The Saturday 7

1. We had a stretch of nice weather this week that had us going to three parks in three days.

Taking the kids to the park is not my favorite thing, so I had to brag to my sisters via snapchat about the extra mom-points I was getting.

On Monday, these two goofballs begged me to walk them down to the vacant parking lot at the end of the street so they could see how high they could bounce a golf ball. Haha.

2. I got sucked into more genealogy research this week. It's really a never-ending pursuit. There's always another family line to explore. Earlier this week, I went back as far as I could through my dad's mom's side. There were lots of Caspers/Kaspers and Berends. For many generations it went: Casper, the father of Berend, the father of Kasper, the father of Berendt, the father of Casper. It's so confusing. Haha. I discovered that that side of the family is German, though. I always thought we were straight up Dutch. Actually, my great great great grandpa (Kasper) was born in Germany, but his wife was born in the Netherlands. They immigrated the same year, but didn't get married in Michigan until two years later. I spent forever trying to figure out if they met on the boat or if it's just a coincidence that they immigrated the same year. I never did figure it out, so it remains a mystery.

The past few days, I've been researching my mom's dad's side. It has led to some juicy discoveries. Check out these two:

That's my great-great aunt Bess on her wedding day in 1909. They look thrilled don't they? Lol. Actually, she was 16 (he was 21), and she was 2 months pregnant on her wedding day (unless the baby that was born 7 months later came quite early). In the 80s, someone wrote down her life story, and it was fascinating to read about how she followed her husband to the oil fields of Oklahoma, how their first house burned down and they lived in a tent for a summer, how her son was declared MIA in WWII when his plane took off from Marrakesh but never landed in England. During the depression, her husband took a job in Bolivia and was killed in an accident two months before his 5 year term was up! Crazy stuff.

Her sister Eva was also pregnant when she got married at 17. But according to census records, two years after the wedding, Eva and her husband were each living at their parents' homes. However, they did have another son together a few years later. Unfortunately, her husband had a daughter with a different woman that same year. And then the baby died. They eventually divorced and Eva went on to marry William. William had just divorced his first wife Audrey, on grounds of "cruelty and desertion." I read up on Audrey and discovered that she married again. But her second husband divorced her on grounds of "insanity." Lol. I told you this stuff was juicy!

3. I finished my second college class this week. Sadly, I did not maintain my 100%, since I got a couple of the exam questions wrong. It's frustrating because I feel that I have a good grasp of the material, but the test wording always throws me off. Look at this question for example:

I knew the first three were right, so I clicked "all of the above." I realize that "item one only" is wrong, but I figured that was a separate answer, outside of "all the above." As the answer key above shows, my answer was wrong (in red), and I should've clicked each of the first three individually. I sent a snapchat of the above picture to my sisters and complained about how I unfairly got this one wrong. But I told them, "It's not a big deal. It's not going to hurt my grade. I won't be a Karen and whine about it to the professor."

In 9th grade, my P.E. shoes got stolen at school. I didn't have a backup pair and shoe shopping wasn't high on my mom's list of priorities back then, so I went without for a few classes. I got marked down for "improper dress code" and that dragged my P.E. grade down to a B+. I got all As in every other class of my high school career, so that one stupid B+ ruined my 4.0 GPA. (That whole story reveals so much about me doesn't it? 😂😂😂)

Anyway, the next day, I got an email that my exam score had been changed. Sure enough, she gave me credit for this one. So apparently I wasn't the only one who felt slighted . . . and someone else had less compunction about coming across as a Karen. Lol.

This is my final grade for the class. I guess I'll take it. 😁

4. Yesterday was our school's big fundraiser: Feed the Need. It's actually a really cool program. We raise money for our school, but it also goes toward providing meals for children in Haiti. And then the kids get to pack the meals themselves to make it really hands on. Our tiny school packed 20,000 meals for Haiti in one day!

Can you tell this is Lucy when her hair is up in a hairnet??

Lena scooping dehydrated vegetables. (The yellow stuff is vitamin powder that looks a lot like baby formula.)

It was optional for the pre-K kids since the packing party was on one of their non-school days, and I opted to send Levi to my parents' while I helped out. He has a hard time keeping his hands out of his mouth (and his pants 🤦🙄), so I decided his presence would not be the most sanitary.

5. Despite the nice weather and my busy week, I've been struggling through some depression lately. It's the worst kind because there's no logical reason for it. I'm just so lethargic and irritable all the time. I think I fell asleep on the couch every afternoon around 4 this week. You can imagine how motivated I am to get up and make dinner after that. (Spoiler alert: not very motivated.) I feel like I'm wasting my life playing Words with Friends and Wheel of Fortune on my phone, snapping at my kids over everything, and eating my feelings with a vengeance. I've been staying up way too late, then crashing the next afternoon. It's a stupid, vicious cycle that I feel helpless to climb out of. Depression 101. I should at least be in the 200 level by now. How have I not figured out how to manage this by now??

6. Today we had a family get-together while my cousin from Oregon was in town. She and her family lived here until I was like 10/11, so it was fun to reminisce about the good ole days. We spent pretty much every holiday together growing up. The parents played cards and talked, while us kids ran wild around whoever's house we were at. There were games of Kick the Can, Eenie-Einie-Over, swimming, boy talk, sneaking out of the house (my sister, not me - I'll let you decide which sister), and getting yelled at by our parents for getting into trouble together. While we sat around reminiscing tonight, our kids were all running around Niki's house, playing together, getting in trouble together, laughing, and being wild. I had a moment of "Whoa. I'm part of the adults group now. How did this happen?" #circleoflife