALLY UNDERSTOOD IT. I dominated the second round.
And then I left while I was ahead. Brandon hadn't been feeling well at all that night and the kids were done with their pool game in the basement. So we left a little early and I didn't get to finish the game.
On Saturday we got up at 8:00 which was completely unheard of for our family the past two weeks. But it was for probably the only thing the kids would get up early for - swimming.
It was Cabin Fever Day and the kids wanted to do the free Scuba diving at the pool again. That started at 9:00. So the kids got up and ate and put on their swimming suits. Then we went to the pool. We got there around 8:45 and were the second people in line. The people in charge let us go back and start filling out paperwork before 9:00 so that was nice. Soon the kids were getting fitted for goggles and flippers.
I hadn't really liked scuba diving last year so I didn't plan to do it this time. I was content to take pictures.
Here are the kids getting taught what to do.
they were all really excited.
Veronica needed bigger flippers so that took a bit of time. But soon they were ready.
Here they are swimming out to the deep end.
I got this cool shot of Derrick.
Honestly, it's kind of boring for me when they go underwater because it's hard to see them.
But they all said it was really fun.
Here's Veronica fixing her mask.
And Derrick came up a little later.
Then they all popped up with the instructor.
Here they are heading back.
Usually the shallow side is open for swimming at the same time as the scuba diving. But this time it wouldn't open until 11:00. So we went back home and dried the swimming suits. Then we put them on under our clothes and went to the next thing.
In the mean time Charlotte showed me the lego house she's been working on.
It has a cute little kitchen.
At 10:40 we drove over to the science museum so we could get tickets to the planetarium show. I'd been posting about Cabin Fever Day in the group chat with other women from my ward. I'd told everyone that they should try to be there right at 11:00 so they could make sure to get tickets. So it really shouldn't have surprised me when a bunch of my friends showed up around the same time as me.
First was Jori and her kids, then Megan and her whole family. Nicole and her two boys were there. And so was Kori with her whole family. For a while it looked like the showing would be full of just 7th ward people. But right before they opened the doors at 11:00 a bunch of other people showed up too.
We got our tickets and then looked around the museum for a while. At 11:20 they started letting people into the theatre. Here I am with the kids.
Jori's kids sat right by us. It was really fun to hear Addalie's commentary on everything.
The guy running the presentation showed us some trailers for upcoming shows and then gave us a tour of the nighttime sky. I always like this because it's tailored to what the sky looks like right now.
When we show was over we left. Brandon was outside the theatre waiting for us. He'd spent the morning helping Ivan with a wiring project at his office. Ivan was trying to add more lights. Ivan had texted me a picture of Brandon drawing out the electrical schematic and said, "This guy is awesome."
Brandon had fun with that project. It was nice to get a break from home and all the projects that never end there. He was a little sad that he'd missed the star show though.
When he saw all the people coming out of the theatre he was like, "Wow, there's a lot of people I know here." I was like, "Yeah, I might have had something to do with that."
The kids and I had been planning to go to the pool right after the star show. That's why were were all wearing our swimming suits under our clothes. But by this point we were feeling less cabin fevery and just wanted to go home.
So we went home. I'd left pizza dough rising on the oven and I hurried to make that. We had pizza for lunch which confused us all. Normally it's a dinner thing.
I'm trying to get my feet ready for the musical. So I walked to the library instead of driving there. It's about a 45 minute walk round trip. I returned all the Homework books and picked up the third Stormlight book.
Back at home I took a super long nap. That felt really good.
And the rest of the day was really not that important. It was basically just movies for the kids, reading for me, and Brandon succumbing to the flu shot.
Today we don't have church until 12:00 YAY!!!! It's been so nice to have a quite morning writing. Today is a Sunday school day so not much changes this week. Charlotte and Lydia are staying in their same Sunday School Class. Veronica moves up into Derrick's Sunday School class but she attended that class along with me all last year so really that's nothing new.
Monday is our last day of winter break. It's a teacher work day so the kids don't go to school. I think we are going to have a test run of waking up early again. And I might make everyone wash their bedding so they aren't tempted to go back to bed and go to sleep. Or I might just go to work and let everyone have one last day to sleep in.
Monday will also be Brandon's first day of work. I'm excited for him. But he has such bad PTSD from his last job that he's full of a lot of trepidation. I'm hoping it goes well for him.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
