Things I Don't Want to Remember, March 2020

Just in case you thought our life was perfectly happy and easy....it's not.  And while every day is a gift, sometimes you want to exchange it for a different one, ya know?

Phil and I had a crazy schedule this week, with the peak being five events in one night.  We had two playoff basketball games, Freshman Orientation at our high school (Phil and I both had to work the event), our weekly Adoration hour, and a Christopher West talk that we had bought four tickets for a long time ago (for Phil and I and the two oldest boys).  All of that in one night!  We had to call in reinforcements, have family pick up kids, get our Adoration hour covered, and miss the Christopher West talk.  Ugh, the logistics can be such a nightmare in our family!

Everyone in our family got the flu in February except Alexander and Declan.  It wasn't horrible - just a fever that turned into a cough/cold.  But then Alexander got it last week, and the fever just wouldn't quit.  He missed the whole week of school, and Phil and I had to take turns missing work because people look down on parents who leave their 8 year old home alone ;)  Big family illnesses are a struggle for sure.  Phil still has the cough A WHOLE MONTH LATER and cracked a rib/pulled muscles in his rib area due to it.  He's been on steroids and antibiotics and is now taking ibuprofen for the rib pain.  Poor guy just can't seem to shake it.  I must admit that nursing my family back to health is like the least of my gifts, and the coughing certainly wears on us all.

As soon as we got our tax return, we realized we needed a new roof.  Guys, roofs are expensive.  We had a really windy day, and some shingles blew off and we had to get it repaired before the rain came, but that was just a temporary fix until we could get the whole roof done.  So that's happening this week.

Phil cooked a huge meal of pecan chicken this week, making enough for another meal of leftovers (about 6.5 pounds of chicken).  Some of us ate it, then had to run off to events, and we left the chicken out for the teens who hadn't eaten yet.  They ate and then put the tray of chicken in the oven so that the dog wouldn't get it (which she would), thinking that other people still needed to eat.  Everybody was in and out that evening, and the next morning, I was looking for the chicken in the fridge to bring for lunch.  I couldn't find it, so I asked who put it away, when we realized it was still in the oven.  We had to throw away a whole tray of delicious pecan chicken.  This kind of stuff just bothers me so much!!  Probably more than it should.  I don't know how to teach kids to think like adults when they are only kids.

We keep changing our April break plans, due to college visits and family events in Maryland, and I've had to schedule and reschedule college tours, hotel stays, dog boarding, so many times that I don't even know what I'm doing anymore.  I'm pretty sure we will show up to a hotel with no reservation or drop off our dog on the wrong day, or visit a college at the wrong time due to all the changes.  It's hard being the one who has to plan and schedule all of this for nine people.  It's stressful and yet I don't trust anybody else to do it for me.  Lose lose.  It also means we can't go to a comedy show we had bought tickets for.  So if anyone wants to buy three tickets to Trey Kennedy's sold out show in Pittsburgh on April 23, let me know!

This week started with a lost hour of sleep, a full moon, and ends with Friday the 13th, so maybe that's why it feels extra awful?  Next week can only go up from here!  (Feeling like I should delete this whole post, but keeping it because it's real.  Real cranky.  But real.)