The Saturday 5

1. This week was Spirit Week at school. Monday's theme was Farmers and Flannels because that's how we do in the sticks. Lol. That's the only day I got to participate in, since I only work on Mondays. I put my hair in two braids and looked like I was 12 years old. Other days included Pajama Day, Crazy Hair Day, Color Day, and Spirit Day. Apparently I only took pictures of Crazy Hair Day though.

Making use of all the hair tinsel she got for her birthday. The brown beads on her scalp are supposed to blend in with her hair better, but her hair is so thin there's no where for it to hide. Haha. When I put tinsel in Lucy's hair you definitely don't see the beads. The girls looooove this stuff, but its quickly becoming the bane of my existence because it gets e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. It's like the new glitter. #herpesofcraftsupplies

She didn't think the tinsel alone was crazy enough, so she styled it crazy as well. 

I loved Spirit Week in high school and always went all out. Lena, to no one's surprise, is following right in my footsteps. Lucy, however, enjoyed it only to the degree that there was no potential for embarrassment . . . a little bit like her dad . . .

2. I realized this week that I'm going to start working full time in the library in less than 2 weeks! I know working full time is old hat for most of you, but I haven't worked full time in like 15 years - and I didn't have three kids then. I'm anticipating being exhausted, so I decided to make a bunch of freezer meals this week. I made tons of lists, bought $200 worth of groceries, and set aside a few hours on Wednesday and Thursday to get it done. I actually wrote up a whole post about it if you're interested in the recipes I used. I'm ridiculously excited to have 13 meals just waiting for me when I get home from work. 4 weeks of not cooking? Sign me up! It really wasn't that much work. I think it's definitely going to be worth it. 

3. So I've been thinking about Worlde. First of all, I wish there was a way to share your overall stats without screenshotting, because a screenshot gives away some of the letters.

I know I could crop it, but ain't nobody got time for that. 

Secondly, I think there should be a "next level" where you try and figure out what words people guessed by looking at their shared grids. [Spoiler Alert: I'm going to share today's word, so scroll by quickly if you don't want to see it.] Take this one for example:

I know the last word is aloft, so the second word must be A_O_T. I'm guessing he guessed ABOUT. I have no idea what the first word could be though. Haha. See? Wouldn't that be a fun game? 

4. Yesterday, I asked on facebook whether it's worth it to spend $10,000 on a new heater/AC unit if we're thinking about selling our house in the next year. And people had questions. Lol. So here are the answers. We've lived in this house for three years now, and we've always intended for it to be a stepping stone. Thanks to my brother and sister-in-law's generosity, we were able to afford this place and get out of my parents' house after 6 years. I've always loved this city, and I really love being a mile away from Niki's house. But neither Justin nor I are big fans of living in town, and the longer we live here, the more we chafe at paying double taxes. For some inane reason, residents of the village pay both village and township taxes. I'd assumed that we'd live here for a few more years, though - pay down our mortgage some more, add some more value, and turn a profit after a few years. But, as everyone knows, the housing market took an unexpected turn. According to Zillow (which I know is not 100% accurate), our house is now worth almost exactly $100,000 more than we owe on it. Zillow also lists our house as a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath. We added a bedroom by closing off a section of the basement (it has a window and a closet), and Justin is redoing another room in the basement that can also be classified as a bedroom (again - window and closet). So that brings us up to 5 bedrooms. Plus we turned that half bath into a full bath. If HGTV taught me anything bedrooms and bathrooms add value! So, very theoretically, even after realtor fees and closing costs we could have $100,000 to put down on a new house, which allows us to afford more of a house than we usually would be able to . . . even though houses everywhere are selling for more than they did three years ago. 

Of course it's a convoluted process. Do we list our house, potentially sell quickly, and have nowhere to go? Do we find a house we love, put an offer in on it contingent on selling our house? How much do we need to update/fix before we can list? There's also the tiny issue of the very small area we're looking to buy in. Justin doesn't want to go much farther north as long as he's commuting to his job 20 minutes south of here, and I don't want to go much farther south as long as I'm driving the kids to their school 10 minutes north of here. Haha. And, of course, there are almost no houses in this area within our budget. So you can see why I say we're still in the "thinking about it" phase. Haha. And as I discovered with that facebook post, I have a lot of friends who are realtors, so I'm not really looking for answers to any of those questions - just letting you in on my thought process . . . lucky you!

 

5. Well, it's 11:40 and I truly don't have anything else to report, so let's finish this off with some pictures:

Celebrating Lena's birthday with my family

He's officially missing his top two teeth. I love this phase. 

I sent this picture to my sisters saying how much I want my next house to have an unobstructed view of the sunset. I literally stopped reading my book to stand up and take this picture. When I sat back down and flipped to the next page (Kindle App on my phone), this was what I read:

Sidenote: later in the book, Liz goes to Holland, MI to watch the sun rise over the lake. 🤔🤔🤔 I happen to know that this author lives in Grand Rapids and should definitely know that you can't watch the sun rise over Lake Michigan from the Michigan side of the lake. 🤦

And now for the memes:

😂😂😂

Ok, but there is some logic here. I'm paying for $325 worth of merchandise with free shipping. The $25 shipping fee is not a physical product I get to enjoy.

I love that the person who shared this said she can smell this picture, because I can too! Holy cow. The memories.