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.