Decisions, Decisions

Thankfully, tomorrow is the last official day of the summer swim season. I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I will be when this season is over! More on that later. . .

We have the mudroom ready to be drywalled, and hopefully that will happen early next week. A friend of ours will be doing the drywall, but his three kids also swim on the swim team, so he's waiting for the season to be over before he does the drywall. (Have I mentioned that I'm really, really ready for the summer swim season to be over?)

Now, we have to make the big decision: Will Bill build the cabinets for the kitchen, or will we have them made? This may seem like a pretty easy decision, but it gets more complicated by the minute.

A brief history: We had Home Depot shoot us a quote for the cabinets. It was a little high, but possible. We had a custom cabinet maker give us a bid; his bid was more than twice what Home Depot's bid was, and he was going to use our own wood for the cabinet doors. He would have done a beautiful job no doubt, but yikes! Next, we had Lowe's shoot us a price, but they were slightly higher than Home Depot. Then, when visiting with Home Depot again, we discovered that the cabinets we were thinking about had a center post inside the doors. Now, if you've ever worked in my current kitchen, you know how aggravating it is to have a center post right in the middle of your shelves. If you haven't worked in my kitchen, I can assure you that it is, indeed, very aggravating! (Now, go into your own kitchen and thank it for not having center posts. Believe me, center posts are really, really bad and if you don't have them, be thankful.)

So, it was back to the drawing board at Home Depot (where the woman we're working with is quite nice and very accommodating). As you might have guessed, it's more expensive to have cabinets without the center posts. Sigh. Then, we had another grand idea: We could order all the cabinets except the island from Home Depot and have Bill build the island (to my very quirky specifications). This seemed like a perfect compromise. We could avoid the hassle of Bill spending every waking moment out in the workshop building cabinets (although perhaps he would like to spend every waking moment out in his workshop rather than bonding with the rest of the family--hmmmm), but still use some of our own wood and customize parts of the kitchen. Anyway, we're waiting for yet another quote from Home Depot to see what their bid will be without the island.

So the swim team. Good ole swim team. Allow me to ramble a bit here. Understand that both boys have participated on a swim team since they were, oh, about four or five years old. In other words, they're old pros at it. So, it's safe to assume that both boys know that they should pack, say, a swim suit for a swim meet. Oh, and goggles. Yeah, goggles. Maybe a towel should make it into the swim bag, and if they're feeling really ambitious, a few nutritious snacks and maybe something to occupy them during the meet between races. It's safe to assume, in other words, that the boys know how to pack for a swim meet since they've been doing it for seven years in Elijah's case.

Bill and I orchestrated the swim meet today with the degree of precision reserved only for space shuttle launches and presidential visits. The plan: Bill, who would be officiating for the morning session, would go to the pool with Andrew who would begin warm ups at 7:30. I would stay home with Elijah and Beau making sure that Beau was all tuckered out and ready to nap before leaving the house by 8:00. Upon arriving at the pool with Elijah, who wasn't scheduled to swim until the afternoon session, I would ensure that Andrew knew when and where his races were and then go sell Heat Sheets for an hour while Bill officiated the meet. Then, when Andrew was nearly done, I would have Elijah get Andrew to his last race so I could go home and let Beau out of his crate. I would then return to the pool with Beau to pick up Andrew (who swam only in the AM) and return home to tucker out the puppy once again before returning to the pool to see Elijah swim a few races. Then, the whole happy family would leave the pool and pick up a pizza and movie for Family Movie Night. Perfect, right?

Enter Andrew. At 7:15, when I was finally getting my shower before continuing to tucker out the puppy, the phone rang. Elijah took the message which explains why Andrew can still hear out of his left ear. (Had I answered, I would have most definitely screamed thus impairing the child's hearing.) The message: Andrew forgot. . . wait for it. . . wait for it. . . his suit! Yep. His suit. NASA, we have a problem. Now, understand that Andrew did indeed take a lot of stuff to the pool. He did not go empty-handed. He had a DS, a towel, a small blanket, pen and paper for drawing, goggles, and many other assorted necessities.

Upon getting the phone call about the missing suit I was, shall we say, miffed. OK, that's a lie. I was furious. The entire schedule for the morning was ruined. I really didn't have time to finish getting ready, get the puppy situated, and get Andrew his suit. Keep in mind that we live south of Blm and the meet was in north Nrml at ISU. What to do? After reaching Bill on his phone and recovering my speaking voice, we decided to meet halfway and hand off Andrew's suit. After the suit transfer (which was accomplished with all the finesse and precision of an Olympic relay team there in the parking lot of the local Dollar Tree), I raced back home to continue the aforementioned tuckering out (only in fast forward because now I was way behind schedule). I grabbed a cheese stick for breakfast and raced out the door once again to get to the pool to sell Heat Sheets during my designated time.

Whew! Have I mentioned that I'll be happy when swim season is over?

But wait, that's not all! After leaving the pool around 12:00 today I returned home with Andrew to once again tucker out Beau and feed Andrew lunch. The phone rang. It was Elijah. "Uh, Mom. I left all my swim stuff in the back of your car. . ." Could you hear me scream from where you live?