Tech Week

This week was super good. Brandon was busy with tech rehearsals which means we didn't see him much during the week. So that wasn't so good. But the kids and I did a lot of fun stuff and that was great. 

Here's the recap. 

I took a nap on the patio on Sunday afternoon. After I woke up all the kids came outside and hung out with me. For some reason Derrick started trying to drive a stick into the dirt.  This  escalated into him getting a hammer and pounding the stick into the dirt. Brandon was kind of like, "What is he doing?"  I was like, "Shhhhh, At least he's outside."

Our oven was still broken and we hadn't even had a chance to figure out what exactly was wrong with it. So Brandon and Veronica made lasagna that could be cooked in the microwave. 

Later Brandon talked to his parents and found out that they have an extra oven. (It's kind of a long story, but basically a relative gave them a whole kitchen they didn't need and it's been sitting in their garage for like 2 years.) So that was great. We just needed to go get the oven. But since Brandon would be busy with tech week that meant we'd be without an oven for at least a week. 

Which sounds terrible until you realize that I wasn't planning to cook an actual meal during tech week anyway. It's just too hard to have a sit down dinner at 5:00. I was perfectly content to have every night be "fend for yourself" night. We still had a working stove top, microwave, and toaster. We'd survive. 

That night we watched two episodes of Wednesday. I think my favorite part of the whole series was Gomez calling out a white lady for appropriating the Day of the Dead for commercial reasons. It was hilarious. It was pretty funny. 

Monday was a busy day. I had work and then at 1:00 I picked Derrick up for an orthodontist appointment. I'd told him I'd be at the school at 12:45. He was waiting for me in the office when I came in. 

After school Veronica had theatre. She loved it as usual. Her class gets over at 6:00 and Brandon had to be there at 5:30. So they overlapped with being at the Orpheum. But they didn't see each other because Brandon was on the stage an Veronica was in the 3rd floor school room. 

I spent some time picking raspberries. Lydia showed me how well Seed likes to be held. 

I've shown a lot of pictures of the raspberry berries, but here's a picture of all the bushes. It's such a good raspberry patch. 

And here's the morning glory that grew on the arch - except there were never any flowers this year. I think the soil was missing something. 

Here's what my tomatoes look like. They are still producing. 

I moved the flower pots up against the back of the garage. I'm hoping they stay warm enough to keep blooming for a little longer than they would without that warm wall.

In the front yard my cosmos are doing amazing. 

They have zinnia's mixed in. 

The alyssum is doing well too. 

And here you can barely see the fairy door because everything has grown up so much around it. 

On Tuesday I spent the morning working on a lot of stuff on my computer. I listened to Taylor Swift's Life of a Showgirl album. This was the third time I listened to it. The first was right when it was available on Thursday at 10:00PM. I'd listened to all the songs and my first response was "I miss The Tortured Poets Department." Which is kind of hilarious because when I first listened to The Tortured Poets Department I'd been like, "Hmmm it's different than Midnights."

The second time I listened to The Life of a Showgirl was at work on Friday. I'd liked it better than second time through because I was used to the idea of it all being very pop and happy rather than mostly sad and moody. 

I spent the weekend with the usual Taylor Swift induced Tourette's syndrome. I've was just randomly singing phrases like, "Ophelia" and "Dancing through the Lightning Strikes."  But I still wasn't sure I liked the album. 

That third listen on Tuesday was when I decided I liked the album. I listened to a version of the album with Taylor Swift introducing each song. That was really helpful. I gained a greater appreciation for each song from that. I really like The Fate of Ophelia, Opalite, and Life of a Showgirl. But I decided that Cancelled is my favorite song from the album. 

Later I saw a hilarious reel that summed up how everyone always acts like Taylor Swift's newest album is the worst. Watch it here. 

Anyway, I made it into work in time for our admin meeting at 12:00. We've been working with someone to come up with plans to handle unexpected threats to the organization. We were coming up with our top three. One of them was what if something happened to the owner. He takes care of A LOT so it would be a huge blow to our organization to have him unable to work. While we were having that discussion I was like, "We probably should also worry about what happens if I can't work."  I've had a backup person, but she hasn't been available as much as she used to be. That conversation made us realize that I need to get a new billing back up. So later I sent out and email to see if anyone wanted to have some billing training. Four people responded. So I'll start getting them trained. (Actually, I'll start by having them shadow me. And if they are still interested in the wonderful world of billing we'll move onto actual training.)

Charlotte and Lydia stayed late for yarn club again. They texted me that Gwen's boyfriend had dumped her and so they were having a girls night that evening to help her feel better. So that night at 5:00 I took them over to Macey's house to hang out with Gwen. They had pizza, made brownies, and watched The Princess Bride. There were a couple other girls there as well. Gwen really appreciated that. 

Meanwhile I was trying to figure out how to keep Derrick and Veronica entertained. We'd all planned to go to Spirit Halloween while Brandon was at tech rehearsal. But we didn't want to go without Charlotte and Lydia. 

I'd promised my friend Kori that I'd take her daughter to the High School for a choir concert that night. (Kori's husband was out of town and she had to be two places at once, so I took care of taking Hadley early and then Kori showed up for the concert.)

I brought Derrick and Veronica as well as Marcia along. After we dropped off Hadley we went to First Federal Park so the kids and the dog could get their wiggles out. 

Here's Marcia on the fake rock. 

She had a great time. 

And then the kids climbed the rock too.

We went back home and waited for Charlotte and Lydia to be done with their girls night. Earlier I'd picked a lot of grapes from the vines that grow over the fence from our neighbors. I washed all the grapes and got them ready to juice with the juicer I'd borrowed from my friend Marilyn.

The twins were done at 8:30. We picked them up and went to Spirit Halloween. (It didn't close until 10:00 so we had plenty of time.)  The kids had fun activating all the scary animatronics. 

We stayed there for about 45 minutes. This year Spirit Halloween is inside what previously was Joanns. So that is sad. 

Back at home Derrick and I spent some time going over calendar things. We have our multi month calendar, a weekly calendar, a list of things we want to do in the fall and a list of Halloween Movies to watch. He loves going over these things. Here he is crossing off "Go to Spirit Halloween" from the list. 

On Wednesday I dropped everyone off at school and then came home and worked on grapes. I juiced them and then canned them. It was a big project. 

I ended up with 16 pints of the pink juice that came from my neighbors green grapes. I also had 6 pints from concord grapes that my first Marianne gets from her neighbor. Those concord grapes are what kicked everything off. Marianne was like, "Do you want any of my neighbor's grapes?"  And I thought, "I haven't even done anything with my neighbors grapes."  But here I was with this all done. 

I was done around 1:30 and I hurried to change and then drive to the hospital for a very important drs appointment. Two weeks earlier I'd finally connected the dots between my irritability, inability to consistently sleep through the night, exhaustion, and feeling hollowed out. I realized I probably needed Hormone Replacement Therapy. So I'd made an appointment with my dr to look into that. 

I didn't really know what to expect. I've heard so many horror stories about drs who just dismiss these types of concerns with things like, "It's all in your head." or "Maybe you should lose some weight and see if that helps."

But thankfully that didn't happen. It helps that my doctor is a women who is about 10-15 years older than me. She's deep in her own menopausal journey. So she was very compassionate and helpful. She didn't even see the need for a blood test. I'm already on estrogen for my heavy periods and so after talking about my other symptoms she decided to add progesterone. This would help me sleep and help with energy and irritability. 

It was INCREDIBLE to know that she listened and cared and that there was an actual answer. That felt so good. I was able to fill the prescription on Thursday and took my first dose on Thursday before bed. I slept so well. I didn't wake up at 2 or 3 and just lay there for hours. Instead I slept all the way through the night. On Friday I was like, "Wait, is this what feeling alive is like?"  I've been slogging through so much for so long that I didn't realize how rough things had been. Getting even one dose of progesterone made a huge difference.   

But that's getting ahead of things. After school Veronica had theatre. I picked her up from that and took her home and then took Charlotte and Lydia to the High School for their Orchestra Concert. They had to be there about 35 minutes early. I dropped them off and then came home and picked up Veronica (who had made herself some sort of dinner.)  I took her to one of the young women leaders houses. They were having a spa night. I'd asked if it was okay to drop her off about 25 minutes early. So I dropped her off at 6:45 and then went to the High School for the Orchestra Concert. (Derrick didn't have an activity that night so he just stayed home and watched a movie.)

The concert was really good. The kids were given the option to dress in Halloween costumes if they wanted. So Charlotte was wearing her vampire cape. 

Here's Lydia. Both girls were wearing Derrick's Sunday shirts. I probably should invest in more white shirts. 

They played three songs. Here's a video of the final one - Rosing Eating Zombies from Outer Space.

Here's the whole group at the end. Charlotte and Lydia adjusted to High School Orchestra really well. It helps a lot that they have the same teacher. He teaches two classes at the middle school, two at another middle school, and two at the high school. That's really helped the transition. 

Here's Lydia. 

And Charlotte. 

The girls are in the Concert Orchestra. There's also a Chamber Orchestra. They played three songs. They were really good. 

The concert was over before 8:00. Lydia drove to pick up Veronica. We were there a little early so we sat in the car and I went over a lot of the car buttons with the girls. Then I went in and picked up Veronica. 

And then we went home and DIDN'T go ANYWHERE the rest of the night. 

On Thursday I got everyone to school and then came back home and did like 90 minutes of just trying to get my house cleaned up again. We had so many dishes to do and everything else just needed a little help. 

Then I worked on Castle and Gaining Stuff. And then I went into work at Aspen Grove. After I was done there I picked up Charlotte and Lydia from school. I noticed that my odometer had gone over 295000 miles. That means I'm within 5000 miles of my goal. 

Our lovely weather days were limited so after school I made all the kids go outside for an hour. Charlotte played with her chickens. Derrick tried to pound another stick into the ground. Veronica raked some leaves. Lydia put up the spiderweb that we'd bought at Spirit Halloween. 

It's made out of something called beef cloth. You cut the holes in it. 

Then the kids went inside and watched the first Harry Potter movie. They were getting ready for the Harry Potter event the next week.

This was either Wednesday or Thursday, but we'll put it here. The Anastasia audition sign ups went live and so I filled out the form for myself and each of the girls. After how many people showed up for auditions for Cinderella the Rep people decided they had to change how they do auditions. Now you fill out a form with a lot of pre information and then they send you a specific audition time. 

So it felt really official to fill out that form. There was a spot where you could list special skills. For Charlotte and Lydia we put that they are identical twins. For me I said, "I have no ego and will not cause any drama."  I'd been joking about putting that on there, but a few people told me it actually was a good idea to do that. 

Veronica will have a really crazy January if we all make it into the play. Her High School Musical group will have their tech week while Anastasia rehearsals are going on. But it will be worth it. 

The big news on Friday was that it was opening night for Sweeny Todd. Brandon was like, "Somehow we made a play."  It had been a little touch and go for a while, but it had all come together that week. 

I made this meme based on how hard it is to recommend it to people. 

But I can show you how great Brandon looks in his costume. Britt costumed this show and she'd worked with him to put this all together. He looks so good. And that's my friend Marianne next to him. In real life they are about the same age. But she's playing an old lady so they decided that she's his mother. 

I think I'll go into more detail about the play after I actually see it next week. 

Brandon went to the theatre around 5:00. I took the kids to the Pumpkin Patch at Blue Rock. 

There were lots of fun things to play on. Charlotte and Lydia played on these fake cows. 

Derrick and Veronica played on the go carts. 

Here's Derrick. 

Derrick and Veronica had a blast in the covid corn pit. They also played on the slide. 

On the way home we stopped at the store and bought some treats. Veronica had been talking about going to a social at the middle school, but it would have meant we couldn't go to Blue Rock. Her main motivation was to have treats so I told her we'd have our own treats. So we bought some things and she divided them out into bowls at home. 

The kids watched Harry Potter 2 and then 3. A storm started blowing in around 8:30. There was wind, thunder, lightning, and rain. The beautiful weather was over. We had been at 80 degrees on Friday. On Saturday we would be in the 50s. 

I went to bed around 9:30 so they were on their own for bedtime after they finished the movies. They said they went to bed around 12:00. Brandon got home way after that at 1:30. He'd gone out to Idaho Joe's with the cast after the show was over and had been part of the group that stayed out in the parking lot talking. 

Some of the conversation had involved Anastasia. Crayson is directing Anastasia and he was at dinner. He said that in the few days that the sign up was live he'd received enough submissions to fill the cast TWO times. The cast limit is 45 so that means 90 people have signed up. It's going to be so hard. I already know like 4 people trying to be Anastasia and about 4 more going for Vlad. 

I'm still hopeful I'll make it in because I'm not going for a big role. I'm hoping to be Alexandra. And I have a few things going for me. 1. She doesn't have lines. I'm very happy to play the small ghost mom role. 2. I'm tall and I think that makes me regal looking. 3. I'm old enough to realistically play a mother of five. So hopefully when it comes to casting I'll stand out from the sea of young girls hoping to be Anastasia but willing to take other ensemble roles. 

Also Charlotte and Lydia are identical twins and that seems to be enough to get them into shows and they will need a ride so at the very least I'm hoping to be cast because I come with identical twins. 

Brandon had a lot of fun talking with everyone. He likes being on stage for the shows, but let's be honest here. He's in it for the friends. These nights when the cast goes out to eat are some of the best parts of being in a play. 

On Saturday we all slept in for a long time. When we did finally get up we all just kind of naturally gathered in the living room. One at a time the kids started sitting by Brandon. 

He said, "I missed you guys this week and I was looking forward to today when I knew you would all jump on me."  And that's pretty much what happened. 

Everyone was asking, "What are we doing today?"  Brandon was like, "I don't know, I didn't think I'd make it this far."

So this was pretty much all we did for a while. 

But eventually we did work on cleaning the house. And at some point Brandon used his air compressor to blow out the sprinkler. 

I made taco salad. That was the first real dinner we'd had all week. (Though we got close on Friday when we had a personal pizza bar with english muffins that we heated up in the microwave.)

Brandon left around 5:00 again. I took the kids and Marcia to Thompson park. The playground was updated during the summer, but the kids hadn't really had a chance to play on it. 

Thanks to the cold weather we were the only people at the park and the kids went wild. 

They had a lot of fun on this playground. At least two of them said something like, "Oh this playground is dangerous."  There were lots of things to climb on.

Here's Veronica laying on one of the hammocky things. 

The kids liked this spider web thingy. 

Here's Lydia with Marcia. 

One of their favorite things was this big swing. 

Derrick was an excellent pusher. 

He'd jump in the air and use that momentum to push the swing down. Here's Charlotte nearly falling out. 

This is Veronica's turn. 

And Lydia's turn. She was so small and light that Derrick was able to throw her extra high. 

And here's Derrick's turn. The girls weren't able to get him as high as he could get them. 

Then the kids were trying to go down the slide all together. It was pretty funny. 

They got really silly.

Somehow I talked them into posing in line for me so I could commemorate them being in the 6 weeks of the year when their ages line up. Veronica is 12, Derrick is 13, and the twins are 14 for a few more weeks.  It took them a minute to get into the right order. Lydia said it was like herding butterflies. 

Lydia even made facial expressions. 

And then they went down the slide in order. Again this was hilarious. 

This was a really fun night. 

I'm so glad we decided to go to this park. 

We went to Hobby Lobby to get stuffing for the dragon that Lydia was helping Veronica sew. When we came back home the kids watched the 4th Harry Potter movie. That movie makes me super sad when Cedric Diggory's dad realizes he's dead. I was upstairs, but the kids told me to plug my ears for that part. 

Everyone was in bed around 10:00. Brandon didn't get home until 1:30 again. This time they'd gone to Buffalo Wild Wings. He'd had another fun night talking with everyone.

Sunday was another lazy morning. Derrick and I were the only ones up for a while. I was working on stuff on my laptop. He decided to watch Moana 2 for some reason. I was kind of listening to it from upstairs. The song What Lies Beyond caught my attention. After the movie I was singing it and whistling it. I was like, "This should be my audition song!"  I'd been basically planning to just do A Lovely Night from Cinderella, but the song from Moana seemed perfect. 

We went to church at 12:00. Driving there was so easy because Eastland is FULLY open. They started widening the road in April and now it's completely done. It was really nice to drive there and back with two lanes on each side of the road. One day the pinch point where the road went to one lane on each side will just be a distant memory. 

It was the Primary Program. This was the first year I didn't have Primary aged kids. (Though Derrick and Veronica stopped participating in the Primary Program years ago so it's been a while since it mattered anyway.)

When the program is happening I like to look at each kid and try to remember their name or at least which family they belong to. There are a few kids who stump me, but I usually figure them out by the end. They all did a really good job. 

I was feeling a lot of trepidation about going to Relief Society. I did not want to have to engage with anything related to President Oaks' recent conference talk. I was like, "I'll just go sit in the back and not say anything and see how this goes."

Well that lasted 0 seconds. I walked in and the Secretary asked me to say the prayer. Then the teacher handed me something to help with the lesson. So there went hiding in the back and not engaging. 

And then the lesson was AMAZING. It was on Elder Uchdorf's talk from April Conference about Loving each other. The teacher had people share times they have been served by people in the ward. There were so many good stories. And then she had us talk about times we didn't feel like we belonged somewhere. That was also powerful. And there was so much love and vulnerability. 

By the end of it I was like, "I guess the church is still true in the 7th Ward."  So yeah, I'm sticking around because my ward continues to be pretty awesome. 

After church Brandon and the girls left to drive to Utah. They were planning on driving a lot today to get hours, and at some point on Saturday we realized it would make sense for them to just drive to Utah to get the new stove. So they did that. 

The only problem is that the girls permits aren't valid in Utah. So they couldn't do any driving in Utah. The permits are valid in every other state, but my head cannon is that law makers in Utah grew up with their cousins from Idaho bragging about how they could get their drivers permits at 14 and a half. The Utah cousins were sick of that so they grew up and made laws that said that Idaho permits aren't valid in Utah. 

Derrick and Veronica and I watched Cheaper by the Dozen. Derrick had seen it playing at the dentist office and asked what it was. I kind of don't like that movie because it's too crazy, but Derrick loves that kind of slapstick nonsense so I knew he'd love the movie. And I was right. But he also was sensitive to how disorganized the family was. He kept saying, "Those kids need to help with the house. They need to do the dishes and not fight."

Then Derrick and Veronica watched Harry Potter 5. (Charlotte and Lydia were fine with missing it.)  We realized we were running low on milk so we walked to Smiths and bought a gallon. Brandon and the girls had taken the van because it was big enough for the oven. I don't have a key fob to open the pilot so even though it was at home I couldn't use it. But the walk to Smiths was nice and really not that far. 

And that gets us caught up. Next week Brandon has four performances, but he gets Monday and Tuesday nights off. That's going to be amazing. We haven't had him home on those nights for a long time. 

Thanks for reading. 

The Calm Before Tech Week

This week was nice and calm. Which is good because next week is tech week for Sweeny Todd. So we needed all the calm we could get. 

Let's do this recap thing. 

Monday was nice and typical. I worked, Veronica had theatre, Brandon had his play practice.  At some point I took care of garden things. Look at this beautiful green pepper.

I finally figured out how to pick peppers and keep them from getting all mixed up. I put them in different plates and bowls inside a box. 

I also picked a bunch of tomatoes.

And look at all the raspberries. I can pick enough to fill three of those little containers at the store - every other day. I eat a ton of them fresh, but I'm also freezing a lot to make jam later. 

When Veronica was at theatre I took Charlotte and Lydia shopping. We were looking for a Homecoming dress for Lydia. Charlotte had borrowed the white dress she loves from our friend Macey so she already had her dress. But Lydia needed one. I had some things to return to Goodwill so we were going to start there, but I was prepared to go to DI if we didn't find anything at Goodwill. 

I call our Goodwill the "Manifesting Goodwill" because if you go in there with something in mind that you are looking for you will probably find it there. And that happened again this time. Lydia found the perfect dress - for $8 within a few minutes. She also found a belt to go with it for $3.50. The things I were returning were worth $10 so we only had to pay a few dollars for the dress. It was great. 

Then we went to Hobby Lobby so Charlotte could get some things for her Halloween costume project. 

Tuesday was another pretty normal day. Brandon got paid and nobody had any appointments that morning so I went and did a really big grocery shopping trip after I dropped everyone off at school. 

That evening we had dinner with our friend Hanah. She'd asked if she could bring her boys over to use our firepit to cook hotdogs and she said she'd bring enough to share with all of us. That was great!  But the only problem was it rained and rained and rained right as she was supposed to come over. So all the wood was wet, the fire pit was wet, and there were puddles everywhere. 

So Brandon cooked the hot dogs in the skillet. But it was still a fun dinner. I told Hanah, "Thanks for planning our dinner for us!"

Brandon left for the theatre a little after Hanah left. Derrick finished watching a movie and then was like, "Okay, no more screens right now!"  He wanted everyone to hang out. So we played pic-wits together. 

I'd bought candy corn to have on October 1st to celebrate the start of the Halloween Season, but this felt like a perfect time to get them out. We also turned on our Halloween Playlist on Spotify for the first time. It was a really fun night. 

Derrick was in peak form. He was so silly and personable all night. Everybody was fun, but Derrick was like extra fun. 

On Wednesday Veronica had her first therapy appointment since April. Her therapist had a baby and was on maternity leave and we usually take a break from therapy in the summer anyway. Honestly, Veronica probably wouldn't have needed therapy anyway if she hadn't just started Middle School. But we knew she'd need some help with that transition. As we were driving to her appointment she told me, "I'm so excited to process my emotions today!"

When we were there I also helped their receptionist/billing person Marcia process her emotions. We had a long conversation venting about how dumb some of the insurance companies are to work with. She was like, "thanks for letting me vent."  I told her, "Hey there aren't many people that understand."

I sat in the lobby and sent a lot of text messages. Most were about the Halloween Party that Brandon and I had decided NOT to host this year. We'd looked at the calendar and realized it probably wouldn't work this year. Sweeny Todd took up two weekends. And then I would be out of town for two days for my IPUL meeting. And that meant I'd be playing catch up when I got back. And, yeah, it just didn't look like we could do the party without killing ourselves. Plus the first weekend that was open was late in the month. I was worried that by then the weather would have turned cold. 

So I sent out a text to the people who usually come to the party and let them know that it wouldn't be happening. I'm hoping that maybe one of them decides to host something. But even if they don't our October is very full of fun stuff. 

I dropped Veronica off at school and then went to work. I would have been happy to NOT go into work since Wednesdays are my day off, but it was the first of the month. I wanted to get billing statement sent out. Plus there are reports that I like to run on the first of the month. So I was at work for about 90 minutes taking care of all of that. 

Veronica had theatre pretty much right after school on Wednesdays. On Monday's she gets out of school at 3:00 so being at the theatre at 4:30 it's really an issue. But on Mondays she doesn't get out of school until 4:00 so that's a really quick turn around time. But I wanted her in this class because this class will have their performance first in January. (There are three teenage classes and so there will be three weekends of High School Musical performances in January.)  If we make it into Anastasia rehearsals will start early in January. I wanted to get High School Musical out of the way as quick as possible so Veronica can focus on Anastasia. So she has to go to rehearsals right after school on Wednesdays. 

None of the kids were interested in their Youth Activities that night so they all just stayed home. And that was perfect because we already had our (much more fun) activities planned. It was the first of October so we were going to kick off the season with watching one of our favorite movies - Curious George Boo-Fest. 

I didn't take any pictures because I had a sense that trying to document this would kill the magic. But it was really really sweet to sit down with my 12, 13, and 14 year olds and watch a movie that we've all loved since they were little. We looked it up later and the movie came out in 2013. So it's possible we watched it when Veronica was a newborn. If that's the case we've watched it her whole life. We used to watch it on Netflix, but around the time we moved to Twin I bought it on DVD. 

So that was really fun to watch.  We don't watch it ironically. We legitimately love this movie. There are so many genuinely funny moments.  

Then we dug out the FIVE Halloween totes and boxes and the kids decorated the living room. I went through the costumes and sorted out the costumes that the kids have outgrown. I divided the ones that are still sentimental from the ones we were ready to part with. I gave Jori a whole garbage bag full of costumes for her kids. She said her kids were so excited about those costumes. I was happy they were going to people who would love them. 

Here are the kids going through the boxes. Charlotte found her vampire cape and put it on right away. 

They decorated everything, but I guess I forgot to get a picture. 

So far I was LOVING Halloween. It felt like the kids kind of outgrew a lot of stuff this year. (I'm still reeling from the fact that we only went to the pool 7 times this summer.) But they haven't outgrown a lot of our Halloween traditions and that's nice. 

On Thursday morning I picked a lot of things from the garden - including herbs. My goal was to grow herbs this year. And I did that. But I hadn't really done anything with them other than grow them. So I wanted to actually use them. But I ran out of time and didn't get around to doing anything until after work. 

After work I put red peppers, oregano, and thyme into the dehydrator. After about 4 hours they were all dried out. I put them into cute little jars I'd bought at Hobby Lobby. I was so happy with how these had turned out. Jori had recommending just letting them all air dry, but I told her, "I know myself. I'll put them all in little bundles and hang them up and then FORGET they exist. They will just turn into dusty little decoration."  I wanted to do the project quickly while I was still excited about it. And that's what I did. 

Another thing that happened on Thursday was that Derrick's friend Max came over for the first time. He only came for about 45 minutes because his mom wasn't sure how he would do, but he had a great time so he'll stay for longer next time. Derrick was thrilled to show him all his stuff. 

Charlotte came outside and helped me harvest carrots. We had "roots" for dinner. That's where I cut up potatoes, carrots, and onions and cook them in the oven on a baking sheet. Thursdays have kind of turned into "Fend for yourself" nights for dinner. So this time it was more like, "Here, I have provided a dinner option to you children. You can eat it if you'd like or find something you like on your own."

When Brandon went to rehearsal the kids and I made chocolate covered pretzels. Actually let me rephrase that. Charlotte and Lydia made chocolate covered pretzels. I was supervising.  Here's Charlotte doing the white chocolate ones. Lydia did the milk chocolate ones later. 

Here's another picture of my spices. You can see Charlotte's head reflected in the top of one jar. 

On Friday I went to Walmart after the kids were all dropped off at school. Every so often there's just a bunch of stuff I need to get there. This was one of those times. It was all really random stuff like the good cough syrup (Delsym in case you are wondering), craft paint, basil (I can't grow it for some reason so I need to buy the live herbs in the produce section), a belt for Veronica, and a fall scented candle for the twins. 

Then I went to work and got a lot done. 

At home I was in a rush to get some garden stuff done because it was supposed to rain that afternoon/evening. 

The section along the white fence had a lot of volunteer blackberries come up from old roots that were still in the ground even after I moved the main plants. I dug those up and put them into a bag to take to a plant swap happening that night. I also cut out the sun flowers that were mostly dead. It was a lot of work that kept getting interrupted. But here's the final result.   

The first interruption was to pick up Veronica early. She was having girl issues and just didn't want to stay at school any longer. So I picked her up and brought her home. 

The second interruption was Charlotte and Lydia needed a ride. The school had a homecoming parade at like 2:00 and after it was over they basically turned the kids lose. So they called me and I picked them up. 

And the third interruption was to take Veronica back to the Middle School so she could pick up her bass after school was over. 

But yeah, eventually this project was done. 

 

Charlotte came and helped me harvest my onions and pumpkins. 

The pumpkins were small, but at least they existed! I have not had luck with pumpkins for several years so these three felt like a victory. 

I had the kids hurry and get dog poop picked up before the rain started. I wanted it picked up so that if the leaves started to fall this weekend they wouldn't be on top of a bunch of dog poop. 

Then we went inside and everyone helped me clean off the kitchen table and do the dishes. Everything had been a huge mess so it was good to get that organized again. 

Brandon made pizza for dinner. But he realized the pizza wasn't actually cooking. Something was wrong with the heading element in our oven. So we need that replaced. He ended up cooking the pizza on our grilled and the skillet. This is the 3rd time in our marriage he's used that hack.

At 6:30 I took Charlotte and Lydia to the high school so they could go to the Homecoming Football game. All season long I've been telling them to go to the football games. They have been like, "But Mom, we don't care about sports in our family."  And I've been like, "It's not about the game. It's about hanging out with friends!"  I told them if they went to any games it had to be the homecoming game. So they went. 

And they had a FABOULOUS time. From what it sounds like they mostly ran around on the grass with their friends and prank called boys. So you know, a successful football game. (Twin did end up winning against Pocatello.)

After I dropped the girls off I went to my friend Trish's house for a plant and seed swap. I bought the blackberry starts. I ended up with a black eyed susan, silver artimesia, mint, hens and chicks, and grape hyacinths. Plus a bunch of seeds. It was a really good swap. 

Saturday was a very productive day. But also really chill in a way. I slept in and then got up and planted the plants I'd got at the swap. As soon as I was done it started to rain. (The rain had thankfully held off during the football game.)

Brandon had to go help with the set for Sweeny Todd. He went there at 10:30 and didn't get home until around 4:00. He was working on the set with Kenny Sparks who is an electrician and a good builder and a guy named Hunter who works construction. So it was basically the Dream Team of set builders. Someone climbed up on one of the platforms and said, "This is the most secure I've EVER felt on one of these sets."

Me and the girls were kind of on call for helping paint the set, but that never happened. 

Instead we all worked together to get the house cleaned up. The kids bathroom especially needed help. Charlotte mopped the floor really well in there. 

I spent a lot of time in Veronica's room going through her clothes. I pulled out a garbage bag of clothes that she has outgrown. They all went to Jori's kids. Some of them will be too big for her girls, but enough of the clothes will fit that it was worth sending them all to her. 

At 1:00 I took Derrick over to Max's house. He was supposed to stay there all afternoon and have dinner with them. But Max got overwhelmed after about two and a half hours so I picked him up around 3:30. Still, that's an awesome amount of time. 

Veronica got out her bass and practiced and then I spent about 20 minutes playing it. I basically played through her whole little song book. I was like, "I'm am an excellent player at this level!"  My favorite one was the "Going Home" theme.  I was like, "Oh I've played this one for real!"

I'm pretty thrilled that there's a sting bass in my life again. Veronica and I have talked about buying one for the two of us to share. 

At 5:30 Brandon took the girls over to their friends' house to get ready for the Homecoming Dance.  I'm not sure if this is an Idaho thing or a 2020's thing, but Homecoming is very much a group event. You could still go with a date if you wanted, but a lot of people go in groups - especially the freshmen.  

Charlotte and Lydia went with a group that included Aurora and Gwen (who are the twins they have been best friends with since 3rd grade), Lily, and Katelynn. Gwen's boyfriend Zander also came. 

Aurora and Gwen's dad is also named Brandon. He is married to Jennifer (who owns Moss Greenhouse where I got a lot of my plants this year.) Brandon and Jennifer let all the girls come to their house to get ready and also provided hamburgers for dinner. Aurora and Gwen's mom, Macie was there and she did the girls hair for them. 

Here's Lydia with curls. 

Here's the back of Charlotte's hair with pretty barrettes. 

Here they are together. 

And Charlotte

Here's the whole group. 

And just the girls. 

I loved how much this dance DIDN'T revolve around boys. When I look back on my highschool dances there was so much focus in the boys. What boy would ask me out. Or what boy I should ask for the girls choice dance. In contrast this dance was so much more about female friendship. The girls got ready together, they hung out together, and they went to the dance together. 

Here's one of their group pictures. The whole homecoming week had been Wizard of Oz themed. 

Other Brandon brought the girls home around 10:30. They had had a great time. They were so tired. 

This morning we all slept in super late. We are trying to do as little as possible because tech week starts next week. Brandon will have four tech rehearsals and then opening night is on Friday. He has another performance on Saturday. And then he'll finally have another break next Sunday. So yeah, we are in low power mode over here today. 

But look - I was able to finally get this blog updated on time again. So yay for low power mode. 

Thanks for reading. 

Homecoming pictures

Sunday