Like Martha, I have a way of being “worried and anxious about many things”! Today was a day for tackling the inevitable.
Natalie and Jordan had morning classes at the college, so I got them there in the nick of time, then had just a few minutes in the van with Jacob before the enrollment center opened it’s doors at 9am, he headed in to talk to someone about what had happened to his FAFSA and why he hadn’t heard anything in over a month. He was back in the van approximately ten minutes later with the dismal news: $0.00 in financial aid. So much for college. He will continue his writing, and continue looking for work.
From there we went to the grocery store and picked up a case of eggs for my famished family, dropped them off at the house, and then continued on to the gym. I needed to first remove two kids from our family membership who have proven to be disinterested in utilizing it enough to be worthwhile, and then get Jacob signed up for a training session so he can get a feel for the machines and what all he can do when we go there together. As I expected, they offered me a voluminous series options for training packages, with the least expensive being $300/month. I managed to assure the sweet young lady that I, too, believed regular training sessions to be vitally important for fitness progress, while gently putting her off with a non-committal “I’ll have to check my finances and get back to you,” and walking away shaking my head at the laughable notion of that kind of monetary commitment when I have a family of 10 to feed, wash, clothe, and get back to school with supplies and uniforms in a month.
I had been planning to get Jacob to the college for over a week, but it seemed impossible every day; and I’d been dreading going to the gym for longer, because I hated the anticipated feeling of having to wriggle out of the web of enticements they weave to try to get you to spend more money, when the whole mission was to cut my monthly bill in half! And then, last night, Jacob serendipitously sent me this meme under the tagline “The crushing weight of two very manageable tasks…”, and I felt seen.
Anyway, after successfully completing what ended up being two very manageable tasks, I felt the need of a diet coke and a pork taco from QT, so that was my lunch. While parked at QT, Natalie called to say they were both done with classes early and could I come get them, so that was a relief. Natalie had had to go to class without her glasses in the morning because she couldn’t find them – which was bad enough, but worse because she had an appointment with the optometrist to go to in the early afternoon, and would be needing to bring her glasses along. Fortunately when she got home she did a more thorough search, and found them at the bottom of her backpack, in their case, right where she thought she had left them. So that was alright. And since Natalie had the appointment anyway, I called ahead and asked them to add Ellie to the schedule so she could pick out new frames, since her wire-frame glasses keep getting bent, mangled, or entirely broken.
Paul was working from home, and hoped he would be done with a zoom meeting in time to take them, but I ended up driving the girls over. However, he really wanted to be the one to oversee the buying of new eyewear because, well, I tend to spend too much! 😀 So we were only there for a few minutes when he arrived to take over, and sent me home. Which was just as well because with all the driving I had already done today, I was not going to do well sitting through that appointment plus the 40 minute drive home again. So I headed home, and by the time I arrived I was absolutely exhausted. Turns out driving around town all day on the hottest day of the year (it hit 118 here today!) takes it out of a person – at least, this person. I rested with my fan on and recovered until they got back.
Ellie was excited because they were able to bend her bow back to fit her a little better, for the next week at least, and even better, her frames were under two years old so they were still under warranty and they were able to replace them free of charge, so she’ll be getting brand new glasses in about a week. And Natalie was finally able to get rid of the transition lenses she foolishly chose last time and hated wearing for the last two years, so everybody is happy with the fresh new specs they’ll soon be wearing.
After a little lie down, I got up and, on the wings of my earlier triumphs, decided to tackle an even more challenging task: purchasing books and supplies for six students for the new schoolyear. My screen, at one point:
(My monitor is a little curved, but not as severely as this wide-angle shot makes it seem! 😀 )
But I got it done, and everything should be here by Sunday. Now all that remains is to figure out who needs what for uniforms and I will be “home free” in re: school prep. I feel positively giddy!
