Let Me Tell You About My Day

Well, I'll tell you one thing, this past week has been anything but uneventful.

Here's a picture to kill you with cuteness before I begin:

 Okay, and here's one more:

 And I can't leave this one out!!  I'M SORRY!!! :

Whew. Okay. I think I've reached Blogger's Kitten Quota.

So, my oven has been dying a very slow and painful death, with the pain not so much having an impact on IT, as it does on ME and on my baked goods. It's just been getting worse and worse over the past year. Remember how I used to make my own bread? It just kind of stopped turning out. It kept coming out burned all over the outside and still raw on the inside. I would make quiche that should only cook for 30 minutes and it would take 2 hours to cook through. It was RIDICULOUS. Martin got me one of those hangy thermometers for the oven and that helped a little (at least I learned that the temperature was roughly 100 degrees off, give or take, depending on the day and the weather) but really, we had to come to grips with the fact that it was time for a new stove.

Thanksgiving was a big day for us. It started bright and early with me returning the van we'd been borrowing from my parents and enjoying a nice walk home from their house to ours. It was the most beautiful morning ever; a little cold, but really sunny, and all the fall colors that were hanging on were so bright and pretty. When I got home we all dressed up and loaded the car for our trip to Chicago for the day with Martin's family. It was also our nephew's birthday and Martin's sister's birthday, so it was quite the celebration.

The next morning Martin was determined to head out to the Black Friday sales and get us a new range. (He waited until mid-morning, because he's not insane, just frugal.) And he found one! A great deal on a flat top electric, very sleek and fancy. It took a few hours to get it in, then we had to cut windows and doors from the box it had come in, and our friend Perkins came over because she was in town for the weekend, so it was kind of a crazy day. Just like the day before.

I don't remember what we did on Saturday, but I know the girls had not quite recovered, behaviorally speaking. (It takes us awhile around here.) On Sunday we missed three different Mass times. This was mostly because of a pair of red tights that I'd bought the weekend before, stupidly telling Anja they were her Christmas tights. (Why did I say that?!? WHYYY?!?!?) So, when I suggested that Greta wear them and Greta excitedly agreed (new tights!) Anja had an absolute meltdown. And then Greta had a meltdown of equal intensity. It was pretty cool. So we had to go to the noon Mass, without our friend Perkins, and amazingly, the girls were pretty good. I don't remember the details of the rest of the day, but I know it wasn't our best. Still recovering from Thanksgiving, of course.

Monday promised to be an absolutely CRAZY day. Martin is off all week to hunt, but the morning was spent getting the girls ready for Anja to go to speech. And then I remembered that they had a doctor appointment in the afternoon, so I'd have to pick up Anja early from Speech. (Many tears.) I promised her that I would try my best to reschedule so she could stay at speech the entire time. Speech starts at 12:45. I called the doctor when I got home from dropping her off, but they were closed for lunch until 1:30. The appointment was at 2:00. So, at 1:30, AS I was driving to pick up Anja, I called the doctors office, explained that only if it was possible for them, could I move the appointment to later or to another day this week so my daughter wouldn't have to miss her speech class (which hadn't begun or even been scheduled when I made the doctors appointments, which I forgot about until I turned my calendar to December*) please? She asked the names of my kids and looked up the appointment and said brightly and very professionally, "We have you scheduled for December 3rd?"
*It's not December yet.
"Yeah... Oh wait... Today isn't December third?"
"Today is November 26th."
What a relief! It pays to not have any idea what day it is, I'm telling you. Martin asked me how I could possible think it was already Thanksgiving. My natural thought process was that since Thanksgiving is over, and I know that the doctors appointments are on a Monday, it must've been December! But, I was wrong. And so the day was saved.

Well, not quite saved. Because Anja's teacher sort of forgot to tell her that I was not coming early, so she spent almost the whole time at speech dreading leaving early. She told me that every time someone had said her name she thought they were going to tell her it was time to go. So sad!!  Anyway, I took Martin back home and he packed up to go hunt and Greta and Elka spent only a few minutes there before it was time to go pick up Anja at the regular time, which we did, and then went home and continued on through dinner. I had "seasoned" my new oven earlier in the day by letting it burn off it's new-oven smell, so I told the girls that we could make cookies when Daddy got home, because Elka was clingy and not napping well. (also a theme of the weekend.)

Martin called me at 5:00 to report no deer and that he was coming home, and it was really cold. He called from the truck so I knew he'd be home in 30-40 minutes. (As opposed to longer; where he hunts he parks up at the top of a hill and walks a long way to his hunting spots.) The girls and I hung out, drew pictures, made dinner. I kept telling them we'd make cookies as soon as Martin was home so he could hold Elka, and then I kind of realized I hadn't heard from him in awhile. And by "awhile" I mean an hour and a half. I called him to see what was taking so long, but got no answer. Waited a few minutes thinking he might be in a drive-thru, tried again--no answer. Sometimes if he's talking to someone on the other line it takes awhile before he gets the message that he needs to ask them to hold on while he answers my call to let me know he's still alive, so I kept calling... and calling... and calling.... and then it got to be a full two hours since I'd last talked to him, when he was telling me he was getting in the truck to come home, so I kind of started worrying. (worrying/panicking. They're the same thing, right?) Well, I called my mom, and my dad and my brother-in-law were going to go drive out there to look for him, and while they were doing that I called the local police who were getting me set up with the police in the town where he hunts, when a call came in from an out-of-town number and I answered and it was Martin. And he sounded kind of shivery and he said "I locked the keys and my phone and my coat in the truck." He had walked three miles from his hunting place to the McDonald's in the nearest town. Talk about relief! Here's the funny middle of the story he told me later:
He'd gone in and bought a cup of coffee (he hadn't locked his wallet in the truck) and asked where the nearest payphone was. Of course, nobody uses payphones anymore and hardly any exist. So while the employees were trying to figure out where was the nearest payphone, he told them what had happened, and finally the manager (he said she was really sweet) said, "do you need to use our phone?" and he said, "It would really help if I could call my wife." Haha, poor guy.
So anyway, since my dad was already on his way out that direction, he went and picked him up and brought him home. And what he'd failed to tell me before my dad picked him up was that he had actually locked the truck WHILE IT WAS RUNNING. After some consulting with the men of the family, it was decided that it would likely be a bad thing to let the truck run out of gas overnight, so he had to drive back out to turn off the truck. I didn't like this idea, considering the fact that I'd spent a good chunk of time that evening legitimately believing he was dead, and I liked it less when I found out that the key was not here... it was 40 minutes away. North. The hunting spot is 40 minutes away.... South.

Much driving on snowy/wet roads later, Martin FINALLY got home for the night a little after 1:00am. We sat on the couch and had beers together. He told me about the scary houses he'd approached looking for a phone or a piece of wire to jimmy the lock. He had gone through quite the ordeal trying to break into the truck before deciding to just walk to town. Quite the adventure!

Today we have decided to drive down to Bloomington for the day to do some Christmas shopping and have a festive vacation day. Sometimes we get the itch to go down there and hang out. I don't know why we've both been feeling that way lately, but we have, so we're going. Should be fun!

I mentioned speech class. Anja began attending a preschool phonology class two weeks ago and SHE LOVES IT. She loves it more than I can say. This is her on her first day:

 Greta is not such a fan of her sister going off and having fun while she has to stay home with me. Here's a picture of Greta that same first day:

 Evidently the snowman cookie didn't make up for the fact that Anja was off having loads of fun while she was stuck going to the grocery store with her parents. I'd probably feel the same way, really.

And one Sunday we took a family walk, and here are the girls and me. It was a beautiful day. We stopped by our favorite local coffee shop and ran into friends who'd recently moved back to town.

So, yeah, there's been no end to the excitement around here lately. Martin says I need to post on my blog more often. I'll try, but I'm not making any promises.