Taking a Queue from Scarlett O’Hara

It was a bit of a busy, unusual Tuesday for the Kramer crew.  Between the kids, grandkids, and dogs, I was hopping.  I started my day early.  I was scheduled to take care of my grandsons Carver and Anders while daughter Kalissa and husband Craig took Gannon to the genetics appointment for Gannon in Iowa City.  I was up at 5:45 am and they were coming at 6 am.  Shortly after waking, Kalissa sent me this picture of Anders…

UGH.  That means his ear drum ruptured and he has ear infection.  Oh no.  Poor guy.  It was a disappointment to us all.  Kalissa had been so hoping she’d get one boy that wasn’t plagued with ear infections.  Here’s Anders with his first ear infection and is only 5 months old.

He hasn’t been different at all except for two nights, Friday and Saturday, he didn’t sleep the best.  We just figured he was getting older and needing a little cereal at night before bed to tide him over a little longer.  Nope.  The poor guy had ear infection.

The boys got dropped off and I told Kalissa to call for an appointment on her way to Iowa City and I would take Anders to the doctor.

I had left my kitchen table like this from the night before as I was sorting floss, organizing a couple of projects, and putting some previously used flosses away.  I scooted it over and found room for Carver to eat breakfast.

At 7:45 am Carver got on the bus and he headed off to school.  About then Kayla sent me an SOS.  She wanted a picture of my dining room table all decked out for Valentine’s Day.  Apparently, she was making a Facebook post promoting the laces she has in her Etsy Shop.  She thought if people saw my projects I’ve used vintage laces on that might be a good sales point.  Of course, my table wasn’t cleaned off so I cleaned it off, snapped some pictures, and sent them to her.  You can find Kayla’s Etsy Shop HERE.

Just as I hit send Anders needed to eat and then just as finished feeding him, Karl, my son, called.  He wanted to know how my day was scheduled.  I told him about Anders and having to take him to the doctor.  By this point, Kalissa had called to let me know his appointment was at 9:15 am.

Karl was a little bummed.  He said he came outside to find he had a flat tire.  He was hoping to borrow my van and take it to work.  I quickly offered to take him to work.  It is in the opposite direction of the doctor’s office but I thought I had just enough time to do both.  I scrambled to let the dogs out and get Anders ready.

Then it hit me.  Craig didn’t take his truck to work so Karl could likely drive Craig’s truck.  I called Kalissa and Craig.  That was okay.  They told us where the keys were.  Karl walked to my house.  I told him the new plan as I was buckling Anders into his car seat.  I got him out to the van and crap.  The seats of my van fold into the floor and they were all folded down as Karl used my van over the weekend to take things to my son Buck’s house.

Pop the seats up.  Get Anders in the car.  Get Karl to Kalissa’s house.

Whew.  Just enough time for a breather before taking Anders to the doctor.

Then I realized I could get rid of two of the boxes in the garage if I made arrangements to drop them off with the sewing group from Decorah way.  YES.  Then I could check that off my list.  So I contacted her.  Yes, she could meet me.  I loaded the boxes into the van, loaded Anders back in the van and we took off to town.

At the doctor, we found out that…
Anders does indeed have ear infection.  In fact, double ear infection.  UGH.

We got done there and I knew I would have to kill some time before the pharmacy would have Anders’ medicine ready so I met the lady with the quilt tops and handed them off to her.  WHEW.  Another thing out of my garage.  I told you all that I’m working really hard to get it more organized and cleaned.

Then I unloaded Anders and we went and shopped at the thrift store.  While there my phone was binging.  My son Buck was on his job site and two dogs came passing through.  He stopped what he was doing and worked to find their owners.  This is one…

This is the other…

My phone binged again with this picture from my daughter Kelli.  She wanted everyone to guess why she was pulled over on the side of the road.

The phone binged some more with guesses…hit a deer? No.  Pulled over by a cop?  No.  Then Karl guessed it.  One of the boys threw up in the car.

Then the phone dinged again.

It was my son Buck.  The owners were found.  Then he called me saying, “I’ve been planning mine and Roscoe’s whole life for the last hour.”  He “fake named” the black dog Roscoe.  Oh, that guy wants/needs a dog.  He’s always been a big dog person.  He hasn’t had his own dog since he left home.  I think life is finally going to settle down and he’ll get one soon.

Then I was off to the pharmacy and then the grocery store.  Anders was excellent in the grocery store…but I forgot how much extra work it is lugging a baby along.

Finally, we were headed home.  By then it was time for a bottle and meds for Anders.  After that, he took a nap and I scrambled to get the groceries put away.

I did find a couple of things at the thrift store…

The Style Me Up books are a favorite with my childcare girls.  You can find the HERE on Amazon…they are about $15 a piece normally.  Or course this has a few pages already colored but all in all, a great deal for 50 cents.  The purple stripe fabric was $1.50 for three yards…I’m thinking it will be a quilt backing…the green was only 50 cents.  I did pay more for the bobbins and bobbin holder.  It was $3.  These bobbins fit my Singer 15-91.

Then the school kids came off the bus.  It was raining.  I told the kids that I would check the weather to see how long it was going to rain.

I sat down at the computer to check and this showed up.  Was anyone willing to foster this beagle mix pup?  Well, you know me.  I always say yes.  I’ve had quite a few dogs lately and still have Susie here so I said I would if no one else wanted to.  In reality, most people don’t like pups.  They aren’t home all day as I am so it’s harder for them to foster pups.  Me, I love fostering pups.  The kids love when I have puppies too.

Kalissa and Craig came back from the appointments with Gannon and shared that news.  You can read that all HERE on her blog.

The childcare kids were picked up…Kalissa’s family left and I sat down to write this blog post.

Then my phone started dinging again.  It was Kayla.  She and Jasper made homemade noodles.  She wrote, “The face of a boy, when presented with a pile of flour at face level, thought the smart thing was to blow on it”.

The story continued, “He was a great helper until it came to cutting the pasta because he thought the cut pasta hanging in the machine looked like a car wash and he only wanted to drive his cars in”.  HA!!

Karl arrived in the middle of me writing this blog post.  He was going to borrow my air compressor to try to deal with his flat tire.  He got the tire pumped and got his vehicle to the tire shop.  Then we took Craig’s truck back to Kalissa’s house.

Karl looked like he had a long day so I offered to make him a Rueben sandwich.  We had that along with cottage cheese and chips.  It was a very low-key meal.  We caught up as it’s been at least a week since Karl’s been by for supper.  Then we played Patchwork.  He won.

It was 7:45 pm when he left.

When Karl leaves, he always slaps his leg first.  That’s kind of like the warning that he’s leaving in about 1-10 minutes.  If there’s anything else I want to say or anything I need, it’s my warning sign that I should quickly tell him whatever it is.  So I think I’m going to do that with you tonight.  Consider this my knee slap…because I am going to wrap this up and sign off.

I sat down to try to write this blog post and then my computer started dinging with messages trying to figure out how the puppy was going to get to me.  The pup is currently an hour to the east of me.  With some coordination, I think we got it figured out.  Karl is already borrowing my vehicle tomorrow so either Kalissa or Kelli will have to help me get the puppy.  I’m going to worry about the rest of that tomorrow…as Scarlett O’Hara said, “tomorrow is another day”.  Can I hope for a day maybe not quite as topsy turvy as today??