Count Downs

It has now been fifteen days without chocolate, and  I'm proud to say that we, Alisa and I, are standing firm in our lent commitment.   But I tell you what, 46 days is a very long time.  Especially on day fifteen.  But now  that March is tomorrow (!!!),  I am telling myself the countdown will get easier.  Hey, only 31 days to go!  I think Alisa has it harder than me though. She spends her days and nights serving up chocolate moltens  and chocolate shakes to people at work.  I only have to sit and stare at candy bars when I am at work.

On the subject of counting down to things, we have a whole slew of upcoming events to look forward to.  Audrey will be an official teenager in just 17 days. Spring is coming in 21 days. Then we have a college graduation (gasp), a baptism (double gasp) and a high school graduation ( hyperventilating and losing consciousness), all in rapid succession.  Somewhere in the middle of all that,  we also have two more birthdays and a daughter flying off to France for the summer.  And, with any luck, thrown into that mix sometime soon, there will be a brand new job for the guy who is supposed to be paying for all of that.  Well, not all of that.  Not the ticket to France.  That one he just has to sweat about.

Saturday Morning

Oh lovely snowy Saturday morning! It is 10:56 AM and we are just getting around to making French toast.  I did not get out of bed until nearly ten, which is a major sleep-in for me, and better yet, I did not hear a peep out of  Olivia until well after ten.  Dan spent the night at a scout camp out with Will.  When I got up, Audrey was deep into a book, and Duncan was downstairs, sleeping or playing a game, I don't know which.

Gone are the days of me being rooted out of my nice warm bed seven days a week  by some wild rooster of a child who can't possibly wait one more instant, let alone until sunrise, for his breakfast.  I think I am supposed to miss those days, but honestly, I don't.  Not even a little bit. Not that part anyway.

Now, Alisa is on her way down in the snowstorm to spend the weekend with us.  Dan and Will are on their way home from the mountains in the same storm.  The cats are revolting at being left outside. The french toast mess in the kitchen is calling my name, while the laundry patiently awaits.  Oh, and the phone is ringing with friends inviting themselves to come and play.  But they can't come play until two certain girls get their rooms cleaned up.  Oh lovely Saturday.  Maybe I'll go back to bed.

Student of the Month

Look who is the student of the month!

We got jelly bellies to celebrate.  That's what she is holding in her other hand.  Don't worry- I am avoiding the chocolate flavored ones LIKE THE PLAGUE.  I did have a coffee flavored one however, that was positively heavenly.  So much for giving up the sweets.

This is what her teacher said about why she was chosen as Student of the Month:

"Olivia Metcalf was chosen because she always talks nice her classmates and doesn't say anything mean."

Hmh.  Well, I'm glad that she puts her best foot forward at school.  Because let's face it, when you are the littlest sister at home, sometimes you have to say mean things, especially to your big brother whose main hobby in life is antagonizing you.

Actually though, Olivia has changed a lot this year.  There really is a huge change that takes place in a kid's head between seven and eight.  She has a conscience now.  She can empathize. She can put others ahead of herself.  She can have an honest-to goodness abstract conversation.  It has been a joy to watch her mind expand this year. She is as sweet as she can be, happy and helpful all the day long. A complete turn around from the devil child I wrote about in 2008.  I would link to that post here, but dagnabit, I'm just too lazy.

Anyhow, I really love that kid.

On the Seventh Day

Today marks a personal best.

It's the seventh day of Lent.  Which means the seventh day without chocolate for me. First time I can remember going that long without chocolate. We are entering unchartered territory here folks.

Oddly, it hasn't been hard.  I get a nightly craving from about 8-10 pm every night.  The intensity of that craving seems to be related to how much other sweet stuff I have eaten that day.  Less sweets definitely equals less craving.  I might even be tempted to give up the refined sugar altogether for the next 41days. 

I might as well.  Due to our current life status, we have already given up television, our gym membership, our newspaper, and real butter.  What's a little sugar on top of that?  Maybe it will nicely balance out the lack of the gym membership in relation to my expanding waistline.  There has to be a silver lining somewhere, right?

Ordinary Day

This is what February 12 looked like at our house.

It was an ordinary day.

 The view from our porch.  Not a bad day for a February.

Olivia gave me this most awesome calendar for Christmas this year.  Each month has its own picture, and she filled in all the numbers by herself.  It is quite a work of art.

We had Oreos.  It was Fat Tuesday, in preparation for Lent, which Alisa and I are observing by  not eating any chocolate until Easter. It's been six days now, and so far, so good.

There was a bunny and a church bag  full of Primary teaching supplies left on the couch on February 12.

Olivia played by herself in her room this day.   When I opened the door to take her picture, she politely asked me to leave her alone.  Tween-ness just around the corner? I hope not.

There was something fascinating on the computer on this day.  This is a very ordinary scene around our house these days.

Second grade homework while wearing her wolf hat.

Will preferred a comfy chair and no wolf hat for his homework doing.

And there was poor old Maggie in her usual spot, with her usual expression.  Why she likes to lay on the hard old tile I will never know.  Maybe she gets too hot.

Belle was not feeling too hot this day.  She was also in her usual spot, begging to be let in.

I believe Audrey was at a friend's house, and Dan was.... I don't know. Somewhere else.  Somebody sent me a video that day about the gift of an ordinary day.  It was very touching and mentioned how there are albums in everyone's homes that are filled with pictures of birthdays and Christmases, graduations, vacations and milestones, but very few pictures of just the ordinary days.  And one day, it will be the ordinary days we will miss the most.  So I documented one of our ordinary days.  I am getting quite sentimental in my old age, and am coming to recognize the value of every day you get that is just ordinary.  Maybe because we are having more and more days of late that do not feel ordinary, and I hope one day soon to be back to more ordinary days than not.

Bits and Pieces

Mitch is taking philosophy this semester. Can you tell?

For our anniversary, we took the older kids and went to Sundance.  The movie was an absolute bust, but it was still fun to be there, and see all the sights. Alisa saw somebody famous, but I forget his name.  He was Robin in the last Batman movie.  Walked right past her in the lobby of the Marriott and then she got all twitterpated and started texting all her friends.

And a couple Saturdays ago, we checked out Scheels, the new sporting goods store here.  Olivia was most impressed with all the stuffed animals around the place.  So were Duncan and Will.

You can't beat a store that has an indoor Ferris wheel, a bowling alley, talking presidents, a shooting range (sorta) and all kinds of photo ops.  No, I take that back.  I think Ikea still has them beat, because Ikea sells those meatballs. Still, we had a fun,cheap family Saturday.

Dan had a job interview last week.  He was one of 70 candidates.  Not holding our breath on that one.

 Erwann left for France on Saturday night.  Now Alisa is counting down the days until she can join him there for the summer.  We will for sure miss him. 

Guess I'm going to give up chocolate for Lent.  Alisa had to go and remind me about that.  That's okay though, because it doesn't start til the 13th.  Two days to binge!

Golden Goose

Yesterday morning my backyard was full of birds. The snow has melted along the edge of the fence, and there was something in the grass that they were all eating.   They would take turns flying down on to the ground to have a bite to eat, or up on to the floor of our porch, to check out the cat food crumbs.  There must have been close to a hundred birds, of about three different varieties, hanging out in the tree, on our porch, and perched on the fence.  Considering that we have three cats, they were either very brave birds, or very stupid.   But then they got me thinking about my grandma.   She loved birds, and I'm pretty sure that at her February funeral, she sent a bunch of them to follow us around that day, and remind us that she wasn't that far away.  So as I sat in my kitchen yesterday, watching the show,  I decided that all those birds must be a good omen from my grandma, her way of letting me know that she was still around, and still pulling for me.  I just knew something big was going to happen that day.

Now I have to back up a little bit and mention that with some generous help from my dad, we bought a car yesterday.  Whatever we would do without my parents, I don't know.  They have saved us numerous times.  I hope to get even with them someday.  The car is a gold Honda Odyssey, old, but well cared for, and we are very happy to have it.  We went test driving cars on Saturday, after deciding that the old Nissan just wasn't worth fixing up. This Odyssey was the first one we drove, and we were both pretty sure that it was the car we wanted, mostly because the man who was selling it was such a nice, honest, upright guy.  You know the kind of guy that you can just tell by looking at him is 100% genuine?  He had taken really good care of this car, had all the service records on it, and was really up front about what problems they had had with it.  We drove a few more cars, just because we didn't feel like we  should buy the first car without at least test driving a few more.   We saw a few nicer cars, but they were a lot more money, and were being sold by much shadier characters.  So on Monday, we called him up and arranged to buy the car.  Dan picked it up Monday afternoon, and we thought it was a done deal.

Now backing up one more time, remember my last post about the boys doing laundry and the dryer breaking down from them trying to dry 6 loads of wash all at once?  Yeah, that happened while we were out test driving cars.  So as Dan was trying to get all the loose ends tied up with the car purchase on Monday, he was also simultaneously trying to fix the dryer.  He took off six different parts, took them in for testing,  and tried out a bunch of new parts, hoping that it would be a quick, cheap fix, but no such luck.   It was getting to be an expensive fix.  By the time he made it out to pick up the new car, he had pretty much resigned himself to beginning a new search  on KSL, this time for another cheap used dryer.  In the process of him  buying the car, small talk  between him and the guy and his wife turned to our bad luck as of late, and how we were really hoping that we were at the end of things breaking and falling apart on us.

Later Monday  night, we got a call from the seller. Dan had inadvertently driven off with his license plates, and he wanted them back.  He also mentioned in passing that he had something that he had forgotten to give us so Dan arranged to go back out to their house the next day and return the license plates.  As it turned out, Dan had to go back out there anyway, because the wife had forgotten to sign the title, and we couldn't get it registered until she did.  So he went back out there Tuesday afternoon, she signed the title, and handed him an envelope, which he did not open until he got home.

Actually, I was the one who opened the envelope.

 I thought it was going to be records on the car or something.

 Instead, I pulled out a fat wad of $100 bills, along with a note explaining how at one time in their lives when money was short and they were desperate, they were given a washer and dryer by someone they had only just met.  And now, they felt like they needed to do something similar for us.  There was a little more to it as well, but that was the general gist of the thing.

I sat there in shock for at least 10 minutes.  I didn't know what to think or do, and I was trying to figure out a way to gracefully return their money and tell them it wasn't necessary.   We could never accept something like that!  What kind of person does that for someone they don't even know?  And what kind of person LETS someone they don't even know do that for them??  I have never been so flummoxed in my life.

And then that voice in my head, the one I don't like to listen to very often,   told me that I had just been handed a miracle, and that I needed to shut up, swallow my pride, and accept it.  That this was a blessing, not only for me but for the people who gave it to us.  That when you pray for help, you better be prepared to accept help in whatever form it shows up in.

Being on the receiving end is hard.  I called up the lady and thanked her the best I could. She said she just knew it was something they needed to do. No big deal. To her anyway.  And she hoped the car would run forever for us.

Then we went out and bought a brand new dryer. One less thing.

 I can't help but think that my grandma must have been in on all of this somehow.  All those birds showing up, and then me thinking about great things happening, and then a gift out of nowhere.

Since we brought our new-to-us gold car home, we have been thinking of a name for it.  We are big on naming inanimate objects around here.  Olivia wanted to name it  Gold Treasure.  I thought we should call it Fiona.

But now, I think it has officially been dubbed our Golden Goose.

It's Just Like that Bill Murray Movie Around Here

It's after 11 pm on Super Bowl Sunday and Dan has driven  off  into the cold, foggy night, in our rental van, a huge dripping pile of wet clothes in tow, in search of a 24 hour laundromat.  It seems that Stanley, our  clothes dryer, has had a malfunction, and is no longer capable of producing heat, which we discovered this afternoon,  when the enormous load of darks the boys were in charge of washing yesterday came out of the dryer still wet, even after several cycles.   Apparently they stuffed poor Stanley tighter than a Thanksgiving turkey with every pair of jeans and every dark shirt they owned.  Whether or not the overstuffing contributed to Stanley's condition has been a hot topic of debate around here.  Because you know, blame must be assigned at all costs. And all the laundry drama follows the excitement of last night, when Dan was up until the wee hours cleaning up dog diarrhea off the carpet.  Maggie had some sort of serious gastric distress late last night, and before anybody discovered what she was up to, she had stepped in it, and tracked it all over the family room.  Then, after church this morning, we were greeted with a lovely pile of dog vomit, again on the carpet. In spite of all that, we still managed to pull off a mostly sanitary, non stinky Super Bowl party, which kind of makes up for the fact that Dan has definitely drawn the short end of the stick this weekend in the nasty chores department.  I should be nicer to him, I guess.

And the car?  Well, the car is most likely getting totaled. I was all for fixing it, but we can't be sure we can get it fixed for what the insurance will pay.  It has other problems too.  Like, running for instance.  It does run, it got us all the way to Disneyland and back just last September, but you can tell that it's heart just isn't in it anymore. It would rather not be running.    It hates to idle. The scary red engine light comes on and goes back off on a regular basis.  the brakes squeal and grind terribly, even though we have been told they are fine.  It smells gassy after its been running. I don't know.  It's a tough call. All I know for sure is that next time there's an ice storm in Utah, I'm staying in bed.

And that was just the first weekend of February.  Looks like it's going to be another rock star month at the Metcalfs.