Just a little ray of sunshine : October 12th-22nd, 2020: Recent happenings

I should have never let myself skip more than one night of writing. It is so easy to say "what's one more night of not writing!?" when you're already behind. And that's obviously what I've been doing and how I've been rationalizing. Satan's over here just trying to distract me from my goals. Not cool, but he's not winning this for good. Time to buckle down and recommit!! 😅

I have taken almost zero notes over the last two weeks so honestly I'm just going to spew a few highlights that I can even remember - it certainly will not be all encompassing, but I mean we're not celebrities over here, so... a few likely boring details will be nothing to cry over. Although, now that I think about it, we might actually be approaching celebrity status and it's seriously wacko - to clarify, like a month ago I noticed that I had 42 subscribers on my YouTube channel. It really only exists because it's the easiest way to upload funny videos of the kids and share them with my family. So ya know, Maeve is 5 now, which means I created it 5 years ago. I had never even checked how many subscribers I had before, but when I saw 42 I was honestly a little surprised there were that many. I have not broadcasted it in any way shape or form. Like a week later, I noticed a notification of a new subscriber so I looked and it had jumped to 100. I noticed that they all seemed like they were random people from other countries. So odd! It was weirding me out, so I mentioned it to my family and settled on the fact that I should probably make it private. At first I couldn't figure out how to do this so some more time passed and when I got around to actually figuring it out I had 500 subscribers.🤯🤯 I got the job done and made everything private, but then I got an email recently that said congrats on 1,000 subscribers!!! WHAT?! 😱 Apparently I didn't do it right, but seriously, where are these people coming from!? How did I manage to stay under the radar for 5 years and then in a matter of one month it's exploding!?!?! It is blowing my mind and I wish I knew why it is really happening. I really don't want to have to delete it and start over, but I might have to at this point. 🙄 SO bizarre! I'm at 1.33K at the moment. Total wackoville and super annoying that I have to spend time even thinking about it and fixing it. Ain't no one got time for that!

I digress. Here are some highlights since Monday the 12th:

~Life is approaching normalcy again, because in the last 11 days I've attended my first in person Relief Society activity, in person YW Presidency meeting, in person church, and in person YW activity. It's only been 7 months since attending anything like that in person!! Feels pretty weird to be back at it, in our masked glory. I don't even remember how to talk to people anymore. Send help. It's one thing taking a 7 month break from close friends and another thing taking a break that long from church acquaintances. It's such a weird time in the world, so I'm not even sure what small talk should look like right now. 🤷‍♀️ Lots to navigate!

~I used to be queen of getting in random (mostly) minor car accidents, but in the last almost 8 years of being married to Adam, only one mishap occurred that wasn't my fault when we were newlyweds. Since then, I've remained in the clear, until last week when I hit a mailbox and knocked one of my side mirrors off. 🙈🙈 Poor Rowan could tell I'd done something bad by my reaction and said "What Mommy!? Was that not supposed to happen?? Is that bad??" and then started crying since I was upset with myself. I kept reassuring him we were fine and all was still well! The most annoying part is that it was the mirror on the passenger side and it was dangling by some wires. I was in a hurry on my way to my YW presidency meeting when it happened and then had to head straight to the school to pick up Maeve. The whole time while driving, anytime I picked up enough speed the wind kept knocking the mirror into the passenger door window. The kids kept saying stuff like "what's happening?! Oh no! Mommy is that bad?! I hate that sound. How can it stop??" I was happy when we made it back home and Adam was able to use some tools to take it off - luckily he found a replacement for it for $70, so I'm feeling grateful that it isn't costing us an arm and a leg. 🙏

~We went to a pumpkin patch on Saturday. Unfortunately, we weren't able to go to our favorite one that is an hour away because of time constraints, and then the one that we chose instead was too full when we showed up (thank you Covid), so we had to pick yet another one! It was a lot smaller than Cedarwood Farm and just as pricey, but the entrance fee did not include the cost of pumpkins. Sooo, we decided Kroger pumpkins would be cheaper and held off on getting any. The hay rides were also backed up, so we didn't end up making it onto one of those, which was a bummer. The kids had fun though with some inflatables, climbing on tractors, hay mounds, and tire formations, playing in the corn pit, and petting/feeding the animals at the petting zoo. We still had a good time, but I'm bummed we missed a year at Cedarwood!! Next year I need to make a point to pencil it onto the calendar at the beginning of October to make sure we make the proper time for it and time doesn't get away from us!!

~We got invited anonymously to a Halloween themed scavenger hunt around the town of Murfreesboro with other couples from our ward/stake. I wish I knew who put it together, but we did get a babysitter and got to attend that on Saturday night. We had a few familiar faces on our team and it was a fun time - definitely a nice change of pace from our usual weekend happenings! It's been a long time since we've had a date night like that out on the town (literally) with other adults. I was pretty much no asset to our team, but Adam found a few of the clues so props to him and I think we ended up in 3rd place out of like 6 or 7 teams. It was tricky business!!

~Adam splurged and surprised me with an early anniversary present.... and let's just say he knows the true way to my heart! He got a bona fide massage table and some new oils to really create a spa experience inside our house for when he gives me massages. He honestly gives the best massages and gives them regularly, so he thought it would be a good investment and make the experience even more comfortable for him and for me. He surprised me by having it all set up and ready with mood lighting, relaxing music, and the diffuser going when I got home from YW activities this Tuesday night. I was shocked to walk in and see it all ready to go, but let me tell you, it was nice and relaxing and I definitely welcomed it!! 🙌 He said it was a lot easier on him to do it since he could more easily use his body weight instead of straining his hands, so now he will probably be even more willing to give me massages on the regular. We will certainly put it to good use and luckily it folds up nice and compactly for storage. 🙌

~All the fall shows are starting to trickle back on - The Voice and Bachelorette have started up again and in the next month so will A Million Little Things, This is Us, and The Good Doctor. I'm so excited to have my favorite shows on again!! We just finished The Virgin River so it was good timing cause I didn't really have anything else on my list.

~We just bought an Air Fryer so that we can make homemade fries without using any oil. I actually made some tonight and they definitely turned out crispy!! Next time I will cut them fatter and they should be great! It came with a recipe booklet and there are some fun recipes I'm excited to try - one being stuffed french toast and I actually got the ingredients for it so I can try it on Saturday! 🤗

I think that's it for highlights. Otherwise, over the last 11 days, I've been spending the rest of my time cleaning, doing laundry, and making meals for these humans in my house that always seem to keep coming back for more. 😏 But seriously though, when does the constant cleaning and laundry go away? If I don't stay on top of it, it haunts me. Every time I let it slide at all, I seriously regret it. These are the kinds of problems I face everyday. 😅 Gotta love the life of a stay at home mom.

Here's just a few random funny moments from the kids that I did write down:

~Usually it's just Maeve that gets COVERED with bug bites and I swear they never go away! I have to hear "Ouchy! Ouchy!" on a regular basis when they're bothering her and I'm really starting to hate that word because she says it in such a whiny tone 🙄😫, but recently Rowan has gotten a few. They were bugging him and he said "All my bug bites are bumping up!" 😂😂

~We have a book called "Happy Halloween" and Rowan brought it over to me, and pointing to each line of the title said "this book is called "Pum-kin" 😂 - I can't blame him since there is a pumpkin on the cover... 🤷‍♀️

~My hands were wet for some reason or another and Rowan touched them and said "your hands are squeaky cause they're wet!" 😂😂

~The kids are obsessed with pretending to deliver packages to each other and constantly I hear them saying "Ding dong! Package delivery!" 😂 Honestly, the sound of their little voices when they say it is what's best about it haha.

~Nolan did a full on head dive into the toy basket in our living room. Maeve said "Mommy, look!" and motioned toward it and I see his bum sticking up as he fell over the edge and then was wedged in with the rest of the toys. 😂🙈 His new favorite past time is also throwing balls into the toilet, and on one occasion Maeve didn't flush the toilet and he had taken some wet toilet paper out of the toilet... 🤢 So gross! He's trouble these days!! He also just finally cut his first tooth. It was starting to come in the week that Mic and Jenni were here and I noticed that another one is working on coming in to now. His 2 middle bottom teeth.

~We always lay with Maeve and Rowan for 1 minute each at bedtime before we tuck them in and Rowan loooooves getting his back AND belly scratched during that time, which is funny to me. Lately, right after we finish the scratching, he requests a little more by saying "can you scratch my belly and back 5 times" which just means counting to 5 on both sides. It takes all of 2 seconds to do and appeases him, so I do it, but it's just funny to me that it happens almost every night without fail. 😂🤷‍♀️

~Not related to the kids, but today I was at the grocery store and an older man pointed at Nolan and then said to me "Do you know where I can get one of those?" and it totally threw me off guard that all I could do was laugh and then awkwardly laugh some more. I literally did not know how to respond in a witty way - all I could think about was how it takes getting pregnant he was a dude - haha it was awkward and left me feeling pretty awkward myself!

Allllright, whew. Glad this post is done and that I am caught up and back in the game again! Here's pictures from the last 11 days: