And if that wasn't enough, even less gratitude came from my daughter on Monday morning when I got up 30 minutes early in order to clean her cat litter box as well as prepare the snacks for her volleyball team for their game. I walked into her room to ask her a question and her response was beyond sassy. I didn't even say anything and her comment was "what?", With absolutely nothing but sass. Once we arrived at school, she helped me take the things into the front office. Again, not saying thank you one time. I don't do all these things for my kids in order to get a thank you, but it would be nice once in a while. I don't know if they understand that I really don't enjoy driving them all over the place. And I really don't enjoy taking time out of my day to buy Gatorade, uncrustables, applesauce, granola, bars, and chips, but I do it because that's what you do. And a little appreciation would go along way. Okay, enough griping from me.
When I left dropping them at school, I went to Walmart to pick up my grocery order. I then came home and helped Stuart put some sliders on the bottom of our stove. Then I met my friend Lisa Reynolds for coffee. I got home and started getting the upstairs ready for painting on Wednesday. The baseboards had arrived but I would likely not be able to paint them until the weekend.
This arrived and Stuart was super happy. I foresee this being a focal point in our house for years to come.
We went to Uncle Bears for lunch and then came home to change clothes for Millie's first volleyball match.
She played the last bit of the second set, but she looked like she was having fun the entire time. That was the important part for me at this stage. We got home and just chilled out for the rest of the evening. Jack watch Volleyball on the Olympics with us and we had some good conversation. Millie was just focused on being up in her room and doing her homework.
Tuesday morning we got up a little bit early so Millie could open her presents. She officially became a teenager. She was very excited. I took the kids to school and when I got back, Stuart had decided to pull the dishwasher out in order to take the tile up and put down flooring. He started to unhook the dishwasher by taking the pipes off, not realizing he had to actually shut the water off. So we had a little bit of a mini flood. Prior to that I asked him if he was okay and could I leave for work. He said that was fine, but by the time I got to the car, he was at the front door in a panic because he had flooded the kitchen again. I moved into operation 'fix this' mode and went out to the cabinet that holds the pool towels and brought them all in and started moving them around the water on the floor. Stuart used some very inappropriate words, which is very unlike him. I realized how frustrated he was and was thrilled that I was going to work. So I left him to it and headed to school. We had meetings in the morning and then met with the people that I would be working with in the afternoon. I left around 3:30 to go get donuts for Millie's volleyball team because it was her birthday. She may be a teenager but she still likes treats for her friends. Millie and I got back to the house. She took a shower and we headed to an escape room. Millie loves these, and I felt like it would be a great surprise for her. Jack arranged for Tatum to come with us as well. He claims he asked me if she could go to dinner with us, but I don't recall him doing so. Unfortunately, he and I are both very ADD, so it's likely he didn't. Also likely that I didn't hear. It was fine, I just had to add another person to the escape room. And in all fairness to Jack, he didn't even know that we were going to an escape room before dinner.
We escaped in less than an hour.
Wednesday we got up and I took the kids to school and came back and had another cup of coffee and then headed off to school myself. Stuart finished up the floor on Wednesday, which was epic. Edgar came and started painting upstairs, which was also epic. Our house is starting to get back together, which is very exciting. I picked Millie up from practice Wednesday afternoon and Jack had volleyball open house on Wednesday evening. He had gone home with Carter and then I picked him up from Starbucks. Prior to picking him up, we asked Millie if she wanted to go to Buffalo Wild Wings, and she did not. So we ended up going to Barrio Queen for dinner.
Thursday morning Stuart was off to the southern part of Arizona to work. He is going to be able to work a few days in Arizona each month this year, which will mean he is home in the evening. That will be a nice change for us. I was off to school and did a lot of things for the teacher I am assisting. I did most of that work in the morning and then she showed up in the afternoon. We had a meeting about the students in our class. We have 19 students in each of our classes. They switch for language arts and social studies, and then the students go to math and science. After I left work, I got home and discovered that Edgar was nearly finished with the upstairs paint. Edgar then gave me his card and said he was available to paint the baseboards and install them for a minimal price. Of course I took advantage of that because I didn't want to do it. I am so over the redecorating stuff. We did a chunk of it on our own, but I am finished now. Do anything left, I am hiring someone.
Friday work was uneventful and I left early. We went to Kristi and Bob's for dinner. Two other teachers were there with their husbands. I am a co-teacher at some stage during the week with those two teachers. Millie had a team bonding activity and Jack had his last volleyball open house.
Saturday was club tryouts for Jack. He made the 1s team, which we expected. It's nerve wracking for us, but only because we know he would like to pick his teammates. They all went to lunch. I took Millie to a volleyball clinic. Her friend Andie came home with her for a sleepover. Jack went to Will's for a sleepover. Will is a new kid from Minnesota who plays volleyball on Jack's club team and goes to Casteel.
Sunday Jack was picked up by Tatum's parents from Will's house and went to her house for the day. Stuart left for Gallup around noon and Andie's parents picked her up shortly after that. Millie and I just lazed around.
Monday was meet the teacher at my school. It was a bit hectic as I was trying to be in three places at once. After school I made a Costco run and then headed to Millie's volleyball game at Queen Creek Junior High, where she saw some of her classmates from last year. Before I left the house I crawled all over Jack for not going down to mow Grammie and Pop's lawn. Also, he didn't bring in the trash cans. He had been home for an hour and a half, and when I went in his room he was on his phone. It's infuriating!
Tuesday I took the kids to school. I had time so I went by Santan Ford to book my car in to get the side chrome replaced. I got a call from the assistant principal at Casteel to inform me that they were alerted from their school software of an issue with Jack's search history. Apparently, Jack had just finished a culinary test and Google searched an answer he thought he got wrong. It was 'how to properly carry a knife', of course that got flagged. He had to have a conversation with the assistant principal. Ugh!
After school, I headed home and loaded up my truck with some Goodwill items. I stopped at Kohl's to do a couple of returns and then headed to Goodwill. I then headed to target to get Jack some poster board for his invitation for Tatum to HoCo (abbreviation for Homecoming). I spent the rest of the evening trying to get our guest room put back together but it proves to be continually challenging.
Wednesday was my first day with students. I spent the day in the 3rd-6th grade music teacher's classroom. We will call her Music Maggie, but plain she is not. She's 76 years old and hilarious, though I don't think she knows I see her as hilarious. It was quite the day. Im not sure how emotionally stable she is, which makes me a bit sad.
I picked Millie and Jack up once I was finished with school and we headed to the dentist for our six month clean. I got Panda Express for the kids for dinner and headed to meet Kristi at Skippy's for dinner. I told her of my day with Music Maggie and she was cracking up. Stuart joined us for a bit and then headed home as he had come straight from Gallup.
I woke up with a sick stomach on Thursday morning. Fortunately it improved during the day. I spent my first day as a co-teacher in my 5th grade class. I taught a social studies lesson to four groups of students. By the forth time I was a bit bored. When I left school, I went by the doctor's office to drop off a paper so Millie could get her meds at school while she was on a sports team. I then headed to pick up Jack from the high school. His volleyball team was designing their state championship rings. The court finally made a decision about the championship game against Williamsfield. They ruled that their breaking of the rules was in fact a violation so they awarded the state championship to Casteel. Jack went with Stuart and myself to watch Millie's volleyball game against Newell Barney College Prep, which is where a lot of my students from last year attend. So I got to see about six of my students. Millie's team killed them, and Millie scored 9 points on serves. She was so excited.
Friday school was amazing. I taught music all morning and one class in the afternoon. Then I taught social studies to a second grade class. It was so fun, but I was wiped out by 3 pm. I headed home to find this happening!
Look at my 5 1/4 inch baseboards. I love them!
Millie had her fundraiser celebration until 6:30. I picked her up and took her friend Andie home. Stuart had taken Jack to Gilbert Regional to play sand volleyball. Jack went to Will's for a sleepover after volleyball. Will seems to fit in nicely with their friend group. We had the neighbors over. They stayed for a while and then it was time to go to bed.
Saturday Stuart and I sorted out my mom and dad's yard. We also took our 58 boxes from our flooring and started breaking them down to put them in their recycling. I helped sort out Millie's room so we could switch her queen bed with the day bed in the guest room. She just wanted more space. The crap she threw away filled a kitchen sized trash bag. The things she gave away filled another trash bag. She fought me all day to clean it up. She finally just stuffed a ton of stuff in her closet. Out of sight, out of mind. We cleaned out a lot of drawers and threw things away. I was prompted to do this because after I picked up a small foot stool I bought on Marketplace, I stopped at an estate sale. The mess that was that house made me itchy to clean out unnecessary crap from our house. In the evening the neighbors came over for pork belly. It was delightful. They left early as everyone was exhausted.
Sunday I got up and headed to pick up a side chair for our living room. It really was about the last thing that room needed. In total, since we started this remodel adventure, off of Facebook Marketplace, I have purchased 2 sectional sofas, a hide away coffee table, a console for under our television, 2 large area rugs, 3 side chairs, a shuffleboard table, 2 footstools, and 2 side tables. All of this only cost me $1145. All of the furniture is relatively new, so I feel terribly accomplished.
We went to Tatum's house for Jack to invite her to homecoming. He dressed in one of her dance outfits and the song she danced to was 'Knock 'Em Out', so he created a poster that had that title on it. It was quite cute!
She came back to our house with us and we also picked up Millie's friend Brinley to hang out for the day. Stuart left just after 1 o'clock. I took Tatum and Jack to the movies and after the movies they went to eat dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. Brinley got picked up around 5 o'clock and I picked up Jack and Tatum around 6:30. Then we drove Tatum back to her house and Jack decided that he wanted to have a big birthday party with all the families on his actual birthday, which is September 22., so I started planning that.
Monday morning I got up and made pancakes. It then dawned on me that I would not have a vehicle that could carry a 16 foot piece of wood. So I had to start thinking about how I was going to get the extra baseboard that I needed back to our house. Because wouldn't you know we were one board short. Once I left school I picked up the baseboard, headed home and then to Millie's volleyball game.
She was featured in their instagram post.
Tuesday was a very full day. Kristi had asked me to switch days with her for carpool as her youngest was in the hospital. He is in a wheel chair and has a number of disabilities, so the hospital is common for him. So my day was taking kids to school, dropping by the doctor's office to pick up a letter so Millie could get her medication given to her at school before practice, then to work, then to 84 lumber to pick up the baseboard I ordered because we were one board short, then home, then to pick Millie up at practice, then to drop Stuart's car at the shop, then to take Jack and his buddies to practice, then home. What a long day that was. It worked out nicely for me to do that carpool as I met Ken and had dinner with him while the boys practiced.
Wednesday my back was totally whacked out of alignment. I wore heating pads all day, but I'm not sure how much good it did. I was in music all day and must have heard 'don't sing' about 30 times. This will be a tolerating year with Music Maggie for sure. I went and had a bite to eat after school and then headed to Santan Junior High to watch Millie play volleyball. Edgar had finished our baseboards so just the front door and some little finishing up bits and we would have our house back to normal.
Thursday morning my back wasn't much better. I had gotten the heat pads and put one on. I didn't feel great, but I carried on. I spent the day in fifth grade and actually taught a little bit. After school, I ran home and fed Jack and then took him to Owen's house. He had club practice, and Jeremy was going to pick him up from Owen's house. I picked Millie up from volleyball practice and took her home and then went to meet Kristi for dinner. Stuart informed me that the school he was supposed to work at on Friday had come down with Covid and closed so he was coming home on that night.
Friday was an exhausting day. 1st and 2nd graders are tiring. I got home and Stuart had put all the door hardware on the doors upstairs. We hung around the house and then went to pick Russ up at the airport. He was in town for just a day to go a memorial service for a big ASU basketball supporter he knew when he coached at ASU.
Saturday we were up and took my car to get the chrome piece fixed at the dealership. A car wash had ripped it off the first week I had the car. We decided to have some breakfast and then went to pick up a sofa. I think I have furnished all of the house now. I took Millie to get new knee pads and she threw a fit. She is chronic for using a tone with me when things don't go the way she thinks they should. This afternoon was no exception. So I told her on the way home that from then on, until she was able to stop being so sassy and using a tone with me, she would have to ask her dad to do things for her. I told her I was tired of doing all the things for her and getting grief. It just wasn't fair and I would not tolerate it any longer. We didn't get her knee pads and because she couldn't decide whether she wanted me to order her the same ones I had before, they didn't get ordered. So since she didn't order them on Saturday, they certainly wouldn't be there by Monday. Her problem! We didn't do much the rest of the day. Stuart took Jack to Carter's after we had lunch with my brother. We picked him up around 6, and then Stuart and I went with Russ for ice cream. That was our dinner.
Sunday morning I was up at 4 am to drive Russ back to the airport. His flight was at 6:30 am. I got back to the house and Stuart and I watched Formila 1, not my favorite. We then went to Walmart for our weekly shop. When we got home we finished hanging pictures. We then started watching Ted Lasso. We might be the only people on earth to have not yet seen this series. We spent most of the afternoon watching season one. We then went to get gas for Stuart's car. We dropped in to Home Goods to try to find a basket like thing to put in our pantry to hold onions and potatoes. Unfortunately, we didn't find anything so Stuart order something from Amazon. What would we do without Amazon?
Monday is by far the easiest day I have in the week. After school I headed to Millie's volleyball game at Casteel. Stuart was home this week and working in southern Arizona. He made it to the game as well. They played Payne and got beat in two sets, but it was very close.
Mallory, her bestie who used to do gymnastics with Millie, played for Payne. We got a picture of them at the end of the game. Mallory's little sister Charlie was there as well. After the volleyball was over, we headed home and Stuart was supposed to take Millie to get a second piercing for her ears, but she got shitty with him and he canceled the appointment.
Tuesday I did testing with the students in the morning. I then went back to my 5th grade class and corrected a writing assignment. After school, I went to Millie's volleyball game. They won in two sets. She didn't play a lot but she did hit the ball a couple of times and did well while she was in the game. After Millie's game, we came home and had dinner. Then Millie did homework and hung out in her room while Stuart and I watched tv downstairs. Jack didn't go to volleyball because he went with Tatum's family to a Dbacks game. Her sister, Camden, was singing the national anthem with her choir. He had a great time.
Wednesday was my Music Maggie day. She was in a sad way. When I first got to school that day I indicated to Kristi that I felt being an 'assistant' all day for this music teacher was maybe a waste on money. Then when Music Maggie started to cry in front of me and tell me she wasn't sure she was going to make it through the day because she felt she was going to have a panic attack, I messaged Kristi and told her maybe I was meant to stay in there. Eek! I met Kristi for a beer before I picked Millie up from volleyball practice. Once again, Jack went to a Dback's game. This time Tatum's youngest sister was singing with her school choir. Stuart and I went to see a dog kennel that resembled a piece of furniture and we bought it. If the dogs must stay and sleep in crates in the house, at least they can be a little bit hidden. I mean the crate is huge, but it looks like a console, so it's not as ridiculous as the wire crates we used to have.
Thursday I helped do more testing at school. The rest of my day was spent marking writing. Stuart had taken the day off as he was going with Millie to the airport so she could fly to Branson to spend the long weekend with my parents, brothers and sister-in-law. When I left school, I picked Jack up from home and took him to get a haircut. I picked up In and Out for Jack for dinner. I then got worried about Millie's flight to see my parents. She was due to leave at 3:30, but her flight was delayed, which meant she would miss her connection in Dallas. So it turns out the policy they have to not book unaccompanied minors on the last flight of the day is a good one. Well, at least it is a good policy until the agent on the other end of the phone states they can't assure me they will get Millie on the last flight. I lost my shit! This agent was clearly not a parent and did not assure me of anything that made me feel comfortable. In the end I asked to speak to a supervisor and wouldn't you know, when the agent came back they had booked Millie on the next flight out of Dallas. Rest assured, there would be an email sent the following day to customer service regarding this situation. I waited up until after 11 pm and fretted over Millie until my dad messaged that she was save and sound in their house. She wasn't worried at all. She handled it like a pro.
Friday, instead of Jack going to school, he went on a boys' trip to California. All but one of these boys turns 16 this month so Chris, Owen's mom, and Vicki, Gavin's mom, took them on a birthday trip. Jack sensibly took a rash guard for the boogie boards. I think he is the only one that didn't get a rash on his chest as a result. Stuart worked in southern Arizona again on Friday. I had my usual exhausting, but super fun Friday. Once I was home, Stuart and I went to dinner at High Tide. We then decided to go to the casino. We were up for a while. Then we decided to leave once we had broken even. It was actually quite an early night. I was wiped out from the week. But I still love my job.
Saturday we got up and sorted some stuff out around the house. Stuart did a great deal of yard work and I continued to work on the inside. We finally got our dining room table cleared off. Our guest room has become a little bit of a storage room again, but hopefully that will all get sorted out in the next couple of weeks. Stuart started slow cooking the ribs that we were going to have for lunch with my old teammate Merkel and her husband. They got to house around 12:30 and we ate shortly after that. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool. Stuart must have gotten a bit of sun stroke as he disappeared as soon as we came back inside. I found him upstairs asleep on our bed. Our guests left and then he woke up and came downstairs. He was so upset as he was embarrassed that he disappeared on all of us. I told him it was no big deal, but he was still upset with himself. It had to have been his time in the sun as he really hadn't drank that much beer. Poor guy. Elise came over for about an hour and then we called it a night.
In other news, Millie was living her best life being spoiled by her uncles at Silver Dollar City, the amusement park in Branson.
It looks to be a short line for this ride.
Jack was also living his best life. I'm so glad the kids had these adventures without us. I think it's important.
