The Saturday 7

1. Justin finished out his soccer season with a tournament in Ohio this week. He left Tuesday night, and got home yesterday evening. I think they ended up in 2nd place, but two of their three games ended in shoot-outs! I'm glad I wasn't there. I can't handle that level of intensity. Haha. Overall, they had a great season. Justin does get paid a bit for coaching, but honestly between gas money for all the practices/games and the three days he took off of work for the tournament, we'll be lucky to break even. Mostly, he coaches because he loves the game and he loves to invest in the lives of his players - even if he did come upstairs this morning and greet us all with, "What's lit, fam?" Too much time spent with teenage boys! Lol.

2. The kids had fall break on Friday, and Lucy's been begging to have a sleepover, so we decided to take advantage of the day off by inviting 4 twelve and thirteen year old girls over Thursday night! So.much.giggling. I don't know if they were following some sort of "stereotypical sleepover" script, but they did all the typical teenage girl sleepover activities: makeovers, pizza, hair-styling, nails, talking about boys, complaining about siblings, belting out Taylor Swift's "Love Story," watching a sappy movie, and staying up 'til 1:00 a.m. giggling. Not so typically, however, they were all up by 7:00 a.m.! What's the point of having the day off school if you're not going to sleep in? Crazy kids. They're a good group, though, and I'm glad Lucy has them.

3. Of course, days after we planned this sleepover and invited Lucy's friends, Levi got an invitation to a birthday party on the same day. He's been begging to go to a birthday party, but the opportunity has never really arisen until this year. So I knew he'd be devastated if he had to skip it. But I didn't know how I was going to swing it since I had committed to having all Lucy's friends over and Justin was in Ohio. (Serious respect for single moms!) Eventually I asked another mom from his class (who also goes to our church) if Levi could ride along with them, and she generously agreed. She even dropped him off afterward so I didn't have to go pick him up! Levi had a blast and wasn't at all hesitant about going without me. Haha. Not sure how he and Lena are related.

4. Yesterday was a rough day. In the morning, I checked my bank account and noticed a $50 charge to Spartan Family Dentistry. I was perplexed because that's not our dentist office. I checked with Justin to make sure he didn't randomly go to a new dentist and not tell me about it, and when he confirmed that he hadn't, I decided our debit card had been hacked. Apparently someone really needed dental work done?? Here's the craziest part, though. I looked up that dentist office and the first search result was a mile away from my house. But there was one glaring error. The office by my house is Sparta Family Dentistry. The charge to my debit card was for SpartaN Family Dentistry. So I scrolled down through the search results and found a dentist office by that exact name in Oklahoma. When I looked at the charge again, I noticed the letters OK after a bunch of numbers. That didn't originally stand out to me until I connected it to the state of Oklahoma. Whoever got my debit card number knows I live in Sparta and thought I'd be more likely to gloss over the charge. For all they know, that's the dentist office we do visit! Isn't that insane? Unfortunately for them, though, I watch my debit charges like a hawk and noticed the error. I spent the morning on the phone with the bank getting my cards cancelled and replaced and disputing the charge. What a pain. Fortunately we have other credit cards, so Justin wasn't without money in Ohio!

5. Then, later in the day, Levi was playing a game on my phone. I had explicitly told him to keep it plugged in because it was almost dead. So I was annoyed when he brought it to me after an hour and said, "it died and it won't charge." Sure enough, no matter which cord I used or how I jiggled it, it absolutely will not charge. Justin looked at it and noticed the charging port inside the phone is all mangled. Ugghhh. After some discussion, we decided it's time for a new phone, so I spent the evening researching and ordering a new one . . . which won't be here until MONDAY. I am a millennial! I cannot survive without my phone for three days!!! It's honestly been killing me, which is super embarrassing/convicting. I've been carrying my laptop around with me instead because I require constant entertainment. #ihaveaproblem

6. This is something I've been thinking about for a while, and it came to mind again when Lucy had friends over this week . . . I think we're probably one of the poorest families at our kids' school. I don't generally consider us as impoverished (even though I think we technically are in the government's eyes). We have a house. We have running vehicles. We can afford gas and groceries and we still go out to eat sometimes. We even pay tuition for three kids to go to a private school. But compared to the rest of the private school kids, we are el broke-o. Most of these kids parents' own their own businesses or have white collar jobs. Most of them live in very nice houses and drive very nice vehicles. They have cottages and tricked out RVs and go on fancy vacations - well fancy in my mind. Haha. For us, private school tuition is a huge sacrifice. We can't afford any extras as long as we're paying that. And I'm realizing that has to be hard for our kids. The girls are getting to the age that they understand we don't have the money their friends' families do, but Levi can't understand why his friends get to go to Disney World or buy the best toys or get hot lunch every day and we don't. I've been frustrated lately with his constant demands/desires/greed. I don't ever remember worrying about my parents' finances, and I want to give my kids that same assurance, but it's hard to explain to Levi that we can't have the biggest and the best of everything. How do you tell a six year old to be thankful for what he has when everyone around him has better? I guess it's a life lesson he's just going to have to learn! Haha. Hopefully someday he'll appreciate the sacrifices we made for him to be raised by a stay at home mom and given a Christian education. Let it also be said that I'm so thankful for my hard-working husband who makes those privileges a reality! And hopefully inflation won't continue rising at such a rate that they are soon out of our reach!