Zion National Park

Today we drove the rest of the way to CA, but first we visited Zion National Park, which was less than an hour from Cedar City.  Here is Owen, my nephew Drew, Rylan and my nephew Connor.  My nephew Alex, the one who will be marching, is traveling with the band.  Everybody else is either behind their own camera, NOT listening that we are taking a picture, or in the bathroom.  sigh.

Zion is absolutely beautiful.  It was a little chilly in the shade, but otherwise a gorgeous day to be outdoors.  We picked up Junior Ranger books at the Visitor Center, watched a short presentation and then the kids HAD to have these from the gift shop:

Many thanks to Aunt Joyce for the Christmas money for each kiddo, and a thank you to the kind Park Service employee with a sharpie to lend me so that I could initial each tag, thus avoiding endless fighting about whose raccoon was whose.

We went on a short hike up the Weeping Rock trail.  In the spring, summer and fall there is water that seeps out of the rock and trickles down the wall.  Now, in wintertime, the water is frozen, so the giant rock wall is covered with thousands of icicles.  There is the constant sounds of ice cracking and icicles falling and crashing on the rocks below.  It was quite the show..

The trail was steep, and icy in sections, so it was a bit dicey for me in places, but thankfully there was always some small child nearby that I could hang on to, to keep my balance.  We stood and watched and listened for at least a half an hour, but alas, California is calling and we have hours of driving ahead of us.  First though, our stomachs are growling and lunchtime is near.

Las Vegas is also near, so we hatch a plan to hit a buffet on the outskirts of Vegas for lunch.  We drive just over an hour and arrive for the last 25 minutes the buffet will be open.  Kids pile their plates and we eat.  The food was less than fabulous and the casino was smokey.  We are so accustomed to living in a non-smoking environment here in Colorado, that it is a shock to the system to walk into a smoky establishment. It was also a challenge to steer small children through the casino to even get to the buffet.  So many flashing lights!  So many sounds!

Back in the car, we drive, drive, drive.  We break out the Star Wars trilogy (4,5 and 6) that Santa brought for Christmas, and the kids have a mini-movie marathon, while Dean and I crack up at their commentary.  The desert is endless.  So is the stretch from Vegas to Barstow, that moves at about 15 miles per hour.  HOW CAN THAT MANY PEOPLE BE DRIVING TO CALIFORNIA!!??  It takes forever, but we finally reach our hotel in San Bernardino.  Tomorrow is Lego Land, so to bed we go!

A family leaves for California

We left for our trip to California today.  A year ago, my SIL shared with us that our nephew, Alex, would be marching in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena with his high school marching band.  We missed out on seeing our other nephew, Connor, march with the same marching band in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade the year prior because the trip was very expensive and it wasn't feasible to take so many young children on a trip to the mean streets of NYC.  So for this trip, the stars were aligned.  We had a year to save up, the kids would be the perfect age to visit Disneyland, and it had been 8 long years since our last visit to CA.  We had a portion of each paycheck diverted to a special savings account, and at year's end, we were mostly set.  Theme parks are expensive!!

We left bright and early this morning, but still almost a whopping two hours behind schedule.  Despite the mother of all packing lists, it is the actual doing of the packing that we never seem to manage...  We are traveling in our van, and my brother, SIL, two nephews, my dad and stepmom are traveling in their van.  They live an hour away, so they hit the road long before us.  Our destination is Cedar City, Utah.

We've had some snow, but thankfully almost a full day of weak sunshine for the crews to work on the roads.  As we traveled along we fought a little bit of traffic along I-70, and decided in Frisco that it would be nice to be able to actually SEE out the windshield, so we stopped for a new pair of wiper blades.  After that, the travel was much better.  As we passed Vail, I remembered that Dean and I resolved to listen to Serial, the podcast that everyone is raving about.  So I queued up as many episodes as I could while we had cell service, we popped in a movie and made all the kids wear headphones, and then Dean and I settled in to enjoy the show.

As we neared Glenwood Springs, the canyons looked absolutely magnificent.  The snow-covered strata was so beautiful...

Funny, though, when I look at this, I associate it now with the beginning episode of Serial, as the case is being discussed for the first time.  The way people associate different memories with smells - I'm the same way with sounds.  I look at my bedroom walls, and remember painting them as I was listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

We drove through the late afternoon and evening.  I'm sad we missed seeing the beautiful landscapes of Utah, since it was so dark.  We arrived in Cedar City a dead-tired and crabby bunch, and immediately went to bed after saying a quick hello in the hotel hallway to my brother.  Tomorrow we drive to CA!

The Nutcracker

Last weekend was our Nutcracker performance.  We had a five hour dress rehearsal the night before, and then on Saturday we performed two shows.  Rylan had two parts; a dancing gingerbread and a butterfly in the Waltz of the Flowers.  Dean and I were party parents again.  Since this was our second year, we were much more relaxed and it was a lot more fun.  There was definitely a different dynamic amongst the party scene people this year, because it felt much better.  The kids were more fun, there were actual 'parents' rather than teenage girls playing the role of a man to help fill in the scene, and there was more acting involved this year.  We had to chase around our naughty kids, Dean and another dad fought over who got to bring out the toy soldier and hold his toy gun, and my stage 'daughter' took a liking to us and interacted with us quite a bit.  Last year our two stage daughters treated us like we had a disease or something.

I thought it would be much more interesting to take our pictures in front of the set rather than the hallway like last year, but the stage lighting made it next to impossible to get something decent.  I never did get a good shot of my dress, but here it is.  I added a whole bunch of fabric bits and baubles to make it more colorful and sparkly for the stage.  I was going for an Edwardian look, but you can't really tell in the pictures.  I'm not satisfied with it, yet.  I will be making changes before next year.  Hopefully losing the 20 pounds (again) I gained back since last year will be included in those changes.  It will fit much better, I'm sure.

Rylan had a lot of fun performing this year.  This girl loves the stage - absolutely no butterflies.  There was a hitch this year - there was only once dance between her gingerbread and the butterfly.  She and four other little girls were all in the same quick-change boat, so I was backstage with the other moms to help our girls strip completely out of one outfit and into another - and then back again since she was a ginger in the finale.  It was stressful, yet comical.  Rylan learned quickly that there was no time for modesty, and nobody really cares...

I have been really, really lame about posting stuff on the blog.  I never posted about our Nutcracker experience (Rylan's second, and our first) last year, so I am including some pictures here.  Rylan performed as a snow flurry.  She and her class performed alongside the older girls that were the snowflakes.  She looked beautiful.

Here we are, feeling much more relaxed as we had the matinee under our belts and were a lot less nervous.  I am actually wearing my wedding dress.  I was about 8 weeks post BR surgery here, so I was still very sore and swollen, and the dancing bothered me just a bit.  After seeing the video of us dancing on stage, I felt like I looked very washed out and pale, so I thought I needed to add color to the dress this year.  We did have a lot of fun, which played a big part in our decision to do it again this year - and probably be roped into this part for a few years to come.  (if they'll have us)  It is definitely a unique couple experience, and we really enjoyed playing off of each other on stage.  Dean is a ham.  This year we cracked ourselves up, pretending to take selfies in front of the Christmas tree during the party scene - during rehearsal of course.

Many, many thanks to my mom for putting in the long hours of babysitting so that we could take part in this!

All I want for Christmas is to be able to breathe. Normally.

In the past week our family has gone through:

4 cans of chicken soup

2 cans tomato soup

2 gallons of juice

2 liters of 7-up

1 jar of honey

1 box of tea

1 box of saltines

2 bottles of Children's Tylenol

3 boxes of Kleenex

1 box of extra-strength Mucinex

It is difficult when a family member is sick.  It is even harder when four are sick simultaneously.  You have to compete for couch space.  Feverish kids want to lay on you, as well as the cat.  There aren't enough Kleenex boxes to go around.  Somebody is going to have to let the dog out.  And it won't be me, since I can't lift my head off the pillow without it splitting into two.

My hero this week is my 8 year old daughter (the only one well at the time) who managed to make the rest of us tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.  She let the dog out.  Multiple times.  She fetched blankets, charger cords, Kleenex and made tea.  My husband, also my hero, who was just a bit less dizzy than I, was the one who made the heroic trip to the grocery store to replenish our stores, and monitor everyone's temperature.

We managed.  We survived.  We even got the tree decorated.  I kept half-lidded eyes on the breakables, as each child hung up their ornaments.  I didn't give a whit where they ended up on the tree.  We had Christmas movie marathons.  I've watched every episode of every season of Shawn the Sheep.  I think I'm good now, thanks.  Even though being sick absolutely sucks, everybody being in the same boat draws a family closer together.  United in snot.  And phlegm.  The one with the highest temperature of the hour wins....a popsicle!

And now, our little Florence Nightingale is taking her turn.  She is the lucky one.  She has four family members to wait on her.

Jordan is so, so lucky that he is in OKC at the moment...  

and now, in that post-cold energy rush, it is sinking in that I've only got 5 days to get my Christmas shit together....

So I guess the holidays are here...

I am beginning to really resent our slave-like Calvert school schedule.  It is ridiculous that I constantly have my eyeballs glued to a planner, yet it never dawns on me what day it really is.  To me, it's just Lesson Day 62, and Jordan is currently slogging though Day 32, Rylan Day 46, and Owen Day 53.  I live and breathe the mantra, How much can we get done today in the never-ending effort to get caught up, instead of noticing that fall has happened, Halloween has happened, Thanksgiving has happened, and HELLO? Christmas is just around the corner??  This curriculum is robbing us of quite a lot.  :(

Fall has happened.

We did enjoy the fall - in a very limited way.  A few leaf walks, a visit to an apple orchard, a hike, the pumpkin patch, Trick-or-Treating on Halloween, leaf raking...  It was all crammed in and between everything else that makes the fall crazy - scout popcorn, scouting for food, Fall Camporee, (all compounded by adding Owen to the family scouting roster), Nutcracker practices, Lego...  I don't like leaving seasonal and family rituals out of the schedule and then fitting them in where we can.  There is no downtime, no spontaneity, and by Thanksgiving we are exhausted.

Thanksgiving has happened.

Thanksgiving was supposed to be spent at home in CO this year, but a schedule switch had to be made in order to accommodate a family trip to CA over New Years, so we went to OKC for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas, so that we wouldn't have two big trips just days apart.  It actually worked out really well.  We had a very good week in OKC, beginning with a family get-together the evening we arrived, which was great since that gave us a chance to see everyone - including our newest grandniece, now 9 months old.  Since this year is the 'off year', in which all the families would be spending the holiday with their inlaws, we knew that our Thanksgiving would be just our family and Dean's folks.  Eight of us.  Can I just say how wonderful that was?  Don't get me wrong - I love the whole family get-togethers and all, but for this wallflower, a small, intimate dinner with 'just us', was wonderful.  In addition, this was not Jordan's scheduled holiday visitation with his mom, so he got to spend the week with us  - and more importantly his grandparents, although we did agree that he could spend the night on Thanksgiving and most of Friday with his mom.  He flies out to OKC in just a few more days, and will spend two weeks with her during Christmas.

Back to the actual event - there was no stress in cooking, no stress in traveling anywhere, no stress of a houseful of people, no stress in clean up.. there was just no stress at all!  I didn't know what to do with myself in a nonstressed state.  So I knitted.  That stressed me out, so I felt better.  My MIL handled the turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes, and I made the rolls, sweet potatoes and gravy.  This was the first time - EVER - that Jordan had the quintessential childhood experience of waking up to the smell of roasting turkey.  For 14 years that child has had to wait for that... a shame!  I have only roasted a turkey once, (last Christmas??) and that was during the day, and I can't remember if he was here or not - he may have been with his mom, who doesn't cook.  Every other holiday in which turkey is involved, the roasting happened at a house he was traveling to, so he never experience that wonderful smell that weaves its way into your dreams and wakes you up at 5:30 a.m. with a growling stomach!  So glad he was with us.

Christmas is happening.

It is now the 10th, and all we have managed to do is drag the tree up from the basement last night, and untangle the lights.  That's it.  Oh, and I put up the advent calendar.  And purchased a poinsettia and a wreath for the door.  I love, love to decorate, yet there is just no time! :(  I am in the process of clearing out about 500 curriculum books (no joke!) from the office shelves to put up my Santa and Nativity displays.  That is the safest spot for them, so every year the books have to be moved temporarily - which, as you can imagine, is a huge chore.  Especially when you have a bum knee.

I haven't even thought about Christmas presents.  At all.

We are leaving for CA in about two weeks.  I haven't thought about that either.  Other than to think about temporary pet placement.

All that is on my mind (apart from stupid schoolwork) is the Nutcracker.  After this weekend, it will be over.  This is Rylan's third year performing in her dance academy's production, and it is the fourth year they have been putting it on.  It is a 'smaller' performance overall when compared to others - the music has been edited for length, the set is more scaled back and it is performed in a high school auditorium, but it does seem to get bigger in scope every year.  This year Rylan is dancing as a Gingerbread and as a butterfly during the Waltz of the Flowers.  Dean and I are once again performing in the party scene.  We are the 'parents' of four, including two very naughty boys, so we get to do a lot of 'scolding' during the party.  Good times.  No different from our daily life.  I spent a very stressful week last week altering my dress so that it looked more 'festive' and period-appropriate.  I will post pictures eventually.  I'm not happy with it, but it will have to do.  We performed last Friday at a different high school for some elementary kiddos, and then we perform twice this coming Saturday.  It will be a long nine hours at the theater.  Last year I was freaked out by it all.  This year I am surprisingly calm.

The CSB

I'm afraid I don't exactly *love* Calvert anymore.  It's been a such a tough beginning (this trimester), as we have pushed on and forward, yet falling ultimately further behind.  I know that things will drastically improve in December when several hours in our schedule will free up, and that is the hope that I am hanging on to - with all I've got.  I feel like a doofus for saying in the past that I wanted to be accountable to somebody, because that would help us stay on a schedule.  Our insane schedule has driven me to drinking (coffee - and tons of it) and constantly updating vast spreadsheets I've made of assignments, due dates, pacing schedule and so forth.

1. I now officially hate being accountable to somebody.  I feel guilty if we take a half hour to ourselves and go to a park, or if I have to run an errand.  We're so behind it feels like every hour has potential to get just 'a little bit more' done, so we have minimal contact with the outside world (doing stuff that is fun, and stuff that we want to do).  I hate to admit that this accountability has been good for us, because we have accomplished more schoolwork already than we accomplished all of last year.  I just don't like losing so much of our freedom.  The freedom to make your own schedule is a big part of what homeschooling is all about.

2.  I am no longer okay with somebody else picking out our curriculum.  In the past week it was suggested in Owen's Kindergarten curriculum that I reread a story about a walk a child takes with fuzzy farm animals no less than 10 times.  10 TIMES.  It was to be reread during each lesson - and discussed ad nauseam - for 5 lessons in a row.  Yes, each rereading used a different approach or covered a different aspect of the story (predicting, color of animals, fur/feathers/scales, sentence structure, blah blah blah)  Owen was ready to poke his eyes out with his big yellow pencil.  Rylan just completed the most horrific math chapter on bar modeling.  She is a whiz with three digit addition with carrying, three digit subtraction with borrowing - done the traditional way, and then they throw this crap at her.  I HATE SINGAPORE. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.  I've been standing before my schoolbook cases - now covered in dust - looking longingly at the awesome curriculum we had to shelve when Calvert came along.  History of Us, Story of the World, R.E.A.L. Science 4 Kids, Shurley English, All About Spelling, Meet the Masters, Wordly Wise 3000.... so sad.  so so sad.  There just isn't time, and it breaks my heart, because this was good stuff.  I've got to find a way to work it in, or substitute things, or...something.  Something!

I am pretty sure I will not pull the plug here mid-year, but I am undecided if we will continue with Calvert next year.  I constantly sit and fantasize about how I would take what I have learned about scheduling and pacing, and make it work with the curriculum that I want to use.  The other factor is that the kids do love their online class time - and there is no way to replicate that.  What to do, what to do, what to do...  uugh.  Sometimes I don't like being in charge.  Here we are at that stupid crossroads again - what if I make the wrong decision?  What if they fall even further behind?  Am I ruining them by keeping them home?

Homeschooling is not for the faint of heart.  You've got to be strong in your convictions because you will tested.  Constantly.  I am strong in that I want them home.  I could never surrender those Aha! moments of first words, first writing, first reading to another teacher.  Never.  I would never surrender them willingly to the social ladder of the classroom, the chaos of the lunchroom and playground, or the unrelenting schedule of homework, book reports, school functions and so forth.  I want them home so that their day can go at a reasonable pace, so that they can get adequate amounts of sunshine, playtime and downtime, so that they can go long in math and short in writing, or switch it if the mood arises, so that we can Google that question, YouTube that demonstration or build that next creation.  This I am strong in.

Where I am weak is how to go about it.  There is no ONE way - yes, I know that.  But our way over the past few years hasn't worked very well.  I'm weak in the execution of it all.  I'm weak in multi-tasking, delegating, time management - and with four kids that is a big liability.  My weak side has been winning lately.  First, I sabotaged our schedule by allowing Jordan and Rylan to do an activity that was clearly in conflict with school.  It has created a huge, huge problem, in fact.  I didn't factor in the time expense, the $$ cost to participate, the shuttling kids back and forth, the group snack headache and $$$$...  These are all things that I loathe about activities like this.  For Jordan, the reward does not even come close to the pain.  In fact, there has been damage done to relationships because he is so unhappy with his group.  For Rylan, the reward has been mostly worth it.  She has learned some new skills, made a new friend and looks forward to participating.  I am just too quick to agree to things.  I really need to sit down and work out the cost analysis before saying 'yes'.  I am also not managing our time very well.  Hours slip by without much to show for it, as I spend the time doing silly things like looking for lost items, going back to the store for forgotten things, shuttling kids back and forth to stuff, and making spreadsheets about how I should be spending my time.

All of this weakness has led to some not-so-good-things.  First of all, more than once I have woken in a cold sweat - certain that I forgot to pick up a kid from somewhere.  I have even got up, and gone to the kids' rooms to do a headcount to make sure everyone was accounted for.  There is just way too much picking up/dropping off going on, and every day is a different routine.  I check the calendar about 20 times a day because I am constantly afraid I am forgetting to do something or that I am late for something.  Panic attacks.  Daily, if not hourly panic attacks.  I panic about the schedule, the schoolwork, the house repairs, the towering stack of unopened mail (what is in there?), my knee rehab, two upcoming road trips... my heart races, my chest hurts and I think I am having a heart attack multiple times a day.  No joke.  There is also the crushing depression.  It's back, and with a vengeance.  I can't get anything done.  I am so overwhelmed, I can't care about the unopened mail, the unbalanced checkbook, the unfinished compositions, the dirty house, the child that is still having multiple 'accidents' a day, or even writing on here very much.  I don't have a clue about where to start.  I went to my doctor a few weeks back to ask for help, and I am back on an antidepressant.  This time I am trying out Prozac.  It is too low of a dose in my opinion, but it is a step in the right direction, and we'll up the dose next refill.  There has been some improvement, but the panic attacks have not stopped.  :(  I also think about where I was a year ago, vs. now.  I've gained nearly all of my weight back, due to lack of exercise because of my knee, and way more comfort/stress eating than I care to admit.  I know that the daily walking/running I was doing last year played a big part in keeping the depression at bay, and that I am soooo close to getting the all-clear to start walking daily, at least.

I think that this fall has just been particularly hard.  It's been a whole slew of a lot of little things that added all together made up the perfect clusterfuck stress bomb.  Let's just call that the CSB.  The new school 'thing', the hailstorm and the subsequent house and car repairs and the constant - daily! - meetings and phone calls with insurance agents, contractors, subs, shopping excursions and actual repair work, the knee surgery/rehab and the 30+ doctor appointments I've had since July, the insane activity schedule and so on, and so on, and so on...  I can't wait for December.  Even though Nutcracker craziness will be a part of the first half of December, that's okay.  We've actually really been enjoying that, for some reason that escapes me right now.

Contractors are a whole other breed...

I am not new to dealing with contractors.  Back in 2003 I purchased my first home, a brand new build.  They broke ground in October 2002, and I moved in in March of that next year.  Since the house was just a few blocks away from my job, I visited the site almost every damn day.  Things went wrong almost immediately.  The foundation was dug and poured, and when I went to look, it made no sense to me at all.  I cocked my head from side to side and walked around the entire property several times before I realized that they had flipped the entire plan.  When you sit and look at house plans for hours and hours, trying to picture the layout, the views from windows and the light that will come in and so forth, you get used to the way you have looked at it.  To have the entire thing flipped meant that all of a sudden I had to add windows where there weren't windows before because now I had a serious lack of natural lighting issue and so forth.  It went downhill from there, for the miscommunication was rampant.  I remember those times, and so now, as we are getting the house fixed up from the storm in June, it is coming back to haunt me.

First of all, let me say that State Farm is the best insurance company ever.  Ever.  EVER.  After much squabbling back and forth about replacing several windows, they sent out another adjuster a week and a half ago to look over the place again.  Our claim estimate jumped from $13K to $24K to account for more paint, a new garage door and some other things.  The adjuster was very courteous and absolutely thorough, and has a fully operational bullshit meter.  It appears that the windows subcontractor was pushing up numbers a bit, but on the other hand, the gouges left behind from numerous golf ball-sized hail that peppered all over the house, meant that one coat of paint was not going to do the job.  I mean really, the previous agent submitted for ONE coat of paint on *most* of the house.  That's ridiculous.  It pays to complain loudly sometimes.

We picked out a new garage door, and also decided to go ahead and replace the front door and both of our back doors - those will be on our own dime and labor.  (thank you honey!)  We made our color choices and style choices, and I submitted a flurry of paperwork to the HOA last Friday for approval.  I am competing with about 80% of our neighborhood for the coveted HOA signatures.

Monday (of this past week): I finally had the line item insurance paperwork in hand to show the contractor so that he knew exactly what the insurance company was going to cover, and so we could draw up a new contract for the work to be done and how much we would pay.  He came over that afternoon and I showed him the garage door that we had picked out and he placed a call to the garage door sub.  They responded later that afternoon with a 'yes, we can do that' and it would be ready in two weeks.  Remember that.  Two weeks.  Meanwhile, we went through the rest of the list and the contractor reminded me that I needed to get a check from the insurance company. Asap.  (vermin)

Tuesday: phone call from contractor:
C: Have I called you yet today about your garage door?
Me: (what now?....)  Uh...no?
C: Oh, well they have it ready to install, and can be there tomorrow between 10 and noon.
Me: (shock and more than mild irritation) Ummm... let me look at the calendar.. (several complications), Yeah... I guess that will work.

I think about a total of 18 hours had passed since the "two weeks" statement and the "they will show up tomorrow" statement.  Now, I know that most people have the opposite problem.  They pay for work and it never gets done.  I have a different problem.  I know my contractor has a cell.  I know that all of the subs have a cell.  But nobody EVER CALLS to set up a time to come by - they just show up.  They seem to think that I am always at home, and that we never leave the house to do things, and that we never need advanced notice for anything.

People in the contracting business, hear me out.  IT IS FLAT OUT RUDE.  okay?

So I got on the phone and moved the violin lesson, arranged a ride for somebody else, told Dean we needed to clear out the garage that evening, and then freaked out because I had nothing from the HOA.  They had the paperwork for all of one business day so far, and that's only if they had picked it up from the HOA office.  As luck would have it, that Friday before I had received a nice phone call from one of the ladies on the HOA board to let me know that I had verbal approval on the paint color choices, and that the paperwork would be on its way soon, as soon as it was signed off at their next meeting.  So, with her number in hand, I called to plead my case that my contractor was messing with me and that the garage door was being installed tomorrow instead of two weeks from now and I needed approval for that.  She was very sympathetic and understanding.  Those HOA people need Christmas cards this year because our entire neighborhood has worked them overtime in the past couple of months.

Wednesday: right at 11:58 a.m., the garage guys showed up and installed the door over the next three hours.  All irritation aside, it looks beautiful and totally changes the entire look of the house.  I won't show pics until all the work is done.  I received a call from the insurance guy, wanting to know if I had a signed contract with the contractor in hand.  (I did)  He will be by the next day to get a copy.

Thursday: Insurance guy shows up at appointed time, inspects the new door, takes the contract and gives me a substantial check.  I may have trouble getting it cashed since it is large and I have to get two different banks' signatures on it as well.  This could take some time.  I call the contractor later to tell him I have the check and let him know that I will work on it beginning Monday, to get it endorsed by a bunch of different people, as this takes time, and I don't want to do it on Friday because it is Halloween, and that doesn't sound like fun.  Halloween is supposed to be about fun - not spending the day in the car going from bank to bank.

Friday:  Contractor shows up, unannounced, looks at the new garage door and then the real intention of his visit is clear:
C:  Do you have a check ready for me yet?

I seriously want to go impale myself on a pitchfork.  I would make a nice yard decoration for this Halloween evening.