The world is so dreadfully managed, one hardly knows to whom to complain. ~Ronald Firbank
Spring ahead, fall behind.
Spring ahead, fall behind.
Spring ahead, fall behind.
Just pick one and stop this craziness! Daylight saving time? How does it save daylight? I mean, really, what is the point? Most businesses have lights on all day whether it is day or night, so it is not really "saving" anything at all!
Thursday, the Thursday before last actually, after the Princess begged and we were acclimating to the time change, I was determined to get her to the youth praise and worship team practice. I drove 25 minutes west to the Yorkville campus of our church where it should have been. Unfortunately, we were met with construction inside as they were replacing some of the media equipment and lighting. Practice, we were told, was at the other campus. So we drove another 30 minutes east past our home to find only the adult team practicing as the youth one had been cancelled. Then I drove another 15 minutes to get home with at least a quarter tank of gas wasted. Had I been on Facebook.... (No, I am still resisting the whole Facebook/social networking thing. It is not going to happen.) So, my husband talked to the Music Pastor, who explained that due to vacations where the youth were filling in with the adult P&W and the changes they need to make with stage, they have cancelled the youth praise and worship practice until after Easter, but that he will put together a music book so that the Princess can begin learning the songs. We hope to have them over for dinner this week with their first little baby! I just have some cleaning to do....
I received my check from my first consignment sale the Saturday before last; it was over $200! Not bad considering that all those clothes and books were from consigment sales so I sold them for about the same price as I paid for them, although I price on the low side. That $200 paid for books and clothes that I bought so far for the Princess plus some. Considering that I get 70% of the sale price, I did very well and sold about half of the things I put in it. I replaced the tags with ones for the next sale, added all our VHS tapes as this sale does not have a limit on them as the others do, and will be dropping those items off this afternoon. I also signed up for another sale that takes place in the middle of April, but if I do not have enough left over from this one to make it worthwhile, I will simply unregister.
We had to replace the compressor for the air conditioner in our van on Friday. That was about $200 dollars more than we had expected it to be. Quite costly, but I really would not want to go without air conditioning in the van with summer coming...if summer ever does come because we keep getting cold snaps in waves as if we are just being teased with warmer temperatures before the next one; tomorrow night the low is expected to dip into the 20's again!
This past Saturday my husband was required to attend the chaperone meeting at Living Science from 9 to 12. I was to clean at the school this weekend as well, so I choose to clean in the classroom building, which has only two large science classrooms, as the other building would be occupied with the meeting. I wish I had taken the pay $50 option instead of cleaning because the classroom building was not vacant, but filled with high school students in the Servant Leader program. All the Princess and I could really clean was the bathrooms and the foyer around the bookbags and kids, which we did and gave up on the classrooms. Last fall I paid because it is an hour drive for us just to get to the school and then there is about three hours worth of cleaning to be done. I pay half the $50 in gas and then it is half of my day shot when I have plenty of house and yard work to do at home. I would not have even attempted it this time if my husband did not have to be there for that meeting. Being thrifty, I do not like paying the money, but weighing it out I also consider my time to be valuable.
Since we were in the area, I stopped by to give my friend, the Princess' piano teacher, an ozonator to borrow as she had smoke damage in her house again. This is the third time she has smoke damage in about three years. Her first insurance company dropped her after the second one which was just a few months after the first time. She simply started cooking something and forgot about it...all three times. This time she felt she could not report it to her insurance company and was washing everything she could herself with a few friends helping. The ozonator would be able to treat the remaining smoke smells, we are hoping. So after a short visit there, we ate out and then started for home.
That same evening our church was hosting a concert but even if we had remembered, it would have been too much to do in one day. We did enjoy the singing couple for church service yesterday morning.
This week we are focused on the Princesss' science presentation and the expedition. Her father has been working with her on the 3-D model of the habitat for the endangered red wolf. So timely, as he had worked with someone recently who had a passion and experience for building an impressive train model, who gave him some great advice. I gladly have taken a hands-off approach so they could do this project together, but I will be working with her on the presentation itself and possibly help her paint the wolf figurines she got.
We have to get certain items for the expedition also. Mostly the Princess is concerned about finding cheap tennis shoes that she has been told she will need to toss away after the expedition as they will be using them in the river and swamp areas. We are going to look for them today when I go out to make my consignment sale drop off.
Oh, and my husband for the very first time in his life was summoned for jury duty. "We don't have anything going on the week of April 14th, do we?" No, honey....just the science expedition! He jumped on that right away last Monday and his differral has been approved so he will be serving in the middle of May instead.
I am looking forward to five days all to myself in April...well, not completely to myself as there are the furry ones. I have a couple projects in mind to do without concerns about being in the way of anyone else and without any interruptions.
~ My Lord, so much more to do. Let me not waste time on things of little importance to You. ~
