I'm Tired

Well it has been a crazy couple of weeks around here!  There are so many details and so many moving parts that I'll do my best to put it all in chronological order but I'm probably going to get a few things wrong.  Here we go:

Thurs, Apr 18 - I get Asher off to school like normal and then gather all the laundry that needs to be done.  We were planning on going to David's nephew's baptism on Saturday in Boise and so I wanted to try to get ahead on the house chores.  Well the washing machine doesn't turn on.  No lights, no sound, nothing.  I check the fuse box and the outlet and both are fine.  So I call some local appliance repair shop and they say they can send someone on Monday.  That's fine.  We all have enough clothes that we can make it until then.  The rest of the day is pretty normal.

Friday, Apr 19 - I'm trying to plan out what we'll need for our quick day trip the next day.  David and I both play in the Idaho Falls Symphony and we had rehearsal this night for our final concert of the season.  I love playing but the weeks we have concerts are hard on the girls because we have 5 out of 8 nights that we have to have a babysitter.  But they are getting used to the girls we have come and it's getting much easier.  We can't leave this night for Boise because of rehearsal.  Rehearsal goes great but it's always tiring.

Sat, Apr 20 - David teaches one lesson before we leave for Boise.  We leave just a tiny bit late, but our GPS says we'll still get there before it starts at 3.  I have all sorts of snacks and toys and a movie the kids can watch and they really did great on the drive!  Almost no crying at all the entire way there!  We ended up hitting a lot of construction and that put us about 15 minutes behind schedule!  We were both very on edge and ended up getting there at 3:20, but due to some confusion with the bishopric member there they didn't start until 3:30 so we were able to see the whole thing!  It was so great seeing Marci and her family and Val and Judy.  After some refreshments we went to dinner with Val and Judy and had a lot of fun seeing David's family.  It really was a good day.  About an hour before we got home Mia decided she was done being in the car and started crying on and off until we got home and 30 minutes before we got home Asher got carsick and threw up.  But we made it home, David got the kids ready for bed, I took care of the puke and had to just leave Asher's blanket, pillow, and pajamas in the garage because I had no way of washing them. We made it to be before midnight and were all very tired!

Sun, Apr 21 - Easter!  The reason we had to come back Saturday night is because David had an interview with our Stake President at 8:30am for his Ecclesiastical Endorsement.   He has to take 3 credits through a university so he can renew his teaching license in August.  So he went to that and then ran home so I could leave to conduct choir practice for our ward at 9.  Then I had to run home so I could help finish getting everyone ready so we could be at church by 10:30.  The choir sang fine, but the girls were so tired so after Sacrament Meeting David took them home and Asher and I stayed at church.  After church we came home and I did my best to clean up things a little bit and made rolls because we were having Easter dinner at my parents house at 3.  It's always a nice big party when my siblings and I get together and the only family that couldn't make it was Andy and his family who live in Florida right now.  My mom had put together a big easter egg hunt for all the kids and it was a lot of fun!  She also prepared a short talk about the Resurrection which I thought went really well.  It was a great dinner, but on the way home Asher started wondering why the Easter bunny didn't come to our house and maybe he got lost. Ooops.  Parent fail.  I told him the Easter bunny was probably just so busy going to everyone's house that he hadn't made it to our house yet.  So when we got home David kept Asher downstairs and I quickly hid a bunch of eggs around the house.  Asher always loves looking for them and didn't seem to mind that he had to wait until the end of the day.  I also got him a small lego set which he played with until bedtime.  Again, going to bed very tired.

Mon, Apr 22 - I get Asher off to school and when we get home from the bus stop the appliance repair guy is there.  He comes in and looks at the machine for about 10 minutes and tells me the control board is bad.  I was shocked!  He said the part was so expensive that it might be worth it to buy a new machine.  We had just bought it 6 months ago!  When I told him that he said to call Whirlpool directly because it should still be covered by the manufacturers warranty.  So as soon as he left I called Whirlpool and they said they could get someone out on Wednesday.  So two more days without laundry.  Well, we could probably scrape by until then but just in case I decided I was going to go to my mom's house that night and get at least one load done (something I should've thought to do on Sunday but just wasn't thinking.)  I decided I'd wait until after the kids were in bed to go to my mom's house so around 8:30 I left.  I got about 10 minutes away from my house and the van started shaking and making this bad ticking sound and I thought something had exploded.  I took the next exit and pulled off.  I tried calling David to get his advice on what to do, but he didn't have his phone.  I tried driving back to the house but ended up pulling off at the next exit because the van was driving so bad.  I tried calling David, spent a few minutes crying, then decided I'd just try driving home, but going slow in case anything else happened.  I got home and told David what happened and then went to bed soon after because I was so tired.

Tues, Apr 23 - I had to take David to school today.  It was really annoying.  David works at 3 different schools that he goes to each day.  I have to pick up my nephew from school every day.  This is how our driving schedule went all week: David drives to school #1 and I get Asher on the bus.  David comes home in between school #1 and #2 to pick the girls and me up and we take him to school #2, we go home and wait 45 minutes, I go pick up my nephew then drive home, I pick David up during lunch and he drives us home and then takes the car the rest of the day.  Annoying.  After David dropped us off at home and Asher got off the bus and the girls went down for a nap, I decided to check on David's application for BYU-I.  Big surprise to me when I saw his application was locked!  I immediately got on the phone and tried to figure out what had happened.  When I was filling out his application I guess I created a duplicate account from the one that was already in their system (somehow) and also I put his starting semester as Spring 2019, which was bad I guess.  After a lot of calling and transfers and waiting on hold they told me to change his starting semester to Fall 2019 and then they gave me the number of someone to call so he could retroactively approve David to take classes in the Spring.  So I did that and now had to wait for him to get accepted.  We had rehearsal this night which helped get my mind off things a little bit.

Wed, Apr 24 - Did our awesome driving schedule.  Sometime during the morning the appliance repair guy came and told us the same thing the other guy said.  He said he was going to order the part but it wouldn't get there until Monday.  Wonderful.  But it was covered under the warranty so it didn't cost us anything! I saw that David got accepted into BYU-I but not till later so I was planning to call the guy in the morning.  David only had one cello student today so we took the van over to the mechanic shop (the van is still a mess from our day trip to Boise...but I try not to think about that).  I was afraid it was going to blow up the whole way there.  Got home just in time to leave again for rehearsal! After rehearsal I had to take 3 loads of laundry to the laundromat.  I ran all 3 at the same time and just took them home to dry them there because our dryer works great!  I had to stay up until David's white shirt and black pants dried because he had festival the next day.  Went to bed sometime before 1am.  Very, very tired.

Thurs, Apr 25 - David had festival which meant I didn't have to do quite as much driving.  I had to take him to school, but I had to pick him up at 1.  This created a problem.  Asher gets off the bus at Noon.  All afternoon I have 4 kids.  And I only had David's car, which only has 3 seats in the back.  Please don't turn me in, but I had Asher sit in the front seat with it reclined all the way back and told him not to move.  I took a back way to the school where we picked up David and Asher sat on David's lap the way back.  I have never driven more carefully because I had no way to explain it to a cop other than that we were in a real bind!  But we made it home safe.  I got a call from the mechanic.  He said the van was in bad shape.  I should put in right here that I know generally how a car works, but the things that were wrong were very specific and I don't really know exact details.  He said the spark plugs (and wires?) needed to be replaced and my front brakes and pads needed to be replaced too.  That was so he could see if other things are wrong and need to be fixed.  He also said 3 out of the 6 pistons were misfiring. Yay.  Running total to fix right now - $500.  So to recover from that nice sticker shock I called the guy at BYU-I.  His name is Ben and he worked so hard for us.  When I called him and he got into the system to look up David he found out that I had done things backwards.  The student I had talked to on Tuesday was supposed to tell me to call him first, he would open up Spring 2019 on the application, and then I finish things up.  Since David had already been accepted into the college Ben had to do all sorts of behind the scenes magic and contact about 3 different departments.  I spent a lot time on the phone with him.  He said he would work it out and to not do anything until I called him again the next day.  I'm not even sure what he did but he was very proactive about helping us and I trusted that he would work it out.  We had to get this done fast because class registration closes on Monday. All week I had been eating garbage food and chocolate from the kids Easter baskets.  No rehearsal. Went to bed at a reasonable time.

Fri, Apr 26 - Awesome driving schedule again.  The morning went pretty well until I got the call from the mechanic right before I went to pick David up at lunch.  From the moment he started talking I knew it was going to be bad.  He said (and this will really show how much I know about cars) that something in the car had broken and was resting against the chamber where the spark plug is.  It burned a hole through the chamber and when they tried to take the spark plug out it just fell apart into the engine.  To fix the thing that broke (don't have a clue what that thing was) and the chamber where the spark plug was would be an extra $2000.  He also suggested buying a used engine for $3500.  I told him (while trying not to cry) that I was going to see David in about 10 minutes and we'd talk about it.  I told David what he said, he called the guy to actually find out what was wrong (I'm bad at explaining car stuff) and the mechanic said there were still a few pieces of spark plug in the engine that they couldn't find that would probably cause more problems in the future.  So we're getting a new (used) engine in our van!  It has 20,000 less miles on it than our current engine and hopefully won't blow up on us.  With the brakes, it's going to be a little less than $4,000 and take about a week to finish.  I told him that I thought David left his glasses in the van so I would come get those later.  My wonderful parents told me they would let me borrow one of their cars until we could get our van back.  When I went to get David's glasses while he was teaching a lesson, as soon as the mechanic saw me he gave me the most sympathetic look and said "Oh Abby!"  He seems like a really good guy and honestly feels bad about the situation.  After I talked to the mechanic I called up Ben at the college.  He says everything should be worked out so David can start registering for classes.  He gives me his email in case we have problems over the weekend. Also, about this time my babysitter for the night texted me to say she was sick and couldn't come while we were at rehearsal.  I quickly called my mom and with about 2 hours notice she drove here to babysit!  She brought us a wind chime to help with the Feng Sui of our house and at rehearsal my sister gave me a big bag of Cadbury chocolate eggs.  I really appreciated both of those and am so glad we have people to look out for us!  Long night, very tired.

Sat, Apr 27 - David has a lesson in the morning and I just try to clean up the house as best I can and try to bring some normalcy to our lives.  After the girls go down for a nap I went to the temple.  I have made it my goal to go every month this year and haven't missed yet! (knock on wood)  When I get back we try to figure out David's registration.  He has to go in and change something on his account, then we email Ben to say we did it, he changes stuff, then David can register for Spring semester.  But that would be too easy.  After Ben opens up Spring semester we immediately see that David has 2 big holds on his account.  A graduation hold and a high credit limit hold.  As a non-degree seeking student, neither of those should've been on his account and Ben tried really hard to figure it out but said we would have to wait until Monday when everyone else was in their offices.  Great.  I tried to push that out of my mind as we got ready for our concert that evening.  The concert was amazing and I really enjoyed playing.  We played Shostakovitch Symphony 5 which is so emotional and I was already fragile and when I'm tired I cry over everything so by the time we finished I was a little misty eyed, but in a good way.  We gave some tickets to our neighbors and they absolutely loved the concert!  My parents came to the concert as well and brought their car that they let me borrow.  When I got home the reality of everything that had happened started to hit and it was really hard to stay calm about everything.  But I managed to push it out of my mind and get at least a little sleep. 

Sun, Apr 28 - Today was actually pretty calm.  We went to church but didn't do much else.  It was a blessedly quiet day.   

Mon, Apr 29 - At 8:30 I get a call from Ben saying he's taken care of one of the holds but I have to call a different department to take care of the other one.  I may have to send him some chocolates or something because I doubt he wanted to spend his weekend working on our sad case!  I take Asher to the bus stop and when I get home the appliance repair guy is waiting for me, he has the part!  It takes him about 10 minutes and then my washing machine was working!  Finally something worked out!  I wish I could say things went that easy the rest of the day.  After he left I called the college to get the high credit hold off David's account.  The first student I talked to said to fill out David's grad plan, even though he's a non-degree seeking student.  The system just needs to see that it's submitted and it will take the hold off.  So I try to do that filling it out however will work, but it won't let me add classes to the grad plan without David's ACT/SAT score, which I didn't have to give them because he applied as a non-degree seeking student.  So I have to call back.  I talk with another student who tells me I have to send a request in to get added to a specific class and that should work.  So I find the class David wants to take and fill out the request.  I wait about 3 hours and it still isn't going through.  This is the last day to add classes and if David doesn't get his 3 credits in this semester he won't be able to renew his license and will lose his job.  So I'm just a mite stressed out.  I call a third time and talk to yet another student, although this guy seems to be a little more on top of things.  I have to explain everything that's been going on for the 3rd time today and spend half an hour on hold while he tries to talk to various people.  He finally connects me to someone who tells me, "Ok, we'll just take the hold off his account."  I honestly could've cried.  Within 10 minutes the hold was off and I had David registered for his class.  I told him (basically under threat of death) that he had to get at least a C in that class.  Later that night we went on our anniversary date to see the new Avengers movie (while my sister-in-law watched the kids) and it was so nice to forget about things for just a few hours.  Went to bed way too late though.

Tues, Apr 30 - Today!  Today was so normal.  David went to work, I didn't have to call 10 different people, we sat down and had dinner as a family.  My sister reminded me that my girls and my birthday is this weekend and asked if there were any plans.  It really caught me off guard that it was so close!  I'll need to go buy supplies before Sunday and have no idea what we're going to do, but at least we'll be together.

So that's our life.  I still don't have my van, but will hopefully get it back in the next couple of days.  I'm not looking forward to paying that bill.  But these past 2 weeks have helped me realize some things.  We have never missed paying a bill.  Things are always super tight and we are definitely cash-flow poor, but we actually have a pretty good credit score because we have never missed a payment!  That's something I'm actually really proud of.  Another thing (that we seem to have to opportunity to learn time and time again) is that money isn't important.  Once you get some, it can be taken away so fast.  And things are just things.  It may be cheesy but honestly family really is the most important thing.  Every time something like this happens we grow closer as a family.  I'm not saying we wouldn't be just as close vacationing on a beach in Hawaii....but we try to make the best out of what we're given.  So here's to hoping the next 2 weeks are more relaxing!  And here's some pictures as a reward for making it through this novel of a post.

Ava cracks me up every day.  She is definitely our goofiest child!  She loves to sit on, in, and around things, loves to wear other people's shoes, and always puts her hand in her hair while drinking.

This is where Millie always lays when David is teaching lessons.  All David's students say hi to her when they walk in (although they don't really have a choice because she blocks the doorway until I drag her out of the way).

At Max's baptism!  Ava let Ruth hold her for a long time!  Which if you know my girls that is not normal, especially for people they don't know well.

David and Marci!

David and Marci and Morgan!  Morgan is Marci's daughter.

David with his parents.  It really was so great to see all the Clay people.

Trying to stretch our legs before getting back in the car.