On Sunday, Dode was gone for a few hours home teaching and I
was here with the kids. Right about the
time I decided to start making dinner, Luke made his way downstairs for a
nap. I cuddled him in and he fell back
asleep. When Dode got home an hour later,
I was still sitting with Luke in my arms.
I told him I was sorry there was no dinner made and he told me that
there were many many more dinners to be made but not very many times to cuddle
with my little boy. I’m glad we were on the same page because I was fully enjoying holding my little boy.
I belong to a Facebook group called Buy Nothing. It is a worldwide movement where you join a
group where you live. The goal of the
group is to get rid of things you no longer want and to ask for things you
need. When the groups grow beyond 1,000
people, they split the group. The
Arlington group was up around 1,500 and this weekend was when the split
happened. I have enjoyed lending things
out and expressed sadness to one of the administrators that I’d no longer be
able to help as many people. She checked
with the regional administrators who said that if I was an administrator in my
group, I could be a member in the other Arlington group for the sole purpose of
lending out my things. Each group
generally has three administrators and I was coming on as the fourth one. I was planning on being an administrator in
name only. Well, as soon as I was
announced as a fourth admin, one of the other administrators said her life was
really busy and she needed to quit. I
don’t think being an administrator will be too big of a deal, there are three
of us approving new member requests, dealing with questions that come up and
posting encouraging things on the group page.
Since I love lending stuff, my focus is the lending library. I’ve got several posts pending about the
library to invite people to use it and to add to it.
When we finally had time last fall to work on getting
firewood split, we learned that a seal on the wood splitter was leaking and could no longer hold hydraulic fluid. Dode thought we had enough dry wood to make
it through the winter, and any wood we split this winter won’t be ready to burn
until next year, so getting it repaired wasn’t a priority. I wanted it fixed because I know that summer
will be just as busy this year and we have wood sitting on the ground needing
split both here at our house and out at my mom’s. The repairs on the splitter were beyond
something Dode and his dad could do.
Dode took the cylinder needing repaired into a shop and they wanted $250 to
replace the seal. Dode said, “No thank you” and was
on his way. I said, “But if we have to
heat with electricity, the bill will be at least that much for one month.” Dode held his ground and refused to pay the $250 for the repair. He ended up buying a brand new cylinder off ebay for about
the same price as just getting the seal replaced on the old one. The bonus of buying a
new one is we have an entirely new cylinder, not a repaired rusty pitted cylinder that would likely
break down again. In the middle of
deciding what to do with the wood splitter, we had another family who was
running low on wood ask if they could use the splitter. That really lit a fire under me. Because life can never be too easy, the new
part has to be modified to work on the splitter. Dode has it almost ready to go, it just needs
some welding and it will be ready to go.
Hopefully that last task will happen this week.
At the end of last summer, Dode was asked to be in charge of
a pioneer reenactment for the youth in our local church area called Trek. He spent many many hours researching where to
go, walking and biking trails in the nearby tree farm, by himself and with both
Elizabeth and William. His responsibilities
don’t just include route finding, but all the planning that goes into making
the trek happen. The couple who are in
charge of training the adult leaders (youth are organized into families with a
ma and pa) have been on 7 treks but some of the adults have never participated
in one, as a youth or an adult. The
trainers wanted to have access to a handcart at their training to show the
leaders what they’d be working with.
Dode’s grandparents have a handcart that has been sitting in their yard
as a lawn ornament since a trek Dode did as a youth almost 30 years ago. The wooden body of the handcart had been
filled with dirt and used as a planter.
After 30 years of Washington weather, there wasn’t much wood left. When Dode asked his dad if he could borrow it
for the training, his dad said he wasn’t sure how much there was left to it. A week later he called Dode over to look at
something on the cart and he’d completely rebuilt the wooden body and it was
ready to go.
Wednesday was the twins 4th birthday. We started the day with their well child
check ups at the doctor. They both are
growing fine, following their curve somewhere between the 20-25%. We met my mom at the Children’s Museum in
Everett after the doctor visit. Once
again, the twins and Finnley mostly went their separate ways. At the end of our last visit, my mom told
Leah that when we came back for her birthday, she could get a toy from the gift
shop. She’d decided then that she wanted a
pink pony she saw on the shelf. When we got done playing on
their birthday, when everyone was complaining they were hungry, we visited the
gift shop. Leah remembered and pointed right to that
pink horse, she didn’t even want to look around at what else was available. Luke picked out some trains. We had lunch at a teriyaki restaurant a block
from the museum and headed home. The
twins fell asleep on the way home so I left them in the car and kept checking
on them every few minutes. I had just
enough time to make their birthday cake before we had to leave again. Well, as time got short, I wasn’t able to
check on them as often. I looked out the
window to see Luke just waking up, so I went upstairs to get Elizabeth for twin help. By the time we made it to the car, they were
both awake and hysterical. Even when
they got their feelings under control, every now and then Leah would start
howling again, “you left us in the car!”
I picked up Miriam and William from school and we drove over to the
chiropractor. We go once a month and
adjustments are free on a birthday so I got to get the twins adjusted for
free! After the chiropractor, we went
across the street to see Isaac at the insurance agency he just started working
for. It was my first time meeting his
boss. I’m sure he was glad when we left
and the office was nice and peaceful again!
On Thursday, when Elizabeth and I got done at the class we
attend at the YMCA, we took the twins swimming for an hour. I was worried we’d be stuck in the pool
forever since the last time we took them almost two hours wasn’t long
enough. This time, we could play in the
kiddie area for 30 minutes and then it closed and we had to use the larger
pool. I think because they were
submerged, they got cold and after another 30 minutes, they were ready to go
home. I felt like a good mom for taking
them to do something that I really don’t enjoy.
On Friday, my mom and I went to an event in town called the
Country Charm Walk. We picked up an empty
bracelet from the chamber of commerce and then we walked from business to business, picking up a
bead for our bracelet at each place. It was a nice
relaxing day. We stopped part way
through to have lunch together and were gone from home for about two
hours. That night, my mom treated us to
tickets to see the play Newsies in Everett. She
saw it a week before and said that in all the plays she’s seen over the years
(a season ticket holder at the 5th Avenue in Seattle for many many
years), this play was one of her favorites.
After her experience, she bought four tickets so that I, Elizabeth, Miriam and Jacob could
go. Unfortunately, right before we were
going to go, Jacob came down with a stomach bug. With less than an hour’s notice, Sharon was
able to go with us. The play was really
good, the music was excellent and the dancing was amazing.
On Saturday, we took the kids to the Eagle Festival in town
for the first time. I thought they’d
like it since there are many activities for kids like a petting zoo, crafts,
chainsaw art, rocks and gemstone displays.
Well, it was a complete bust.
Once we told Leah she couldn’t have kettle corn, that was all we heard
about. Over and over, “I want popcorn!” The animals were scary, they didn’t want to
do crafts, the chainsaws were too noisy, they had no interest in the rocks and
gemstones.
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