A Week of Madness and Memories
I haven't disappeared. Just in case you were wondering. I try to post at least once a week, but last week kind of swamped me. This morning I feel like I can finally breathe a bit! So I thought I'd share how our Thanksgiving week went (as much as I can remember now, seeing as how my memory just isn't what it used to be).
Monday: I had all my normal Monday stuff (up at 4:30 am to exercise, volunteering at the kids' school, grocery shopping, school driving), and then I got to actually go on a date! Terence and I went to see Catching Fire, which I had "earned" by keeping my food diary on six Sundays in a row. (Sundays tend to be the day I seriously overeat, and it is also my rest day from exercise so I tend to skip the food diary.) We got ice cream at Coldstone too, which was a fantastic treat! It was a good day, but a very long one. When I got home I still had to work on a project for B's teacher.
Tuesday: This day was absolutely insane. It started early (yes, 4:30 is my normal), and I had to skip the gym since S has a cold again, so after dropping the kids off at school I came in and forced myself to work out at home. Then I spent quite a bit of time hunting down library books and trying to get some laundry done. (An extremely frustrating nightmare, currently, since my dryer door won't stay closed and my washer gives me an error code every other load and has to be restarted.) After picking up the kids from school we made our weekly library trip (the library is 25 minutes away from home), rushed through some homework, and then loaded up to take B to her activity day. I had a ton of work to do on the project for B's class so I had planned to work on it at the church during her activity, but then I discovered that I needed more of those little metal brads. Plus on the way to the church, M freaked out and said that she was having a potluck for her mutual activity and needed to bring some food. Yikes! So the plan morphed into "drop B off at her activity and run to the grocery store really quick." However, when we got to the church I learned that I was supposed to be at the dinner that her girls' group was serving that night. I had thought they were only feeding the missionaries-- since I was half brain dead and my phone kept breaking out during my phone call with B's leader, I didn't catch on that they were also serving dinner for the Primary Presidency-- that would include me. Ooops. Well, I dropped B off and made a lightning run to the store, where they didn't have any brads. But at least we picked up some rolls for M's activity. Then I rushed back in time to eat barely anything at the dinner (no calories left in my day) before hurrying my kids off to get M to her activity on time.
Are you exhausted yet? I was by this point.
After dropping M off I proceeded to throw together four pumpkin pies. While the pies were baking I had to go back and pick up M, only to learn that the potluck had not been this week and she had not needed the rolls at all. Yeah. Well, at least my pies turned out beautifully.
Wednesday: I had no idea this day was going to be such an adventure. It started normally (before-the-crack-of-dawn exercise and scripture study), but things went sideways as soon as I loaded the kids up to make the drive to school. As soon as we started to drive down the street, I knew something was seriously wrong with the van. When I pulled over and hopped out to check, I found that one of my rear tires had gone so flat it was half off the rim. Fortunately we were right next to home so I was able to carefully get the van back in the driveway. Then I dragged my poor sleep-deprived husband up to change the tire. The culprit was a big fat screw. But Terence decided to check the other tires while he was at it and discovered that the other rear tire had worn down so much that the cord was showing. Major blessings that the screw-induced flat made us discover that before I had a blowout while driving!!
Needless to say, the kids were late to school. When we got to school I handed each of the older kids a pie (both the girls needed pie for class feasts). J was not happy about this, since the pie wasn't for his class, so he put it down on his seat while I wasn't looking (right next to S). Right after I unbuckled S from her car seat, B tripped while trying to get out of the car and fell face first out of the van door, still holding her own pie. I panicked and left S, racing around to find that B had taken the brunt of the fall on her arms and chest but that she was OK. (I think she was sore all day though.) Her pie survived pretty well, considering. But while this was going on, S climbed out of her seat and picked up the pie J was left and swung it around wildly.
Well, all my pies had been beautiful to start with. But at least they were still edible when we finally trudged into B's class.
I spent the rest of the morning at a tire shop, getting two new tires and listening to a gregarious fellow customer explain quite seriously to me that I should get four new tires and finance them because as long as I bought the warranty I would never have to actually pay for them. Wish I lived in that fantasy world!!!
By the time I got home I was horribly exhausted and my arch nemesis The Headache had arrived. Luckily Terence was on vacation starting Wednesday and so he sent me to take a nap while he picked up the kids from school. He figured he'd help out while he could since he was heading off to a Suns' game that night with the guys. Thank goodness for considerate husbands! It made it possible to face the rest of my day, which included a run to the bank up in the valley and an evening at my mother's house so my kids could spend time with their California cousins. Making dinner for eight kids and helping my mom with Thanksgiving prep felt kind of restful.
Hurrah for surviving the first half of Thanksgiving Week Madness! I'll fill in the rest tomorrow-- writing this down is wearing me out just remembering!
Monday: I had all my normal Monday stuff (up at 4:30 am to exercise, volunteering at the kids' school, grocery shopping, school driving), and then I got to actually go on a date! Terence and I went to see Catching Fire, which I had "earned" by keeping my food diary on six Sundays in a row. (Sundays tend to be the day I seriously overeat, and it is also my rest day from exercise so I tend to skip the food diary.) We got ice cream at Coldstone too, which was a fantastic treat! It was a good day, but a very long one. When I got home I still had to work on a project for B's teacher.
Tuesday: This day was absolutely insane. It started early (yes, 4:30 is my normal), and I had to skip the gym since S has a cold again, so after dropping the kids off at school I came in and forced myself to work out at home. Then I spent quite a bit of time hunting down library books and trying to get some laundry done. (An extremely frustrating nightmare, currently, since my dryer door won't stay closed and my washer gives me an error code every other load and has to be restarted.) After picking up the kids from school we made our weekly library trip (the library is 25 minutes away from home), rushed through some homework, and then loaded up to take B to her activity day. I had a ton of work to do on the project for B's class so I had planned to work on it at the church during her activity, but then I discovered that I needed more of those little metal brads. Plus on the way to the church, M freaked out and said that she was having a potluck for her mutual activity and needed to bring some food. Yikes! So the plan morphed into "drop B off at her activity and run to the grocery store really quick." However, when we got to the church I learned that I was supposed to be at the dinner that her girls' group was serving that night. I had thought they were only feeding the missionaries-- since I was half brain dead and my phone kept breaking out during my phone call with B's leader, I didn't catch on that they were also serving dinner for the Primary Presidency-- that would include me. Ooops. Well, I dropped B off and made a lightning run to the store, where they didn't have any brads. But at least we picked up some rolls for M's activity. Then I rushed back in time to eat barely anything at the dinner (no calories left in my day) before hurrying my kids off to get M to her activity on time.
Are you exhausted yet? I was by this point.
After dropping M off I proceeded to throw together four pumpkin pies. While the pies were baking I had to go back and pick up M, only to learn that the potluck had not been this week and she had not needed the rolls at all. Yeah. Well, at least my pies turned out beautifully.
Wednesday: I had no idea this day was going to be such an adventure. It started normally (before-the-crack-of-dawn exercise and scripture study), but things went sideways as soon as I loaded the kids up to make the drive to school. As soon as we started to drive down the street, I knew something was seriously wrong with the van. When I pulled over and hopped out to check, I found that one of my rear tires had gone so flat it was half off the rim. Fortunately we were right next to home so I was able to carefully get the van back in the driveway. Then I dragged my poor sleep-deprived husband up to change the tire. The culprit was a big fat screw. But Terence decided to check the other tires while he was at it and discovered that the other rear tire had worn down so much that the cord was showing. Major blessings that the screw-induced flat made us discover that before I had a blowout while driving!!
Needless to say, the kids were late to school. When we got to school I handed each of the older kids a pie (both the girls needed pie for class feasts). J was not happy about this, since the pie wasn't for his class, so he put it down on his seat while I wasn't looking (right next to S). Right after I unbuckled S from her car seat, B tripped while trying to get out of the car and fell face first out of the van door, still holding her own pie. I panicked and left S, racing around to find that B had taken the brunt of the fall on her arms and chest but that she was OK. (I think she was sore all day though.) Her pie survived pretty well, considering. But while this was going on, S climbed out of her seat and picked up the pie J was left and swung it around wildly.
Well, all my pies had been beautiful to start with. But at least they were still edible when we finally trudged into B's class.
I spent the rest of the morning at a tire shop, getting two new tires and listening to a gregarious fellow customer explain quite seriously to me that I should get four new tires and finance them because as long as I bought the warranty I would never have to actually pay for them. Wish I lived in that fantasy world!!!
By the time I got home I was horribly exhausted and my arch nemesis The Headache had arrived. Luckily Terence was on vacation starting Wednesday and so he sent me to take a nap while he picked up the kids from school. He figured he'd help out while he could since he was heading off to a Suns' game that night with the guys. Thank goodness for considerate husbands! It made it possible to face the rest of my day, which included a run to the bank up in the valley and an evening at my mother's house so my kids could spend time with their California cousins. Making dinner for eight kids and helping my mom with Thanksgiving prep felt kind of restful.
Hurrah for surviving the first half of Thanksgiving Week Madness! I'll fill in the rest tomorrow-- writing this down is wearing me out just remembering!
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