Year 3, April 4th-7th: Extreme COLD and Exhaustion

Wow! It's been a long week! I was gone to an event and the kids were shuffled around to babysitters.  And yet, not much happened for me as I sat in an unheated barn of sorts during a consignment kid stuff sale.  It was the 1st year for this event, and they didn't realize there wouldn't be any heat.  The vendors eventually brought in their individual heaters, but, when I am freezing cold, my muscles tense up, which then results in a lot of pain once I do warm up and shed the layers.  We wore hats and gloves, thermal tights under our jeans, double the socks, and extra sweaters.  It was not ideal to try to put hair accessories in someone's hair.  I did give out a bunch of brochures though.  We also didn't have enough foot traffic for the event.  We were there for 3 hrs on Wednesday evening, 5 hrs on Thursday, 3 hrs on Friday night, and 3 hrs on Saturday midday.  14 hrs total and no sales.  Next time, I will ask the organizer about heat, foot traffic, how many years the event has existed, and location of booths.  We were located near the exit so that people could look at our product as they stood in line.  That was a detriment for us because how can they try to put a clip in their hair when their hands are full of toys and clothes from the consignment sale?  I already put these questions to use with another local just vendors event.  That was the other thing.  No one wants to buy something full price when they are there to save money on kids stuff.  Other vendors did have a couple of sales, so I'm thinking their product is just more common (leggings and $5 jewelry).  This event wasn't worth the pain and exhaustion for us.  I want to focus more on in home boutiques and continue with social media sharing anywhere. We learned some things, as always, but I know I have to take a lot of time to heal from this, as evidence by my nap this afternoon.

The kids spent Wednesday evening with Grandparents and at Bible Bowl.  My friend took the younger 3 with her on Thursday to not one, but TWO different libraries for different events, and she had her 18 month old and 5 yr old with her, too.  She was exhausted but wants to do it again!  Crazy woman! On Friday, Grandma babysat Justin and Keturah so they could help entertain two other kids at a dinner party they were hosting.  Jared had Abishai and Benaiah at home.  Jared took the boys on Saturday to their Bible Bowl competition, Keturah came with me to the sale, and Grandma and Grandpa had Abishai.  Grandma took Abishai to the grocery store, where it took him forever to pick out a toy.  She also noticed he was flushed, and lo and behold, he's not feeling well.  He fell asleep next to my closed bedroom door and Justin moved him to his own bed.  We got him up and he ate a little bit, but started to complain about his tummy, so we think his tummy isn't feeling well.  He's in our bed snuggling with Daddy in between two towels in case he throws up.  Fun times!  It's been such an upside down week, that was technically part of our spring break week, and yet, it didn't feel like a break.  I'm ready to just all be at home and get back to our studies.  I won't be doing a 4 day event again.  I'm got other priorities.

Tomorrow starts a new week, a normal week.  And the introverted kids and I are pumped about that.

I tried to make a bunch of food in the beginning of the week so we could just eat leftovers on Thursday-Friday, and it worked!  We did have to pack a few lunches, too, and Grandma fed the kids when she had them.  But Abishai likes to have quality time, so he's gotten into helping in the kitchen.  "I help cook!"  He did a great job stirring the stew and didn't spill a thing!

Then he got to play in some rice with funnels and cups and tablespoons.

Look at that foam!  Fueling up to go to the event before I knew it would be cold in the warehouse.  I actually bought plain coffee from McDonald's the next day (decaf), so it would be super hot still when I got to the event so I would have something warm to sip on.  I brought my nutpods alternative creamer with me, too!  It doesn't taste the same because I add a 1 cup of coffee to 1/2 cup to 1 cup of almond milk, plus 1 tbsp of nutpods at home to make a latte, but, just adding the nutpods keeps it from hurting my stomach from regular milk and there's no added sugar.  I can't wait to have my normal afternoon non sugar (or sugar substitute) latte during next week!  I even added real maple flavoring this time, too.  Yum!

Keturah was hard at work on her headdress project from last fall so she could get out her pottery set from Christmas.  I told her she had to finish this project and a sewing project before she could get out the pottery set.  Now I have to clean off the table in order for her to have enough space for the pottery.  I did find her a beautiful pink wire bed frame and mattress for her 18 inch doll and an American Girl sewing kit (brand new) at the sale for $16.  We also bought on Saturday, which was reduced price day, 2 shirts, 2 pants, 2 pairs of shoes, and 2 toys (and 1 toy for Abishai) for less than $20.  Woot! Woot!

Because of where were situated, I didn't know if people would have a chance to come up to the booth on one side of the other.  This is the side facing the consignment items, and nobody came up to it.

This is how we looked when yu walked through the checkout line.  The sale was organized well because they've been doing it for several years in a town about an hour away.  The consigning worked just like we did at the sale in Montague.  You get a code and tag your stuff.  Then it's put out there with the rest of everybody's stuff in categories.  When people purchase the stuff, they bring it up to the register and for this one, it got scanned in.  They wrote down the number of items and how much it cost, and then you went over to the register to pay.  At the end of the sale, the consigners come back and get their stuff that didn't sell if they didn't want it back, or they choose to have it donated to charity.  It's a lot of work, but, if done right, it works.  They also tagged the bigger items with a tear off tag so the shoppers could just take the tag up front, pay for it, and a volunteer could fetch the large item.  That worked really well with some some the large outdoor playsets and large kitchen sets.  The organizers seemed happy with the amount of sales because the buyers were buying the same amount even if the number of buyers were lower.

Caryn had her blocks there as well.  The people behind us must have a consignment shop because there's were tagged differently.  They left after two days because of the low traffic and coldness of the warehouse.

There were a couple of other reps from other companies as well, like Young Living, Usborne books, Classical Conversations (my friend, actually, and the organizer is part of that CC group), and a travel agent.

Helping Daddy put together his flippy table! Jared bought one of those inverted table for his back.  He says it's already helping.  I did get on it, but only inverted a little bit because of my history of vertigo.  I just wanted to use gravity to stretch out my shoulders from being hunched over in front of a heater during the sale.

I resisted all the neat toys except a couple of them.  No, Abishai didn't need another ride on, BUT, it's an excavator!  And the sounds actually work, too.  AND he took it outside briefly yesterday (we definitely brought it back in because of the electronics inside.)  He was so excited about it and helped Daddy get rid of the trash from the inverted table box by loading it up in his scoop.  He filled the seat compartment with his other miniature heavy vehicles.  There was a matching dump truck, too, but didn't get it.  I had passed through the sale soon after I arrived and got set up on Wednesday and didn't see it until another little boy was playing with it.  I watched the little boy and his dad just playing while the mom shopped and when they checked out and hadn't bought it, I scooped it up right away.  I had no idea he was wearing his big machine pj's that night either.

Set up took maybe an hour.  Jared said it was pretty dummy proof.

This is my normal set up at home for the heaters in the evening, and boy was I grateful that I had them to come home to that first night.  Then I brought them back and forth the next 3 days.  The white one I plug into the power strip that my computer stuff is on during the day so that the kids don't trip over it.  It's a bit safer than the black one, which I only use when I'm sitting at my computer in the evening.  I can't wait for it to warm up enough where I don't need them anymore!  I stay toasty warm though!

Getting his own breakfast?  Shoot, I forget why I took this picture, but it is a typical scene.  That's why we've been locking the fridge and pantry.  Oh, I think we had a picnic that day, too (or was it the previous day), just he and I on the kitchen floor for snack time.

Going to two libraries and hanging out with Sarah and Isaac exhausted the poor little guy!  He fell asleep at 5pm though!

Sunrise on Saturday!

Back to Friday where Abishai insists on studying the CC cards, too.  I'm a little nervous because I don't want them lost.  He's fairly gentle with them, so it's not that, but we already lost a section and I don't want to purchase a new set.  They probably will be heavily discounted soon though because CC is updating them this year to go with their new Foundations book coming out this summer.

He was bored, I was standing in the kitchen finishing my morning tea, and he wanted to do dishes.  So I let him.  He pushed his sleeves up, too, and rinsed the dishes and put them in the dish drainer!  He even put utensils in the utensil holder, although he hadn't actually cleaned them, so I had to put them back into the sink.  Great helper!

One of our long time tech people at church has been loving on Benaiah since he joined the tech team, like sending him lots of thank you notes, buying him an iPod charge cord for Christmas, and now, she bought him 5 new rubix cubes because he helped with Easter.  She's incredible supportive and sweet! Thank you!

Stopping at Daddy's office after errands to the BMV to update the address on Mommy's license and getting Benaiah a driver's book (!!!) and the library, Abishai insisted he typed his own document just like Daddy and Grandpa, who was also in the e2 office.  While at the BMV, Abishai insisted he needed to sit in the chair at the desk and not Mommy, but  didn't care, as long as he stayed relatively calm, which he did, until he grabbed my leg while I was getting my picture taken for the new license.  He didn't ruin the picture, but I didn't take the time to look at it either.  We were in and out within 30 minutes.   I was happy enough to get it done after almost 10 months of living at the new address, lol.

The five new cubes!  All very special cubes, too.  Benaiah now owns one of every type of cube there is in the world.  And he can solve them all!  He's not sure which ones he's going to use for the talent show at CIY because he needs to get faster on several of them.

Busted knee on my friend's van door getting Abishai's carseat out of her van.  It was the heavy carseat from Grandma's car, too.  I was double over in pain for at least a minute and had to get the kids to chase down Abishai for me.  It's still sore, but this is about 24 hrs after the injury and after a couple of applications of essential oils.

I've applied this combo about 5 times in 48 hrs and my knee doesn't feel as bad as it could be feeling!  Yeah!  That's Panaway (with peppermint, wintergreen, and other oils in it), frationated coconut oil (liquid coconut oil) for dilution, copaiba (anti inflammatory which I take internally every day anyway but also applied externally in this instance), and good old lavender.

It has been below 40 degrees most of the week but the kids did got out for a few minutes on Friday.  Cute costumes!

Not sure what he's ready to battle with, but he's ready!

Notice the boy took OFF his coat!  And he has two weapons!

Snow, again, on Friday night.  I don't mind seeing the snow, but I am now ready for 60 degree weather.

Hanging out on his work vehicle with his mini sweet peppers he got out all by himself!

The orange and yellow things are sweet peppers he put between himself and the steering wheel for safe keeping.

The warehouse was 47 degrees F this morning!  I couldn't get the heater to hit more than 58 all day.  We were at the Marion County Fairgrounds, which is 5 minutes from home, and they had a sign on the door with a list of improvements they are raising money for or working on and one of them was the heating and cooling go figure.

Keturah usually lays out all her new goodies before putting them away.  She got a robotic purple hedgehog and a cool bracelet making set.  You can twist the bracelet into a certain way and make little animals out of it because the beads are shaped like animal heads and tails and such.  She's already made a habitat for her hedgehog.

Why?! Yikes!  Gary used to have one, so we've tried them before.  But if it's what gets the pressure off Jared's sciatica, I'm all for it!

Abishai was so tired that he tried playing near his sister's bedroom, but she ignored him, and then he fell asleep in front of my closed door.  Justin moved him to his bed.

They split up the teams differently this month for Bible Bowl, so Beaniah and Justin were on different teams.  Justin's team got 2nd place in 2nd division, which is huge! Benaiah's team got 3rd in division 2, only because when the two teams played against each other, Justin's team had won the round.  They split up Jordan and Daniel (sister and brother), too, which helps keep the chaos down as well.  Justin said he buzzed in faster than Jordan for once!  Yeah!  Jared said he didn't actually watch the games and caught up on work instead.  Boo!  It would have been fun to see the two teams play against each other.

Sunrise on Saturday, on the DSLR.  It's hard to tell but I could see the actual shape of the sun behind the houses.

Rise and shine! Lots to do!  Tomorrow is a new week!  One that is calm (hopefully) and normal (hopefully).