How the Week Went

The past week has been a little... well... I don't know what the best word is for it. "Interesting," maybe?

The first week of the month is always a little bit stressful because I have to make the birthday poster for the school (you'd think after seven years I'd learn to get it done early, but no). It's also "parent watch day" at my girls' dance studio, so I have to go to dance class three times. On Mondays, Eva has dance class during the time my older kids get out of school AND have piano lessons. I have to be in three places at once, which means the only way I can swing it is to enlist grandmas to help me get everyone where they need to go.

Even though I knew the week was already busy, I scheduled four hair appointments for us, one of which took three and a half hours because this:

doesn't just happen. I have to invest to look this good.

Anyway, on Wednesday, the brakes on the truck started grinding, so “we” had to replace them. "We" worked really hard.

All hail the garage recliner

Then on Friday the van got a flat tire. Luckily, Scotty had taken the motorcycle to work, so the truck was home for me to drive.

On Saturday, the thermostat went out on the van. At least... that's what we decided to fix based on the engine code. Fingers crossed that that was the issue.

We thought that was enough "car stuff" for one week, but then yesterday one of the blinkers on the van went out. No big deal. Just a bulb to replace. But still! What the heck?

Let’s go back to Friday, though.

That morning, Nicky found our bird, Sebastian, dead in the bottom of his cage.

RIP Sebastian

It was right in the thick of our morning routine, and we didn't have time to do anything about it, so Scotty just took the bird outside in his cage and set him on the picnic table. Then later that night, Scotty and Daisy gave him a proper burial. 

Prior to the bird funeral, I had to get Nicky to a golf clinic. We drove half an hour to the course, and then no one there knew anything about the clinic. We couldn't get a hold of the coach, so we ended up just coming home. An hour later, the coach called and apologized for not letting us know that they were meeting at a different location. I get really upset about lack of communication with stuff like that, so I was incredibly frustrated, and it didn't help that there was a flat tire we still needed to take care of.

Scotty took the wheel off the van and we ran it to Costco for a repair. While we waited, we went to Zupa's and pretended we were on a date. It didn’t feel very authentic since I was in high-stress mode. We got home around 7:00, and then some of our kids' friends came over for a "late over." I could only make it until about 9:30, so hopefully I was able to trick all the kids into thinking they'd really been out late (the older ones are harder to fool). Zoe was sound asleep before her friend went home. 

On Saturday Scotty took the van to the auto shop. Then I took Nicky to play church basketball. Scotty had plans with his dad and brother, so he left the girls home alone for 20 minutes while I watched the end of Nicky's ball game. I was bombarded with texts - "Mom, Daisy is bring rood." "Mom, Zoe is being a butthead." "Mom, Zoe spilled the whole bottle of nail polish remover."

I thought about not going home. Ever. But my plans to run away are always foiled by the fact that I’m broke and have nowhere to run away to.

Since Scotty was gone, and I couldn't stand the thought of being home alone with my kids for another day, I took them to see Onward.  If you care to know, the plot of the movie is like every other kids' movie - cartoon characters trying to get somewhere and running into lots of problems along the way. I tried to take a nap, but Eva caught me. "Mom, you need to watch the movie!" Busted. I really loved the resolution of the film, though. I bawled. Whatever. I'm cool. 

We also hit Chick-Fil-A for lunch because I didn't want to be home. By the time we got home, I was double broke.

When Scotty got home, we went and picked up our van from the shop. Then we took it on our adventure to the Great Salt Lake. 

We got home at 6:15 and had to scarf some PB&J sandwiches quickly then head to the adult meeting for Stake Conference. We had a great meeting and then went to Freddie's with some friends for a late-night treat and nasty cheese fries. You'd think you couldn't go wrong with cheese fries, but you CAN! Freddie's, Shake Shack, and Peach City Drive-In have all wounded my soul with their cheese fries. 

We stayed out until 10:30, like young, wild people, discussing things like bidets, cows, and dead parakeets.

On Sunday morning, we had Stake Conference. Our kids were still muddy and dirty from the Great Salt Lake (except for Nicky since he can responsibly handle his own hygiene... for the most part). I decided to not worry about how filthy the girls were. I didn't brush their hair or teeth. I figured, why spend all morning grooming them just to sit in the dark gym for Stake Conference? I even let Zoe wear a Sleeping Beauty dress. We were so behind on laundry from our chaotic week that princess costumes were our best option. And just to make things more scandalous... we let our kids play with Play-Doh during the meeting. We were in survival mode, and we made it through. 

This week I have a few goals in mind:

• Give everyone a bath
• No car trouble
• Get caught up on laundry
• Scrub the mud out of the van
• Eat some decent cheese fries