Dresses, Crashes, Commandments, and Drums

I decided to start writing and was thinking about what I did yesterday and it led me to what I have to do today. Do I have to get up?

Okay, so we are kind of starting a business and we’re working on the product. Slowly. If we just paid a manufacturer we’d be done by now. We probably should. We’re working on the prototype now. So I told Alex that after work he needs to get to it. That meant I needed to clean out the garage. It was hot and dirty and overwhelming. Then I got a text from Alex. A product we’ve been waiting for was finally in stock. Like everything else, you see it, you buy it or it’s gone. So I quickly showered and drove down to get some. If course there were limits. Got some.

While I was in town I stopped by Walmart. I needed to get the costumes made and Evangeline helped me out. I had taken her with me because that girl is attached at my hip. I was pretty sure I cut the umbilical cord, literally, but by the way she acts you would think I didn’t. She helped me pick out the fabric.

Love the happy colors

When we gotten home Lauren had the whole kitchen cleaned up. I was so proud of her. She did amazing and now I have someone to give me a break from it. I need to get the boys to step up now.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out how to make a dress. I think I did pretty good. Don’t look at the details, though I am getting better at sewing a straight line.

I finished in time to make dinner. The potatoes were boiling for potato soup, Alex and I were sitting down taking a break from the long day before dinner and I heard a loud crunch. I jumped up to look outside. The neighbor’s teenage grandson had backed into the side of my van. I’d parked it in the road to give me space to clean the garage. A lot of what-ifs. I feel bad for him. Cops showed up, filled out a report in the pouring rain (yay for rain in this drought!) and it is all sorted out. My drivers side door is dented in. We are going to try and pop it out with a plunger and if that doesn’t work then take the panel off and try to pop it out that way. The door actually opens and closes better than it ever has but we can’t unroll the window. I kind of need to be able to do that for a myriad of reasons. Their back bumper on the other hand needs a lot more work. If I took my van to get the door fixed my van would probably be totalled. We’ll just make do.

After all the dust settled and the rain stopped (it is Idaho, it only ever rains for about ten minutes at a time), we sat down to dinner. I brought up the flight to “space” that happened earlier and then the physics conversations began. My daughter, Lauren, brought up that it only happens at the dinner table. Alex and Michael discuss physics at the table and science and other such stuff, mostly physics, so often. It makes me laugh.

Before bedtime we gathered for scriptures. I brought up something that I had heard on a podcast earlier while I was sewing. I brought up the topic of racism. What it really all boiled down to was the two great commandments that cover everything. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. It covers God, neighbors, and you. Love everyone. No matter what they look like, where they live, what they’ve done, who they are, etc. Everyone. No exceptions. Be kind to everyone. Everyone. Piece of cake. Right? Easier said than done. It takes a lot of humility to do that. Guess that’s what we are all here to learn.

We said prayer and sent the kids to bed. We turned off our lights eventually and noticed the lights at the football field were on. Easy to notice because they shine right into it windows and light up our room a lot. Tried to go to sleep when all of a sudden there were drums. No, it wasn’t Jumanji. It was the marching band practicing for the parade. It was 10:40 at night. And if my memory serves, it will be like this the next few nights. I managed to fall asleep anyways. And I have to say, the drumline did really well. They did win awards this year, so there’s that.

Hopefully today is less eventful and I get all the things done. I never get all the things done but life somehow goes on and it all works out.

Time Capsule

Yesterday I decided to tackle the van. We have a 15 passenger van to haul us all around. I want a smaller vehicle because I usually only drive a couple of us around. We all go together to church and occasionally a family event maybe once a month. The van is excessive.

Anyways.

If you have kids you know how much of a mess they can make. I put my timer on for 20 minutes and armed with a couple baskets and a garbage bag I headed out. I waited until the weather had warmed up some- into the 40’s so I wouldn’t freeze. It was nice out and I got that thing picked up. It isn’t perfect, I still need to sweep and mop but at least we can see the floor now and stuff doesn’t fall out when the door is opened.

As I was picking up all the stuff I had a thought that it was like a time capsule. Every item I picked up I thought, “Oh, that was from the Christmas party. Oh, that was from the other Christmas party. Oh. That was from when we went to such and such a place.” And on and on it went. Picking the stuff up wasn’t fun but the memories were.

I got three baskets of stuff out of the van and only one garbage bag. Lots of coats and snow pants and snow boots. I guess they didn’t need them anymore. So then I scoured the house and found all the winter gear and boxed it up. I left their coats out so they could walk to school in the morning without freezing, but it was so nice to box everything else up. They take up so much room in the closet every winter. And the floor because you know they forget to hang anything up.

Today, I finally tackled the laundry mountain. It was ridiculous. I’ve been washing clothes all week and I still have more to wash. Laundry is never done so that is not surprising. What I did today was sort and fold it and then go through and downsize the amount the little boys have. They have been given so many clothes and hand me downs from others that they had way too much. They now have a manageable amount so hopefully they can keep their room clean easier. I can dream.

And I finally sorted the socks and matched them. 1000’s of socks. If not, then close.

I found maybe three actual matches in this group. The rest I just put together by size/kind so that the girls could wear something. I have no idea where the actual matches could be.

Alex build me shelves for the baskets and that has been nice. We are still working on it and we have a temporary table top for it. I love having a folding table in the laundry room and a place to organize it all.

If you see the painting above the socks, Alex painted it for me. I found the painting at Hobby Lobby and Alex said he could paint it for me. He loves to paint and hasn’t done any for awhile and so I asked him to paint it. So he did. I wondered where I should hang it and I decided that the laundry room would be perfect. I’m in there all the time and it will be a pick-me-up when I’m doing laundry. When the room is done you can see the whole thing.

Later we sat down and finished the Back to the Future trilogy. I got a blanket to go on me and Sam or Gid, don’t remember which, saw the blanket. “Is that the blanket from the van?!” Yes, it is. I cleaned the van. “You cleaned the van?!” Such shock in their tone. Kids are ridiculous.