7 Quick Takes about New Budgeting Categories, Not Being Like the Other Girls, and Fun Things That Happen in Your Forties

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

My 21-year-old has pretty significant ADHD, but looking at the organized budget spreadsheet she uses, you'd never know it. During her freshman year of college, my husband and I helped her add up how much she needs to earn over the summer to cover school costs and put it in a basic Excel sheet, but since then she's really upgraded it on her own and was showing me some of her improvements.

For one thing, she made it so that when she adds new paychecks, it automatically tells her in percentage form how close she is to her goal amount, and the columns automatically go green or red depending on their status.

She's also added a variety of new columns to cover unexpected income (like scholarships) or unexpected expenses (like a column labeled 'ADHD Tax.')

"What's that column for?" I asked her.

"Oh, that's my stupidity allowance for the year," she said. "You know, like late fees and lost item fees."

That's one of the most brilliant ADHD management tricks I've ever heard.

—2—

I was having a conversation with my 21- and 19-year-old daughters about different girl stereotypes in media after watching a movie together. Specifically, we were discussing the "not like the other girls" trope (you know, the female character who eschews traditionally feminine interests, making her superior to the rest of her vapid gender who likes stupid things).

They were explaining to me the various subtypes of "not like the other girls," like the "pick me girl" and the "manic pixie dreamgirl."

Later in the day, I was on the road and the car next to me had a pink bumper sticker that said "I'm not like the other girls... I'm worse" with a rabid possum on it. I had a good laugh and texted my girls about it after I got to my destination. One of them texted back: "That's another subcategory."

—3—

School has now started for my youngest four kids. On the first day, one was sick, two forgot their lunches, and Phillip got flipped off in the middle school dropoff line.

So I'd say this year is off to an amazing start.

—4—

Our oldest daughter went back to college. Her last day here was particularly emotional and logistically complicated, as we were simultaneously getting through the first week of school for the youngers, helping the college daughter pack up and leave, and also prepping for a family camping trip with what was left of the family (minus the 19-year-old, who'd already made plans to go visit a friend for the weekend.) 

In fact, my husband literally dropped the 21-year-old off at the airport on the way to the campground with four of the other kids. The plan was for me to come up later with the 13-year-old after she finished cross-country practice, but by that time I'd really and truly hit the wall of  Things I Can Handle so I dropped her off at the campground and came home for the night by myself to decompress. 

—5—

My hope is to go re-join them at the campground later today, when hopefully I can be happier and a little more fun to be around. Recently, I have not been very fun to be around. I've actually been watching myself with curiosity and noticing changes to my personality that I don't really like (and I'm sure no one else does, either.) 

Small annoyances send me over the edge almost instantly, and I've been snapping at Phillip or having uncharacteristic temper tantrums over being late or other small inconveniences. I have trouble controlling my irritation and letting things go without comment, which is usually unnecessary and sometimes embarrassing, but I can't help it. 

I feel like I'm okay just plodding along doing my own thing with my head down, but I will snap the instant something goes wrong or someone needs something from me. Am I physically tired? Yes, but no more than usual. Am I overwhelmed? Yes, but again no more than usual. It just feels different and I don't know why.

—6—

I was recently Googling my intense irritability, trying to figure out what's going on with me at age 43 (am I having a midlife crisis? do I need therapy? should I abandon society to go live alone like the swamp hag I'm becoming?) and then the word 'perimenopause' popped out at me. Since I'm not experiencing the hot flashes and night sweats of perimenopause yet, I didn't even connect the dots, but suddenly I had this aha moment. 

Perimenopause symptoms include shorter cycles (check, for the last year) and also heavier periods (ugh, this week I declined a short hike with my family it was too far from a bathroom) and it's all starting to make sense now. 

So I'm basically going through second puberty, and it turns out I forgot what it feels like when your hormones make you hate everything and everyone around you. 

—7—

Of course I will still try to laugh about this stage of life. Someone who's great about doing that is the Holderness Family, who I really appreciate for it:

And I love the Merlin app.

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7 Quick Takes about Test Driving the Empty Nest, Six months of Home Improvements in a Week, and Counting to a Million

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

Well, the verdict is in on our week of being empty nesters while all the kids were with their grandparents: I don't know.

The pros:

• House stays super-clean
• Conversations with husband can go beyond the logistics of giving rides to people, date nights don't have to be planned 2 months in advance
• Tons of time and energy to pour into home improvement projects
• No need to go around turning off lights all the time

Cons:

• Lacks structure (no one even knows if you eat nachos for dinner at 9 PM two nights in a row)
• Fruit goes bad when you don't know how to shop for two
• House is too quiet (not a good quiet, I mean quiet like a morgue)
• Phillip and I aren't social at all, but we're going to have to make couple friends when we become empty nesters for real

Overall, I enjoyed the extra time to work on projects and disliked the eerie absence of chaos and activity of kid life humming in the background. And weirdly enough, when Phillip and I suddenly had more uninterrupted time to spend together than we knew what to do with, the urgency to make every moment count slipped away. I'm not sure I liked that, either. 

—2—

Now to the projects we did while everyone was gone. First, Phillip got rid of the old washer and dryer in the garage. 

He harvested the usable parts for future repairs to our new washer and dryer, and then he disassembled them completely and loaded them up in the van. Because it costs $25 per appliance to recycle them at the dump but they accept scrap metal for free. So.

And that's how you dispose of a washer and dryer for $0.

In addition to all the money we saved by scrapping 90% of the washer and dryer (there was just a smallish pile of plastic components left), Phillip also found $1.23 in change while taking them apart.

—3—

We've also been working on our outside living spaces. I've been silently toying with the idea of a porch swing for a while, but recently the 11-year-old mentioned out of the blue how nice it would be to have a porch swing to read in and we decided it would be fun to surprise him with one when he got back.

We found a porch swing on the smaller side that fits (but barely, so no being too crazy on the swing), threw away our crusty door mat and replaced it with this one, and got some new pillows for the swing. Once we paint the door blue and redo the decking (next up on my list), it's going to look amazing.

Ignore the Victorian grandma sidelights next to the door. We do.

I love this so much more than I thought I would. My favorite part is the pillows on the porch swing, which surprises me, because I normally think throw pillows are like scented candles: pointless. When we buy furniture that comes with throw pillows, I literally throw them away. But I don't know, I just love something about the pattern, and I searched long and hard for pillow forms that are puffy like marshmallows and not like the thin, flimsy ones I usually dislike.

As predicted, the kids love the porch swing and take turns reading in it all day, but the 11-year-old loves it most. He keeps giving me suggestions about the ongoing project and I even caught him Googling patio decorating ideas yesterday.

—4—

I talked about finishing a marathon deck-staining project a few weeks ago, and with that beautiful blank canvas we were ready to start furnishing it. I'd been researching patio furniture for weeks, but with all of our parental responsibilities gone Phillip and I were able to decide on, purchase, and assemble a seating area. It turned out great, even though we had to order the rug twice because the first one came shrink wrapped but with the top ripped off so it was all frayed and dirty on one edge.

Those double doors go right to Phillip's and my bedroom so this is meant to be kind of a couple spot, but I guess the kids can sit here if they want to.

Fun fact: while this rug came form Amazon clumsily packaged, the outdoor mat we ordered from Wal-Mart arrived more securely fastened than an infant in a car seat. It came rolled up and Saran wrapped in a bag which was taped shut, inside of a box. Get it together, Amazon.

—5—

Do NOT be jealous of all these beautiful "after" pictures I'm showing you. I mean it. For the past year and a half, we haven't used the deck for anything because the sliding door leading outside was broken, the deck was chipping and full of splinters, and there was nothing on it except for a rusty dining table with a moldy patio umbrella and a single chair with a giant hole ripped in the seat. I'm not even exaggerating. We were one pair of shirtless overalls away from having a tireless automobile in the front yard.

The patio umbrella and chair are too far gone, but I decided I could still save the table so right now I'm prepping it in the basement to sand and paint. It's going pretty good, so far I only accidentally sploshed metal primer on my phone and got it all up in the speaker ports once. 

We also ordered a metal bench for one side of the table, and I thought I found a good deal on a set of 4 dining chairs at Target for the other side but I was WRONG. 

First of all, they didn't send me chairs, they sent me a pile of metal sticks and a crescent wrench for elves.

NOT a chair.

Second of all, the assembly was so annoying. It required two sets of hands, and by the time we finished the first chair I wanted to go burn down a Target. 

After putting the second chair together, we noticed a defect in the way the slingback fabric was attached to the base of the chair and that was the last straw. We packed it all back up to return and I did get my money back, but what I really wanted was a refund on the two hours I spent assembling and disassembling it. 

—6—

My son is entering middle school and we went to a family cookout and school tour. It ended up being really nice. I met a new family who just moved here a week ago and both of my kids had friends there.

I loved the principal, too. He started the tour by sitting all the new middle schoolers down and asking, "Who's excited to get up early? Maybe 6... 7?" and waited for them to laugh.

For those who don't know, tweeners everywhere are mindlessly saying "6, 7" in a dopey voice, copied from some viral video. It means nothing, so don't even worry about it. I've asked my 8th grader to explain it and she just mumbles some stuff and says it's hard to explain.

—7—

During the tour, I said hi to a mom I didn't recognize and it turned out that our kids had been on the same sports team at one point. We were trying to remember when they'd played together, and I laughed and said something like, "All the sports seasons sort of blend together."

"And you have like a million kids, right?" The other mom asked, with a tone so unironic it sounded less like playful exaggeration and more like she thought 6 kids really was the same as an actual million.

So I told her, "Almost." 

Aaaaand that was the end of that conversation.

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7 Quick Takes about Emoticons 2.0, Joining the We Do Not Care Club, and Sliding In Just Under the Wire

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

Emoticons are back. Not the picture emojis that eventually replaced them, I'm talking about the OG symbols where you figured out how to use existing keys on the keyboard to depict a facial expression. Like this:

:)

or this:

:0

or this:

;-P

It looks like my 17-year-old downloaded some kind of an emoticon keyboard, because in a text conversation with my husband he sent him this: 

Phillip knows it's 'woah' (not 'wo',) but he seems unconcerned about the difference.

All I have to say is :-/

This generation just doesn't understand. Emoticons were about using what was available to express ourselves in a makeshift kind of way. If you invent non-standard symbols to make better emoticons, that defeats the whole point.

—2—

This lady is all over my Facebook feed. This is the We Do Not Care Club, and the pointing and snapping one is absolutely me:

—3—

Phillip and I are alone this week, because our kids all went to visit their grandparents. It's a little bizarre and the house seems lifeless in comparison, but Phillip and I are finishing lots of home projects and also enjoying more time together than usual.

One afternoon we went out for dosa, which was good but the meat filling was pretty spicy. 

Honestly, I don't understand how people can say they genuinely like spicy food. Spicy food doesn't have a flavor: the flavor is "ow." While you can tolerate the inside of your mouth hurting, I don't think you can really enjoy it.

At least I can't.

So I didn't finish my dosa, because I'm at the age where We Do Not Care to eat food we actively don't enjoy in the name of being adventurous.

—4—

Companies are trying really hard to be funny and quirky now. Recently I ordered contacts for the 17-year-old and here were the shipping options:

And when we ordered patio furniture from Target, the status updates Phillip gets by email say things like: "Your order has shipped, oh boy (oh boy, oh boy!)" Calm down, Target. It's some Adirondack chairs and a coffee table, not my insulin.

—5—

The porch swing we ordered for the front porch didn't arrive when it was supposed to, so I called customer service. They said it had been delivered and showed me a picture, and I recognized instantly where it was.

Down the street, there's the workshop of a carpenter/contractor. It doesn't look like a normal house and doesn't even have a mailbox or a front door, but somehow I still get packages misdelivered there sometimes.

When I showed up to retrieve the porch swing, the big box was lying at the front of the workshop, 2" away from a handwritten sign saying "This is NOT a home" with delivery instructions and a big arrow pointing to my other neighbor's house. So apparently they're having the same issue over there.

—6—

My bi-monthly temple shift always begins with a prep meeting at 8 AM. It's part of my responsibility to run the meeting which always starts at 8 o'clock on the dot, and by some miracle I haven't been late to one yet. I'm never early, though.

This Wednesday I walked in at 7:58 and took a seat, and heard the temple matron say to the temple president, "See? There she is!"

Turning to me, she said, "He was saying 'Sister Evans isn't here yet!' and I told him 'Don't worry, she'll scoot in just a few seconds before we start.'" With a smile, she added "And you did." 

It's not my fault. After having young children for so many years, I have a deep-seated fear of being early that will probably never go away. The worst possible thing was showing up early and using up their 15 minutes of good behavior before the thing even started. 

Being early just doesn't make sense to me. It's always seemed much more advantageous to arrive like Indiana Jones skidding under the stone garage door in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

—7—

Phillip took the day off work and went with me to the beach I was raving about last week. I knew he would love the clear water, and he did. And since it was just him and me, we didn't even have to rush home so someone could get to work/gymnastics/cross-country/whatever. We had nothing whatsoever on the calendar and I actually sat at the beach and read a book, which I don't think I've done since 2002.

We also saw a heron tip-toeing around, scanning the water patiently for fish:

These pictures were taken last week with my girls, but for all I know, it could be the same heron so it still counts.

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7 Quick Takes about My 12-Hour Project, Kaleigh Cohen, and Open Water Swimming

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

Our old washer and dryer had a good run, they really did. They came with the house when we bought it 15 years ago, and who knows how old they were then. Phillip has repaired them about a dozen times in the last decade, but they were officially dead as of a few weeks ago so we went on Facebook Marketplace to find a new (to us) washer and dryer.

Right now the old ones are in the garage; they're so similar to the new ones that Phillip plans to harvest all the working parts to use for repairs down the road.

The washer tries to walk across the room during the spin cycle, but both machines work so they're a huge improvement over our old setup.

At first I didn't think the washer shifting around during the spin cycle was a big deal, but that was before the hose got knocked out of place by the movement and leaked water into the basement. I guess we've got to fix that.

—2—

Other than cleaning up the water mess in the basement (thankfully, nothing got wet except some wood in Phillip's shop,) I've been having the most lovely decompression week of all time.

Most of my family is visiting grandparents out of state so there have been several times when the big kids go to work and it's just me home alone. I wouldn't like that if it was my 24/7 reality, but since it's such a rare treat I really savor it. And by savor it, I mean twirling around like Maria in The Sound of Music singing "All by myself, I wanna be all by myself!" (I know those aren't the real words, but it's how I feel.)

It's also nice because with just me and a few college kids, one dinner leaves enough leftovers for us all to have lunch the next day, and the house stays so clean, and there's just way less to worry about. For the most part, I'm free to hyperfixate on my projects and do the bare minimum around here.

—3—

My latest project is staining the deck. I've spent 12 hours on it over the last several days and I just have a few things left to do that will take me less than an hour. My family knows I was "working on it" but I'm excited to surprise them by finishing it before they they get home tomorrow.

Now that we have a nice deck, and we've replaced the non-functioning sliding doors leading to the deck, our next step is getting outdoor furniture. I've been going back and forth on this for a while, but I stayed up way too late last night researching outdoor seating online and I think I'm starting to converge on what will work for us and the space we have.

Too bad I didn't buy something earlier in the week: I could have ordered it, received it, assembled it, and set it up on the newly-finished deck by the time they came home, and it would've been like an episode of Trading Spaces they didn't even know they'd be on.

—4—

The sun has been super-red here for the last few days. I know it's because of poor air quality from wildfire smoke, which is bad for my lungs but it's SO PRETTY.

Not a doctored image, it looked exactly like this (including the dirty car windshield it was taken through.)

—5—

I've also been working out a lot in all my newfound free time. When you first start working out, the initial motivation is usually to look better, and then you keep doing it because it makes you feel better, and now I'm finding myself motivated by the fact that the more fit and strong I get at age 43, the longer I can keep my body from wearing out as I get older. 

About 40% of the time I go running and the other 60% I do a strength workout, and I just have to give a shout-out to my favorite fitness YouTuber. Her name is Kaleigh Cohen, and not only has she given me amazing definition in my shoulders, I also really enjoy watching her because she seems like such a positive, down-to-earth person. 

Some people can do those horrible HIIT videos where the only sound is music and a timer, which makes me want to roll over and die of boredom 7 minutes in. I need entertainment, people. Anyway, if you find yourself in a similar boat please check out Kaleigh. Your shoulders will thank you for it.

—6—

I went swimming at a nearby lake with the most crystal clear water. Even when I swam out past where I could touch, I could still see the bottom. No seaweed, either!

I don't usually go to that particular lake because there's no designated swimming area and no lifeguard, and it makes me too nervous to bring small people to paddle around in the open water when I'm responsible for their lives. But since the younger kids are out of town, my two college daughters and I went and had a perfect day.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, because (1) I wanted to be fully present and enjoy the moment, and (2) I didn't want my phone to get stolen while I was in the water. But it was beautiful.

—7—

My 21-year-old has never seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off so we watched it after she got home from work. 

It's interesting: for the first 20 years of your life, you root for Ferris because he's the hero! He's so cool! Twist and shout!

For the second 20 years of your life, you empathize with Cameron because he's the only sensible one in the group. Does anyone else even have a brain? 

For the third 20 years of your life, you sympathize with Principal Rooney. That narcissistic little con artist definitely needs to be taken down a peg.

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7 Quick Takes about Lakeside Retreats, Getting Up Early for No Reason, and Secrets to Governing a Household

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! Except that it’s on Sunday. I was planning and executing a 3-day retreat for my Young Women group at church. How was your week? 

—1—

The first part of my week was completely consumed with preparing for this Young Women retreat, shopping for food and prepping for activities and finalizing plans for girls with special needs and planning the itinerary. 

The irony of my life is that I'm told constantly — constantly — that I always seem so unruffled by complicated logistics, when in reality planning stuff like this makes me feel like my hair is on fire and has almost certainly taken years off of my life.

However, I will say it was an absolute privilege and a delight to stay with these 11 wonderful young ladies at the lake house of a member of our congregation. Getting to know them better and seeing them form new and different bonds with each other was the highlight of my month. 

I do need to sleep for about a week now, though.

—2—

We spent a lot of our time having fun at the lake, doing S'mores and kayaking and swimming. 

The kids introduced us to a ridiculous new game called "Diaper Dan," where you put your life jacket on upside down (think: legs go through the armholes) and because of the change in boyancy, it's fun to jump in the water and swim around like that. The things I learn as a leader of these girls...

—3—

The theme of the retreat was "Reset + Recharge," so we had a lot of activities having to do with that idea. The one that was a real hit was this kindness chart, made by my 21-year-old out of the goodness of her heart:

The idea was to "recharge each others' batteries" by filling up the squares with mini Post-Its every time we observed something kind. It made me happy to read the Post-Its throughout each day, and by the end we'd filled all 308 squares so we're taking them all out for ice cream on Tuesday. 

We also had some spiritual devotionals, team-building games, and one spontaneous karaoke party that erupted downstairs while the leaders smiled and listened from upstairs. 

The girls made the food, ate together, and cleaned up afterward.

We also did a service project, cleaning out a dry stream bed drainage system and chopping and stacking firewood for our hosts as a thank-you. I was especially proud of that, because I think the girls went well above and beyond the bare minimum and really worked hard to do their best. It looked amazing when they were done.

—4—

The cabin-owners were SO generous in treating us to a private fireworks show on the last night, and definitely created a core memory for one of our girls who was super-interested so they let her plan the order of everything (she did this for hours) and even let her light the fireworks (with her parents' permission, of course.) 

First time using a blow torch, she was so excited.

The rest of us watched the show from the safety of the deck and the show did not disappoint.

At the end, one of the girls suggested we all yell "THANK YOU!!!" on the count of three and it was just so sweet that she thought of that.

—5—

I was pretty exhausted by the time I got home, not at all helped by the fact that I woke up at 3:40 AM the next day to take my 13-year-old to the airport. 

She was flying as an unaccompanied minor to visit her grandparents, and through a combination of long lines and us just not being there early enough, she missed the flight and we had to wait for the next one later that morning. 

I'm grateful that there was room for her on the next flight, and I'm trying really hard to focus on that instead of the fact that I GOT UP AT 3:40 AM TO SIT IN THE AIRPORT FOR FOUR HOURS.

—6—

Once a week, Phillip and I try to sit down with the calendar and call it "the executive meeting." Ideally, we'd get to our plans for the future and our hopes and dreams for the kids, but we often run out of energy by the time we hash out who is giving rides to who this week. It just depends.

After about five different kids coming in and hanging out and generally being disruptive during our meeting, I finally turned to the 11-year-old and told him, "You need to leave. Dad and I are trying to have an executive meeting."

Undeterred, he said, "But you need to have three branches: the executive, the judicial, and the... uh... umm..."

"If you can't think of the last one, then you need to leave and let us execute."

Luckily, he couldn't think of the third and left on a technicality.

—7—

I don't have any bumper stickers, and I often wonder what I would feel strongly enough about to permanently affix to my car. I saw one this week that I would definitely consider:

Actually, it would explain a lot. It would make me feel better about Take #5, for instance.

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7 Quick Takes about New Uses for Traffic Cones, Packing Peanuts as a Sculpting Medium, and Who Not To Take Into an Antique Store

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

The battle of me versus the other seven members of the household who like to set their dirty dishes on the counter instead of in the dishwasher continues. (It may not be all seven of them, but let's go with that to preserve anonymity.) 

In the past, leaving a written reminder on the counter has been helpful, so I scribbled "NO DISHES HERE" on a piece of scratch paper and left it there. Later I found that my 11-year-old had added a helpful illustration:

My 11-year-old saying the quiet part out loud.

—2—

Unfortunately, the written reminder didn't work. I woke up the next morning to see the sign surrounded by a rainbow of dirty dishes. It almost looked intentional, like they were trying to frame my message with their filth.

So I knew that drastic measures were needed. I cleared the dishes, added two full-size construction cones from the garage to either side of the sign (with a towel underneath them), and then I left for the day to work an 8-hour volunteer shift at the temple.

The cones apparently worked, because I came home and EVERYTHING WAS IN THE DISHWASHER! Of course, I had to look at two neon orange construction cones in the kitchen instead, but I guess you can't have everything.

—3—

Our parakeet Pringles really likes us now. When we let her out of her cage, she always wants to be on our shoulders, warbling to us. But unfortunately, she has a deep-seated fear of human hands no matter whose they are, so if you reach over to adjust her if she's squawking too loud in your ear or accidentally scratching you with her toenails, she bites you. And it's not a warning bite or a playful bite. She's trying to kill you.

So I'm a little exasperated with Pringles. Then Facebook, which spies on me and probably knew this, showed me this reel. There was a touching guitar melody over a video of a cute yellow cockatiel and text saying, "If you ever find yourself getting frustrated with your bird, remember..."

The next text read "...they're just tiny little souls as quirky, curious, and imperfect as we are." Watching over my shoulder, the 14-year-old  said, "Oh. I thought it was going to say '...they have little brains and they're pretty stupid.'"

Also true.

—4—

My youngest two kids have spent their mornings at church camp this week. It's similar to Vacation Bible School, but they call it Hero Camp: the idea is learning about the scriptures through a different "scripture hero" every day. Someone dressed up as a scriptural figure visits the kids, teaches them about their story, and then the kids sing songs and do different activities based on what they're learning. 

They brought home several cool things they made and did, but my favorite were the packing peanut temples they made. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, most of our temples have a gold statue of an angel blowing a trumpet to announce the second coming of Jesus Christ, so my 9-year-old included that on top of his temple.

A perfect likeness!

—5—

We've been trying to find fun things to do in the vicinity of my son's gym during practice, and found a nearby disc golf course. Four of us checked out a disc golf set from the library and headed there for a few hours. 

It was our second time ever playing frisbee golf. The last time was probably 7 or 8 years ago, and that time I only made it to the third hole before leaving to go wait out a massive toddler temper tantrum in the car while everyone else finished playing. So needless to say we were really, really good.

We had NO idea what we were doing. A few guys passed us and we tried to copy what we'd seen them doing, but it didn't work out very well. It was fun though, and we had a good time even if we were objectively awful at it.

—6—

Another day, the 11-year-old and I went to the rail trail and rode our bikes. It was technically a "spur," which means it was a shorter branch off the main trail. I wish it had been longer to get some proper exercise, but it was very pretty and we stopped at the lake next to the trail to skip rocks.

Nearby, there was an antique store and I convinced my 11-year-old to look in there with me. He'll never make that mistake again. The place was huge, and by the time we were halfway through I think his soul had left his body. I've never seen him so bored.

"This is me," he said at one point, pointing to a pair of these grumpy-looking pig earrings he saw hanging on the wall.

I think I'll go back sometime. But I'll go by myself, when I can browse around at my leisure without a companion following me around moaning and fainting like a Victorian lady.

—7—

One night at dinner, the table was fully occupied by a half-finished puzzle on one side and a large painting project on the other, so we decided to eat downstairs while watching a movie. 

The younger kids haven't seen most of the classic Disney movies from the 1950's, 60s, and 70s, because the older kids have all seen them so we never made a point of watching them again. So I read off a list of titles and the younger kids chose Peter Pan.  

After watching Robin Hood last week and now this, I've decided that there used to be a marvelous silliness in kids' animation that was lost in the shift to a more realistic computer generated style. We're going to have to watch more of these.

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7 Quick Takes about Robin Hoods in Training, Replacing Doors to the Outside World, and Adding Whimsy to Your Slip-and-Fall Accidents

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

My 9- and 11-year-olds are still on a high from a church youth activity last week where they went to an archery range and learned how to shoot a bow and arrow. The 11-year-old was so into it that he begged us to dust off our archery stuff in the garage, clear out an area in the backyard, and try it out. 

 

So we did.

He's already busy brainstorming ideas for a device that helps track lost arrows, if you want to know how it's going.

—2—

Inspired by the archery, Phillip and I suggested that the kids watch the Robin Hood with us that evening. 

"What year was this movie made?" Phillip asked as we headed to the basement to watch it.

I looked it up and told him, "1973."

"Wow, the animation is going to be terrible." 

"What are you talking about? It's going to be awesome," I answered, thinking of this meme I recently saw floating around Facebook:

So how was the movie? Actually, it held up better than most of our childhood favorites. The animation was a little crude, but it was so creative. The chase scenes in particular were epic and hilarious in their own way. 

I also loved how they straight-up rewrote the laws of nature for so much of the movie. Like how Robin corrected his misfire by shooting a second arrow that caught up to it in midair? Or how Sir Hiss stuck his head in a balloon and blew it up, changed his carbon dioxide into helium, and flew through the air using his tail as a propeller? THAT IS ROAD RUNNER-LEVEL PHYSICS. They just don't make cartoons like that anymore.

—3—

I've been trying to figure out how to structure our summer now that my 9-year-old's three-hour gymnastics practice is right in the middle of the day, Monday through Thursday. It's an hour round-trip to his gym, so either I do it twice (too much driving) or abandon the other kids for 4 hours every afternoon (not why I became a stay-at-home mom.)

This week, we tried something different. I brought my other son with me and we hung out in the area for three hours doing stuff. I was wondering if we'd get bored, but I think it's going to be alright. The public library is impressive, especially for a small town. Their "library of things" has a ton of games, electronics, and other items. We came home with a few books on space, a puzzle, a giant Jenga game, and a murder mystery tabletop game.

The puzzle, by the way, is called "Dad Jokes," and we're about halfway done with it. 

After spending hours searching for the correct pieces, each corny joke is permanently seared into the kids' consciousness.

—4—

The big news this week is that we replaced our sliding door to the deck, plus two French doors that lead outside! 

The old sliding door had no handle and was so hard to open that only adults could do it; the French doors were sagging so badly that one set wouldn't open and the other had a gap the size of a golf ball in which we stuck a T-shirt to avoid heating the entire neighborhood or getting mice in the winter. Having new ones that just open and close effortlessly is wonderful!

A half dozen guys arrived and started hammering on the house at 8 AM, and the teenager slept right through it all and still had to be shaken awake at noon. I only wish I could sleep like that.

Picture taken from the window of the circus in my driveway.

Of course, getting work done on your house is kind of like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Now that we can easily use the deck again, we need to replace a few boards and put on a new coat of paint so we don't get splinters. And once the deck is nice enough to spend time on, we'll need some patio furniture out there to sit on. And then...

—5—

Exactly two days after replacing the doors (and wondering how in the world replacing three doors can cost ¹⁄₁₃th of the purchase price of our entire house), our washer and dryer simultaneously decided to give up the ghost.

The dryer has been slowly declining for a long time, and we miss it but at least it's not suffering anymore. The washer, however, went very suddenly and it was quite a shock. One minute it was chugging along just fine, and the next minute we were pulling out sopping wet clothes because the spin cycle stopped working.

I know it's a first-world problem, but not having a functioning washer and dryer in an 8-person household is stressful for even a few hours, letalone days. We may be searching for a new-to-us dryer, but not until Phillip will take apart the washing machine to see if he can keep it running for just a little longer. 

—6—

We have to do something about the mosquito situation in our backyard. Honestly it doesn't really bother me: I figure if I'm going outside into their home, the onus is on me to just wear bug spray, but Phillip says it drives him crazy and he'd like to figure out how to keep them away from the deck so we can enjoy being out there. 

I've seen candles, torches, chemical sprays, and so on, but I remain skeptical. I just had two people recommend a product that they swear by called mosquito dunks, and the reviews on Amazon were overwhelmingly positive, so we are going to give them a try. I'll let you know what I think in 2-4 weeks when they reach effectiveness.

Here's a related conversation between me and my 11-year-old son from this week:

11-year-old: Why can’t all the bugs and spiders just go extinct?!

Me: Well, the spiders eat the bugs so they’re actually good!

11-year-old: [looking at me and flatly] If all the bugs are extinct, there’s no need for the spiders.

Good point, I guess.

—7—

You know the "wet floor" sign you see in the store sometimes? Well, I spotted one this week in our hardware store but the illustration really made it look like a lot of fun.

Just like a waterslide! Weeeeee!

I think it's the jazz hands. Slipping and falling looks like such a great time and not at all something that will land you in the hospital.

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