weekly what's up.

Welcome to the (almost) weekend!  We made it through the week relatively unscathed, even considering all the oddities at the moment.

Last weekend, Todd spent Friday and Saturday at an elder's retreat, so the kids and I hunkered down on our own.  While it was fun, I am no Dad, and Saturday Dadurday just wasn't the same without him.  I honestly can't even remember what we did that day - I probably cleaned the house and let the kids watch too much TV.  I'm pretty sure I made them rake leaves, too.  I think you can see I'm a big dull dud without Todd.

On Sunday, church was cancelled due to the quarantine, so we slept in and had a slow, relaxing, and kind of weird day of rest and worship at home.  I like our normal Sunday routine, and I missed it this week.

The boys used their birthday and Christmas money to order some die cast pickup trucks, and they came in the mail over the weekend.  They were thrilled.

It seems the older truck already needs some engine work done, but no fear!  Lego Mechanic to the rescue!

On Monday, we kicked off Spring Break Woohoo.  I got some reading done, continued cleaning out the kitchen, worked a bit on painting the basement, and the kids and I started a Map of Europe puzzle.  It's 1000 pieces.  It was officially the worst, most psychotic parenting decision I've ever made, and I'll tell you why.

If this photo doesn't make your blood pressure shoot through the roof, then you have clearly never Puzzled with the early elementary set.

1.  This is our first puzzle together.  1000 pieces is too many to start with, especially with a six-year-old involved.

2.  We only have one table space, and no cardboard large enough to easily move it when we're needing to use the table for other things.  Transportation is going to be an issue.

3.  Four kids = four heads in my way when I'm trying to look for pieces.  It means eight hands grabbing pieces I'm trying to systematically work through.  It means dropped pieces and missing pieces and bent pieces.  STRESS LEVEL MIDNIGHT.

4.  It turns out I am not nice when I Puzzle.  ("I am trying to problem-solve here, people!  I don't care that your elbow bends that way!  Show me later.")  I am discovering I prefer to Puzzle alone.  Just call me the Lone Puzzler.

We got the border mostly done on Monday, and I have not had the courage to pull it back out since.  I'm pretty sure I want us to keep going.  Kind of.  Or maybe I will just have clandestine Puzzle Dates with myself after the kids are in bed.  ("Gee, kids.  I don't know how this happened.  It appears Russia assembled itself overnight.  They are probably getting ready to launch a hostile takeover.  Arm yourselves.")

These munchkins got it into their heads to snuggle on the counter, for whatever reason.

Tuesday, we got the news that our county was declaring Stay In Place orders starting the next day.  We braced ourselves and girded our loins for... well, for life to continue on exactly as it has been for the last week.

On Wednesday, I made our regular trip up to the Amish.  (I am not being reckless, I am buying groceries, WHICH IS ALLOWED THANKYOUVERYMUCH.)  We stopped into the bulk store for a few of our staples, and I was curious to see if it had been pillaged by the panicking public.  It had, in fact, not been.  In fact, I was able to find tons of organic Lundgren rice - brown basmati and brown jasmine, our favorites! - for 50 cents a pound!  Things were actually looking up for me.

The toilet paper, coffee, croutons, and all the candy had been plundered, but for those of us not subsisting on a diet of Rolos and dry goods, there was plenty of food to be found.

Juni has had fun this week getting pushed around in the toy basket.

Yesterday was my birthday, which I'll detail more next week, but I will say here that it was so nice.  Todd got me tickets to a Wallflowers/Matchbox 20 concert this summer, so I'm super pumped for that.  The kids all made me gifts and cards (Finneas' card said, "You are growing up!  To Mom and more" and I died).

We went on a neighborhood walk over Todd's lunch break, we had wings for dinner and cheesecake for dessert, and we watched The Greatest Showman before putting the kids to bed.  You can't possibly be surprised by any of this - this birthday celebration just screams Paige Van Voorst.

So that is all we did this week.  I will tell you what I did not do this week: I did not grade papers like I should have (that's on the agenda for today.  Probably.) and I did not fold any laundry.  My laundry pile is getting SO BAD.  I probably have about ten loads to fold at this point.  But I have an excuse: I like to fold laundry while watching a TV show - I very, very, very rarely get to watch TV during the day anymore, so I like to have something to look forward to doing while I fold laundry.  I had put a couple of seasons of Scrubs on hold at the library, but then the library closed for coronavirus before I could pick them up.  So I don't have a show to watch, and therefore I can't do the laundry.  See?  I knew you could be swayed to my side by logic and reason.

Heaven help me find the motivation to dig myself out from under the laundry, and to grade and file papers today.  OR Heaven help the rescue dogs find me after I'm buried under the inevitable avalanche of Laundry/Papers.  Whichever requires less effort on my part.