Our Week - The One with All the Packing, a Golden Girls Night, and Fall Break in Chicago

Last week was a great one as we spent most of it in Chicago!  I’ll be recapping that trip in separate posts, so stay tuned.  And in the meantime, here’s how the rest of our week went…

Monday, October 7

Monday morning, I hit the ground running, dropping the kids at school, attending the Home and School Advisory Board meeting, and then heading home to tackle a million things on my to do list – laundry, blog work, packing, and so much more.

It was a busy day – nonstop – until I picked up the kids from school.  On the way home, the kids got to holla at Jacob’s old piano teacher on the exit yet again (crazy that it happened three weekdays in a row) and then when we got home, Brian and Jacob left immediately to go to Jacob’s golf match.

While they were gone, I helped Olivia study for a science quiz, and then while she did some reading and some screen time, I went back to doing all the things – mostly packing.  We also went through her weekly folder, and she brought home her poetry journal.  Y'all, just look at these poems she wrote.  I'm dying at the one about me giving birth to her... it's a little disturbing, too, and yes, I did have a c-section with her.  Lol.  I also love the way she described me in the second one... sounds so cozy!  And I ADORE the way she described herself in her bio poem.  <3  Also, she wrote a poem about a Stanley tumbler.  Hahahaha.

Just before the boys came home, I made sausage, peppers, and onions tacos for dinner, and then we all sat down to eat.  Jacob shot a 45 at his match which wasn’t his best, but it wasn’t terrible either.  He had one par, one bogey, and seven double bogeys.

After dinner, we got the kitchen cleaned up, and I got in a stair stepper/arms workout while the kids showered and got ready for bed.  After that, it was bed for Jacob and Olivia, and Brian and I watched some TV (I don’t even remember what, and as I’m typing this it was just last night, but my brain is fried – LOL) and then we headed to bed.

Tuesday, October 8

Tuesday was just plain bonkers.  I got the kids to school, and then I worked for a couple of hours sharing deals for Amazon’s Big Deal Days.  I had an appointment with my therapist at 10:15, and then I headed to Target to pick up some last-minute travel items that we needed for our trip. 

After that, it was back home to eat lunch, pack some more, and get some blog work done, and then I headed back out to pick Olivia up from school (just her since Jacob had Velocity).  While I waited in the car line, I shared more Amazon deals and painted my nails for our trip. 

On the way home, Olivia got to wave to Jacob’s old piano teacher yet again at our same exit – seriously so weird that we saw him four days in a row – and when she and I got home, she had just enough time to grab a snack and tidy everything downstairs – and I did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen – before we had to turn back around to pick Jacob up from Velocity at the school.

After we grabbed him, we headed back home yet again, and then Olivia got changed and ready for dance.  While she did that, I did my gratitude and prayer journals + my devotional for the day, and then she and I headed back out again to get her to dance.  OMG.  #ALLTHEDRIVING

When I got back from dropping her at dance (my fifth time leaving the house and coming back home for the day for anyone who’s keeping count.  Haha.) Brian filled my tires with air.  The temperature had finally dropped below 60 degrees Tuesday morning, so my air pressure light came on for my tires first thing that morning.  Y’all know I am a magnet for punctured tires, and I literally get a flat, like, once a year (usually in December, randomly), so I thought I had a flat tire on the way to school Tuesday morning which stressed me out to no end.  Thankfully, I was able to watch the PSI and see that it was only a little under normal, and it wasn’t decreasing in the tire that was bad, so I figured it was just because of the cold weather.

Between that warning light being on all day and all of the freaking road construction here on our local highway all day and dealing with two lanes shut down, that made for a ROUGH day of travel, especially since I went back-and-forth from my house six times. 

While B filled my tires, I got the last of my computer work done before our trip, I finished packing as much as I could, and then I had to grab a quick, light dinner and get ready to meet my girlfriends for a show.  Yes, yes, terrible planning on my part scheduling a girls’ night the night before we left for a trip, but we went to a production at our local theatre and it was only here for one night, so I didn’t have a choice unless I decided to skip altogether.  And y’all know me… I won’t ever say no to a night out with my girls!  ;o)

While I was getting ready to leave for my girls’ night, Brian and Jacob left to pick up Olivia from dance, drop Maui at my MIL and step-FIL’s, and then they grabbed dinner out.  I left to meet the girls downtown at the theatre while they were gone, and I got halfway down the street when the alarm came on in my car to let me know that my back right tire (the one that was causing all of the problems all day) had a PSI of FORTY-SEVEN which is WAY too high, so I turned right back around and called B to see what the heck was going on. 

Thankfully, he was already on the way home, so he was able to meet me at the house and let some of the air out of the tire, and I made it to the theatre and into my seat with just five minutes to spare.  Whew!

The show was a Golden Girls comedy show with an all-male cast, and it was HILARIOUS.  It was very rated R, so it was super tacky, but we all laughed so hard through the entire thing.  People were literally howling with laughter the entire time.  It was great.  And the guy who played Blanche – PERFECTION.  I was amazed at how much each one of them sounded just like the actual ladies from the show… even the guy who played Rose (Betty White) sounded just like her, and I’m sure all of you remember how unique her voice and inflection were. 

My friend Jen is a Golden Girls super fan, so she’d signed all of us up for the meet and greet afterward, and we ended up being the only ones to do that, so we had the entire cast to ourselves.  Haha.  We got to go on stage and look at the set up close (which was great) and then we took more than 100 pictures with them.  Here are just a few of my favorites!

When I got home, it was after 10, but since Maui wasn’t home, I didn’t have to sit up with her like I usually do, so B and I were able to go straight to bed… so nice since we had to be up at 5:30 AM to go to the airport the next morning! 

 

Wednesday, October 9

Wednesday, the kids were supposed to be at school for a half of a day, and then they got out for fall break.  Instead, we pulled them out for the day and left bright and early for… Chicago!!!!  Stay tuned for those recaps separately.

Thursday, October 10

Thursday was day two of our Chicago trip.

 

Friday, October 11

Friday was day three of our Chicago trip.

 

Saturday, October 12

Saturday was day four of our trip, and we got home around 8 PM.  Since we were home so late, Brian dropped the kids and me off at home, I popped a pizza in the oven for dinner while the kids got showered, and I unpacked as much as I could in the small window that it took for Brian to run to his mom’s to pick up Maui.

When he got home, we turned on the Georgia vs. Mississippi State game that we’d missed earlier in the day, and we ate a very late dinner.  After that, we got the kids in the bed, and then Brian and I ended the day with more college football.

Sunday, October 13

Sunday was a day to do all the things!  We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and then I did my Sunday things – yoga, my Sunday morning online sermon, catching up my planner from while we were gone, planning the week ahead, catching up my gratitude and prayer journal, and then showering and getting ready for the day.

My mother-in-law and step-father-in-law cooked a delicious lunch to celebrate my step-FIL’s birthday, and then we spent some time outside with them in my MIL’s garden because the weather was lovely.

When we got home, I hit the ground running and didn’t stop until dinner time.  I finished unpacking, the kids got themselves unpacked and did their laundry, I did two more loads of laundry, washed and got our sheets back on the bed, I got all of the mail opened from while we were gone, I caught up on all of my devotionals and did a Bible study, I got everything back in place after our trip, and I transferred all of the pictures and videos from our trip from my phone to my computer. 

Unfortunately, the one time that I had 500+ to transfer, the phone/computer decided to glitch, and around 100 of the files came off as broken/unusable files which meant that I had to email each and every single one of them to myself, rename each one to get them into their respective places, and then go through all of them to ensure I had all of them.  Sigh.  That ended up taking nearly three hours (three hours!!!!) so a bunch of time was wasted that I could have been doing other things – like finishing my blog post for Tuesday.  Siiiigh.

Anywayyyy, my parents didn’t cook dinner Sunday as they were just getting back into town from visiting my brother and sister-in-law and the kids, so we had a free evening.  The kids didn’t have school Monday either, so it was basically a Saturday night with nowhere to be. 

We had zero food in the house, but we did have bread and cheese, so I made grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, and then we popped some popcorn and turned on Ghostbusters: Afterlife since we'd never seen it.  I’m not a huge fan of the original, so I did a few things while we watched – I made a meal plan and grocery list for the next two weeks, I watered the outdoor plants, and I folded the towels I’d washed earlier in the day.  I also did some housekeeping on my phone that needed to be done.  My to-do list was bursting at the seams, so I just couldn’t sit still and watch a movie knowing that I had so much else to do

After the movie (Brian and the kids loved it!), we got the kids in the bed, and then Brian and I started the show Nobody Wants This.  Y’ALL!!!!  Okay, there has been so much hype around this show that my expectations were through the roof, so I thought for sure I’d be a little disappointed, but, nope, it is SO GOOD.  We ended up watching three episodes Sunday night (they are only about 30 minutes each) and I’m head over heels!!  I’m sure we’ll be done with the series by the end of this week!

Happy Tuesday, y’all!