The Saturday 7

1. It was back to school for me this week. The kids start on Monday, but I was there much of this week to prepare. Honestly, I'm ready. I'll miss sleeping in, but I'm reaching my threshold for unstructured summer. I've all but given up on enforcing screen time limits since I was at school so much this week, and Levi can not self-regulate. He never gets sick of it, and the guilt is eating me alive. So I'm looking forward to him going back to seven hours of screen-free time, and only having to fight with him about it for a few hours every night. Lena is not looking forward to going back to school, and I'm really worried she's going to have a rough start, so feel free to pray for her!

2. On Monday, I had to take CPR/AED training. 

I've never been trained on the AED before. I guess it's a good skill to have, but I really hope I never have to use it! I'm really great at book learning, but handling an emergency in the moment is a whole new ball game. No thank you!

3. On Tuesday, we did one last pool day. 

4. Keto Update: I've made it almost two full weeks . . . and lost three measly pounds. It's seriously astonishing to me. I have significantly reduced my sugar intake, my carb intake, and my overall calorie intake, and yet I've only lost three pounds. Of course Justin, who has been doing a much looser version of Keto than me, immediately dropped ten pounds!! It's so not fair!! I log every single morsel I eat to keep track of my macros. I read every food label. I spend hours looking up recipes online and standing in my 80* kitchen cooking only to lose three pounds. I'm still chugging along, though. I think my body is in shock at the change and it's holding on to all the weight because it thinks I'm experiencing a sudden famine or something. Thanks for looking out, body, but please . . . be like Elsa and let it go!

5. Thursday was our big "Back to School" orientation, and I tasked myself with making a balloon arch. Then, I decided not to get too crazy for my first time and decided to make balloon columns instead. It was surprisingly easy! Thankfully Lucy and Lena helped me, so it went fairly quickly. We did it all on Wednesday night, and it was still standing by Thursday morning! Whew!

Thursday was also picture day, and I was determined to curl my hair myself. I practiced on Tuesday, following all kinds of youtube tutorials, but my hair never turns out like the model's. So on Thursday, I went back to the basics and just curled each strand around my curling wand. After 20 minutes, it looked like this:

Somewhat curly! It still doesn't look like all the teenage girls I'm trying to emulate, but baby steps, right?

So I curled the other side the same way I did the first, and then this happened . . .

Whyyyyyyy is this so hard for me????? I was so mad. 

By the time I was done, it was almost time to go, so I threw it up in one of those "heatless curl" things, literally drove to school with it in my hair, and pulled it out after pulling into the parking spot. I did not finger comb it this time and got my picture done as soon as possible. It looked like this by the time pictures were done:

A little wavy at least, but definitely not the look I was going for.

And it was completely straight again in an hour. I don't know why I keep torturing myself by trying, but I just can't give up hope that one of these times I'll find the magic formula to achieving the curls I so long for!

6. Today was a crazy day of soaking up all the last bits of summer that we can. We started out by watching Justin play in the alumni scrimmage against the team he's coaching at school. He was the oldest by about 15 years, but fit right in with all those 17 and 18 year olds. Probably because of that ten pounds he dropped so easily. 😡 (In all seriousness, he works a manual labor job, and is intentional about exercising regularly, so he really is in good shape.)

It was very hot, and those guys were very sweaty. I just noticed all the red pennies pictured here on said sweaty guys are now sitting in my laundry room waiting to be washed. I bet that's going to smell good.

Then it was off to the Montgomerys' cottage to cool off. The kids played in the water for a long time, then decided to go fish with Justin. They each caught a fish within the first five minutes! After an hour of fishing, they ended up with 16 fish between them all! 

We ended the evening with Small Group at our friends' house. When we were in our twenties, we sometimes stayed at Small Group until 2 or 3 in the morning. Tonight, Justin was about asleep in the chair by 9:00, and we were home by 9:30. Haha. #oldpeople

7. No pics and only two memes this week.

I certainly wouldn't say I'm important per se, but I'm the official Development Director now. As such, I attended one of my first big meetings as pictured above, and felt exactly like that red guy. I constantly feel like an impostor trying to act like I know what's going on. Lol. #fakeittilyoumakeit