The Week That Almost Broke Me

Yesterday I mentioned that this past week has been crazy. We got back from California at 11:30 on Sunday night. Then we went right back to the weekday routine Monday morning.

On Monday night, my mom took Daisy and me to the Lindsey Stirling concert. It was really good! Totally worth the horrible traffic and crappy parking.

I wasn't sure if Daisy would like it, but it ended up being the perfect length for her attention span, and she loved it. 

During the day on Monday, I hauled our Christmas tree up from the basement and couldn't get most of the lights to work. Each time we put up the tree, there are issues with the lights, but Scotty always has them fixed within a few minutes, so when he got home, I told him he had "tree duty." After fussing with the lights for an hour, they still weren't working. When Daisy and I left for the concert, he was still working on the lights, and he ended up spending about four hours trying to get them to work. He even did fancy stuff with electrical tape. I would have given up much sooner, but even on Tuesday, Scotty still wasn't ready to give up on the lights. 

I was, though. So I decided to have the problem solved before he got home so he couldn't spend another four hours trying to get our lights to work. Scotty is very resourceful, and he's good at fixing things, but sometimes he spends waaaaay to much time doing it. I'm recalling the Weed Wacker Incident of Summer 2018... There are situations where time is more valuable than money. 

So I started considering whether I should buy new lights for the tree or just buy a new pre-lit tree. I went to Target to look at trees, and I found one that I loved, but it was $300, and that wasn't really an option financially (especially since my current tree was $20 on clearance at Lowe's 14 years ago). I found an "acceptable" tree for $120, but I decided it would be better to just replace the lights on our tree and save some money.

Spoiler alert: I should have just bought the $120 tree.

The $300 tree I liked had cool lights on it - they were little globes. I decided to buy the same kind of lights for my tree. I bought five packages and ended up having to go back for three more. With what I spent on lights, I could have spent a little more, saved myself five hours of work, and gotten a pre-lit tree. When I went back the second time, I was putting the boxes of lights in my cart when another lady came up and started grabbing the same lights. There weren't enough for both of us. I wanted the lights (plus I was there first), so I sweet talked her into buying a different kind. 

When I got home, I started removing the old lights from the tree. What a nightmare! It took me an hour and a half to get the lights off, and I ended up hacking them up with meat shears to remove them.

By the time I got the lights off the tree, both my hands had tiny cuts all over them from the tree branches, plus a few bigger slices. 

Scotty came home right as I was putting the finishing lights on the tree. The grand moment of lighting the tree arrived! I plugged it in, and one of the strands didn't work! Scotty and I started frantically checking the bulbs, and I swore that if that strand of lights didn't work, I was going to throw the tree and the $70 worth of lights out in the street, and we would have paper Christmas trees for the rest of time!

{our paper tree 2017}*

After several minutes (and me giving up) Scotty found the faulty bulb and replaced it (I intentionally bought lights that still work if a bulb burns out, but the wire under the bulb was damaged and wasn't making contact with the socket) (I don't even know if I'm using correct light bulb vocabulary here - just know that the thingy wasn't connecting with the thingy, and thankfully, Scotty figured it out cuz I was about to go Crazy Lady on that tree, and my kids would've remembered this year for the rest of their lives as the Christmas That Broke Mom).

On Wednesday, I checked Nicky and Daisy out of school for the Festival of Trees a dentist appointment. Earlier this year, the coach for our school's jump rope team passed away unexpectedly. It was the night before the big jump rope showcase for the end of the year. It was an absolute tragedy and just unreal. A member of the school community made a tree in her honor, and Nicky and Daisy both wanted to go see it. 

{A woodland tree for Mrs. Wood}

After the Festival of Trees dentist, I took the kids back to school, and I went home with a headache. I tried to sleep it off, but when I woke up, I felt really nauseous. I ended up spending the rest of the night puking. Wednesdays are not good days to puke. Nicky has jump rope after school, Zoe and Daisy have dance, Scotty has Young Men, Nicky has scouts, and Daisy has activity days. I'm pretty much in the car from 3:00-8:00 p.m. on Wednesdays. 

Scotty ended up having to handle everything while I was incapacitated. Fortunately, I woke up feeling much better yesterday morning. Just tired. 

Between being sick and fussing over Christmas lights, a big chunk of the week got away from me. But the good news is, I still have a Christmas tree.

*Reality check - the outlet in that photo still doesn't have a cover on it.