Oh to be young and ...

Oh Saturday....  I guess my real stress started on Friday.  Meri texted me at 2:30 and asked if she could bring a few friends over after school to have a cooking competition in our kitchen.  

SHUURRRE...  

I always wanted to be the "koolaid" mom.  The house where the kids felt comfortable to bring their friends over and comfortable enough for me to get to know their friends.  If you know their friends, you know their friends and who they're hanging out with.

If you don't know their friends, you don't know their friends.  I can't stress that enough!  Because it can get scary, especially when your kid starts doing things that are questionable. And then you're kicking yourself for NOT knowing who their friends are.

So with that in mind, who was I to say no?  However, the house looked terrible.  I had been planning on spending most of the day Saturday, leisurely cleaning, vacuuming, ridding the house of dog hair, etc before Meri and a ton of her friends came over for pictures.  

Instead, I was able to jam pack it all into an hour!

Of course, at the end of the hour, I was exhausted. My feet hurt.  My face was all red from over exertion, my hair a mess and my shirt reeked of sweat.  I had worked hard!  And the place looked it.

In fact one of her friends walked in and hadn't seen it THIS picked up before.  Wow...

shut up.

There were 2 girls besides Meri and a boy, who had announced that he'd just time them as well as judge who won.  So the girls got to work.  They scrounged through my fridge and cabinets looking for the ingredients to make a chicken dish and an appetizer.

Leon came home about the time they started and got in on the action too, by making a bowlful of blue food coloring in apple juice with Oreo-o cereal and expired lettuce on top.  He soon lost interest when it didn't taste as he'd expected and went off to play.

SOME of the food was edible that they made and some, well, let's just say, they would have gotten yelled at if it were that angry chef guy with the crazy hair.  I can't think of his name.

Leftover pizza bread chunks and powdered cheese from a mac and cheese pack in a salad...  

eww.

But they had a blast and posted all their food creations on Snapchat or Instagram or somewhere else I can't get my hands on them.

That night, since Robb was out of town for the weekend, I took Leon to his mom's, traded cars with one of the kids, and then just crashed.  I'd been hoping to get some sewing in but it didn't happen.

Saturday...  Since I'd just gotten my van back!!!!  I'm so excited!!!  I decided to get rid of some of the garbage that had been piling up in our garage.  I COULD have taken it in the pick up, but without the right tarps and straps, that's a pain, plus 2.5 times as expensive as loading up the van instead.  So I took two loads down to the waste reclamation center.  I AM powering the electricity in that city for a whole day with just MY garbage!  At least that's why I tell myself.

THEN since we only had  one key left that worked for my mini-van, I went to a Ford dealership, willing to fork over almost $250 for a new programmed key.  We REALLY needed a fob that worked!  And I decided that I'd let them do the turn signal and a new gas cap.  While the lady was typing in my order, she said, "OOH!  Give my a high five!!! You have a recall for a new ignition system on this van!!"

I didn't know what that meant, but she told me.  That meant a new ignition plus two free programmed keys!  SCORE...

So I got out of there a little while later for less than $100!

I had sat in their lobby binge watching Netflix on their wi-fi but was shocked when I got in the van afterwards and found that it was already 12:45.  YIKES!!!  I needed to be at Ada's for a surprise birthday party at 2 and still wanted to get a shower in!  I rushed home, eating some fast food on the way.   Jumped into the shower as soon as I got here and then scrambled to get dressed.  I then looked at the clock in my bedroom and it said 12:30...  

huh?  

sigh.  Apparently the mini-van's clock didn't get turned back at the last time change.  So I was a whole hour ahead of schedule and my hair had a chance to dry while I got back into my binge watching.

The surprise party was a blast and a total success!  I asked an aide to go in and shut her shades.  She told Ada that their maintenance guys would be working just outside her window for an excuse so she wouldn't see people she knew from church walk past her window. 

Then when everyone (except her husband, who didn't think men were coming too) was ready, I asked the aide to bring her out.  Give her the excuse that they were going to fumigate her room.  HA!  She bought it and they brought her out.  

Oh my was she surprised!  She even teared up a little!  Someone had brought ice cream, another had brought all the paper products, lots of gifts.  So much fun!  Mike even made it, albeit 45 minutes late.

Then I excused myself and got home to get some last minute tidying done before the kids all showed up for pictures.  And to binge watch JUST a little more.  I was almost done with that series and really wanted to wrap it up and be done.

So people started showing up and since 80% of them were freshmen, so did their parents.  I'm glad I'd done the housework on Friday!  God has a way of just making things work the way it needs to.

Here is Meri in all her beauty.  and the pose that we were taught by my sewing group. 

AND another pose so Meri could show off that it has pockets!  This is the dress that we bought off Amazon.  We love Amazon!

 

A few people, including Meri's date, had to drop out.  Her's with the flu.  Yeah - STAY away for a few days!

So with only one young man in the group, he was surrounded by a bevy of beauties and he didn't quite know how to behave or how to pose.

So they improvised.

Then the obligatory stairs shot.

 And upstairs shot.

 Two other seniors had to drop out of the group, due to one getting some tickets to a game and another just got the times wrong, so Meri was the only one who could drive...  They'd been planning to go out to dinner and THEN to the dance.  So I offered to be a chauffeur. 

What ELSE was I going to do???  Binge watch?  Sew?!  Probably a little of both.  

I got 4 freshmen girls in my car and met up with Meri in a nearby town where all the good restaurants were.  Dropped them off and went to Hobby Lobby for a bit.  Went back and took the same gaggle of girls to Target to walk around for an hour.  I didn't relish being part of that gaggle so I parked in front of my cell phone store and found that they had a guest wi-fi active even after they closed for the day!  WOOHOO!  I finished the series that I was watching while I ate my dinner in the car.

Got the girls picked back up and took them back to the high school.  It's a twenty-ish minute drive and I learned more about these girls that I'd ever wanted to.  PLUS they know all the words to a very suggestive country song and sang along...  There was some other conversations that flew around the car and I found we were all on the same moral ground on a few issues, so THAT was reassuring!  I remembered singing all of 65 Love Affair with SUCH gusto, with my uncle in the car and getting reprimanded afterwards.  So I guess I could relate to the girls.  It was just words to me at that age and I didn't really understand what it was all about.  I forgive them and I didn't say anything.

I did actually get some sewing in on Sunday!  and Meri is loving how the dress is fitting and looking so far!  Whew!  I'm on the right track for Belle.

So anyway.  It wasn't my birthday but every day, I'm getting older and wiser.  And yes, that implies correctly that I also young and stupid once.  

Like Friday.