Procrastinated Project #5

(The mystery vacation - revealed)

We flew to the Midwest the 2nd weekend of October.
Naperville. Chicago. Kalamazoo. Grand Rapids.
Family Reunion. Family Pictures. Road Trips.
5 days of fun and family!

We flew all day Wednesday, spent quality time in rush-hour traffic to eat a little Chicago-style pizza with all the family (hurray!) and find the hotel before our big day in the city.

Navy Pier:

The only shopping we did downtown... what a cool store!
(and the bags just look big. They didn't get that much...)

Up to the top of the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower)

Talk about freaky... walking out on the "Ledge"

Goofing around downtown, waiting for our hop-on/hop-off bus.

Riding the bus was fun, but a little chilly.

stopping for free Hershey's bars

sleeping on the bus...

The next day was the Field Museum...

Their uncle works there, of all cool things! We saw Sue - the most famous T-rex bones around. We've actually seen Sue twice. Once in Spokane. Yep, we're THAT lucky! ;)

(don't you love the family reunion T-shirts?!)

That afternoon we drove to Kalamazoo and Derek met with a client of his, who gave the kids cookies and milk and goodie bags about Michigan. Very nice!

We stayed with Derek's sister in Grand Rapids that night and went to the Meijer Gardens together the next day. It was AWESOME. Very big, very kid-friendly and such a gorgeous day.

Then we tortured the kids with family pictures.
I took snapshots while we waited our turn.

Then we played at the park and the COOLEST tire swings ever.
I took a million pictures.

The last day we drove to a beach on Lake Michigan and it was AMAZING.
The sand was like brown sugar. Literally. Color, texture, everything. It was warm and the leaves were perfect. I could live in that moment forever. Except for Ellie throwing a fit because we hadn't brought her swimsuit. I think I could live WITHOUT that moment.

No trip is without casualties. Derek left his best sweater in the Minneapolis airport and I somehow lost just one of my black church shoes before we even had church. Thankfully, Derek's sister wears my size AND has fabulous taste in shoes. :)

We drove a Ford Flex, Derek's dream car, and we really left a mess for Avis to clean up. Yikes. We found out the night before we left that Lydia had a major school project due the day we came home. Nice timing! We got in at 6 pm, ate dinner at 7ish and stayed up til 9:30 working on it with her - which was 12:30 Michigan time. Talk about tired! But what a trip!

The weather was unbelievable. We left clouds and rain and barely 60 degrees for sunshine, fall colors and 80 degrees. It was perfect! We wish we lived closer to these fun cousins and aunts and uncles, but we sure liked visiting new parts of the country to see them!

Procrastinated Project #4

Today I mopped!

And that was pretty much it. But if you make it big and bold, it sounds like something exciting. It's been one of those days that reminds me how I procrastinate in the first place. There is TOO much to do! Why would it spend it putting beads on wire when I haven't mopped in well over a week? (at other houses, that's not a problem. But it's a BIG problem the way my little man eats!)

.....................................................

And I cried like a boob at the SLP office this morning. And most of the way home. AND I still have to go back for one more week, but hopefully I'll have come to terms with my emotions and be able to give her a nice "thank-you" something or other and be okay.

Procrastinated Project #3

Today I did something unpleasant that I've been putting off for a couple weeks. Derek's company was recently acquired by a big, big, BIG company. It's good news for the partners and probably for the future of the company, but it's just pay cuts for the employees. Loss of pay combined with change in benefits (more loss of pay) = hard times for lots of folks at work. We feel blessed. It's all going to be fine. We've certainly had harder times than these!

In the shuffle of change, Carver's speech therapist (SLP) isn't covered under the new plan. We've been paying out of pocket for months now and the new plan covers 3 TIMES as many visits for a modest co-pay. (It's a major silver lining in all the changes.) I wanted to make it work to stay with our SLP, but the cut in pay makes the benefits too important to pass up. I called around to get on waiting lists (3-6 months on average) and a miracle happened. We'd been contacted earlier in the month for a local therapy center. We were out of town on the mysterious trip I've never blogged about and couldn't call before they gave the spot away. I called them today to get back on the list and she got us in immediately. It's totally amazing, a miracle in every sense. We'll save hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Maybe a thousand.

But I'm so, so sad. I've nearly cried twice today. I feel like a traitor because I've LOVED our speech therapist. She works well with Carver, she's let us scale back as our insurance wouldn't approve more visits. We go tomorrow and I have to tell her we're leaving. Is that crazy that I dread it so much?! It's for sure crazy to cry, but I will. I hate that I cry so easily. I cried last time we switched therapists, but these are special people to me - when someones makes a difference in my child's life, I guess I feel full of gratitude and loyalty even.

I'm glad I did what needed to be done, even though it was hard. In a couple weeks, I'll be so grateful that I didn't procrastinate this any longer. I wouldn't have wanted to miss the miracle, even if it's a bittersweet one.

Procrastinated Project #1 - 2

YESTERDAY'S project:


For Halloween, Ellie wanted to be a pioneer girl. But our church Harvest party happened to be the weekend we got back from a big trip to the midwest (that I never blogged about) and I was swamped. She was super understanding about her lack of costume and was a cat again for the 4th time maybe? It's the classic fall-back plan around here. For the REAL Halloween, I promised her the costume. And, while it's not the night before, I still felt like it might be high time to do something about that promise. I consulted the fabric stash in my closet and found enough fabric to pull it together yesterday. She is so grateful and happy with it, she doesn't even mind all the imperfections! Whew! It turned out pretty cute, thanks to this pattern. Gotta love free tutorials online. :)

Also, I finally called on Carver's 5 year well-check and guess what? They don't even do those. :)

TODAY'S project was to fix this necklace:


Carver accidentally broke it while flailing his legs about one day a few months ago. It was the first time I'd worn it, so I gathered all the beads to "someday" fix it. Enough of waiting around. Today was the day! It didn't take very long and I think it'll stay. I'm not a jewelry maker, so I just did a lot of wrapping and twisting of wire. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Also today, I called our doctors about our new health insurance. The news wasn't as bad as I thought and at least now we can sign up without wondering what the damage will be at every visit.

Still to come - I'm VOTING today. Then Dino Rossi can stop calling for money. :) He can have my vote instead.

Mrs. Procrastinator

I am terrible at procrastinating (or maybe I should say I'm EXCELLENT at procrastinating....) I put things off that I don't think I'll do well, things that sound intimidating and hard. Or boring. Or mundane. Or messy. Or sometimes just those projects that take a little time.

And then I feel like a failure because I always have a load of projects looming over me.

Take blogging, for example. I keep wondering what sorts of things I should blog about and never get around to it. So I'm going to use one favorite goal of mine to solve 2 problems:

DO 1 THING TODAY THAT I'VE BEEN PUTTING OFF

I get extra credit for multiple things. And I have to blog about them - at least this week.

Stay tuned.