Sophia and Elannah Go to the United Kindgom (Duckface Edition)

Sophia and Elannah have been visiting their aunts, uncles, and cousins in England and Wales for the last two weeks, or fortnight. No shooting involved (game reference) and, in fact, you can't even carry a knife around in that part of the world (political reference).

I lack Instagram wits, meaning that I forget Instagram exists, can't remember the password for the account I set up long ago in order to do research for my content writing, and don't care enough to look at it. I'm sure they've been posting plenty of supercute pics to their Instas (or is it cooler to call it IG?), but I'll post the ones they've sent me on WhatsApp. There are a lot of duck faces going on. I am praying they are duckfacing only in an ironic fashion; otherwise, I've failed as a mother.

Duckfacing in the Nottingham Caves

Duckfacing in the car whilst traveling on the left side of the road

 

Not duckfacing whilst shopping in the town centre, bless their cotton socks

A town cathedral. Bath? Devizes? Nottingham? Not sure. They don't feel it necessary to explain their pictures

Sophia on the porch of a manor somewhere near Nottingham

You can tell Elannah was taking these photos and laughing so hard she almost couldn't stand up

The girls didn't get to London (not sorry about that, honestly), but they have seen a lot of southwest England (where Husband's sister and her family live in Devizes), including Bath; Cardiff and Pencoed in Wales, where Husband grew up (they even got to see the house he grew up in!); and the Midlands, including Nottingham and Bradford (where one of Husband's brothers lives with his family). They desperately wanted to see a West End play, but we really didn't want them traveling into London to see one. It so happened that the West End production of Les Miserables was touring the country, so when they went up to Nottingham to see that uncle and his family, they headed further up north to Bradford one afternoon to see a matinee. They loved it, of course.

They've seen Stonehenge, the Avebury circle (a cheaper, less dramatic stone circle), castles, the ocean, chip shops, kebab shops, lots and lots of town centres for shopping, and they've climbed up to the Westbury White Horse. They've also been able to hang out with aunts and uncles and cousins, of course. One of their cousins recently got his mission call to South Africa, and because he and the girls are such good friends, it was great that they got to see him before he leaves in September.

From what I understand, the girls are paying the cost to bring home an extra suitcase which they are filling entirely with chocolate and other British treats. I think they've spent a lot of money on British chocolate, which is so expensive here and so cheap there. Plus, they're bringing home flying saucers (styrofoam-y discs filled with a powder that turns creamy in your mouth), Parma Violets (my favorite favourite), and sherbet fountains (Husband's favorite). Also Monster Munch crisps (pickled onion flavor), prawn-flavored Skips (another type of crisp) and Battenberg cakes (Elannah's favorite).

They're exhausted. I've spoken to Elannah several times on face-to-face calls, and she's homesick even though she's having a great time. They're happy they got to go, but they're happy to come home, too. I told her it's like traveling to another dimension, where things are familiar but different enough that you just can't quite get comfortable. Also, jet lag. She agreed. She has revised her desire to get some sort of job that requires her to travel all the time. Turns out she's really a homebody.

Aren't we all, really? Don't we all crave some place of grounding, a place where you feel truly relaxed and comfortable?

I'm missing them. We're all missing them. But they'll be home tomorrow night, late, and the dog will probably pee himself with happiness when they walk through the door.

Summer's Over

Summer's over. I had my first official work-related experience of the new school year today. I had to do a bus driver physical assessment, which drivers have to take every other year. It's not hard. You'd have to be pretty badly off physically to not pass. The fact that I set the day's record for speed does not mean much, although I'll certainly brag about that to Husband when he gets home.

Sadly, my bus attendant, Kris, will not be coming back this year. We've kept in touch over the summer, so I know that she decided to stay home with her mother, who has Alzheimer's and dementia and is in late-stage renal failure. The doctors now give her a year or less to live. Kris herself also has multiple sclerosis, and being a caregiver for her mother has taken a massive toll on her own health. Kris is going to really miss "her kids," as she refers to our preschool students. She loves them.

Her decision to quit meant that the attendant route for my bus was put up for bid last week. When a route goes up for bid, other route drivers or attendants (in this case) can put in a request for that route. A new driver or attendant is chosen based on experience (attendants most often deal with special needs children), seniority, and the needs of the transportation department. It starts off a route shuffle, as well, as drivers or attendants switch to a new bus, which means the old route then has to go up for bid, and so on. If no route drivers or attendants bid on a route, the next substitute in line is offered the route. Substitute drivers and attendants cannot bid for routes.

The bidding closes today at 4pm, and when I asked the supervisor over attendants if anyone had bid on it, she said that seventeen people had bid for the route. I was astonished. Because sub attendants can't bid for routes, that's seventeen route attendants who have bid for a route that is only listed as getting 13.5 hours a week. Either they're desperate for a shorter route (why?) or they really want to work with preschool kids or they don't like their current routes. I'm not sure how many routes require an attendant, but it can't be more than thirty. My route will have more hours once school starts because we pick up a few Behavioral Unit elementary school kids at the end of the day and transport them home, but because that part of my route changes year to year, they can't include that in the official hours count. Also, preschool kids keep getting added to my route throughout the school year, so by the end of the year, my route gets at least twenty-five hours a week. Despite the lower hours, I do have an incredibly easy route for attendants. Preschoolers are energetic and bouncy, but they're strapped into their seats and are easily contained. I've never had huge problems with the elementary school-age behavioral kids, either, and we've only ever transported two or three of them at a time (that number can always change, of course). Some of the special needs kids on other buses can be very, very difficult to deal with on a daily basis. Most of them are great, but a few of them are large, strong, and hard to control, and that's wearing on the attendants and the drivers.

Drivers don't have any say in who gets the job as their bus attendant. I can only cross my fingers and hope it's someone I can get along with.

During my physical assessment, my boss (who still looks like he's barely into his mid-twenties) asked if I would be willing to do some driving the first week of school. Preschool doesn't start until a week after all the other kids start, and the bus garage has four routes currently without drivers. I said sure, of course. It's more money for me. Plus, I like my boss and the people in the office, and they're in a tight spot. But what the heck are they going to do for drivers, I wonder. Our small, mostly rural school district can't afford to match the pay that larger, more affluent school districts in The Big City can afford, and we bleed a lot of our drivers to those districts or to better-paying trucking jobs. With the rate of growth our little burg has seen in the last two years, we probably have at least three or four new routes in the valley--or will have by next year. You can tell thousands of people are moving in to our town based merely on the fact that we now have traffic jams on Main Street and commuters are always complaining about being backed up on the interstate waiting their turn to take the one exit into our valley--a trip often made even more frustrating by the frequent car accidents on roads not designed to handle this volume of commuters. Dozens of new subdivisions are popping up in former ranching pastures in town and all over the valley, new neighborhoods into which buses will soon be weaving. If you want to move here, do it now while housing prices are still somewhat reasonable and you can expect good appreciation on your property. I suspect that in a few years, the state will decide that it's financially expedient to blast a pass through the mountains into the valley where The Big City lies, cutting the commute time in half or a third, and then we'll become just another suburb of that city, enjoying even more traffic and an even higher cost of housing.  (However, it's more likely that they'll expand the commuter rail system out to our valley. That's got to be cheaper than blasting mountains apart to make roads, right?)

Ugh! I say it again: ugh!

But I digress.

Tomorrow is a day-long training. School starts next Monday. Summer's over.

Musical Clickbait

I was going down music rabbit holes today and found this.



The piece is amazing. It's absolutely lovely, though I couldn't hope to play it--at least, not once I hit the cadenza. But what I found hilarious was the comments.

Sleeping Under the (Stenciled) Stars

I'm exhausted but proud.

All the carpet is gone and we now have laminate flooring on the second story of our home. All the rooms are freshly washed and painted.

While I know it's gauche for those who drink their tea with their pinkies extended to speak of money and cost, I am not one of the gentler class. I'll happily admit that we couldn't have done this if we'd hired professionals or paid full price for everything; plus, we learned a lot of new skills in the process. The laminate flooring was bought at a massive discount, so we paid about twenty-seven cents per square foot for that. The paint we bought on sale, as well, and it hung around in our garage for a year before we used it. We just took the paint cans back to Home Depot and had them reshaken.

In the months between when we bought the laminate flooring and when we actually used it, Husband found whatever flooring tools he could at pawn shops and bought the rest when they were on sale on Amazon. He used every single tool he bought, and they all made the job so much easier.

Sophia's room was already painted (she did that on her own a couple years ago), and it was the first to  get new flooring the weekend before she moved back in. Then we moved on to the hallway and the two boys' rooms before finishing up in the master bedroom.

The walls got washed and Little Gary wanted to help me paint. I love this deep peacock blue that we put on two walls. The other two walls are painted with the light blue I used in the hallway.

It doesn't look like a glossy magazine photo, but all his stuff is back in and he loves it. The room is pet-odor-free (yay for Kilz odor-blocking paint!) and contains a dresser that I will someday get my hands on and make very pretty.

The hallway, done in "Winterscape" by Glidden paint. There is no natural light here, so I thought it was best to keep the color light and bright. I'm on the lookout for fabulous wall sconces for more and better lighting. The door at the left on the edge of the picture is the linen closet. At the end of the hall is Joseph's room, and at the top of the stairs is the master bedroom.

Joseph's room got a coat of a sage green paint, which is a massive improvement on the dark jailhouse gray that was originally on the walls (forgot to take a before pic, but it was a color the owners before us had painted on). Doesn't the wall color look so nice with the floors?

We were going to use the same sage green in the master bedroom that we'd used in Joseph's room, but I just wasn't feeling it. I love green, but I've been craving indigo forever now, and that's what I wanted on the walls. Fortunately, Husband was game, so we picked this luscious deep sapphire blue and put it on all four walls. There's so much natural light in our large room that the dark color doesn't make the room cavelike, but at night the color becomes cozy and enveloping.

I also loved the idea of stenciling a wall or two instead of using wallpaper. When I first suggested that idea to Husband, he had this mental image of a row of bowtie-wearing geese marching around the walls near the ceiling, and he said, "Ookaay...you can do whatever you want." He was very relieved when I explained what I actually wanted, and we were both thrilled that the Royal Design Studio stencil I fell in love with was on sale.

I love the way it turned out, but I was so sick of stenciling by the time I was finished.

I made a plumb line with materials I had nearby--orange yarn and a paint can key--so that I could keep the stencil on the straight and narrow. Pro tip: work your stencil along vertical columns as much as possible. I went diagonal once when I was first starting, and that created a situation where I had to tape off and repaint some of the wall to correct the pattern.

Here I'm making progress, but I realized that I have to wash the stencil after every nine or ten uses to prevent paint buildup on the spokes of the star. I started scrubbing the stencil of all paint after completing each column. It added more time to the project, but it was worth it.

After several days, I had a completed wall. The last column took about three tries, and I had to keep taping off sections and repainting them until I got the pattern to align correctly. I love the high contrast with the blue and white, but I could have gone more subtle by using a shade or tint of the blue or even a quiet silver or gold.

It was late by the time I got the headboard painted and hung. I used Vintage Mustard chalk paint from Behr on my brown vinyl headboard that I made a few years ago. It took three coats, but it turned out really well. I love the yellow against the starry background. 

My mother's neighbor ordered this rug from Wayfair but found it was too large for the room she wanted to put it in. Because she offered it for free, we happily took it off her hands. Unfortunately, we both hated it once we had it unrolled in our painted room. Its traditional pattern clashed heavily with the style of the room, even though I was using it to inspire my color choices. I don't mind an eclectic style, but the rug really is awful with everything else.

We found a smaller, more serviceable area rug at Walmart to use until we find something we really like. Meanwhile, that same neighbor who gave us the rug also didn't like the chairs she ordered, so she gave those to us, as well, and we created a little seating area at the other end of the room. I'll put a small coffee table in between them as soon as I find one that I like. We moved only one of the three bookcases back in (the other two fit happily in the hallway without impeding movement) and heavily culled our book collection. The massive massage chair is by the window now, and the office desk is gone.

Husband found a glass and metal bar with a definite art deco vibe that someone was selling for a very reasonable price. We needed a place to showcase his rock collection, and on the bottom shelf, he has his flutes and the speaker he uses when he hooks a mic up to whichever flute he's playing. 

I'm working on the details of the room--the wall hangings and the bedding and all the other little decorating touches that make a room look cozy and lived in. I'll bore you with more pictures once I'm satisfied with the result.

Meanwhile, we got tons of apricots off our tree this year. 

And in other news, Husband found a great deal at the place where we stay when we go to St. George, the Sports Village, which has a nice pool, tennis courts, mini golf, racquetball, and a bunch of other fun things in the clubhouse. Usually, we go with my in-laws and as many of the kids as are available to come with us, as well as any relatives who have come in from England or elsewhere. The two- or three-bedroom condos we've booked are spacious and very clean and comfortable.

This time, it was just four of us: Husband and I and the boys. My in-laws were out of state visiting two other sons and their families, and my parents were dealing with some health issues. We booked a one-bedroom that said it comfortably slept four (there were mattresses we could bring in from the garage).

Unfortunately, although the condo was impeccably clean and stylishly decorated, it was tiny. Microscopic. The kitchen was so small that you couldn't fit two people in at the same time, and so narrow that you couldn't fully open the dishwasher door. The bed looked absolutely lovely, but it was a queen, and it was stacked so high on two bases that you couldn't sleep on the edge without rolling off. The two of us with our body pillows were uncomfortable all night. We ended up putting a mattress on the floor of the bedroom--squeezed in between the bottom of the bed and the closet--where Husband slept. There was a rollaway bed that Little Gary used in the living room while Joseph slept on the couch, but Joseph snores. Loudly. We were all uncomfortable and tired, and we ended up leaving a day early because the boys were homesick. Other than that, we had a good time.

The road home.

Summer's just about over. Husband has mandatory meetings this week, and I start my mandatory trainings next week. I'm feeling more than a little dread, but I suppose that's not unusual when you've become accustomed to decadently controlling all your own time.

Taken Down a Humbling Peg

A single lady in my ward called me, frantic, and through her sobs explained that her crappy car had broken down last night in the southerly end of The Big City--an hour's drive away. She had managed to get home, but now she had to get to work, and it was simply too hot to bike to work, and could I give her a ride?

Fortunately, I had access to a car, so I went and picked her up. She was still crying as she got into the car, and she complained about her car (understandably) and then wailed that she had to call the gas station where her car was stuck to explain that it wasn't abandoned and ask them to let her leave it there until her friend could tow it tomorrow.

This woman is thirty-seven years old and she couldn't make herself make a phone call, despite the necessity of it.

Now, I understand not loving the telephone. I really don't enjoy making phone calls, and having a son with severe anxiety has helped me see how hard it can be for people with Anxiety to sometimes do simple tasks, but I admit I rolled my eyes. Quietly. In my head.

Then a little voice whispered to me, "Stop it. You have someone who can help you out when things go wrong. You have someone on whom you can rely to share the burden, and he is competent, intelligent, and often saves you from having to do the hard things you don't like to do. This woman is facing this on her own, and for her it's a crisis. Be kind."

My heart immediately softened. I was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude that I have my husband to share the burdens of life with me. This woman, though she would love to be married and have children, doesn't have that. Everything she does, she has to do on her own. She's not especially tough or resilient, but I know that she does do many things on her own that she finds difficult and nerve-wracking.

So I offered, without impatience, to call the gas station for her, and she was immediately relieved.

I am often an idiot, but at least I'm a redeemable and grateful idiot. That's my one saving grace.

The Best Place to Go for Earthquake Analysis

I love YouTube for the fact that you can still get real news from vigilant, journalistically-minded citizens, though the Vox Adpocalypse is wreaking havoc amongst the YouTubers who have a more  conservative mindset. Time to start switching to new vlogger platforms.

One of the best of the vloggers I track is a guy who calls himself "Dutchsinse." He's a genius when it comes to observing, explaining, and predicting earthquakes around the world. He's so good at what he does that he shows up the USGS (United States Geological Service) on a regular basis. They don't like him for that reason. Dutchsinse has even received death threats for telling the truth about how things really are (though I'm not claiming those threats came from the USGS).

There are some nerve-wracking earthquake events going on in California right now which will most likely translate into quakes moving into Oklahoma and onto the New Madrid fault line that splits the U.S. from St. Louis to Memphis.

A brief overview of the fault lines in the U.S.:



Here, Dutchsinse shows how and why the earthquakes are striking in California, and where the pressure on the plates is going to travel across the country and the world. I have friends in Southern California, and I worry about them.

It's a long video, but so chock-full of information you won't want to skip any of it.

Why I'll Never Join Another MLM: My Story

I admit I've been suckered into MLM rackets (multi-level marketing, or direct sales. Also called network marketing) more than once. It was because I wanted to be a better person, to make more money, to help my family, to help my friends. And every time, it was the same story: failure.

I figured it was my fault. I just didn't work hard enough. I wasn't willing to harass my "warm market" of family and friends to become my customers/downline. I didn't want people avoiding me because all I could talk about was selling them something. And I knew I had dollar signs in my eyes and others could see it. I can convince people to see things my way as long as I'm not going to financially benefit from convincing them, but put money into the equation and I can't do it without loathing myself, and others can see that.

When I was saving money for a mission back in 1992, I tried Herbalife. I was working five or six jobs (though only two or three at the same time), and I was glad that I didn't quit them because absolutely no one I knew wanted any of my product. Fortunately, I didn't sink that much money into it, so I didn't lose much. My recruiter seemed a little too desperate, but I was more naive back then. He was desperate because he was trying to recruit a downline so they would make money for him, as he was also struggling. I should have listened to my gut from the beginning.

And yet, over the years, I tried again and again. I tried Herbalife again with my husband back in the days before the internet (the only customer we ever had asked for a refund). I also did Tupperware (which is a good product, but so expensive! Also, it's such a good product that people don't need to constantly renew their storage containers, so the company has to come up with all these ridiculous new products to try and make new sales. Who needs a pickle holder??), Mary Kay (turns out I'm allergic, and their products aren't usually worth the price tag), Primerica (disaster), and Isagenix (my dad's health actually improves on this stuff it, but it's so expensive).

Then I swore off of MLMs. Never again, if for no other reason than to never have to go to those weekly team meetings and endure the hype and pressure.

I've resisted recruitment attempts from Paparazzi, Thrive, LipSense, and a multitude of health and supplement companies. I live in Utah, the Land of MLMs, so I'm proud of myself.

It's not always the products. The products can be really good, and sometimes it's worth it to sign up as a consultant just to get discounts for your own purchases and not try to make a living at it. But the business model is seriously flawed. Are they pyramid schemes? While I don't think they're technically pyramids, they come pretty close. And unless you're ruthless, driven, and don't care about how many people you push away in your efforts to sell to or recruit them, you're going to lose money, while those at the top, who got in right at the beginning, will make the big bucks. Best case scenario is you break even after pouring your heart and soul into your business. It's just not worth the grief.

I remember when I was in Primerica, which sells insurance and investments. My VPs were a very ambitious, driven couple. We were friends, and they were okay people, but there was something I didn't quite trust. I had been really struggling with sales because I hate sales, and I was privately trying to figure out how to ditch the whole mess even though I'd gone through the expense and stress of getting my securities license when one day, the guy (Mark? Steve? I can't remember his name) called me into his office after one of our weekly meetings and said, "I just got off the phone with [his Primerica friend] in California. I told him I have a real go-getter in my office who could beat any of his top sales people."

I was thinking, "Okay, that's great. But why are you telling me this?"

He continued. "You're that person, Eva. I know you could thrash any of his guys."

I remember just raising my eyebrows. I knew what he was trying to do, but it was obvious he didn't know me all that well if this was his way of motivating me. Unlike him, I do not thrive on competition. I literally do not care if I beat someone else. This is why I wasn't great at sports: not enough drive to excel, and I'm always applauding the opposing team when they make a great play.

I did not thrash any of his guys. Being manipulated to try and do so made me never want to sell anything ever again.

Husband and I--still not having learned our lesson--attended a meeting for a start-up MLM called Nouveau Riche, which promised a fortune in real estate buying and selling. It cost $16,000 to join, and it was a hard-sell meeting. None of the people attending the meeting were enthusiastic about spending that much on such a dubious undertaking. The presenters kept offering ideas: mortgaging your house, borrowing from family and friends, taking out a business loan. One lady said she made and sold harps. The presenters jumped on that. "All you have to do is sell one harp and you're in!" they exclaimed. The lady wasn't convinced at all. We left there and never heard about that business again. Funnily enough, the couple who invited us to that meeting (and who were going to join Nouveau Riche but never managed to scrape the money together, fortunately for them) later got involved with Isagenix. The wife lost 90 pounds using their products, which was why I was interested and later joined.

A couple years ago, I met this really nice lady at the swimming pool. We were both sitting on the benches while our kids swam, and she struck up a conversation. We had a lot in common, and I really liked talking to her. She gave me her number, and we actually met a couple times and talked about kids and life, but I noticed that she always had a brochure with product pictures and info with her. Then she started talking about it, and then I realized that she was trying to make me one of her warm market in order to get a new customer or recruit for her MLM business. So I stopped talking to her. That was hard to do, but I didn't want to get suckered into another losing proposition because I'm too nice and a people pleaser. Best to cut ties early.

These days, I'm surprised people are still signing on with these things. No one that I know wants to go to these parties. I never accept the invites myself. I mean, I feel for the consultants, as I've been there with no one at my party, but I don't want to encourage it. How much Pampered Chef stuff can a woman own? And it's expensive! Plus, if I show up or buy anything--even online--I'm going to get pestered about becoming a consultant, and some of those woman really are competitive and don't easily take no for an answer. I'm a little MLM shellshocked, and I don't want to put myself in that position anymore.

The reason I thought of this was because I've noticed more anti-MLM videos on YouTube. I was listening to some of them while I painted Little Gary's bedroom yesterday (pictures to follow in another post!), and they made me laugh. I also felt sad for the women (and men) whose financial lives have been ruined because of companies like LuLaRoe or because they believed that if they only tried a little harder, they'd be living the dream. I've been to the meetings with the loud music and the winners prancing onto the stage and talking about how their lives have changed and how yours can, too, if you just try and little harder, work a little smarter. I'm tired of the hype and the promise that never comes to fruition while you look at yourself and wonder why you're such a failure. It's all a big scam. I'm glad I learned the lessons I did when it was less expensive to do so.