7 Quick Takes about Breaking and Entering, Wasting Electricity, and When a 7-Year-Old Estimates Life Expectancy

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

—1—

In an unlikely sequence of events, Phillip and I accidentally locked the keys in the car. Both sets of keys, actually, which was the unlikely part. At least it was parked in our garage at home where it was just an inconvenience and not in a parking lot somewhere where it would've been an emergency.

Phillip successfully slid in a coat hanger to unlock the door (which is definitely not as easy as YouTube makes it look), but it didn't work. We were literally standing outside the window watching the coat hanger depress the unlock button, and it didn't work. 

We didn't know what else to do, so we called a locksmith to get the car unlocked. It was easily one of the least fun ways to spend $100. 

—2—

The locksmith came earlier in the morning than I expected, when I was still dropping off my teenagers and our foreign exchange student at school. But since the garage door was open and we'd already told him what we wanted him to do, he got right to work. 

So when I came home, there was a stranger in my garage breaking into my car. An open bag of tools was beside him and had pried open the driver's side door just enough to jam a Slim Jim inside. And I just waved to him and said "Good morning!" Life is weird.

—3—

Over the weekend, my 15-year-old went to a Halloween party. It was a costume party, and he was going as Dr. Nefario from Despicable Me. 

He arranged to meet a friend at the CVS between our houses, and his friend's parents would drive them both to the party. But because we were down one car (see Take #1) and another family member had to be somewhere else at the same time, we dropped him off a little early to wait... while wearing his lab coat, rubber boots and gloves, and steampunk goggles.

On the way there I'd been joking about the funny looks he'd get while he stood there dressed as a mad scientist, but I was wrong. Leaning against the wall of CVS in his white lab coat, he looked just like a pharmacist on his smoke break and no one gave him a second glance at all.

—4—

The kids and I went on a nature walk, where I took an artsy-looking photo. If this were in a gallery, I would call it The Teenager in Nature:

Please note how his eyeballs are glued to the cell phone in his hands.

To my credit, my 15-year-old says he was looking at the panoramic photo he just took of the scenery. But still.

—5—

We have a foreign exchange student from Spain staying with us for a total of two weeks. When I first told Paula I was learning Spanish, she immediately asked "What have you learned? Like, what can you say?" 

Of course my mind went absolutely blank and the only thing I could say was "I speak a little Spanish." I don't think she was very impressed. But since then we've had a few more Spanish conversations (only a few, because that's not really why she's here) and her initial opinion has improved. 

In fact, I overheard my 17-year-old commenting on the differences between Paula's Spanish and mine, and Paula told her "Yeah, that's because your mom has a Latin-American accent" which is exactly what I was going for so YES.

—6—

 

It's been a week with Paula at our house, and now that everyone (including her) is comfortable and no longer on their bestest behavior, it's both a good thing and a bad thing. But overall, it's fun and we're enjoying doing life together. 

At family dinner one night, we were asking Paula about the differences between life here and life in Spain, and the first thing she said was "Here, you leave all the lights on... like, is it free?"

You should have seen the piercing looks Phillip and I shot the kids. And how the kids avoided making eye contact with us at all costs.

—7—

 

At a recent lasagna potluck function at the school, my 7-year-old ate a ton. He has been growing so much lately that sometimes I swear he's visibly taller from one week to the next.

"You've been growing a lot. Are you going to be taller than Daddy?" I asked him.

He considered it for a moment before answering "He'll probably be dead by then" and shoveling another forkful of lasagna into his mouth.

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7 Quick Takes about Making Strides on the Basement, Feng Shui, and Things a 2nd Grader Likes about Spiders

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

—1—

We are making SO MUCH PROGRESS on our basement! Phillip took the week off to install doors and flooring, and I have been painting all week. (Seriously, I've gone through 5 gallons of paint since last Friday and my arm hurts.)

We still have to paint and install trim, paint the utility doors, and stain, cut, and attach nice stair treads, but even without that our basement is still the prettiest room in the whole house. 

The walls are a light color, almost white, so they're going to require a lot of maintenance (unless you like looking at grubby handprints and boogers, which I just cleaned off of the upstairs walls for the arrival of our foreign exchange student), but it's a basement so we didn't want to go very dark at all. Hopefully it will be fine.

—2—

We reached this point on the basement just in time, because my 11-year-old volunteered to have her entire youth group over to our house tonight for a movie night. 

Up until today, our movie-watching setup has been crammed in the scary unfinished storage area, which isn't at all the kind of place you can invite other people into. But this week has been so productive that event though the room isn't technically finished we can at least move the couch and TV over today. 

My contingency plan was to pretend like inviting everyone into our scary dungeon was a spooky Halloween thing, but I'm really glad I don't have to. 

—3—

Phillip and I had different opinions about where to put the couch and TV in the finished portion of the basement. But then I stopped and asked out loud, "What would Cliff say?" which is a sign that I've been watching way too many Dear Modern shorts on YouTube.

Cliff Tan of Dear Modern is like "ADHD meets feng shui" and I love it. By watching his videos I've learned a few basic feng shui principles and figured out why I love our living room layout, why I hate my computer desk setup, and how to switch up my husband's work-at-home area to be more functional. Right now I'm also reading Cliff's book{affiliate link} Feng Shui Modern.

As I was explaining the basement furniture arrangment plan to my 15-year-old son, including why we were placing the furniture in those specific places, he looked at me and said "Is this because of your schwong chi thing?" 

Yes, I'm basically a schwong chi master now.

—4—

At school, my 7-year-old read a nonfiction article about spiders and then had to write a summary of what he'd learned. This was what he brought home.

His point #2 made me laugh, but I laughed even harder at his teacher's reaction. What a gem of a woman that she didn't ignore him or tell him it was inappropriate, she just acknowledged what he thought was a pretty cool fact about spiders in a humorous way.

This reminds me of one time when my older son brought home some of his corrected homework and his teacher wrote in the margins, "Please save your drawings of cheese for papers that aren't schoolwork." (Take #5 here.)

Teachers, we will smile about some of the things you write on our kids' papers forever.

—5—

Our foreign exchange student arrived from Spain a few nights ago! Paula is the sweetest. She and my 17-year-old daughter get along well, which is good because she shadows my daughter at school all day and then comes home with her and hangs out with her and eats dinner with her and shares a bedroom with her.

Paula comes from a small family that is certainly a lot quieter and more under control than ours, but so far she doesn't seem too horrified by the chaos.

Then again, my kids are still using their "we have company" behavior and are probably going to start being themselves in a few days so I'll report back on that next week.

—6—

We plan to spend the next few weeks taking Paula out to see some of the sights and experience American things like the homecoming football game and dance, going apple picking and making an apple pie, carving pumpkins, and going trick-or-treating (they have Halloween in Spain but it's not as big of a deal.)

Something else we've been doing is playing our favorite games at home, but changing the languages. She and my 17-year-old competed at {affiliate link} Bananagrams, my daughter making words in English and Paula making words in Spanish.

Last night we all played a group smartphone game called Spaceteam that is mostly yelling instructions at each other, but it was so much harder because we played it in Spanish. Even though most of the words were made-up gibberish, it was Spanish-sounding gibberish and Paula was laughing at our pronunciation.

—7—

The 9-year-old has been trying out big words he hears adults say. One morning I asked him, "What do you want for breakfast?"

After some thought he answered, "Presumably, toast."

"Presumably?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "Pre-ZOOM-ably. So do it quick."

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7 Quick Takes about Babies Who Look Like Founding Fathers, Not Knowing What's Going On, and Joking about Milkshakes

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

—1—

My 17-year-old needed to find a baby picture for something, so we were looking through ones from that time period. 

I thought she was a beautiful baby, but as we scrolled through the photo library my 17-year-old commented "I look like Benjamin Franklin!" so I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

After a little while, the 11-year-old wandered over to see the pictures too and said "Wow, Mommy, you look different!" There was a pause before she added thoughtfully, "I guess you had a lot more time to put on makeup then."

—2—

Sometimes I check in with my neighborhood Facebook group, which is about 30% useful information and 70% people getting their feathers ruffled over nothing. It's a weird place but I'm told that's pretty standard for neighborhood Facebook groups.

Recently, one mom asked what she should pay her older child for babysitting her youngest child for an evening. It was a pretty long post and it was clear that she'd spend a lot of time thinking about this.

It made my day that most of the replies just said "Room and board."

—3—

I'd arranged to start carpooling with another family to soccer practice, but there were a miscommunication and I didn't realize we were starting this week. So when the other mom showed up in the driveway on Wednesday to pick up my daughter, it was a total surprise and she wasn't ready at all. Apparently some people don't like breaking the speed limit to make it there 5 minutes after practice starts like we do and just, you know, leave earlier.

I started flinging her soccer gear out of the hall closet like a dog digging up a bone, yelled to my daughter to get ready as fast as humanly possible, and somehow got her out the door.

The car drove away and I sat down at the table, feeling flustered, and just put my head down on it. My 7-year-old looked up from his drawing and asked me what was wrong.

"I just don't feel like I know what's going on," I moaned.

"That's okay," he said, "Neither do I."

Then he went back to drawing and actually, it did make me feel a little better.

—4—

The kids had no school on Monday for Columbus Day, so we took a hike. We stopped here by the lake for the kids to throw in rocks and sticks, and dare each other to climb out the farthest on the fallen tree over the water.

At one point, my 9-year-old son said, "I'm gonna go add to the lake!" and excused himself to go pee in it.

My two daughters exchanged glances and one said to the other, "Boys are gross."

They forgot their 7-year-old brother was behind them, until he piped in with "Yeah."

—5—

A few weeks ago, a friend agreed to come teach the church youth group I lead how to cross stitch. There were enough extra supplies that I joined in, and it was a tough night for me. 

The lighting was bad and apparently my close-up vision is too, because I could barely see all the little squares in the Aida cloth where I was supposed to be sticking my needle and all my stitches were uneven.

I recently brought my pathetic-looking cross stitch over to my friend's house, and she lent me a hands-free magnifier that she wears when she does really small and intricate needlework. I tried using that and there was a night-and-day difference.

This is the top of a strawberry.

I might actually enjoy finishing this cross stitch now that I can, you know, see.

—6—

Phillip and I went to the temple with our three oldest kids to do proxy baptisms (click here if you want to know more about what that means). The older two had given up other activities for the trip and we'd had such a nice time that on the way home I said, "Do you guys want to stop and get milkshakes?"

There was dead silence in the car for a few minutes, and then the 11-year-old asked Phillip, "Dad... is Mom joking?"

"No," he laughed, "why would she be joking?"

"Well, it's just really unusual..."

"What would be more unusual, though: Mom offering you guys shakes or making a mean joke?"

It's true though, we never buy impulse food like that. If we're out on a day trip and dying of thirst I won't even stop at a concession stand for a bottled water. Not when we can drink water at home for free.

—7—

The other day, Phillip was working from home and I heard him making small talk with a coworker on a call, telling him that next week he'd be taking some vacation time to finish the basement. Even his coworker was like "Still? How is it possible that you haven't finished your basement yet?"

Phillip laughed and agreed "I know, I've lived here for 12 years!"

It took everything I had not to scream "THIRTEEN!!" from the other room. 

Of course, before he can start installing the floor next week, I've got to paint the walls and I've been procrastinating that for a while because I hate taping along the ceiling, so I guess I shouldn't talk.

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7 Quick Takes about the Flu, When It's Time to Get Reading Glasses, and Attempting to Get on a Bird's Good Side

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

—1—

This was a fairly unexciting week to talk about, because I spent two days of it (which felt like 100 years) in bed with the worst flu, and a few more days after that feeling tired and doing the bare minimum.

At general conference this weekend, the prophet wasn't able to be there due to his health, but he did give a pre-recorded talk where he mentioned that his excruciating back pain has given him occasion to reflect on the Savior's Atonement... I guess I am just not there yet because I did nothing of the sort. I just laid there moaning while the kids destroyed the house and Phillip did literally everything around here.

—2—

The whole family passed the flu around, but no one got it like I did. Phillip and the kids all stayed home for a day or two, and the 7-year-old suffered from a few more days of "gick in the throat" as he called it, but we're all pretty much better now.

—3—

My 11-year-old is going to a pumpkin carving activity and as she was perusing the pumpkins at the store she laid eyes on this unique gourd and that was it, this is the gourd she wanted. End of story.  

It wasn't until after we got home that I realized I have no idea how she's going to carve that thing without it looking like she's disemboweling a goose, but I guess that's not my problem to worry about.

—4—

General conference, the twice a year broadcast from the leaders of my church, was good as always. The kids looked forward to General Conference Snacks, of course, even my daughter at college who I mailed some to earlier this week.

When the leader pictured gives a talk, the kids get to eat that leader's snack.

During the five sessions of general conference, there were a lot of insights I appreciated, but likely one of my favorite talks was called "Abide the Day in Christ" by Amy A. Wright. Her full talk is here and I totally recommend watching or reading it, but here is a little bit of it:

As we drove home in silence, processing the news, my heart turned to our three sons. In my mind I asked Heavenly Father, "Am I going to die?" The Holy Ghost whispered, "Everything is going to be okay." Then I asked, "Am I going to live?" Again, the answer came, "Everything is going to be okay."

Some great thoughts follow in her talk, but it made me think of a friend of mine who often makes comments like "I wish I could have that kind of assurance" when we talk about faith. It makes me a little sad sometimes, because there's no reason she can't. There are so many ways and places to deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ, the best of which I sincerely believe is through the teachings and ordinances available in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

So my invitation to her (and to you, if you feel the same way sometimes) is to visit my church on Sunday, or have missionaries from my church come to visit you, or just get on your knees and ask God to help you figure out what the next step is and then do it, no matter what it is. A strong relationship with Jesus doesn't happen without effort on your part, but the work is so worth it.

—5—

I've made it to 41 years of age without needing glasses or contacts (even though three of my kids have them already!) and up until pretty recently it's been fine. 

But when the church youth group I lead learned how to cross stitch, I was surprised to find that I could barely thread the needle to save my life. It was also fairly hard to see the little squares very well, so my stitches look like they were done by either a preschooler or a gorilla.

In related news, my phone's photo gallery is full of screenshots of emails from my 9-year-old's soccer coach, because a weird formatting thing makes the print super-tiny and I can only read them by taking screenshots and zooming in on those.

It's not yet to the point where I'm ready for prescription glasses, but I did cave and buy a pair of readers at the dollar store. 

Feel free to ignore the giant cold sore on my lip, it happens every time I get sick.

 

—6—

Week Two of living with our new pet parakeet, and seeing as I Googled "what to do when your budgie hates you" yesterday, it's obviously going really well.

I think sometimes she gets stressed out by our noise, and other times I think the kids are just so eager they invade her space before she's comfortable with them coming so close. I've told them to chill out and give the bird more of a personal bubble until she decides she's okay with us, and they're seeming to respect that. 

The 11-year-old (the primary owner and caretaker of the bird) is currently sitting by the cage and reading to Miss Birdo once a day, and giving her treats in the cage but holding them just far away enough so she has to step on her finger to reach it. The Internet says even that can take weeks, so she's in this for the long haul.

—7—

It's starting to be fall color season! Strangely enough it's also been 80° out lately, but there was a cold week last week that must have triggered all the trees to get going.

This is 5 minutes from my house. I love living in New England.

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