Last week was a perfect storm, mostly of my own doing. Tuesday we had Young Women in Excellence, an annual event where we recognize the girls' various achievements. It's one of those things that takes way more work behind the scenes than you really think it ought to. It required several planning meetings, lots of contacting parents to get information from them, organizing food, making food and trying to figure out how to keep it warm in a totally gross church kitchen... And decorating. And none of those are things that I particularly excel at.
But I dutifully showed up (after babysitting for a friend all morning!) and twisted and hung crepe paper to look like a sun. And I made a batch of stuffed French toast, decided it might not be enough, and made another batch. (Our theme was "Arise and Shine Forth" so we served breakfast foods-- everybody loves breakfast!)
And the evening went beautifully.
THEN, the next day I had signed up to feed the missionaries, not knowing that Craig would be gone all day in DC on a field trip (and, actually, not knowing it would be YW in Ex. the day before, either-- that was supposed to have happened the previous week!). So we had to bring the meal to the missionaries and-- of course-- they live 30 minutes away out in the middle of farmlands, so not only did I have to spend an hour driving during dinner time, once we gave them their meal, my GPS stopped working and I had to try and remember how to get us home. In the dark.
I actually only took one wrong turn, and quickly figured out my mistake (because we suddenly were on a road with no line down the middle-- I knew that wasn't right). So we did pretty well, all things considered. But it made for a very long and stressful evening.
And then Thursday morning I was teaching seminary. That went fine, I thought I'd get to relax and enjoy the rest of the day, and then it all fell apart on me.
I spent Friday babysitting while my friend taught seminary, then talking on the phone a lot, and finally cleaning my house. Craig and I got to "chaperone" the school play that night, which was kind of fun and kind of boring. (And thanks to my in-laws who not only babysat for us, but also bought us all dinner before the play!) The play was Little Women, which I love, but it's pretty long and it's hard for amateurs to keep the energy up in something like that. And it didn't help that the auditorium was cooking at about 100 degrees. But really, the kids did a great job, all things considered. The play cut off a bit early in the story-- it ended right after Beth dies, so we didn't get the closure of Amy marrying Laurie and Jo finally finding a writing career (and love!) in New York. That seemed a bit of a shame, but after 2.5 hours of sitting in that hot theater, I wasn't going to complain.
Saturday was our LAST day of SOCCER GAMES. Soccer season is finally over, folks! I can't wait to get back to having evenings with my children all home, not having to worry about who needs to be where at what time and is it my turn to drive and is someone napping and how do I feed everyone AND get them to and from soccer! I'm even MORE excited to get our Saturday mornings back, and maybe even spend them together as a family, rather than splitting up and trying to make sure that the littlest ones end up at the game where there's a playground for them.
Soccer has been the biggest hassle ever. I think next autumn we won't bother. I'd like to try to do some outings instead-- October mornings are usually perfect weather for places I want to visit, like Montpelier and the Richmond Zoo. And just doing yard work with everyone outside. That's how I want my Fall Saturdays to be spent.
Sorry, soccer.
I have more to report on from that Saturday, but this blog post is long enough and you get the idea. Last week was nuts. I am definitely looking forward to having time together with the whole family this week.
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