Failed Friday...well, sort of

Well, it was an interesting day. I can give it that much. MIL called in the morning and said that she was done with her electrician and that she would be ready at any time to go to that garage sale and get the table and chairs (and this side hall mirror/table thing) and that she would meet us at our house. So, she comes over and we drive up to the sale (she in her car with our Littles and us in our van) two blocks from our house. I park and then head over to the car to sit with the Littles while MIL and Hubby load her items into our van. All starting out well.

MIL comes back to the car and I get out and head back towards my van and she leaves, heading for her house with the kids. We are going to head that way too. Hubby wanted me to look at something (a pop-up kennel that we ended up buying for our dog) so we look and then buy it, get in the van and go to start it. I turn the key and the van clicks. Groan. Not now. Not with a van load of MIL's garage sale purposes. Not while I'm parked in a prime spot at a garage sale. So I try it again. Click, click, click. Deep breath. I turn to Hubby. "It's not working."

So, he calls his mom and lets her know. He also heads home to grab some oil (our van is almost 10 years old - it uses oil and is a bit overdue for a change, I just haven't gotten under there yet) and comes back. The oil level is okay, but Hubby adds some more despite my telling him not to.

While we are standing at the front of the van, the windshield wipers come on and start spraying water. The windshield wipers are off. The van is off. No clue what is going on with that (and I still don't know).

MIL comes over and after a quick assessment of the situation, she talks to the garage sale hosts and asks to borrow jumper cables. We try to jump it. No luck. The van at this point won't even click now. Great! So, MIL gets on her cell and calls her repair shop and then Triple A to come tow it.

Hubby leaves and walks the kids home so that they can go down for naps (as we have now been out there for awhile and they are getting tired and cranky) MIL gets off the phone with Triple A and says that they said it could be anytime within the next hour. "Might as well browse a bit more," we decide.

We walk up the driveway, I look at two picture frames that match the style of frames we use in our house and decide to get them (75 cents apiece and one of them was still brand new!) and I pay for my frames, then we start to walk out of the garage to look some more and a flat bed semi from Triple A shows up. I point it out to MIL and she wasn't sure it was there for us, since that would have been too fast. But the semi doesn't move, just sits there, so she goes out to talk to the driver. I follow behind.

By the time I get down there, the van is running. The Triple A guy was able to jump it with some tool he has. He informs MIL of a service they have and I explain the parts of it that he isn't explaining well and the MIL is not catching on to. We decide to use the service (a battery truck will come out and check the battery, replace the battery if need be, and also check the other systems to insure that they aren't needlessly draining the battery) and agree to meet the guy at MIL's house. The van is running and we can get the items to her house and get them unloaded before the battery truck gets there. So, we call Hubby and let him know that we are going to swing back around and pick him and the kids up and head back out so we can complete our original plans for the day, albeit later than we expected.

We pick them up and head over to MIL's. We unload the items and get them set up in her house. She got some fabulous deals! And then we wait for the guy. He was supposed to be there in about half an hour. About forty-five minutes later, he gives MIL a call, letting her know that he's about half an hour away. So, we feed the kids lunch.

The battery guy gets there and starts his tests. It's taking forever so Hubby puts the kids down for a nap. Once he gets them calmed down and settled in, the guy is done so its time to get those poor Littles up again. Hubby heads home with them (because now it is close to the time that the Big boys will be walking home from school) to put them down for their naps there (as he had originally tried to do. MIL and I get in the van and head down to FIL's business.

We spend quite a while, walking around, looking in the offices and checking out different chairs, lots of pictures and various things. In the end, we got six wood and vinyl chairs for our kitchen table, one wood and fabric chair for our computer desk, and a whole slew of pictures. I got a picture that is in the style of "The Rainbow Fish", you know, the childrens' storybook? I also got two Winnie-the-Pooh theme pictures and a bright Zebra picture for our kids' playroom. Finally some artwork to hang up to make it fun and whimsical in there! Then I got a wooden picture with muted tones for our bedroom. Two pictures for the living room and one that matches the style of pictures in our family room, but our family room doesn't need any additional pictures, although I did come up with two different spots in here where it could be used.

So, in all, that part of the day went well. We got what we went to look for and MIL and I had a nice time together. Any time that MIL and I have a good day together is a good day. Just plain and simple.

So, we get home and we transfer the pictures that MIL got for her house over to her car and she heads out. We unload some of the stuff from the van and I take a nap. :)

While I'm napping, Hubby finishes unloading the van and gets everything inside and then puts our van seats back in and gets the kids ready for the school carnival tonight.

The school carnival. It was all right. Nothing great and fantastic, but the kids enjoyed themselves and the little prizes that they won and seeing their friends and their friends' families. Boy A said hi to a group of older girls (he is in 3rd grade, these girls were most definitely in middle school) and one of the girls turned around, saw him and said, "Oh hi, Boy A." Of course, she said his real name, not "Boy A" but you know... And I look at Hubby and then I look at Boy A and I'm trying to figure out how my little boy knows those girls and I can't figure it out. So I ask him. "Oh, that one there," he points to one of the girls, "she's Girl S's sister." Girl S is a neighbor (and well, I guess her sister is also, LOL!) but Girl S was in Boy A's class last year and they played together quite a bit last year. They didn't spend much time together over the summer or this year yet, but I wonder if its just a matter of differing schedules.

So anyhow, I found out how he knew them and my ruffled feathers laid back down nicely and I was able to enjoy the rest of the evening. Then we came home, fed the kids and put them to bed.

The carpets didn't get cleaned, the playroom is not in playroom order, and there are chairs and pictures in my family room that don't belong. But there's always tomorrow. Girl L doesn't get here until 3 pm and technically, it's not even here at our house, it will be at MIL's house to watch our college football team play.

Oh, and I was able to borrow the camera. I can't remember if I said that or not, but I'll upload some pictures in a bit too of the boys in a race car of some sort tonight at the carnival. And there will be pictures tomorrow! You can guarantee that!

Finish It Friday

Today is "Finish It Friday" as dubbed by the great and wonderful Katie who I still need to email back (and I will! I promise!) :) Actually...maybe...yeah...maybe that's something that should be on my Finish It list. Finish my email! :)

On my list for finishing projects today is my van. That's actually towards the top of my list for a couple of reasons. Number one being that my van is actually my MIL's van. My MIL is the one who bought it and paid for it and takes care of the insurance and maintenance, etc, although she did buy it for us. We are extremely grateful for it too! Anyhow, I guess she went to a yard sale recently and bought a table and chairs and maybe some other items that she couldn't fit into her car. So, she called us and let us know that we were going to go pick it up today. But it is also the vehicle we use the most as a family. So, we had to pull the seats out, clean it out and make sure there was enough cargo room in there for what she needs. We have done that part, but it still looks messy. It needs to be vacuumed out and wiped down and the glass cleaned on the inside. It's kind of a vanity thing, but I want it to look really nice before MIL gets in there. Anyone who has little kids knows how messy a car can get when you spend a fair amount of time in there. Which is worsened even more if you car doubles as storage for some things. For us, that would be where we regularly keep our bowling balls. Hubby and I each have two and Boy A has one. Plus bowling shoes and other equipment. Plus our sporting equipment. We haven't seen the carpet in back of our van (behind the back seat) for a long, long time.

The other reason we need to get it cleaned out is because FIL's company just closed. So, we get to go over there on Saturday and pick out things that the company hasn't been able to sell yet. Namely, chairs. Although, we might have a chance at some pictures or other items. But I do know we are specifically looking at chairs. I'm excited about that too!

And the third reason, is because on Saturday, my son is having a girl over. Boy A is 8, Girl L is 8. Their birthdays are 3 months, 1 week and 5 days apart. Girl L is the daughter of my best friend, BFF N. I am older than BFF N by 2 months, 2 weeks, and 5 days. He and I grew up together. We "met" when we were two years old, though neither of us remember it. We just grew up together and have always been friends. His ex-girlfriend, L's mother, and I were pregnant together. L's mother and my BFF N didn't work out, but that's okay. BFF N just got married this summer and his wife is pretty cool. L's mother doesn't live in our city though, and BFF N only has her every other weekend and two weeks in June and two weeks in July, plus every other holiday or something like that. So, we don't really get to see her very often.

This summer, I finally got to meet L. I just never wanted to infringe on BFF N's time with her and felt that their time together was special and important. So I finally met her and then the next week, she came over while BFF N and his wife went out and played pool. They were on a league. When BFF N came to pick her up, she begged him to be able to stay the night. I told him it was fine by me and it was fine by him, so that's what happened. BFF N and I used to stay the night at each other's houses until we were twelve years old or something like that.

Boy A has been wanting to see Girl L ever since then, but it hasn't worked well with our schedules so we haven't had a chance to see her again. I texted BFF N to check to see if he had Girl L this weekend and he said he did. I asked him if Girl L could hang out with us for awhile on Saturday and he said yes. And then he told me that he actually had a birthday party to go to for one of his friends in another town and would we just want to keep Girl L overnight? I talked to Hubby about it and he said, "I suppose" so we have Girl L overnight on Saturday night.

Kind of a long way to say that is the third reason I want to get the van super clean. Plus it gave me a good excuse to post some pictures.

I also was able to borrow my mom's camera for the weekend (or maybe a bit longer than that even) so that I can take some new and fun photos to share with you all.

Some other finish it items include:
*carpet cleaning the boys' bedroom (also because Girl L is staying over)
*getting our playroom into shape (also because Girl L is staying over)

And I honestly think that those three items alone will be plenty for me to finish up today. Actually, Hubby will be doing the carpet cleaning in the boys' room and we will all be pitching in on the playroom, but its on the list, so hopefully, by the end of the day today, I will be able to cross them off as finished projects.

Murphy's Law

Well, doesn't it just figure that the day I put up a post about wanting to get more active and such, it turns out that I ended up feeling the exact opposite? I had 0 energy today. ZERO. I did go in and talk to Boy A's teacher...well, two of them actually. And I talked to Boy B's teacher briefly. I signed up for the volunteer training so that I could help out in the classroom and then I came home. I helped Hubby get the Littles ready to go and we headed out over to Mother-in-Law's (MIL) house to drop them off. Did some job searching stuff and then came home and CRASHED. I was so tired! Woke up, worked on the computer for a bit, helped Boy A get his homework started (really, just on the encouragement front) and then CRASHED. Then, I woke up at midnight. Not working so well for me. I could still sleep the rest of the night, but I won't because I have a number of projects to work on that I didn't get around to working on today while I was napping.

So, I am going to go pick up my mom and she is going to stay in the house while Hubby and I go out to the garage and do some work out there and also clean out the van. We need to have the van fully accessible for this weekend, as MIL wants to use it for the cargo space and we need to use it for the cargo space as well.

So, that is what we are doing. At 1 AM. In the morning. Yay! LOL! It's a good thing that I regularly work nights and am used to being up right now and also that I function on very minimal sleep most of the time. Today being an exception - usually I have a day like that once a month or so.

I will also see if I can borrow my mom's camera so that I can take a picture of the garage so I can show you all just how much there is to do out there. It's a completely crazy mess. Ugh!