Six LDS Writers and A Frog

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Checking In

by Stephanie Black

Okay, yeah, it’s nine-thirty at night, and I haven’t yet posted a blog. But it’s still Wednesday for two and a half more hours, so I still get full credit, right?

Tonight was back to school night at the high school. You go through your child’s schedule and spend ten minutes in each class. They give you five minutes to get from class to class, which is not always easy, since the campus consists of a bunch of different buildings. Since this is my fourth year with children at the school, I’m getting a teensy bit more familiar with it, but I still needed my map and a little guidance from a kind teacher. The tricky part this year is that I have two daughters in high school, so I couldn’t do two schedules. Last year, my husband and I each took a daughter’s schedule, but tonight, he’s in China on a business trip, so I was flying solo. My oldest daughter, a senior, volunteered to attend her sophomore sister’s classes. She was excited to see several of her old teachers again. I made it to four out of the six classes on my list, then bailed out so I could go home, grab my son (who just turned twelve) and get him over to the church for a temple recommend interview for Saturday’s temple trip.

Isn’t my life fascinating? Is anyone still awake out there?

We stopped at the library today where, to my bewilderment, the parking lot was cram-jammed. Turns out that children's author Marc Brown and another author whose name escapes me were there signing books and there were a huge number of mothers and children there to meet the author. I didn't join the queue, but it's pretty cool that he was at our library (he wrote the Arthur books). And Jeff, if you come to our library, I'll be first in line.

In other updates, we’re not completely unpacked yet, but we’re getting there. Unfortunately, you can’t put the rest of life on “pause” while you go through those boxes. The kitchen floor will get still get dirty and the laundry will still pile up. You’d think the butler and footmen would keep things in better order, but it’s so hard to find good help these days.

Have you ever noticed that moving involves a lot of little odds and ends? Once you get the “real” boxes packed, you’re left with a scattering of small, random items, and when you’re unpacking, you get to deal with finding a home for them. Let’s call them “crudlets,” the kind of things that tend to collect beneath couch cushions. When we were packing up the old house, I had a bag where I could throw crudlets. Game pieces, dimes, screws, little toys, whatever. Needless to say, I haven’t attacked the crudlet bag yet. I hate crudlets. Okay, maybe for you, moving doesn’t involve crudlets because you’re organized and all the game pieces are in the game boxes and your loose change is all together in a cute ceramic jar shaped like Shakespeare’s head, but my life has been besieged by crudlets. But come to think of it, Halloween is approaching. When the doorbell rings, I could just take my crudlet bag, and here, kiddo, have a Scrabble tile, a plastic toy shaped like a slice of onion, and a little baggie of metal washers.

We also have a great many electronic bits (bitlets?). I’m always afraid to throw out any cord or connector or gizmo or gadget, since I’m usually not sure what they go to or if they’re still useful. I fear throwing something away and then having my husband say, “Have you seen the xyz? It looks like (description of item I just chucked).” So I just save all that stuff. Plus, I’m not sure what all you can throw away these days—we aren’t even supposed to put household batteries in the trash here. We just took two boxes of old batteries up to the household hazardous waste disposal facility. Yes, indeedy.

I gotta go to bed. I have jury duty in the morning.


8 Comments:

At 9/18/2008 8:50 AM, Blogger Evil HR Lady said...

I have no idea what you are talking about as I have a whole series of Shakespearian heads filled with ummm, stuff.

 
At 9/18/2008 9:34 AM, Blogger Karlene said...

I like to put my crudlets and bitlets in places of honor--like in the middle of the living room floor, or scatter them along the hallway so I'll step on them in the middle of the night and remember them fondly.

 
At 9/18/2008 12:58 PM, Blogger Jon Spell said...

Not sure if this will make you feel better, but we still have boxes of stuff throughout the house that we haven't found a proper home for yet. It's been 4 months since we moved. I'm sure you're much more organized than we are.

I keep telling myself that once we get the basement finished, we're gonna have all this extra storage space. Of course, we keep getting new things, so....

Also, I keep change in a ceramic jar (with a cork stopper) that says "Magic" (see name)

 
At 9/18/2008 5:13 PM, Blogger J Scott Savage said...

Actually that sounds like the kind of dates Rob used to take girls on. "First we're going to the household hazardous waste disposal facility to search for old Arthur books. Then we'll go pick up some crudlets and bitlets to eat. Don't worry about the tab. I raided my Shakespeare head for spare change."

Big night on the town, Robbie.

And I'm holding you to the library promise!

 
At 9/18/2008 5:49 PM, Blogger Stephanie Black said...

Jeff, it's a deal! See you at the library. I'll bring all my friends.

Jon, I am envious of your someday-to-be-finished basement. Ahhh, storage space. This house doesn't have much storage space. Think how many boxes of crudlets I could fit in a basement!

Karlene, Legos are especially fun to scatter around and step on.

Evil, do we have your name for Christmas? I'll send you my extra crudlets.

I'd like to announce that I just finished emptying out a basket of crudlets. Woohoo!

 
At 9/19/2008 9:50 AM, Blogger Heather Moore said...

Stephanie, just thinking of moving makes me want to go back to bed.

 
At 9/22/2008 2:13 PM, Blogger Scrapworthy said...

I could probably fill a moving truck with crudlets and bitlets - I swear they multiply!
It might be worth moving to isolate and dispose of them all...

 
At 9/23/2008 8:10 AM, Blogger Josi said...

Ah, yes, the crudlet-bitlet dilemma. I have two big rubbermaids full of bitlets I don't know what to do with--old cell phone chargers, ear phone plugs, speaker wire and a hundred things I can't name. I don't know what to do with them, but I know the second I throw them out I'll be heading for radio shack for some more. As for Crudlets--when we moved last I had one box that I filled with all the crudlet. Months after we moved in and I realized I hadn't unpacked it, I took a deep breath and threw it away without even looking. I knew it was crudlet because I did it on purpose, and I did have a slight anxiety attack as the prospect of the $1.33 in change I threw out, but my head didn't explode and we've managed to survive with out it--and gather a whole lot of new crudlet. I love the halloween idea.

 

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