7 Quick Takes about Handling Laundry Like a Guy, Bunk Beds, and How to Get Out of Your Driveway

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

—1—

When you have boys, sometimes you walk by and see a pair of pants clamped to a dining room chair and you never quite know why:

Turns out that my 16-year-old's pants shrunk a little in the dryer and he was stretching them out. His method got the job done just fine, I'm just amused that he used woodworking tools to solve a laundry dilemma.

—2—

The big news around here is that the 8- and 10-year-old got bunk beds. Their oldest sisters had been using them separately as twin beds, but they're in college now and the boys' room was getting awfully crowded. It was time to officially hand them over to the 8- and 10-year-olds.

A few days later, a friend casually mentioned that her daughter had broken her elbow falling out of the top bunk trying to reach over to shut the door and I kid you not, that very same night I watched my 8-year-old doing the same thing. Except it was the light switch he was trying to reach. 

It's amazing that anyone survives childhood. 

—3—

My 20-year-old's raging ADHD sometimes causes her to incur late payment fees, miss deadlines, and so on. Sometimes she gets down on herself about it and we tell her, "Don't beat yourself up about it, just pay the ADHD tax and move on."

When I was cleaning up and doing some organizing after moving the bunk beds out of the 20-year-old's old room, guess what I found? Over $1,000 worth of uncashed paychecks from her part-time job in high school.

I texted her right away, and she said she would ask them to reissue the checks because of course they were expired.

"So is this the opposite of the ADHD tax?" I asked her.

"Yes, the random $1k ADHD bonus," she texted back.

(That one doesn't happen nearly as often.)

—4—

My daughter's experience gift for Christmas was a month of Disney+ Premium to watch all the Marvel movies and shows with her siblings, and she's been using it to the fullest. I've never seen her so motivated.

I continue to work at my Christmas gift, but with less enthusiasm. I'm trying to figure out how to use my new phone and it's kicking my butt. Instead of swiping up to see the menu, I have to swipe down. The volume and power buttons are on reverse sides, so I turn it off every time I try to turn it up. I'm too old for changes of this magnitude.

—5—

Our car got stuck in the driveway this week when we got a substantial snowfall. That actually happens a lot, so we keep a bucket full of salt sand in the garage for that exact reason.

Too bad no one had noticed that it was running low, though, because we opened it up and there was next to nothing inside. So Phillip improvised and used what we had on hand, which was potting soil. 

I can tell you from experience now that Miracle-Gro not only gives you healthy houseplants with a more colorful bloom, it's also good for traction in the winter!

—6—

Later that day, I took the 16-year-old out to practice driving in the snow. But by the time we went out, the city's taxpayer dollars had been put to work and the roads were completely clear. 

We drove around, hoping to find an icy parking lot, but no luck. On the way home, I recommended that we take a dirt road, since they're usually at least a little slick and maybe my son could get a feel for what it's like to slide a little and what to do when it happens. He understood the assignment and skidded right off the road when we went around a curve. 

Luckily, he got the car under control very quickly (great instincts, I was very proud of him) and then he got out and dug out the snow around the wheels so we could get back on the road and drive home! But more slowly this time.

—7—

It's been really, really cold here lately. My 10-year-old hates wearing a coat but I told him that he needs to wear one to the bus stop this week, or I will get arrested.

I still saw him sneakily opening the door and sticking out his arm to check the temperature to see if he could get away with it.

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7 Quick Takes about Reading with Pandas, Losing a Family Friend, and 1950s Budgeting Tips for Married Men

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

—1—

Phillip returned from two back-to-back work trips and I'm glad to have him home. Some nights required advanced logistical wizardry to get all 4 kids to work, school, and their activities (and back home afterward!) with only one licensed driver in the house. 

One of his trips was to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a trade show where entrepreneurs are showing off their newest products and technologies. He always sees cool stuff and brought home some cute metal bookmarks from one of the booths:

Put the temple in your book and the panda on a chain hangs out to mark your page.

I admired the cute little panda on the end and then paused. "Wait a minute. Does that panda have... a butthole?"

Yes. Yes, it does.

"The world is full of mysteries, Jenny," Phillip answered sagely.

—2—

The kids were outside playing in the snow on Saturday, and when they came in they asked for hot chocolate.

"Eehhhhmmm... not this time," I answered. "We're already having dessert tonight, and since it's not super-cold outside you guys probably aren't freezing enough to justify the extra sugar."

My 13-year-old said she knew I was going to say that, and confessed that when she was younger, she used to dunk her face in the snow before coming in to increase her odds of getting hot chocolate. Apparently it's not worth it anymore, but I admire the commitment. That's like an actor gaining 40 lbs or learning to play the cello for a movie role. Except with ice on your face.

—3—

This has felt like a long week, not only because Phillip was out of town but because my elderly friend Bev passed away unexpectedly. On Tuesday I got a call from her neighbor, who knows I'm over there often helping Bev with things around the house and wanted me to know. 

It wasn't completely out of the blue because Bev was 82 years old with a heart condition, but it was a shock anyway. She'd been slowing down a little, but last Thursday when I helped her do her shopping there was no indication that I wouldn't be seeing her again. 

—4—

We first met Bev four years ago, when we volunteered through the Rotary Community Corps to shovel an elderly couple's driveway for the winter. I only met her husband a few times before he went to live in a nursing home, and as I'm writing this I'm realizing that maybe God arranged us to meet Bev at that exact time so she didn't feel all alone when he left. 

She lived far away from her kids and as she came to depend on us, and I started to think of her as my friend. She was fun to talk to. We raked her yard in the fall, mowed her lawn in the summer, and helped her fix things around the house. She called us for help putting on her new mattress pad or getting rid of her old TV. Sometimes, she'd call me just to chat. After she had a bad fall at CVS, she'd ask me to come with her to do errands once a month and then take me out to lunch afterward. She never needed to repay us, but the kids knew that whenever they saw juice or popsicles in the fridge, it was Bev's way of saying thank you. Sometimes she wanted to pay us and we'd try to say no, but she'd shove the money in our hands and say "Take the kids to McDonald's, then! I don't care!"

Bev was stubborn and loved animals and was as sharp as a tack (I only wish I could pull a witty comeback out of thin air like she could). She was my friend and a wonderful force in our lives. She gave my kids constant opportunities for doing meaningful service for others and helped them feel good about themselves when they did. I don't know if they'll ever fully understand what a formative experience that was for them. I'll miss that, and I'll miss her.

—5—

After school, I pick up my daughter at the middle school first and then we go to pick up her brother at the high school. 

There are two possible places for pickup and I used to text him which place we're at each day, but now I ask my daughter to do it and she's starting to get creative.

Here was from another another day:

—6—

The other day my 5th grader asked me for help with his math homework. For those of you who are still new parents, I want you to know that for average people without a math background (i.e: you don't use math beyond balancing your checkbook and figuring out the cost of items with a "30% off" sticker), the age at which you can no longer help your kids with math homework is 4th grade. 

I'm sorry, it sounds wrong but it's true.

So I groaned inwardly as I went to go help him, thinking that this was not going to go well. But happy day, I was able to understand and help him solve the problem! I felt pretty good about that.

Later that day I also gave my teenager a tip on pouring liquid into a Thermos without spilling it, and I thought, "Look at me: helping my 5th grader with math and my 16-year-old with soup. Yep, I'm brilliant."

—7—

The other day I mentioned to Phillip, "Isn't that funny how housewives in the '50s used to stash away a little money, so they could spend it without having to explain it to their husbands?" 

I just couldn't imagine doing something like that now, not being able to make purchases without the express permission of my husband. I was not, however, prepared for his answer:

"Yeah, it's the other way around now," he said. "If I get change in cash for something, I'm like 'I can get whatever I want and Jenny will never know!'" 

I guess that's fair. I do scold him when I see on the credit card statement that he bought lunch at work instead of bringing it from home.

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7 Quick Takes about Ways Not to Serve Soup, a War Zone but with Gingerbread, and Making Peace with My Large Print and Reading Glasses

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

—1—

Phillip was on a work trip until last night, and I never seem to make good decisions regarding bedtime when he's out of town. I've been so tired I've been doing the dumbest things.

The other morning I meant to pack two Thermoses of soup in my boys' lunch boxes, and I don't even know how I did it but I somehow dumped my 10-year-old's soup in the sink and sent him to school with a Thermos full of water. 

—2—

We made the most of our weekend before the 20- and 18-year-old went back to college, including making gingerbread men cookies.

The cookies turned out a little crumbly, though, so when they came out of the oven the cookie cooling rack looked like an army field hospital.

But the girls worked with it.

Arr, matey.

—2—

For Christmas a few weeks ago, Phillip got me a new phone. Before, I used to complain constantly because my previous phone was a big phablet, with a heavy battery and a screen so huge it was inconvenient to even try to use with one hand because my thumb wasn't long enough to reach across the gigantor screen. So Phillip looked high and low until he found me a small one.

And you guys, I was in for a rude surprise. My eyesight has gotten worse in the last five years, and I actually needed that big old phone to read. However, I didn't want to accept it so I kept pretending it was fine squinting at the teeny-tiny little screen and not really being able to read more than a paragraph at a time without getting a headache.

But I came around after a few days. The tipping point was when I was chatting with an older guy at church and he pulled out his phone to look up something we were discussing, and I felt legitimate jealousy over his device's text magnification settings.

The next morning, I woke up, sent the kids to school, and figured out how to unlock geriatric mode on my phone, too. And it is so much better.

—3—

On Saturday, my 8-year-old competed in his first gymnastics meet. My daughter, husband, and I were there cheering him on. His team took first place and my son scored second on pommel horse and fifth all-around (full disclosure, there were only 15 boys in his division so they probably should've stopped giving awards at third place). I made everyone personally admire the cleanliness of the bleachers, because I'd come the day before and spent an hour and a half vacuuming chalk dust off of every inch of them in exchange for credit on next year's meet fees.

The rest of my son's team had already finished their first meet of the season, but unfortunately it had been a few weeks earlier on a Sunday, and my son doesn't compete on Sunday because that's our Sabbath. (See Chariots of Fire or here if you're confused.) I had actually been sitting in church when my phone started vibrating, the gym parents' group text filling up with smiling pictures of the boys' team posing together before their first meet... without my son. I felt a pang of sadness, but only until I looked down the pew at my son sitting between his dad and sister in his white shirt and tie, singing from the hymnbook in his lap. My job as a mom is to help him be in the places that will be best for his life in the long run, and I couldn't think of a better one right now.

—4—

My oldest two children's flight back to college meant driving right during rush hour going downtown, but there was a surprise I didn't know about: recently they started allowing people to drive in the breakdown lane of the freeway during rush hour to ease traffic congestion.

Do you know how fun it is to cross over that solid white line, and then just continuing to ignore all the other lines for the on-ramps and off-ramps as you nonchalantly off-road it to the airport at 70 MPH? It was like the Wild West out there.

—5—

Later that same day Phillip left on work trip, only he didn't get to drive on the shoulder because rush hour was over. Too bad.

He went to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Usually he comes home excited about all the cool things he's seen, but this time he didn't have a very positive experience. 

On his first night there, someone walked into his room at midnight (apparently the other guy was just as startled to see him, because the front desk had given this guy a key and told him that it was his room!) so it got off to a weird start, at least.

—6—

We've had our pet parakeet Pringles for almost two years now, and slowly but surely she's actually growing to like us. That's impressive if you knew how much she actively hated us all for her first year here. 

The other day Pringles was having some free time outside of her cage, and with no prompting she came over, hopped onto my shoulder, and then started walking all around checking out my neck and hair. 

I took a picture, but laughed when I saw that my camera's flash effect made it look like the poster for a horror movie.

The Birds 2.

But as much as Pringles likes to land on our shoulders and generally be with us, she still hates human hands, including ours. She will try to peck your finger off if you put it out for her to perch on. Instead you have to offer her your forearm, and then she'll get on it and you can carry her around like the world's lamest falconer. 

—7—

I'm starting to see a light waaaaaayyyy off in the distance at the end the tunnel when it comes to Spanish. That shouldn't surprise me since I've been learning for four years, but it's always felt so overwhelming that I seriously doubted I'd ever feel that way. 

Recently I picked up Spanish copies of a few YA books that I'd read years ago, and the difference was amazing. The first time, each page had taken half an hour to decode because I had to stop and look up so many words and grammatical structures. Now there are only a few things per page that I don't understand, and I can mostly work those out from context.

In the children's room at our public library, there's a sign telling kids about the "five finger rule." If they open up a book and there are more than 5 words on the page that they don't understand, the book is too hard. Do you understand what I'm saying? The books that I once barely slogged through are now passing the five-finger test for me. I AM LEARNING SOMETHING.

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7 Quick Takes about Gingerbread, Why Last-Minute Invitations to Introverts Don't Work, and Doomed Planning Sessions

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

—1—

Last week I promised pictures of the gingerbread houses we made. They're actually graham cracker houses but I think they still count. 

The 8-year-old was all business. Before he started, he drew up a little blueprint in a notebook, but he soon realized that what he really wanted to focus on was the candy and his design emphasis shifted dramatically at that point.

The 16-year-old decided to build a replica of Stark Tower from The Avengers. If it wasn't obvious, he's currently working through as many of the Marvel movies with his sisters as they can get in before the older ones go back to college.

The gummy bears lined up in Avengers colors are what sells it for me.

The 10-year-old created a jail. Some nice touches that I appreciated: the peppermint support pillar and the Santa Claus gummy bear with a sack full of toys coming out of the chimney.

Felons deserve a merry Christmas, too.

The 20-year-old made a creepy abandoned castle. It looked a little less creepy after the addition of the colorful candy.

Here's the 13-year-old's vision come to life. I loved the use of frosting to delineate the floors of the house and also the sawed-off ice cream cone "wishing well" in the yard (it's full of blue Mike and Ikes.)

The 18-year-old made this post-apocalyptic lighthouse. I love the vines.

Appropriately enough, she says that this lighthouse was inspired by a book she read called Annihilation. 

Because that's what we plan to do, whack them into tiny pieces with a meat mallet to ring in the new year. We usually do it on New Year's Day but we're having trouble finding a time when we're all home simultaneously, so it will probably have to wait until this Sunday.

—2—

We've actually spent a lot of family time together, but most of it has been out of the house as we tried to cram all 6 of our Christmas experience gifts into one week.

The first thing we did was visit a planetarium, and explored the science and art museums connected to it.  I visited this museum one other time, when the youngest hadn't been born yet and the other five kids were 12 and under. By the time we got halfway through the art museum, all the kids except the oldest were literally rolling around on the floor crying of boredom, and their grandpa took them outside to run around while the 12-year-old and I finished looking around.

Ironically, this visit went about the same. I'm not sure, but we may have even been at the exact same spot in the art museum when everyone got whiny, bored, and started begging to go home... everyone except for me and my oldest daughter, who's now 20.

—3—

Our neighbors threw an impromptu New Year's Eve party and texted us an invitation while we were eating dinner. I read it out loud, looked at the seven introverted grimaces around the table, and wrote back "Sorry, we're super-lame and are going to stay in tonight."

(As a general rule, introverts require 3-4 business days to mentally prepare for attending social events, but we appreciated the invitation.)

We were also really tired. We counted down to 8:30 and had sparkling cider, and the teenagers stayed up doing who knows what while Phillip and I put the little kids down and went to bed at 10:30.

—4—

On New Year's Day, we spent the morning at an indoor rock climbing place. It was great for everyone, but if I'm honest, the person I was most proud of was me. 

On my first attempt I got stuck about 4 feet off the ground, too scared to keep going up (I was afraid of falling, even though I was wearing a harness) and too scared to jump backward and let the harness lower me down (because what if it didn't work??)

But I kept trying, and by the end I'd made it about three-quarters of the way up three different rock faces. It was actually — and I can't believe I'm saying this — kind of fun.

I couldn't do the "bouldering" area, though. That's what they called the free climbing area: no ropes or harnesses used. My elementary schoolers were scrambling all over it, demonstrating how to tuck and roll when you fell off saying, "See, Mom? You just flop down like this and it's no big deal!" 

Okay, but I'm 42 and I know lots of people my age who've "just flopped down" from falls a lot lower than that and shattered ankles or wrists, so it felt like a higher-stakes situation for me than them.

 

—5—

As another experience gift, my girls made their own candles at a candlemaking bar. When they came in, they were handed clipboards and directed to a giant wall of scents, and instructed to pick as many as they wanted to combine into their own custom scented candle.

I liked almost all the scents except for baked bread.

They mixed up the scents and wax, poured it in jars, and named their finished product. The 13-year-old mixed 'field of flowers' and 'apple orchard' to make "Spring Orchard." The 20-year-old mixed like 6 different citrus scents and named it "Nothing Rhymes with Orange." And the 18-year-old combined peppermint and sugar cookies and called it "Mariah Carey in a Jar."

—6—

On another day, we took an intro class on making bowls with a pottery wheel, which is a lot harder than YouTube shorts would lead you to believe. The only pottery my girls had ever done before was making clay pinch pots in 5th grade art, and these required significantly more technique.

I can't guarantee that the finished products will become treasured family heirlooms, but it was fun to try once, and my older two daughters enjoyed petting the owner's hugely fat and fluffy cat when it came wandering into the studio at the end of the class.

—7—

Phillip and I went out for brunch and a planning session to outline our family goals for 2025, and it was not very successful. 

We got through the first quarter of the year before we started getting mad at each other over the little quirks that respectively make us difficult people to work with on accomplishing goals, and it was not a great day after that.

However, I'm trying to keep in mind that the last time we sat down in January to plan out our year, it was 2020 and we ended up not completing a single thing in our plan because a worldwide pandemic hit two months later. So it still went better than last time.

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