The Saturday 7

Oops. I skipped last week. Time to catch up. 

1. Let's see . . . first we had a tornado. Or at least something tornado-adjacent. The sirens were blaring, but the intrepid weatherman assured us that the actual tornado was in a different part of our county. So we stood at the window in our second story living room and watched the storm whip through, like any reasonable Midwesterner would. Our next door neighbors and everyone to the north of them in our town lost power, but we did not! The power was also out at school, so we had an unexpected day off on Monday!  To celebrate, we went to Altitude with some cousins. And since Altitude shares a parking lot with Outback, where my mom happened to be working, we hopped over there (like kangaroos - get it?) for lunch.

Libby was there too, but I inadvertently cut her out of the picture. Sorry, Lib!

2. Tuesday was Lena's first soccer game. She's playing on the middle school team at school this year, and as a 6th grader with zero playing experience, she's definitely the low man on the totem pole. So I was shocked when she started the game! 

 In fairness, her team was missing five players due to illness, injury, or early spring break vacation. I doubt she'll be starting much in the future, but she played hard. It was fun to see her confidence grow over the space of just one game. She started out very timidly, but slowly became more aggressive. She still has a long way to go, but as Justin pointed out, she's extremely coachable. After the game, I praised her for getting more aggressive toward the end, and she said, "Yeah. I was getting mad that we were losing, so I decided to play harder." Lol. 

Sports photography is not one of my skills.

They ended up losing 0-8, but failure builds character, so it's good for them. 😂 I also built some character over the course of the game because it was so stupidly cold!!

She has another game scheduled for this Tuesday, wherein the forecasted temperature is 47 degrees and windy. I'm going to be so full of character by the time this season is over . . .

3. On Wednesday, I filled in for the church secretary while she's on vacation. I was there for roughly two hours when I got a text that the power went out at school again so they were dismissing early! Thankfully, my mom lives one block away from school, so she went and picked up my brood, got them McDonald's, and shuttled them home. It wouldn't have been a big deal if I had to leave church, but it sure makes me thankful to have family nearby, willing and able to help whenever needed. 

4. That reminds me of a tangent I've been ruminating on for a while. . . . "Being willing to help" was baked into my upbringing. My parents have always been extremely selfless, willing to do whatever is needed whenever it's needed. My dad always did the thankless jobs at church. My mom has never truly had a break from watching kids. She started watching Niki's oldest when she (my mom) still had her own kids at home. By the time Niki's boys were able to stay home alone, my kids had come along, and my siblings are still popping them out and necessitating free childcare. Of course, our collective childcare needs have never been a full-time job, but she avoids vacations and keeps herself available. Niki is also one of the most selfless people I know. Need a ride somewhere? She'll take you. Need a meal? She'll provide it. Need her to watch your kids? She'll do it. Need her to host a party? She'll host, provide the food, and clean it all up afterward. Never with a complaint. Never with expectation that her service will be repaid. I want to be like that. I aspire to the level of selflessness my parents and Niki have achieved. 

It's why I struggled with choosing between taking over as school librarian full-time or staying part time in order to take on the development position. I was praying about it for some time before our administrator pulled me into his office and literally said, "I need you more as a development director than a librarian." Here's the thing. I could have told him no. He would not have punished me for it or withheld my librarian position. But I want to be a person that people can depend on to come through when needed. In general if it's within my power, if I have the skill or can develop it, I'll agree to most things people ask of me. It might be dangerous to admit that so publicly. Lol. I'm also aware that such a tendency can be unhealthy. I am, without a doubt, a people pleaser. The other thing my parents and Niki modeled for me was to "be the better person" and to "do the right thing no matter what." There's a fine line between living selflessly to honor God and serve others and living selflessly to win the favor of men. Still working on that one, so please don't test me. 😂

5. This past week was spring break. As per usual, we did nothing noteworthy. I might have talked about this before, but one of the drawbacks to my kids attending a Christian school is that a lot of their friends are wealthy. Soooo many people were on cruises or tropical vacations this week. Never fear, though. When Levi started to whine about how we never get to do anything fun, I broke out the trusty, "Back in my day . . ." and reminded him that I never even stepped foot on an airplane until I was 19 years old, and didn't travel farther than Chicago until like 8th grade. My kids have been on more vacations already than I did in my entire childhood. Plus, staying home on break builds character, so . . .

We spent the week enjoying ordinary pleasures. We watched some kids . . .

My buddy Whit perfecting his smolder. (Also, accepting makeup recommendations that can replicate the effect this snapchat filter has on my face.)

We did some science experiments:

Went to the gardens with the cousins to see butterflies:

Model material! And look at the dimples in his fat little hands! 😍

We attended Art Day at church . . .

On Thursday, I filled in at the church office again. I finished all the work Jessie had left for me to do, so spent the last hour reading and working on library stuff while babysitting the phone. 

Sweet Brandy took my kids bowling for a couple hours while I worked, so they weren't totally bereft at home alone.

We finished off Spring Break with a trip to see Great Grandma and swim in her condo's pool.

6. I was decently productive throughout the week. I actually made dinner four nights in a row, stayed mostly caught up on laundry, cleaned the bathroom, and showered regularly. I worked on a bunch of church library stuff that has been pushed to the back burner, and even read a couple of nonfiction books - both by authors with the initials J.G. 😂 

The first was a random one I got for free at Embrace Books. It looked interesting, so I picked it up for the church library and decided to read it for myself first. 

My Goodreads Review

As I wrote in my review, this book was written in 2023, but only has five ratings combined between Goodreads and Amazon (and one of them is mine!) So I'm apparently only the 5th person on earth to read it, but I don't know why! I thought it was well done and interesting. 🤷 

The second was one that came extremely highly recommended by a friend, but ended up being entirely too intellectual for me. 

My Goodreads Review

I gave it quite a low rating, but qualified it with the caveat that my intelligence (or lack thereof) is more to blame for this book's faults than anything else. The last paragraph of my review sums it up: 

"Ultimately I have very little interest in philosophy for philosophy's sake. A more cerebral student may glean insights from this work that lead to lasting change, but I'm an uncultured swine content with cheddar cheese and Dr Pepper."

(The author spent a great deal of time singing the praises of expensive cheese and wine. Lol.)

I'm up to 14 books in my challenge of reading 40 nonfiction books between my 39th and 40th birthdays. But there are less than 6 months 'til my birthday, so I'm still behind. Story of my life.

7. Two weeks' worth of pics and memes!

Levi ended up winning the bracket!!

I thought this was funny because Justin has gotten into rucking recently. To be fair, though, he is the voluntary pack mule anytime we go somewhere with the kids that requires a lot of stuff. It's not limited to motherhood.

I'm not even sorry for the profanity this time because it made me laugh so hard. 😂

And three serious ones to end with:

This is a hill I will die on. I felt so much guilt for not cherishing every moment. I'm so careful not to tell new moms that. You can love something and not enjoy every minute of it. 

One of the biggest ills of social media.

Again - this is why social media is so damaging. So much context is left out. (See also: This is my beautifully updated kitchen. *I'm now $18,000 in debt because social media makes me feel like I need to keep up with the Joneses!)