Jun 22, 2024 | Currently, What's going on |
Because my birthday falls on Memorial Day weekend, Christopher had an extra day off work and we
were able to visit a lighthouse and beach in Florida.
Carol had Grandma call me to say happy birthday.
That night, my facetime with Autumn and Joanna morphed into a facetime with
Katie, Mom and Elizabeth as well. The more the merrier!
We visited Jenn after eleven long years apart. We did everything together at Fort Campbell. We probably saw each other four times a week and talked on the phone just as much. Then she dared move to Korea
and I wasn’t sure we’d ever be reunited. Lo and behold, she’s settled a few hours from us in Alabama.
We kept in contact all these years and picked up right where we left up- with talking about people
we follow on instagram and laughing.
It’s no easy feat getting pictures of/with Sesame these days. Gone are the days of plopping her little baby self in a chair and taking 48 pictures. I’ve found the best approach is the surprise photo. No warning.
Just stick up the camera or phone and tell her to smile.
We celebrated our best guy on Father’s Day. Annabelle googled his gift. “perfect, small but not too small corn hole that’s light weight, and cheap but also good that my dad will like!!!”
She found a cornhole game that checked all the boxes.
I took upwards of 24 pictures of my hydrangeas. Since moving here, I’ve looked at the non-flowering shrubs and told myself to research how to make them bloom. This year, it decided to bloom without me doing one thing. Sometimes laziness pays off!
Not pictured:
the snake in our upstairs closet
5,276 hours of VBS volunteering
AB’s 48 hour at-home EEG where the machine failed on us and only recorded 2 hours
May 10, 2024 | What's going on |
I have a phrase I like to use when things go wrong- TLDs. Technical Life Difficulties. It’s used when the store is out of whole milk, you forget to pick up a prescription, or you miss an important phone call. I present a list of TLDs from the last two weeks.
– The washing machine is not washing properly.
– The dryer is not drying properly. I know how to fix it but I haven’t done it yet. It’s a production to pull it out from the wall and detach various vents and hoses.
– The kitchen sink leaked again. I fixed that as I am the family plumber. I have spare parts on standby for such a time as this.
– The ice maker in the freezer is not working. The last time this happened, I had the repair man explain how to fix it. I did everything he said but couldn’t get the icebox part out to fix it. The repair man came back to assess the situation. He looked at it for a solid 30 seconds before announcing that it was a frozen solid block of ice that would require significant repairs. He showed me all the recalls on our particular model and said he could charge me upwards of $300 to repair it, but instead suggested I call Samsung directly to complain. Samsung required we send them a video proving that our ice machine is truly not giving ice. Are people out there saying they can’t get ice when they really can? If I was going to try pulling a fast one on a company, it wouldn’t be over literal frozen water. TBD if they come through and fix it for free.
– No sooner had I finished with that repairman, than I had to let in the other repairman to fix the hot water heater. When I showed him the hot water heater, he asked where the other one was. I didn’t know some houses have two. I said we only have one and he asked if I was sure. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure. Was it possible there was a giant white cylinder sitting in some corner that I was not aware of? He eventually decided we were a one-heater household.
– You’d think that would be the end of my interactions with repairmen, but no! It keeps going! The ac went out as well. A man came one month ago to check the units and told me that the compressor was running on such and such units and it should be running on such and such units. Or maybe he said it wasn’t using units. Perhaps it was overreacting from too much ampage in the cooling fluid. Most of what he said went over my head even though I asked him to repeat it. Bottom line, he said it would need to be replaced within the next several months. The “next several months” happened this week. A different man from the same company came and asked how old our unit is. Why do companies think I know these details? I don’t know how old the unit is! I don’t understand how the thing works! Just fix it, please!
– The handle keeps falling off the back screen door.
– The cats pushed the screen out of the window and wandered about the neighborhood for several hours. Lucy had the decency to return home and was sitting on the porch waiting to be brought it. Linus was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t notice they were gone until 10pm, so I was wandering the backyard in my pajamas while wearing rain boots. I dragged AB out of bed for strength in numbers. We shook the treat bag and called his name to no avail. I was devasted for Annabelle. She ADORES him. Linus is a cat of comfort who is scared of his own tail. He is a cat who whines for cheese and he is given cheese. He is not prepared for life in wild suburbia. While we were searching I saw Clare Cat, Linus’ girlfriend, on the other side of the porch. The dude ran off to be with a girl. After several hours of worrying about his gruesome death or the new life he was creating with Clare Cat, I looked outside one more time and there he was on the deck. He hissed when I picked him up then had the adacity to waltz himself over to the refrigerator, like he had done nothing wrong, and meow for cheese.
– Christopher was gone all week on a business trip. His luggage never made it on the plane at the first airport. It slowly followed him to various airports across the country but never caught up with him. It showed up on our doorstep this afternoon, the same day he is due to arrive home.
– Finally, the rotisserie chicken I bought for an easy supper was so hot, that it melted the grocery bag and left a stain on my newly cleaned car rug.
I think it wise I not leave the couch. I risk it crumbling under me if I move in the wrong direction.
May 4, 2024 | Sesame, What's going on |
Another show is in the books. 
I was allowed a brief selfie when dropping AB off before the first show.
“Mom!! I have to go!! Cora is going in before me!! I neeeeeed to gooooo!!!!”
The wheel on Hook’s ship was Christopher’s when he was a little boy. It’s been hanging around in our craft room for years and finally got its moment in the literal spotlight. 
AB was a Lost Boy which was a very appropriate role for her. She seldom knows what’s going on in life.
All the Lost Boys were dressed as animals and she picked black bear. I thought she looked adorable. “Mom, I think I’m supposed to go with accuracy, not adorable. Perhaps we should get me a tail.”
The little boy who initially had the role of the crocodile had too much stage fright and pulled out of the show early on. I offered to fill in but needless to say, Sesame Black Bear was not on board with sharing the stage with her mother. Wearing matching show shirts is about her limit these days. 😉
Mar 21, 2024 | What's going on |
reading: Diana, Closely Guarded Secret. It’s written by Princess Diana’s bodyguard of several years which means the information is high on accuracy and low on gossip. I don’t like to bring gossipy books into the house because of the looks I’ll get from the other two. After reading it, I decided that Diana and Charles, who both morally fell short in many ways, are equally misrepresented by the media. Charlie isn’t as bad and Diana isn’t as great and saintly as she’s remembered to be. Please come to my speech next week when I discuss my many detailed thoughts on the infamous car crash.
watching: endless episodes of The Great British Bakeoff. AB loves it and it’s family-friendly so we’ve blazed through several seasons. She can tell you who won which challenge in the fourth episode of the seventh season. Does she remember which bathroom her toothbrush is in? Probably not. We discovered that there’s a GBBO musical that has become the soundtrack to our life when we’re not watching the show.
emotionally preparing for: AB’s 10th birthday. She told me when it was only 10 days away. I didn’t need that countdown calendar. I don’t like countdowns. When I was pregnant with her and knew my due date was April 2nd, I refused to look at the calendar and see what day of the week that fell on. I knew if I had that information, I’d say, “I only have ___ number of Wednesdays left until my due date, ” which would stress me out more. I already knew how many weeks I had left given that pregnancy is counted in weeks, but knowing that particular day of the week was a bridge too for my very emotionally fragile self. What a delight I was for those 39 weeks, 5 days.
photographing: all the flowers. We’re in the 22 days of glorious spring. Before we know it, it will hit 104* where it will stay until October. Until then, we’re loving the sunshine.
returning: to Zumba. I’ve been hit or miss (mostly miss) with zumba since I had surgery over two years. Between stomach pain from exercising and not belonging to the Y anymore, it wasn’t something that ever worked out. I found out that the zumba instructor from the Y opened up her own studio so I went a few weeks ago. It was so fun to go back and I didn’t have any pain. I still zumba very much like a white lady and in the heat of the music confused left and straight, but I dance for over 2 miles so I say it’s a win.
saying yes: too many school things. Between subbing, setting up for events, and the teacher lunches I’m in charge of, I’m constantly at the school. I told Christopher that after I completed my three commitments there this month, I wouldn’t say yes to any more school things. I didn’t sign up to help with the book fair or to help monitor the orchastra petting zoo, both of which I normally would have done. AB’s drama director recently took the job as the theater teacher at her school. She texted me yesterday about the decor I used when we set up a special snack week in the teacher’s lunch room. I took pages out of a book from the little free library and made them into a table runner. She was wondering if she could use the decor for Little Women. I said of course. I should have stopped there. Instead, I said, “If the table runner got dirty, I’d be happy to make you another one!” WHY. Why do I make more work for myself.
Mourning: Sesame Pie’s upcoming birthday. I know I already mentioned it, but it’s in seven days and I wrap my head around that.
Feb 15, 2024 | What's going on |
I saw an influencer on Instagram yesterday who spent the day filming a mob wives style video to announce a new product. She spent hours in full glam hair and makeup while wearing pearls, fur, and leather.
I spent half an hour that morning in the Walmart parking lot waiting for my grocery pickup to come out to my car. It never showed up. Come to find out, I was at the wrong Walmart. I got to the right Walmart, parked in the same spot I’ve always parked for pickup, and waited longer. Come to find out, they had moved the pickup spot. Ninety minutes later, I returned home with the groceries I had ordered because I thought it would be quicker than going into the store.
The influencer and I were living identical lives.
+++
On Friday we did our second Night to Shine.
I did red carpet last year and loved it. I requested it again this year but was given the role of buddy. Put me one-on-one with a child (or even better, a baby) any day of the week. I’m a little more hesitant with special needs given my lack of experience. I was paired up with Lula. She was very go-with-the-flow but knew what she wanted. She enjoyed waving to pedestrians out the limo window as we drove around the parking lot. Let’s not lie- I did too. It’s not often I’m chauffered in a black limo so I had to make the most of it. Lula wasn’t interested in the therapy dogs or horses, but she wanted to eat and dance. She made a few crafts and was tickled with the picture she colored. She was a crazy woman on the dance floor. I couldn’t understand everything she said, but she clearly sang every word to every song. When I crowned her at the very end, she asked several times if her tiara was real. That’s the most important question of all, Lula. We all need to know our tiara is real.
Jan 31, 2024 | What's going on |
Me in December: Things will calm down after Christmas!
Me in January: We need to coordinate our calendars better. We have too much going on. No free weekends! Who is agreeing to all this?
Last weekend we had a bed build with Sleep In Heavenly Peace, the organization we help with that provides beds for children in our town. Our last build was, to put it mildly, a disaster. Christopher called a team meeting, got out a dry erase board, and assigned all the board members as the boss of a specific area of the building process. He assigned me the headboard station. The organization’s model is that anyone in the community can come to a build and help make a bed. You don’t need experience with tools or saws to help out! Come one, come all! Turns out, you need experience drilling holes straight which I found out the VERY FRUSTRATING WAY. All my table had to do was drill straight through six spots on a 2×4 (4×8? 24×64?) then use another tool to make a 3/4 hole large enough for some type of socket. Or maybe it’s a screw. I don’t know. That wasn’t my assigned department. I understand the process and I’d done it before, but I could not do it that day. I had to keep asking for help and the help told me that to drill in a straight line, I needed to hold the drill straight. Thank you for that insight. I never would have considered such a novel idea. I won’t name names about who the help was, but I am legally and emotionally bound to him for life. Funnily enough, my table was called the Quality Contol table. There was nothing quality about the eight headboards I messed up and had to put in the redo pile. Eventually, I did what any good boss does and I passed the drilling job off to Takiyla who knows how to hold a drill straight.
Here we have my Quality Control table on the left. More quality work is happening because I was taking the picture instead of holding the drill.
In events I can better control the quality of, my friend asked me to help her organize a dress shop for Night to Shine. We collected donated formal/prom dresses and the girls at the school set up a shop where the ladies attending Night to Shine could come get a dress and jewelry for free. For most of them, it may be the only time they’d get to experience the “normal” experience of going to a dress shop and being waited on like that so we tried to make it special. 
We’ve had the cats for five years and visited the vet maybe four times in all those years. I called the vet three times this month alone. I’m bad enough about wondering if I’m overreacting when it comes to bringing AB to the doctor. I’m a million times worse when it comes to bringing a nonverbal animal to the vet. I know nothing about cats. I could bring them in for the human equivalent of a hangnail and be charged $200. Long and incredibly boring story short, I was told Lucy either has asthma or a hairball issue. As I said, I’m no vet but those seem quite different. I was given the option between an X-ray and steroid shot or a hairball cream from the pet store. I chose door number two for $17.50. I left with a stressed cat and a side of UTI antibiotics. Both cats are given that medication twice a day and it takes two of us to get the medicine in their mouths. We’re watching our friend’s kitten (who we’ve nicknamed Home Wrecker) this week and between the antibiotics and the forced living with Jack, Linus would choose door number one. He hates both options, but the 2lb fluff ball is the greater of two evils.
