Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Never Slowin’ Down

Sometimes I can’t get over how busy life can get – and I don’t even have my kids involved in a bunch of things (or any, save piano lessons for one person).  I like being busy though.  Except for when the activities all running through my brain at once cause me to forget that I’m cat-sitting and accidentally leave the poor thing out overnight.  And consequentially find her looking a little worse for the wear and have to take her to the vet to be checked out. Sad smile  The pinewood derby last week was fun, but apparently a little too distracting.

So let’s see, Wednesday was that derby, the following night was mutual.  I’m not usually in charge of those (I do the majority of the lessons while the mia maid YW councilor takes care of the planning and implementation of the mutual activities), but I was in charge this week since said councilor was gone.  Not a big deal, but another item that took my attention and planning time amid a million other things competing for those things.

Friday a.m. Asher and I had Dr. appointments so I got the littles and myself ready, swung by to check on the cat, arrived at the Dr’s office where I called back and forth with Mom about what to do with the cat, and squeezed in the appointments themselves.  Later that afternoon I arranged babysitting and took the kitty to the vet.  She’s fine.  In fact she looked fine again by the time it was her appointment, but since I’d gone to all that trouble I figured I’d better just take her.  Hahaha.  She did get in some sort of a fight or have an accident, but nothing too serious that a couple of days couldn’t fix.

Saturday morning we headed out for a day in Portland.  We intended to meet Mom at the zoo – her last day to kill while Dad was attending Dental conferences all weekend.  After errands that took longer than they should have and traffic and all that, we stopped in Albany to grab some lunch at a drive-through.  As I tried to carefully pick-up a cup of fruit punch where the lid looked questionable, my skills let me down and the cup spilled its entire contents right between the legs!  It was f.r.e.e.z.i.n.g. cold.  We happened to be sharing the parking lot with a Kohl's, and I thankfully have a gift card for them. so I got dropped off and waded inside to grab a new pair of pants.  It was the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen.  The bright punch-red color didn’t really show, so it looked like I had had a MAJOR “accident” if you know what I mean.  It was SO embarrassing.  I walked straight to the clearance rack, found a pair of pants in my size - that look almost identical to the messy ones I had on - within seconds (weird, that, actually), and wore the new ones out of the store.

At that point we were supposed to test drive a vehicle on the way to Portland, but the people had to cancel.  So Brian dropped the rest of us off at the zoo to meet up with Mom there while he went to test drive some other vehicles in Portland.  Mom had to leave about 45 min or so later so I was left alone with all 4 kids and no vehicle.  And then we heard that the zoo was closing in 15 minutes.  Woops.  Guess we REALLY got a late start. *Sigh*  Thankfully Brian was able to finish up and come back for us without us having to wait too long.  He even gave me time to find a bathroom for a kid AFTER exiting the zoo.

Zoo 4-20142 Zoo 4-20143 zoo 4-20144 zoo 4-2014

And he arrived to tell me he’d “bought a car”.  We drove back to make the transaction and drive it home.  We’re now the proud parents, I mean owners, of a 2003 Toyota Matrix.  It has some things that need fixing, but Brian can take care of that himself on the cheap.  And we got the car for under our (already low) budget, which we’re pleased about.  I have trouble staying under budget with cars because it always seems like you get SO much more, for just a “LITTLE” more money.  But then you get even MORE for just a LITTLE more money than that, and the cycle continues as I “window shop” cars increasingly out of our intended price range.  And we really like Matrix’s, and the others I’d seen for sale were on that other side of the budget line (even branded/salvaged titles). This one has a clean title, just needs a little TLC.  So for the price, we can give it that. Smile

2014-04-05 23.23.02 

Anyway, we’re very excited!  We gave away the 24 year old truck with the flat tire from October we never fixed, and we sold the Pacifica (finally!).  After borrowing Dad’s truck for a week or two, and making other arrangements, it’s just nice for Brian to have a commuter vehicle to get to work.

Unfortunately the timing of this meant missing Saturday’s General Conference.  But we enjoyed watching the Sunday sessions.  When that ended I claimed “ox in the mire” and went outside and carpet-cleaned the upholstery in the Matrix.  The previous owner clearly had a dog or something that rode in the car, and it smelled bad.  Not just like dog.  But b.a.d.  It needed to be done before Brian stank things up at work, hahaha.

Monday morning would have been nice to catch up on laundry and chores after a busy weekend, but instead I was back to Portland first thing for an eye appt with Hollyn.  I rushed home to pick up Asher and Kieran at their different locations and made it home to find Brennan walking up the front porch just coming home from school.  Whew! 

Hollyn 4-2014

I think most of the unusually-crazy-stuff is out of the way for a few days.  Now just back to the regular community band, guys game night, mutual, cubscouts, and the like before the birthdays and Easter season is upon us starting, ummmm, this Sunday.  Oh sheesh.  Better get on that.

1 comment:

Kelly said...

I like the new car. Love the pants experience. Glad it was you and not me (although I can certainly relate).

Hoping/planning to still see you this weekend...looking forward to it!