The Saturday 7

1. I'm back to the land of the living with functional wireless Internet! My brother finally cancelled his service, so I could sign up for my own. I was supposed to have until last Wednesday, but it turned off Friday night. No matter who Luke talked to at Spectrum, they kept saying, "Oh sorry. We'll get it turned right back on." But they never did. And when I called to sign up for service they wouldn't let me keep Luke's equipment (even though it's the same company!), but had to mail me my own. So we weren't up and running until Tuesday. It was actually pretty terrible. I didn't feel "oh so refreshed." I felt cut off from the world and antsy. Lol. #firstworldproblems I ran out of data on my phone after the first day, paid extra for another gig and then tore through that in one more day. Yikes. I have a problem. #netflixandpinterest

2. I know this is old news now, but I like to record it . . . Somewhere around the end of March I start to reassure myself that the snow must surely be done, and while I know it will be cold for a while, at least I won't have to deal with snow anymore. This year, however, my hopes and dreams were dashed. The forecast called for 2-4 inches, but I think we got more than that:

The craziest part was that it all melted within 24 hours. So at least it was short lived!! Hopefully we're done for real this time. It's supposed to be 70* tomorrow, so you'd think snow season must be done, but you never know in Michigan!

3. We've been making progress on our basement bathroom remodel. The concrete cutters came this week to expose the plumbing, and the plumber came today to do an assessment. He said things look better than expected! Woohoo! Not what you usually hear during renovations!

Justin and I wandered around Home Depot and Menard's for a few hours last week, and finally agreed on a vanity and a light. We bought the vanity, but it stresses me out to spend so much money at once, so we decided to wait on the light.

The light was $90 at Home Depot, but yesterday I was randomly searching for something on Wal-Mart's website, when this popped up:

The photograph isn't as good as Home Depot's, but it's almost exactly the same fixture. The best part? The Wal-Mart light is on mega sale for $17.99! (The website says the original price is $349, which is a bit insane, but fun to pretend I got that great of a deal!) So I snatched that up in a hurry. Now I get to overthink every other design detail. Should we do all brushed nickel hardware? Is that too much grey with the grey vanity? What kind of mirror do I want? What about flooring? What color am I going to paint the walls? Grey is my go-to, but that's definitely too much with the grey vanity. And why on earth do faucets cost so much??!! Justin's dad also framed in Levi's bedroom and closet in the basement. Once we get some electrical work done in there, it's just a matter of drywall and paint!

4. I finally sat down and scheduled out the rest of our homeschool year in its entirety. We only have 3 weeks to go!! This past week was especially rough with Lucy, so we're all ready to be done! I've been slogging through depression again so I'm hoping a nice long break from school will give me time to get excited about doing it again next year. (#wishfulthinking) I actually am excited about the curriculum for next semester, but I know Lucy won't be as interested as I am, so I'm not looking forward to another year of forcing it.

5. I was a good mom and helped my kids dye Easter eggs this week. I despise the whole process, because I despise messes, but they love it so much. We enlisted Justin's help this year, since Levi is quick and unpredictable. Haha. I let each kid pick out a dye kit from Dollar General, so we had some variety this year. The "galaxy" eggs turned out way cooler than expected!

Levi was heartbroken when I cracked the shells a couple days later to make egg salad. It's a good thing eggs are cheap, because I'm the only one around here who will eat them hard boiled.

Today we had an Easter egg hunt. Because what my kids need is more candy. 🙄 Levi obviously doesn't remember doing it in the past, because he didn't really appreciate the idea of finding plastic eggs in the yard until he realized what was in them. Then he said, "This is fun getting eggs with candy!"

6. This year, our pastor created a Bible reading schedule for the week leading up to Easter. It was basically Isaiah 53 and then each gospel's representation of the crucifixion. I was struck anew this year at what Jesus didn't do during his trial and death. Can you even imagine how much humility it would take for the creator of the universe to allow simple men to beat him, mock him, and doubt his power? Every day when I got to the part of the story where Jesus is before Pilate and Pilate asks him to defend himself, I wanted to shout, "Tell him you didn't do anything! Tell him you're sinless and the Jewish leaders are just jealous! Tell him you're the Son of God!" But that's exactly the point, isn't it? Jesus couldn't defend himself because then he wouldn't have been crucified. He couldn't have ripped the crown of thorns off his head or turned the whip back on his abusers because then his earthly purpose would have been nullified. It's heartbreaking and mind boggling. All week I've prayed that my understanding of his sacrifice would go farther than awe and appreciation - but that it would change my life!