I hope you are ready for this!

Friday

May 23, 2014

7:04 am

Good morning! It is a bit dreary looking outside; rather wet and threatening rain. Still, a nice temperature even though I’m sure the humidity level is too high.

Yesterday morning Amena was not here because she spent the night at the triplets’ house so they could all go together to the school for their trip to New York City. I thought it would work out really well for her to go with them in the morning and then I could pick them up when they got back. Good idea because then I wouldn’t have to get up super early and stay up later than I like to. I figured they would need to get up around three in order to be ready to leave no later than four. Guess what time I woke up? 3:00 am? Right on! And I never really went back to sleep.

At five I got up and called the hospital because if there was any need, I would have to get up then to get ready. No one in labor, no scheduled inductions; “It’s quiet in the valley,” the nurse said.

“That’s great,” I answered. “Except it’s been that way all month for me!” So I went back to bed. But not to sleep. At 6:00 I got up and got ready to milk. Then I helped Cedric take the goats out. Such excitement.

Because there was no reason to go to the hospital, I texted Julia that I would be home and therefore able to go to Auburn to That $1.99 Fabric Store. Then I got lunches ready for the boys and did all the normal morning stuff that needs to be done with the exception of making sure that Amena was up and getting out for the bus. It was kind of strange being outside when the bus pulled up and there was no Amena to get on it.

And right now I’ve got to go get ready to take Seth and Joseph to the dentist.

Saturday

May 24, 2014

7:32 am

Good morning! You will get two good mornings today since I never got yesterday’s posted. After the dentist trip was done, there were so many things to do that I really did not have time to get back to this. And this morning I’ll have to go at some point to get ready to take Amena to the eye doctor. Her appointment is at 9:15 so we’ve still got a bit of time. However, since I didn’t every have time for a shower yesterday, I need one today. Before we go.

So, back to Thursday. The boys got off to school. I got ready to go fabric shopping. Julia’s plan was to go to the RMV and then stop by to pick me up. She got to the RMV, discovered that it didn’t open until 10:00 on Thursday, saw the line snaking around the building, and decided to leave and go back later. Her goal at that point was to be back to the RMV by around 2:00 because she had a nurse pinning to go to in the evening.

I honestly do not remember what I did while I was waiting for Julia. When she arrived, she looked at the kittens and we took off for Auburn. The That $1.99 Fabric Store is pretty cool. There is a lot of fabric there and it is all $1.99 a yard. You have to buy a minimum of a yard, but for $1.99, that’s no problem. They have patterns, buttons, etc. as well but they are all regular priced. I got three pieces of fabric and some buttons for fixing a pair of Paul’s jeans.

There was an Outback right next to the fabric store and Julia really wanted to go there. I’d only ever been to one once. The food was good but not spectacular and other than having a lunch price for salads, all the prices were the regular prices. I had a crispy buffalo chicken sandwich and water. Julia had a bowl of clam chowder and a Cesar salad with shrimp.

I hadn’t really made a list of things to do for Thursday because I wasn’t sure if I’d be home or not. That’s really not a good idea because I end up wasting time. So, after the boys were in bed but before I had to go pick Amena and the triplets up, I made a list for Friday. Then, because I had time still, I sewed a button on Paul’s jeans and started in on the laundry. There were five or six or seven loads to do and I managed to get them all done before time to go to the school.

I wasn’t sure how much I was going to get done yesterday because Seth and Joseph had dentist appointments in the morning and there was a concert at school in the afternoon.

And now I am going to get ready to take Amena to the eye doctor.

8:30 am

I am ready; Amena is in the shower.

In the morning, Seth, Joseph and I left early for their dentist appointments so that we could stop by John’s Sports Shop in Gardner. I wanted to get Seth a new shirt because his was really just too small. I had Seth’s old shirt, thread scissors, thread, needle, and patches that never were sewn to his shirt. Unfortunately, we were too early for John’s. I think had we waited or not left quite so early we would have been fine but waiting when I don’t have to has never been one of my strong points so we ended up 45 minutes early for the dentist. And that did us absolutely no good because the boys didn’t get in until it was time anyway. I did get the patches cut off Seth’s old shirt and he helped pull the threads out of them so that they’d be ready to go; that was actually kind of fun.

We stopped at John’s on the way back and got Seth a shirt and a belt. They don’t have rank patches so I wasn’t able to get Seth’s Bear (turns out he needs his Wolf as well). Then I took the boys to school and went home.

At home I needed to make cookies for the concert and sew patches on Seth’s shirt. I got the cookies mixed up and baking and got to work on the shirt. Everything was going well but the 1 and 2 for his 12 were very crooked so I stopped sewing them and decided if there was time, I would go back and do them over. I only did two batches of cookies because we only needed to take two dozen. Amena decided to go to the concert and put cookies on a plate for me. I redid the 1 and the 2 and it was time to go.

I don’t think Amena understands the concept of ‘time to go’. When she knows there is not much time, she will still do whatever she thinks has to be done. Yesterday I don’t know what she was doing but she wasn’t ready until five minutes after the latest time I wanted to leave by. We finally left, finally go parked, and finally got in the school. Joseph was already with the other scouts getting ready to do the color guard but Seth wasn’t. I guess I could have had him paged but by the time he’d’ve gotten down and his shirt on, the whole thing would have been starting later than it already did.

The concert was the concert. I like the singing. The kids (oops! I meant children) are cute. I like looking at the artwork that is always on display and think in the future that I’d like to get there at least half an hour early to have more time to look. However—I am not so crazy about all of the recorder solos and duets and songs that students have composed on their own. That part goes on and on and on forever and is almost beyond bearable. In fact, for the special needs students, it was beyond bearable; they had to leave before it was over. I’m sure all the parents of the students who composed their own music and played solos and duets are proud of their gifted and talented children. Quint frankly, I’m glad mine haven’t been interested. Based on some of the comments I saw on Facebook, it appears that I’m not the only one who has similar feelings.

After the concert I brought Seth and Joseph home. We dropped Amena off at the triplet’s (because you know she hadn’t spent enough time with them already in the last few days) for a few hours. Cedric went home with Max to spend the night again.

The boys and I didn’t do a whole lot. They played games and played with the kittens. I got some soap ready to send to Grandma. That was a fun project. I printed labels which included tweaking one to make it fit the new size bars (which came about because of the new slightly different dimensions of the new molds. Once they were all printed, I realized I’d tweaked the wrong label. Once I realized I’d tweaked the wrong label, I also realized I hadn’t changed the phone number or email address on most of them. I decided not to retweak any labels; they’d all work as they were. I did, however, decide to print a bunch of correct labels just of contact information. On sticker paper so I could just stick the new ones over the incorrect ones. Much easier that way than gluing them on.

I got the soap done and in a box (sorry about the packing peanuts, by the way Grandma—I didn’t have anything else that would work) and taped up and went online to print a mailing label and pay postage (it costs less doing it online than it does going to the Post Office). I kept putting Grandma’s address in and it kept telling me it wasn’t a correct address. It isn’t like I was making it up; I’ve sent things there before and Grandma’s mailed us plenty of things. I know it works. But the USPS website didn’t like it. After attempting a couple of different things, I took a look in my ‘address book’ on the USPS site. What should I behold but an address for Grandma and Papa (it’s been a while since I used it, obviously). So I clicked on that and used it and it was fine. Now the package is sitting on the table waiting for me to take it with me to Amena’s eye doctor appointment which we need to leave for.

11:08 am

And here I am again. Amena was only thirteen minutes late for her appointment. She does need a new prescription for her glasses but we knew that because she failed the vision test at school and she was wearing her glasses at the time. It appears that the astigmatism has struck as well as the nearsightedness. Cedric and Joseph are thus far the only ones spared of needed vision correction. Is 25% of offspring good? Is 75% bad? I don’t know. I kind of wonder what the average is, though.

The girls.

The soap is in the mail. Three bars each of five varieties. Hope you enjoy, Grandma! After Amena’s appointment, we went to Hubbardston to the PO even though we were close enough to the one in Gardner to walk. I like the people in Hubbardston better and I really do like to support local business even if it is just the Post Office and not something else.

This morning Seth and Joseph helped me with the goats. Seth watered while Joseph brought out the scraps for them while I was milking. Then Seth put the kids in the pen and I gave them their scraps. Then Seth and Joseph each took three armfuls of hay to the shed because they needed it and because they might have to stay in the house today because it was supposed to rain. So far, it hasn’t but the day is not yet over. Before they go out next the stakes need to be moved anyway and I’ll do that when I’m done here. If I ever get done.

Seth, Joseph and I just finished going through all the shoes on the front porch. We can give away a big box and we filled up the equivalent to three normal sized plastic grocery bags full of ones we can throw away because they're either worn out or done’ have a mate. Don’t ask me how so many of them don’t have mates but they don’t. The goal was to see if there are any that Joseph can wear because the ones he currently is have holes in them and are generally unsightly. There might be one pair but there is a kitten asleep on them and I don’t remember what size they are so we’ll have to wait for the kitten to wake up.

Kitten in the shoes.

And that gets us pretty caught up.

Have a wonderful day and a terrific Memorial Day weekend!