An Ordinary Week

It's been a pretty ordinary week here. School started Monday so this has been a week of getting into a routine. Some of it has gone smoothly. Like, it works perfectly for Jessica to walk the twins to their bus on the way to the city trolley she takes to college. Not only that, but she gets home on the trolley right before their bus arrives, so she walks them home too. Monday that bus was over half an hour late, but that's not unusual for the first day of school.



Jasmine is on a different schedule than the others. She would ride Adam's high school bus to the high school to catch the transfer bus to her charter school, but we don't think she needs to be exposed to high school language and behavior. So Rick leaves at 6:10 a.m. (same time as the bus) and drives her to the high school and makes sure she gets on the transfer bus okay.


High school gets out at the same time she does, so the transfer bus takes her to the middle school instead (since the high school busses would be long gone). It's the school she would have attended next year except we don't want her exposed to all the language and behaviors.

So she would get off the transfer bus and ride the middle school bus home arriving here at 3:45. But the first day it was over half an hour late. Not a lot better the second day. Also, Jasmine was very upset by all the swearing on the bus. Jessica volunteered to drive the middle school and pick her up at 3:15 when the transfer bus gets there. She talked to the middle school bus driver the first day we did this, and the driver confirmed that swearing is a major problem on that bus. Now Jasmine is home around 3:35 which I like better anyway. Just some extra driving time for Jessica and extra gas.


Adam rides the 6:10 bus, but he goes to cross country after school and gets home around 5:00.
He has dropped gymnastics due to cc practice but remains in tumbling because it's later.

Jessica has night classes Monday and Tuesday, but there aren't classes on Fridays.

Jasmine's school not only requires the uniform, but a belt has to be worn and the shirt must be tucked in. Friday morning at 6:50 a.m. Jasmine calls and says that she's forgotten her belt. So I start getting ready to drive to the school. It's probably a 20 minute drive, but then I realize school hasn't started yet, so I'm going to be in all the school traffic and the long drop off line. Jessica is with me. I suggest we stop at the gas station nearest our house and fill up to stall for time a little so maybe some of the traffic will have cleared.

Jessica was pumping the gas and I looked over and a girl wearing a shirt from Jasmine's school is getting into the car next to us. Unusual because most of the kids are from the other end of town. I jump out and call, "Excuse me" as they are getting into the car. Thankfully both the mom and daughter heard me. I asked if they could deliver the belt since the mom was obviously on the way to drop the girl off. They agreed, and I wrote down Jasmine's name and her teacher. The girl had the same teacher a couple of years earlier. I was so glad that worked out because it probably saved us a full hour by time we would have gotten there, got stuck in line, dropped the belt off and drove back home.

On Thurday I went to a thrift shop and got a load of shirts for Jessica as well as four pairs of pants. None of the pants fit, but all the shirts worked out. We decided we'd go to the Goodwill discard store. It's right next to Goodwill and all the stuff is just dumped together in bins.

Most of the time you have no idea what anything costs except that the clothes are 1.79 per pound. That sounds cheap, but it adds up so you have to choose carefully. I'm not sure how they figure out what goes to that store since some of the jeans still had new tags on them. But, like I said, it's all just dumped into bins. So if you want clothes, you go over to about four large wooden bins and start digging.

Jessica and I were on a mission to find work out clothes for Tyler and jeans for her. We came up with plenty of jeans, but nothing for Tyler. I also saw this horse. We have way too many stuffed animals, so I'll only consider them if it's something different. This turned out to be a Build-a-Bear complete with outfit and shoes. Turned out to have the horse sound box too. (So about $49 new altogether before tax)I added it to our stuff. I had about 8 Tom Clancey paperbacks too. Having no idea what any of it cost, I had my own limits set in my mind. I'd get the books if they were $1 or under. (They were .50) and I'd get the horse if it was $5 or under. It was $1!!! I think the lady just made up the prices and thankfully she was in a good mood. Another person would have probably charged a whole lot more for the horse since it had the outfit and is in really good shape.

We went to the mall and bought nothing except Sarku's for lunch. Then off to Walmart where we got one pair of shorts for Tyler. They had wind pants in little boys but none in men's. They probably will soon. J.C. Penneys already had their winter coats on the racks!

Jessica and Jasmine made cookies. Snicker doodles. They were boxed but they were really good!

Of course this couldn't go smoothly, without issues. One twin snuck out to the kitchen and tried to take some before it was time so didn't get them. The other twin was given two nice warm cookies a little later. However, instead of sitting down and eating them, that twin snuck over and grabbed half a cookie Jessica had set down. It resulted in the twin losing the two cookies along with the half. I was really disappointed because it was such a poor choice and such a greedy thing to do. Like, wasn't two cookies enough? Did we really have to sneak over and take half of someone else's too?

The cookie incidents, along with some earlier issues during play time and one twins breaking school rules all week, resulted in the twins staying home from a movie tonight so Jasmine had a daddy date and I stayed home to work on proofing the galleys so the girl's quiz book.

Anthony took Jessica out on a late birthday date. They went to a movie at another theater. Anthony hadn't looked at the time right though, so they missed the first half hour of the movie. He had the tickets, just didn't double check the time on them.

Today Jasmine has soccer clinic--we think. There seems to be some confusion and I don't have any phone numbers to call to find out. We're just going to assume it's being held as planned and go.

Dance/tumbling (not Adam's which meets at the gymnastics place, but tumbling at the dance academy) doesn't start until after Labor Day. We are working on plans for Labor Day. Anyone doing anything exciting that weekend?