Today Katie was invited to her friend Sophia’s and decided to paint her nails instead of cleaning her room like she’s been asked to do for a week plus multiple times today… while she was obviously supposed to be working on her room.
She has had multiple last-chance warnings about cleaning her room. She knew the consequences.
So Tom and I immediately went up with garbage bags and cleaned it out. Everything just got shoved into bags and Tom gathered all the big stuff (like her new rainbow carpet and cushy chair) and hauled it into the guestroom.
All the crap that was on the floor? Gone.
Clothes, towels, shoes? Gone.
Makeup, Legos, Pokémon cards, games, colored pencils/markers/crayons, books? If it was on the dresser in a mess or on the floor? All gone.
Anything that had been shoved in her closet? Gone.
Brand new clothes she just shoved somewhere instead of putting them away? Gone.
There was sooooo much screaming and pleading and crying. Owen was even crying about it and begging us not to do it because he loves her. But unfortunately she needed to learn we are serious. Eventually she even admitted she didn’t think we’d do it. Now she knows we’re serious.
But we heard it all from her: We are the worst parents ever. We don’t care about anyone. Everyone is going to hate her. She’s going to tell everyone at school about this. She wishes she lived somewhere else. She has the worst life ever. This is the worst day ever. She will hate us forever. We will regret this.
We did tell her she has the power to get everything back—she just has to keep her room clean and we’ll let her pick some stuff. To which she snotted back “Well there’s nothing left in here!” To which we replied “Then it should be easy!”
So this is what the guestroom looks like…again. (You might remember we did this once already. Plus did it once at the last house.) But she’s just not getting it.
Needless to say we are both mentally and physically exhausted after this 1.5 hour-long process.
This is what friendship and love is all about. My friend Cheri invited us to a Brad Paisley concert (at the Hollywood Casino Ampitheatre) because she got four free tickets via VetTix—and Tom isn’t a country fan but he loves me and we all get along so…it happened!
The ride down took forever since it was a Friday heading toward the city, but the time passed quickly and we picked a super delicious place for dinner—Siam Marina. We all shared the:
Roll Me Out Crispy Platter — Two of each: Asparagus, Avocado, Crab & Cream Cheese, Seafood, Shrimp, & Thai Chicken Eggrolls
Signature Fish Cakes Delight — Chilean sea bass, mahi-mahi, salmon, panko, & served with mustard sauce
Calamari Tempura — Calamari rings dipped in tempura batter, served with sweet & sour sauce
I’m apparently an old fogey because it makes me insane that everyone stands up when the concert starts…so you can’t see anything unless you stand up. I don’t want to stand up for that long, thanks. And we were far enough away that you could barely see him on stage anyway…so I just stayed in my seat and watched him on the video monitors! Seriously, I only stood up for the last song and the encore!
Can you see how tiny he is way down there on the bottom middle?
After the concert we got a pic in front of the tour trailer.
As a sidenote, we decided to leave the kids alone all night for the first time (4:30–??). We had a neighbor on alert plus the kids had Anna’s number plus we told them they could have unlimited screen time so we felt pretty good. (It turned out fine! They followed the rules, went to bed when we told them to, and were asleep when we got home at 12:30.)
If you are a veteran, you can grab cheap tix to events like this! Sign up here!
Only one parent was allowed (thanks, Covid) so that means me. Which I’m fine with because then I get to check everything out! I sat at her desk and got to look inside to see if it was a mess (it wasn’t, but her teacher said she makes them all clean their desks because ALL PARENTS LOOK). They all got to design their own name for their desk.
I really love Katie’s teachers and I think she’s gonna have a great year. I especially liked being able to see all the artwork and projects they’ve been working on (hanging in the hallway).
It’s official! We are full-time 100% residents of Illinois! We own a house, transferred our plates and registrations yesterday, and got new (temp) licenses and voter registration cards today! (We haven’t had to do this the last 20 years in all the states we’ve lived in since being military lets you keep your home of record for those things.) We waited this long because Tom needed his VA disability confirmation and they have been a shitshow since the beginning.
The best news, though? We were in and out of the DMV in 30 minutes! And we didn’t have to take the written test!
We had Curriculum Night tonight. And really it was just me because they were limiting the number of people in person…but barely anyone even showed up! I pulled in early to make sure I got a parking spot (because these nights are generally a hot mess) and the lot was practically empty! I didn’t see one person in the halls the entire walk to his classroom! The good thing is that his Homeroom teacher arrived a few minutes later so I got to have a good 10 minutes with her!
Anyway, he seems to have some great teachers! And here’s some pics of his hallway and classroom!
The orthodontist has an even fancier system for tooth models now! It’s a tiny little camera she just moves around his mouth and it turns it into a 3D model!
His last adult tooth (red X) is trying to come in on top of another tooth. So they have to move the tooth that’s currently there to the empty spot (green arrow). This means six months of full braces on the top and then likely two years of Invisalign after.
Why Invisalign? Owen asked for it and since he did really well keeping track of his retainer the past two years, we said we’d think about it. Unfortunately it’s more expensive, to the tune of about $6k. We’re still waiting on the price for regular braces because we are out of insurance benefits (we were out from Day 1—benefits max out at like $1750 and we have already paid that much ourselves).
Monique and I haven’t seen each other in person since we left Jacksonville in 2014! They were delivering their son to college in Wisconsin just about an hour away so they had to stop in! (Our hubbies actually saw each other once while they were both deployed in Afghanistan!)
It started waaaay back in July. We ordered two pieces from The Roomstore on July 3 with delivery on July 10. Easy, right?
Except that the ottoman was damaged—it had a cracked foot (that fell apart when unwrapped) and a badly ripped corner.
Okay. Crap happens, we get it. So we scheduled another attempt—just thankful they had more in stock since in-stock furniture is hard to come by. So they attempted again on July 13 (#2) and…it was ripped on an edge.
Since it was actually functional they let us keep this ripped one until they could exchange it. Isn’t it pretty?
Our friends told us to just cancel it but it’s soooo pretty—it’s the perfect color and perfect size, plus it’s a storage ottoman. We asked for a discount and they refused, saying they’ll just exchange it.
On July 16 they attempted again (#3) and this time we made them unwrap it before they even brought it in the house. Nope. Two of the “squares” were so unbelievably discolored it was ridiculous that anyone looking at it for a second would assume it was good to deliver. I don’t have a photo of this one.
The next exchange (#4) was scheduled for July 20. This one was actually the least damaged of them all but the colors were off. Again. Not as bad as the first one but still unfit to accept.
SURPRISE SURPRISE—delivery attempt #5 on July 23 was a fail. Damaged. The inside edge was really scratched. It wasn’t visible, but the piece was expensive, so we figure it should be perfect to start with. Right? But we told the customer service person that we would accept it at a big discount and she offered us $50. On a $1100 ottoman. Um, no.
They told us it would be another month for delivery because they are getting one straight from the manufacturer to hopefully avoid any issues. UGH. At this point I really just wanted to be done with them, but it’s the perfect color, shape, size, etc.
Previous to this, Tom had talked to managers a few times and they assured him that we would be getting white glove service—that someone would be in the warehouse and looking it over first before it got loaded on the truck. Yeah no. That never happened. As evidenced by the continued arrival of damaged ottomans.
But then! We got a call saying they were going to deliver again. How? What happened to getting one straight from the manufacturer? Honestly at this point I don’t remember all the lies but I do know that they cancelled a few attempts because they discovered before or while loading it that it was damaged. I have texts from 7/28, 7/31, 8/11, 8/12, and 8/19—all of which I think were attempts that got cancelled. So maybe now a manager was actually checking them?!
So, fast forward through almost a month of attempts and cancellations and reschedules and talks with Customer Service (and Tweets!) that accomplished exactly nothing. (Oh wait! Tom had talked to customer service a few more times and they ended up giving us a $75 store credit and another time they refunded our $199 delivery fees. They then turned the store credit into an actual $75 credit but we never saw it on our account.)
8/19 — No idea what actual delivery attempt, but it was a FAIL. The outside had had packing tape on it, so when they ripped it off… OMFG… the color ripped off.
Tom tried to get store managers and it proved to be near impossible. He did finally get one and they basically told him they’d just keep trying. I want to give up but I want this damn ottoman because I haven’t found anything else this size or color or with storage in my search (and I’ve been searching)!
8/25 — Surprise surprise. Ottoman delivery attempt FAIL. It was scratched in two places and when the delivery guys went to try leather conditioner to fix it, it took the color off!
We decided enough was enough and even though it was a perfect size/shape/color, we couldn’t have something that got ruined that easily. (We had also noticed that we were scratching it just in daily use.) So we decided that we wanted to send both pieces from them back. Why both? Well, we bought them together (to go together) and if we couldn’t have one, we didn’t want either. Also? The loveseat turned out to be really crappy and was already getting deformed. We technically don’t need it since we found our real one elsewhere (after) and are just waiting for it to come in.
Well of course they fought it. Tom said if they refuse we will tell them we expect an ottoman delivery every Saturday from here on out until we’re happy…or they take both pieces. It was just ridiculous. Had they just given us a respectable discount to keep a less-damaged one, we would have been done with this in July. I mean, how much time and money did they waste attempting delivery of like nine ottomans?
After like 10 minutes on hold, the manager came back and said they will pick up both pieces! YAY! But also boo because I loved this ottoman. So now we are on the hunt.
GRRRR!! KATIE! I needed a band-aid and pulled out the box from under the sink. Nope. Makeup. So this means she used ALL OF THEM and then not only didn’t tell us, but stored her own crap in there.
Soooo on our anniversary we stopped at an Asian grocery store and I splurged on like 10 different bags of awesome sounding potato chip flavors. Except… Some don’t have names on them—just photos.
We tried this nameless flavor tonight that we decided was some type of soup with broth and mushrooms and peppers…? They were definitely yummy but I really wanted to know the flavor. I reverse image searched and googled to no avail so finally went to friends on Facebook and learned that the translation must not be exact because it was listed as both Chinese Sauerkraut and Pickle Fish. But others translated the actual language on the bag and got salted fish and Laotian pickled cabbage fish flavor.
Then there was this exchange:
THOSE AREN’T MUSHROOMS!!!
Lordy, taking a closer look—no, those definitely aren’t mushrooms!
But I liked them so all was well, whether they were salted fish or Chinese Sauerkraut!! I can’t wait to taste the other flavors!
I just received a whole handful of letters from Northwestern all saying the same thing—their records indicate I don’t have insurance to cover my recent services. Except everything (or almost everything) was already approved. Sigh. This shit exhausts me.
FYI We have had a few changes since these pics—that teal ottoman and gray loveseat are gone (long and sordid story that ends with us telling you to avoid Roomplace like the plague) and we have a leather loveseat on order. Missing rooms are the dining room and front room because we’ll need to rearrange that furniture again. I finally got around to taking the pics specifically because the ottoman was going away.
My friend Jodi Van Leer (J Van Leer Designs) was amazing in helping us figure out what we wanted, shopping for things, and pulling everything together. We trusted her implicitly and we couldn’t be happier!
Tom got to play woodworker and built:
the walnut mantle surrounds
the cabinet doors
the birch forest (using trees we brought home from my parent’s house in the upper peninsula!)
the stacked wood wall in the bar (my Pinterest idea)
and new built-in shelves for the liquor in the bar (so now he finally has his “me room” (and not just a me wall!)—which we’ve named Ground Control)!
new fixtures to replace contractor-grade boob lights
a new dining room fixture
a new foyer table coming this weekend
new bar footrails
and a new fireplace tile surround and flooring…
We absolutely love everything and when it’s picked up and free of kid shit it’s freaking amazeballs. It was a shit ton of work and expense and we pretty much got it all done in two months to be ready for the big party! But we finally have our forever home that looks put together and adult!!
Katie’s getting a back to school cut…and I get to sit with her purse because she doesn’t need me standing next to her anymore. Cue motherly crying.
Her hair is FINALLY getting longer! It seriously didn’t grow forever—it was so strange! This is only her fourth cut in her life and every time was just a tiny trim. Needless to say she’s excited!
Anna wanted to take a guided kayak tour at Starved Rock campground and invited us. I know my limits and Katie’s limits (after her kayak meltdown at Grannie and Papa’s earlier this summer) so I passed…but Tom and Owen went. They had a great time! (And I had a good time taking Katie shopping!)
