Old House, New Job, Lost Boy

One of my first thoughts after moving into our house was, "I dread the day we have to move out of this house." As we piled more and more things into the house, I knew we would only accumulate more and more things and more and more children while we were there which I foresaw translating into a lot of extra things to pack up and a lot of extra dings in the walls to patch up.

Yup. We're moving! With my parents going on their mission, the stars kind of aligned for us to live in their house while they're gone. It's still a bit surreal to be preparing to leave a home and neighborhood we've grown to love, but we're making steps towards a big change. 

What we anticipated as being quick touch ups on the walls and baseboards has evolved into a full blown home makeover. I took a paint can in to the store to be matched and the employee said, "Oh. They don't make that sheen anymore. I can match the color, but you'll still be able to see a difference if you're trying to just do touch ups. All you'll have to do is just paint the wall corner to corner."

That's it. Just paint the wall corner to corner. On every wall in our house. 

Every night we've been chipping away at our house projects. I get so overwhelmed thinking of everything we have to do, so we've started just focusing on one room at a time and getting each room completely done before moving on to the next. We have basically repainted every inch of our basement and are now working our way upstairs. It's been a race every night to get the kids in bed, hurry and tape a room, paint, and then remove all evidence of paint and paint supplies so the kids don't start their own painting projects in the morning.

We took a night off our work for Jeff's birthday. We celebrated his birthday the day after the 19th by getting a babysitter and going to dinner and the temple. 

Then we celebrated it again on Sunday at my grandma's birthday dinner. 

To add to the mayhem of making over our house and preparing to move, I went and got a job! I've been trying to step away from the curtain business a little bit. It was becoming a bit overwhelming to have orders always hanging over my head and not having much control over how busy I would be with orders.

I don't always love this quality about me, but I just love to make money! I've started calling it my hobby. I just love to find ways to make a little extra cash, and I get a lot of satisfaction from helping the family at least a little bit financially. I looked into approximately 10,000 different work from home jobs over the past 3 months to see if I could find a new money making idea to try. There were a  few different ideas I dabbled in. One was transcribing. I worked for mere pennies for about a month and found that I really enjoyed transcribing, but needed to find a more worthwhile employer.

By chance, I searched on KSL for a job one afternoon and found a work from home transcription position. With some hesitation, I applied. With even more hesitation, I went in for an interview, and with much surprise, I got the job!

I work every weekday for about 3 hours which hasn't been too hard to fit into the day since I was already used to spending at least that many hours on curtains a day. I've loved the change. I love that I put my time in and then I can be satisfied setting it aside for the day whereas curtains were constantly "hanging" over my head. I love having something productive to do in my free time, and I've really enjoyed transcribing in general. It's been a welcome change!

The only tricky part was the first week. I was still in training, so I had to have my calls in by 3:00. Problem was, I was teaching preschool that week! I had a 4-hour block of time to get my 3 hours of transcribing in. That was a stretch! And here's a good depiction of the trouble the kids got into once they realized they had 3 hours to rummage through whatever they wanted while I tried to squeeze my work in:

I'm done with training now, so I have a lot more flexibility with when I can get my work done -- a.k.a nap time so this little mister isn't tearing the house apart!

The one bummer about the job is I HAVE to do it every day. That's been tough on these beautiful days we've been having when I just want to be outside all day! Luckily I can usually work and be done by the time Eli's home from school so we can all enjoy raking leaves in the Spring together. 

Eli raked up a big pile of leaves, boxed them up, and declared he was going to make "leaf lights" with them. Since our Christmas lights are now down, he thought it would be appropriate to welcome spring by stringing leaves along the house attached to lights. Somehow the box disappeared and was never mentioned again before this plan transpired into more than just an idea.

Eli brought this picture home from school the other day. I think it's my favorite picture of him ever. My brother always says Eli has an "emoji face," and this perfectly depicts that:

Eli's been really into his stuffed animal friends lately. They often join us for dinner. Complete with bibs and silverware.

The boys found my Instagram books one morning. I loved hearing them reminisce about the things we've done. It's interesting to see what they remember and which memories are their favorites. 

Here's Lincoln being a big cheese. He's been a stinker lately and hasn't wanted to nap. I decided to transition him down to one nap a day and it's been rough for both of us! He's been really clingy and whiny trying to grow accustom to his new schedule which means lots of time plopped on my lap, taking selfies for entertainment.

He is consistently sleeping through the night now so that's something to smile about!

A welcome break from fixing up the house and working was when we went down to Leslie's house for an afternoon. My kids were in heaven and only emerged for food the whole time we were there. 

Once we did have everyone in view for a moment, we took the opportunity to snap a *few hundred* quick selfies. In the meantime, unbeknownst to me, Carson disappeared. 

We stopped taking pictures. We looked at the pictures. We laughed at the pictures. I looked around. Noticed Carson was missing. Did a casual stroll 3 houses up and 3 houses down from Leslie's house, sure I would find him. Did another less casual stroll, yelling Carson's name. Told everyone Carson was missing. Looked in the back seat of the car to see if he had gotten in the car because we were about to leave. Ran through Leslie's house looking for him. Ran in the backyard looking for him. Did another 3 houses up, 3 houses down panicked stroll, contemplating if the next step is to call the police in this situation?!?

As I was walking, I saw all the open garages and feared Carson could have wandered into the wrong house, thinking it was Leslie's. I looked in Leslie's garage as Kenz said, "Did you check the car?" "Yes! I already did." I replied. Kenz looked anyway. She opened the back and Carson was sitting in the very back of the car. Just guiltily, quietly sitting there.

I thought he had an accident and that's why he was hiding and making no effort to be found despite our screams for him. He didn't have an accident. He was just there with the most guilty look on his face that I've ever seen from him. It was so strange.

I told this to Jeff and apparently this is common? He told me that sometimes when kids go missing they think they're in trouble so they continue to hide because they hear everyone yelling their name and it sounds a lot like how it sounds when they're in trouble. So they just quietly sit, stay and keep hiding. It was weird to see it happen because it was so not what I expected. I figured if he heard everyone calling for him, he would come out, but he didn't at all. Anyway, here's my PSA to go over with your kids what to do if they're ever lost or hiding and hear people calling their name. And here's my gratitude to Kenz for checking the very back of the car so the police did not have to get involved in our rescue mission.