"Fall 2014, the Natural Follow-Up to August 2012"

It's Back!

My intention was to write an entry that summarized a few things I left hanging over the course of the last... two years. (Yikes!) I might get to that. Maybe a #tbt series when I cover something interesting that happened between August 2012 and October 2014? Like organizing and printing my 10,000+ pictures from Europe, that may be wishful thinking. Also in the realm of wishful thinking, I figured once all four kids were finally in school all day, I would have loads of free time to do anything I wanted. This has definitely not been the case. I have been so, so busy every day with big things, little things, petty things, fun things... but every day this week has been GO GO GO. I'm also pretty sure I've established that the days I enjoy most are the ones where I have nothing to do, so today I have nothing on the schedule and am resisting my mental list of "do this NOW!" that haunts me. (By the way, I failed and stopped to make two phone calls and send an email as I typed this.) I guess I'll just jump right in and hope that I make time to catch y'all up later.

This week's discussion points:

Spirit Week: 80s day, Twin Day, Crazy Hair, Field Trip

      Doing the girls' hair 80s style was so much fun! Brynn's was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I curled, teased, and sprayed. She looked so cute! I just did Norah's bangs, channeling memories of a childhood friend's mother every day before school-- spray, curl, rat, spray. Boom! I have been waiting for years, YEARS, for big hair to come back and this just fueled my fire. The clothes were surprisingly easy. It turns out that most of what kids wear looks like the 80s anyway, amiright? I tied some big t-shirts and rolled Brynn's skinny jeans ("they're not skinny enough!") and they were set. It was the coolest thing and I was surprised at how much fun I had.

Her hair was amazing to work with. I
wanted to steal it. Is that weird?

Twin day was for the boys, because they had matchy matchy shirts that they have never worn for anything and I figured they could get some use out of them. Wyatt was so excited to have a twin, and of course I will do just about anything that will make my baby's face light up. Unfortunately it came at the expense of my other darling son, who was not remotely interested in being the twin of a kindergartener. I pretty much had to physically dress him and threaten him with no iPad time ever again to get him to (very, very begrudgingly) participate. But aren't they just the cutest things??

     I thought I had crazy hair day covered, having picked up hair chalk at CVS months ago for just such an occasion. Unfortunately, good hair chalk is hard to find and this stuff made a mess of epic proportions. I more or less got it on the girls' heads, but they kind of ended up looking like SnoCones. For maximum curl effect I had braided Norah's hair in cornrows the night before, which was a process that involved a lot of screaming and agony for both of us. I realize I didn't even get a picture of the girls with their terrible fright wig hairdos! That morning I was also trying to make breakfast, pack lunches, remember to put out the garbage and recycling (plus the neighbor has been kind enough to let us put our packing materials in his bin, so I had to run down the street with my giant boxes of packing paper). Oh, plus it was the day I had volunteered to chaperone Wyatt's field trip to the apple orchard and pumpkin patch, so I also had to be ready to leave the house at the same time as the kids. The kids left the house just as the bus was coming down the street. Three kids ran for it, and Wyatt just fell down on the neighbor's lawn and cried as the bus left without him on field trip day. Oy!

Field Trip: How do teachers do this?

I guess I only got this derpy picture. Wait, where's the
other kid I'm supposed to be watching? Not again...

I was assigned to watch Wyatt and another adorable little boy who turned out to be a second Wyatt. There was a lot of running away from me, screaming for varied reasons, claims that their little legs could not walk one step further and subsequent collapsing on the ground in the hopes of me carrying them, hiding in order to jump out and scare me, making me carry their pumpkins and bags of apples, and straight up refusal to listen. Not for the first time, I felt that twin Wyatts would have been the adorable death of me.

Doctor's Appointments, Billing, and Prescriptions: The Joy.

This is boring stuff so I won't go into details. But as we switch from Tom's active duty insurance coverage to the slightly different coverage offered to members of the Reserves, we are learning how it works... or doesn't, when the system doesn't process your changeover and drops you from coverage as you try to fill prescriptions, process referrals, and find an orthodontist. We discover fun surprises, like prescriptions that are 0% covered

unless you follow a secret mysterious process for approval. The nearest network clinic is 30+ minutes away, which makes me realize just how often I have to take kids in for things, and how important it is not to accidentally throw away someone's prescription because they need you to dig it out and physically bring it back in order to get a replacement because the weird thermal paper loses the print when it gets wet/covered in coffee grounds and last night's onion peels.

But seriously, how could I not?!

Too Much Shopping: Too much shopping.

You know, "As long as I'm here at Kirkland's, I might as well run next door to Marshall's." "As long as we're here at Savers looking for Halloween costumes, we might as well check out everything else in the store... let's check out the Goodwill on the way home." "As long as I'm returning this thing I don't need to Target/Costco/Gordman's/TJ Maxx, I might as well see what else I don't need and then buy that." That's in addition to all the things one ends up buying after every move because you either threw out or lost things you once had and could now use, and because making your house fit into a new house never, ever works quite right. It is also in addition to all the kids' winter gear that needs replacing. This year was three pairs of winter boots, four pairs of gloves, only one jacket, but four pairs of snowpants. By the way, who goes to Savers expecting to pay $25 for Halloween costumes? They also sold me a Perfection game with a broken timer. Hmph.

Canning: My latest domestic failsauce, now preserved in a jar

I've never canned before, but I wanted to learn to can my own jams and stuff so that it wasn't such a hassle to find the fruit-only kind (as in no sugar or splenda) at the store. However, it's a learning process as one discovers that both making and canning such things is not interchangeable with the normal process. Therefore, my tripleberry chia jam was very blah and didn't process long enough, so one jar I opened already had stuff growing on it. My strawberry chia jam didn't thicken because I forgot to soak the seeds, so it's a little soupy. Time will tell on the moldy death factor. Actually, my apple butter turned out pretty well. The pumpkin butter (Wyatt dropped his little pumpkin immediately after the field trip) never even made it to canning. I ended up with something the consistency of applesauce with the flavor of watery pumpkin pie.

So pretty, so deadly.

Painting: I kind of like it, but it's always more work than I think, but it looks so nice when it's done.

That's all, actually. There are a lot of areas in this house that need to be repainted, like the stairway and main hall. Those seemed like little projects, but took trips to both Menards and Home Depot ("Hmm, what else can I shop for while I wait for that paint to mix?") and two days to complete. But darn it, it looks great to have fresh clean walls. (Sorry, I didn't take a picture of my wall.)


Next Week's Suggested Discussion Points:

Domestic Failure Series: This year's knitted hats
The Agony of the American Bread Aisle: That is NOT French bread
Fix Yo' Grill, Son: Jacob gets braces
Did You Hear We Moved to Wisconsin?