The Saturday 7

1. Levi came down with some kind of sickness last weekend: fever, body aches, cough that inevitably led to puking. He ended up missing two days of school because the fever lingered and he was so miserable. On Monday, I shuffled him between his Uncle Jesse and my parents. But on Tuesday I didn't have anyone to watch him, so I called in to Once Upon for the first time. The next day, one of my coworkers said, "When I saw your name crossed off the schedule I thought they called you off, and I thought 'that's the worst person to get rid of!'" Aww, they like me! I'm still not sure I'm the best at everything, but I'm trying, and I show up on time and have a good attitude. Really the bar is quite low. Hopefully I won't have to keep calling in because of sick kids, though. That'll lower their opinion of me right quick!

2. Of course Levi missing two days of school meant he had two days' worth of work to catch up on. And I remembered why I don't homeschool. Lol. Our one ill-fated year of homeschooling was when Lucy was in third grade. Levi's in 2nd now and it was like Lucy 2.0. I think I could homeschool Lena in a heartbeat, but Lucy and Levi are too much alike. They're both very smart but neither of them appreciates having to show their work or prove that they know something through writing. 🤦 

3. Because the school library is small (and seems to be getting smaller every year) and I like to expose the kids to new books, I rely on the public library a lot. I order huge stacks of books every week through inter-library loan so I can do themed read-alouds. The way our library system works, if I have books delivered to my location and return them to my location, they are re-shelved there and stay until someone from another location requests them. This week I actually had time to peruse some of the shelves and I was amazed how many of the books on the shelf are ones I ordered! I'm suddenly feeling quite power-hungry! I'm going to stock that library with so many good, conservative, agenda-free books! Lol. 

4. Good news, guys. I finally made a decent meal: chicken gnocchi soup. It was the one I bought that fresh thyme for, but when it came time to add the thyme, I hated the smell and chickened out. Lol. I only put a tiny sprinkling in and couldn't taste it at all, so that was a waste of $2! The recipe doesn't call for any cheese, but when I tasted it I felt like it was missing something (probably thyme), so I added shredded parmesan and that made all the difference. It was delicious and I ate it as leftovers for a couple days afterward! 

5. This week the seasons collided. It was warmer than usual most of the week, so we took advantage of the warm weather on Thursday and made cider with my dad. 

Then on Friday the temps cooled considerably - just in time for our small town's Christmas tree lighting. I don't even watch Hallmark movies, but I love the little Hallmark moment we have every year as we line the street for a parade, then count down as Santa and Mrs. Claus light the huge tree. Last year there was a literal blizzard, which lent itself nicely to the Christmas ambience. But I definitely preferred this year's 40 degree temps. Haha. Unfortunately, so did the rest of the town - and the outlying areas - because there were thousands of people crammed together downtown. We met up with Tristan, Brandy, and Nova for the parade, but as we weaved our way through the crowd afterward we completely lost them. I was mostly focused on keeping track of my own kids! Haha. We wanted to do some of the other activities they had set up - marshmallow roasting, free hot chocolate, etc., but it was so crowded that I just took the kids through a quick tour of "Candy Cane Lane," stopped at the Civic Center for a free cookie, then went back home. 

I once read a series of books set in a small rural town. They had "jam sessions" at the community center every weekend. That's what this band in the Civic Center made me think of.

Running train set, complete with an engineer!

6. So I have a question for y'all. Something I've noticed in my past few years of working with kids is their utter disregard for authority. Even at the Christian school, kids are not afraid of me. They don't respect me. That's partly because I'm a "specials" teacher, they don't get a grade in my class, and I'm not particularly authoritative. But I don't speak only for myself. Teachers of all grades and income levels across the nation have horrendous stories of blatant disrespect and downright abuse that just never would've happened when I was a kid. (Or did it and I was blind to it?) My question is, "What's driving this lack of respect toward adults?" How did we get to this point? And how do I prevent it with my own kids?! 

7. On that light note, here are the week's pics and memes:

Don't mind my messy bedroom. Just admire the cute kitty who sleeps on me like this all the time now.

I was flabbergasted when I got this picture from Amazon. Despite the claim at the top that my package was left near the front door or porch, that package is on our back deck. The driver had to walk along the side of our house, walk through the gate (which is admittedly left open), through our backyard, and up the stairs to the deck. Why on earth didn't he just leave it at the front door like every other delivery person ever has??

This makes so much sense to me. All day I'm plagued by constant guilt that I need to be cleaning or cooking or doing something. But once it gets dark, I feel like the day is over and I'm off the clock until tomorrow. That's not great when it gets dark at 5:30 . . .

See above

Oops. Didn't even make it to 40.

One of my sisters has literally done this. I'll let you decide which one it was. 😂

Bam! Irrefutable.

White lights FTW

Justin's grandma (who is over 90) is always talking about how she needs to diet or lose those last ten pounds, and I want to tell her to enjoy her life!!