May 2021

May was a month full of stress. I'd like to say it was all fine. But it pushed me to my breaking point. My parents were saints as they tolerated us taking over their house for the entire month. Leo quickly became accustomed to their house and found his favorite sleeping spots. My mom took good care of him while I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

Shortly after demo the cabinet boxes went in. All was going great. Until the counter installer came. And until Drew Oakes (our friend and tile installer) threw out his back and so I had to find a new tile installer amid the crazy time of limited supply of all housing materials and laborers because of covid, and apparently the rest of the world deciding this would be a great time to remodel their houses as well.

But back to the tile installer (we'll get back to tile problems later). There was an angle that was off by the dishwasher and he couldn't do the template. He refused to come back to redraw until the middle of June. I was so upset. I was irritated at my cabinet guy for not having everything done. And I was mad at my installer for not being willing to come out and redraw the template. I was especially mad when he got arrogant and snooty, and was just down right rude about the whole situation. I was in tears. I essentially fired him and started hunting for another fabricator. Sadly, I went with a guy that came highly recommended and agreed to squeeze us in. And he did a botch job. He was off in the overhang amounts, made a horrible seam, and had some other poor quality work. So we had to call in a mediator. Who basically said, ya this guy did a bad job. I'll fix what I can and bill him for it. 

So he fixed what he could, and I meanwhile obsessed over all of the imperfections. Oh ya...that was when I was at my lowest low and I flew Kortney out here for reinforcements. And she did everything I needed her to do. She met with the mediator, she helped me finalize all my measurements (here's her hand to prove it). She helped me finalize my tile. Found me my bathroom light fixtures and figure out heights for the electrician. 

And here's a picture of the cool full moon that I took on my way to the airport to pick her up.

I'm so grateful that she came. I was so stressed and not in a good place mentally. John was busy with work and honestly, tired of dealing with my crazy. The kids were busy with all of the end of year stuff, and I just needed support. This was also the week that I decided this would be my last year at Lowell Scott. I had become a bad employee, seeing as how I had to be at the beckon call of subcontractors. And while they were patient with me, I also pushed my boss to her limit. She was not okay with liberties I was taking with my schedule, and I was tired of dealing with the drama and the constant unnecessary level of crisis that they created in the library. I decided then that I would finish out the year and then just do Savvy Reading during the summer and next school year. 

By the end of may we were still living with my parents, with no end in sight. Owen was finishing up drivers training. Emmie Finished soccer. Ainsley took the ACT again and finished her Junior year. 

The end of the year was CRAZY!

Here are some pictures of my activity day's group when we made box houses. 

Owen finished tennis.

We got a lot done in May, if I could go back I would have worked harder at taking all of the crisis's in stride. And honestly I really enjoyed the time with my parents. We had a lot of great conversations and it was so nice to have two moms in the house. My mom literally saved me. She listened to every complaint and helped me solve every new crisis that seemed to come daily.

April 2021

During the month of April our lives started to get a little crazy. 

The month started out fairly normal with conference and Easter. Conference was nice to listen to, and the cinnamon rolls are always welcomed. For Easter I the kids all got different types of strip lights of bulbs lights for their bedrooms. The note that went along with them was that the light should remind them to share the light of Christ. I'm not sure that the message took root, but it was a good effort.

We also had an Easter Egg hunt with Michael and Rachelle and my parents. Trey and Holly found all of these hats up in the play room, and insisted that everyone wear them for the hunt. I think they really added to the overall feel of Easter!

Our back yard neighbor contacted us very early in the spring and wanted to replace the back fence. We were very happy about this because our fence is falling apart. The good news is that she purchased all of the wood before wood prices skyrocketed because of shortages due to the pandemic. The bad news is, we hadn't been proactive about buying wood for the rest of our fence, and she wanted to do the fence the same weekend that JR Schofield was scheduled to start doing the framing in our house for the remodel. But it all worked out and now we have 1/3 of a beautiful new fence!

I actually really enjoyed working on the fence with the neighbors. It felt a little more like a community. Our backyard neighbor, Alexis, is young and single and works at St. Lukes. Her dad and grandpa were here helping her. We were able to talk more with the neighbors on the sides of her as we all had a big open shared yard for a few days. They were all very nice and enjoyable to work with. They were out working on Sunday morning so we were able to go out and work for a bit before church. It led to great conversations about their church and our church. I was actually a little sad when the final posts went up and we weren't able to talk as easily anymore. Especially since I realized that several of the assumptions I had made about some of my neighbors weren't correct. It was a bit of in eye opener for me that I needed to give all of my neighbors the benefit of the doubt and that I need to be better about going out of my way to really get to know my neighbors. 

As we were building a new fence outside, JR Schofield (from our ward) was building us some new walls inside. 

We had a 3/4 wall in our master bedroom. The wall between the bedroom and bathroom didn't go completely up to the vaulted ceiling. Which was a huge pain in the mornings when someone was getting ready and someone was trying to sleep. We lived for the last 7 years with one of us (mostly John) having to get ready in the dark if the other person was sleeping. And we also had a partial wall/plant shelf above our pantry and front hall closet. JR was framing all of those walls up to the ceiling. Which would mean more storage and a much better look and function!

(I always panic before we actually had work done.  In true Jessica fashion I taped paper up before the walls were framed in just to make sure I'd like it.)

And now that it's all done I can honestly say I love it. 

I also had to finalize the paint color for the kitchen cabinets. Which essentially meant I spent a lot of time painting random cabinet doors and carried around painted boards to different areas of the house to make sure I liked it. I stressed about it all so much. I can't say that the stress was worth it, but I made some pretty good choices because of it!

I also became obsessed with this turkey, who lived on or near this bus in the Lowell Scott Parking lot for over a week. I took was too many pictures. And at first I thought it was a fake bird.

Owen also spend the month playing tennis, tennis, and more tennis. It was a lot of fun to watch him play, which was good because I spent many, many hours on the sides of the tennis courts!

Emmie won an art award for her school. The kids at her elementary school were given the chance to create a piece of art during their art class or at home. Emmie made this during her art class. And even though she claims she didn't even try and handed it in on paper that was slightly crumpled, the staff at River Valley still voted her art as the winner for the school! Due to covid students were only allowed one guest, so I got to go with Emmie to the district office where her art was displayed and awards were given. And then her art was displayed at Meridian City hall for the month of May. 

Owen also had his first and last band concert of the year. And actually possibly ever since he decided not to play the trumpet next year so he could free up some time in his schedule for more medical and video classes. The concert was great and we got this great picture of him by this plant in the lobby.

Speaking of Owen. Owen got an email from his video editing teacher about his incredible talent in that area. He said that Owen has a knack for editing and has more talent and ability than all of his students in his 2 and 3rd year classes. It was a pretty flattering letter. And his teacher also passes Owen's information on to a colleague of his who sometimes hires students to help with editing. I'm not sure that anything will ever come of it but I'd say it's pretty cool and we're proud of him either way!

The end of April brought with it demo of our house. Which meant that we were moving into my parents house until we had sinks and showers again. The plan was for 3-4 weeks. 

We put a lot of hard work into taking all of the cabinets and tile out ourselves.  John did most of the heavy lifting. We learned a lot, and we're still married, so that's a good thing!  

Spoiler alert....as soon as we got everything torn out and ready for install...the real crazy hit. Ugh. Stay Tuned.