Category: March

According to my children, I am an obsessive compulsive cleaner. According to me my children are messy lazy slobs. Of course we both disagree with each others perspectives of the other, but as I love to tell them I am the mom, the adult, the owner of the house, and maker of the rules so for now they have to do it my way. This opinion of each other leads to a constant debate in our home, as I am sure it happens in many homes, when a chore is given between “I did do (fill in job requested)!” and “You did not do (fill in job requested) well.” A simple task that if done immediately and correctly would take 5-10 minutes can be dragged out for hours. It is truly exhausting.

The other day when they were doing some of their jobs, several of them needed to use the vacuum. I was doing some things of my own and also needed to use the vacuum. As all of us used it and passed it around I noticed this;

According to our usual MO’s the loosely wrapped cord would be my kids doing, and the neatly wrapped cord would be mine. However, many years ago I decided it was annoying to wrap and unwrap the cord every time I used the vacuum that I keep in the closet and never look at. I started wrapping it as shown in exhibit A. A little bit messy but that is the way I prefer it. Such a slacker, I know. You would think my children-that cut every corner they can when doing their chores-would be all for wrapping the cord this way. Honestly, I’m surprised that it gets wrapped up in any way at all but all three of my children- every single one of them- neatly rolls the cord up as soon as they are done using the vacuum. They don’t put it away of course but they wrap the cord and tuck it in all nice and neat. AND IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. I will say nothing though. I am not willing to find out what happens if I suggest my kids do something less… thorough. All my ‘harping and nagging’ over the years has taken root in their heads to wrap the vacuum cord. I can only hope that one day it will spread to throwing their trash away, or putting their dirty dishes in the dishwasher with out being told. Maybe it will spontaneously pop into their heads one day to put their dirty socks in the laundry bin instead of leaving it wherever they take them off. That hope keeps me from telling them, they don’t have to wrap the vacuum cord. That is irony at its finest for you.

This post has nothing to do with basketball. The title is just referring to our regular lives and happenings.

Allison has wanted to have colored hair for a while so we finally got around to it. She loves it and the attention she gets with it.

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We caught Grandpa surfing his phone…I mean taking a nap while he thought he was surfing his phone.

Ryan and I booked our 20th anniversary cruise for next May 2022. We are pretty excited! We decided on our 10th anniversary this is what we wanted to do. It is going to be awesome!

I was out of town and Ryan had the pleasure of taking the kids to church on his own. Whenever this happens he makes a point of getting the kids there 20 minutes early and rubbing it in my face because we usually screech in right on time. He did it again this time, but stepped up his game by having the Bishop send me the picture of my smiling family arriving to church 20 minutes early, instead of him. I think he is implying that I am the reason everyone is late but that is a bunch of garbage. He also sent me a picture of Emilee and her decision of what to wear to church that day. The girl rocks her own style.

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I met Ryan at a parking lot the other day and noticed a new addition to his car. This is his required license plate cover for the next month or so. He forgot to mention it to me, but like I said, I noticed, and have made sure it is now documented. What a good sport he is! I will also note that it had recently snowed and there was still snow on the roads so that is the reason for the atrociously egregious filthy condition of his beloved car. Under usual conditions it is spotless.

Another first for our family. Matthew went into have some tests done to check out his growth hormone levels. He had to get an IV that he was trying to play cool for but he was pretty nervous. When he was six and had to have some blood drawn it took me (7 months pregnant with Allison) and two male nurses to hold him still enough for the third nurse to draw the blood. His self control and braveness have improved a lot in the past 8 years as you might expect. He handled it like a champ.

I saw this little meme somewhere on my phone the other day and screen shot it because it is true and a good reminder.

Allison and dad got their garden started. They planted a salad/salsa garden. There will be lots of peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and pea plant just for me.

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There has been some videos on the news of people that live by hospitals coming out to their balconies at shift change time (which is usually 7am or 7pm) and clapping and cheering for the doctors and nurses and other health care staff that are working so hard right now helping all the patients with COVID 19. It is very touching and it is great that the people living by the hospitals show support for them.

Our neighbor across the street has apparently also seen these videos and is trying to get a neighborhood nightly ritual going. They have been posting on FB and texts to the neighborhood asking to have people come out at 7pm every night and clap for one minute for the health care workers. Might I point out that there are no actual health care workers.

The first time they did it, we were not aware of what they were doing. Ryan and Matthew were playing catch in the street by the front yard. All of the sudden their whole Stutzman family came out and without saying a word start clapping and cheering. Ryan and Matthew didn’t know what they were doing and thought they were clapping at them for some reason. They stopped and looked at them and then after the minute ended without a word they all turned around and went back in their house.

The next night we got a text from a different neighbor explaining what was going on and said that it was going to be something that happened every night at 7pm. We forgot and missed it that night.

Tonight we set an alarm because we got more text invites and didn’t want to be the stick in the mudds. So at 6:59 I dragged the kids to the front porch and told them we were going to clap for 1 minute for all the healthcare workers. At 7 o’clock sharp the Stutzman family came out and started clapping…our family and one other family were the only other families I could see. We all clapped for a minute then at 7:01 the Stutzman family stopped and walked back into their house. The entire time we were clapping my kids repeatedly asked me questions like, “Why are we doing this?” “When are the doctors coming?” “Why are we clapping if no one is here?” “Can the doctors and nurses see us and we just don’t know?”

It was a little weird. Again, if they were actual people to clap for I would be all for it…but since there isn’t…I think it is strange for people to come out on the porch and clap for a minute with out any converstation and then go back inside. At least say hi and wave or something.

We might be busy at 7pm most nights.

The last 24 hours have been a busy one for our little neighborhood area. They say things happen in threes but we might be going for three sets of threes.

To start it off, yesterday I was doing some lawn work and trimming up some bushes for Spring. I was using our electric trimmer and the automatic shut off switch that is supposed to release when you take your hand of the power button got stuck and I wasn’t being careful enough so I cut my middle left finger through the side into my nail. I had a glove on and was hoping when I pulled it off that it wouldn’t be bad enough to need stitches but could tell immediately that was not the case. So I went in to wash it off and was debating with myself to just super glue it instead of going into the doctors with all this virus crap. Ryan saw it and said I had to go get stitches. I told him to call my regular doctor instead of going to the ER. He tried calling Steve to see if he could stitch me up but he didn’t answer. My doctor wasn’t in but another doctor said he could do it. Ryan drove me there but he couldn’t come in. Everyone was wearing masks, and by that I mean the skeleton crew that was working. I didn’t see any other patient. I had to fill out a bunch of paper work to screen me for any possible sign of Covid 19. Then there were only some chairs labeled that I was ‘allowed’ to sit in. Talk about feeling like you are in some apocalyptic movie but it is your actual life. The doctor said it needed one or two stitches. While his two nurses where getting the room ready for ‘the finger lady’ they had a very loud conversation with each other about how it is ridiculous that people can’t follow directions and stay home and not do unnecessary things. Then they specifically mentioned that yard work and house work are not necessary. They were sure to leave the door open too in case I couldn’t hear them through that. I was pretty ticked. The doctor numbed me up and gave me my stitches. When he left the nurse told me to come back in a week to have the stitches taken out. I told her I could take my own stitches out so I didn’t have to come back and put up with her poor bedside manner again. Then I walked out. That was a lot nicer than the other things going on in my head. Give me a break. I know lots of nurses and health care workers that are caring and compassionate. It is kind of part of the job. Why go into healthcare to help people in stressful hard situations if you are that unpleasant of a person.

Later that night we had a really gnarly thunderstorm and shortly after a loud crack of thunder a bunch of sirens came over by us. Someone’s house had been struck by lightning and caught fire. I don’t know how extensive the damage was before they were able to put it out.

Matthew’s friend a street over had the fire department show up at his house today. His older brother ordered a new battery for his phone. When he put it in, it started getting really hot, he dropped it on the floor so it wouldn’t burn him and it caught the carpet on fire! They got it out pretty quick so it is just a small area of carpet they will have to replace.

Tonight Ryan and I went on a walk after dinner. We started hearing all kinds of sirens around us. When we got around the park we saw a bunch of lights in the school playground. The neighbors that were out watching said it was some kind of a medical emergency. We kept going and headed back in the direction of our house.

When we turned the corner there were a bunch more police cars blocking off the roads. We had to walk that way to get back to our house. We asked the neighbors in that area what was happening and they said that there had been shots fired at “Crazy John’s house” which is on the next corner up from where we were. We walked back home and there were police cars across the street from us in our neighbors back yard blocking off the house from that direction. Then we could hear the police announcing over their speaker, “This is the Olathe Police Department, John come out with your hands up.” They said it about five times. Then he must have come out because shortly after that they all left. I haven’t heard if anyone was hurt of not.

Lots of craziness. Hopefully it is done. You can tell that some people are starting to get a little crazy with all the changes because of the virus. I don’t know if any of these were related or not, just reports and posts I see on the internet are starting to have some crazies coming out. We were worried our kids were going to be panicked when we got home with all the police cars around. A while back our neighbors had a fire truck come to their house while we were gone because of a medical emergency and the kids were freaking out about it. Luckily when we got home tonight they were all in there evening electronic comas and where none the wiser to the whole situation.