To say that the week after Thanksgiving defied description might just be an understatement.

Here’s how things were SUPPOSED to work:

Friday: Head back to Dallas from Louisiana
Saturday night: Boys have a sleepover while Dave and I go out to hear a local musician as part of his birthday celebration
Sunday: Dave’s birthday. He’s also supposed to play the offertory at church that morning.
Monday: Work
Tuesday: Dave heads to Chicago and I go to work. This isn’t my typical day, but I have something else scheduled for Wednesday, so I’m going in a day early. I plan on packing up the van for tomorrow’s craft show after getting the boys from school.
Wednesday: Craft show
Thursday: Home in the morning, work in the afternoon
Friday: Home in the morning waiting for some clients to pick up their orders, work in the afternoon. (Working only the afternoons is not typical. These two dates/times are strictly due to how some parent conferences had to be scheduled.)
Saturday/Sunday: Craft show

Instead, this is what REALLY happened:

Friday: Head back to Dallas from Louisiana. Daniel starts running a fever that has hit 103 by the time we arrive.

Saturday: It finally gets cold enough to turn on the heat downstairs. We discover that the new ac system installed a few months ago isn’t blowing warm air. The technician who comes out mentions that their (former) employee had a habit of not hooking up the heating elements on the systems he was putting in. Heating elements hooked up, the downstairs area starts warming up. Daniel is feeling better, but still has a low grade fever off and on; Michael also has a low grade fever. Obviously, with the boys sick, the sleepover is out of the question. I stay home with the boys, and Dave goes to the concert with a friend from work.

Sunday: Both boys are better. Dave wakes up with a fever and some sort of stomach bug. I’m calling the music minister at 6:30 in the morning to say that Dave won’t be at church. In fact, he barely gets out of bed all day long. Needless to say, his birthday celebration is postponed. The good part is that his companion from last night doesn’t seem to be suffering from the same thing, so I think it’s safe to eliminate food poisoning as a possibility.

Monday: I stay home from work with Dave. He’s obviously feeling better, but he does go in to see the doctor, since he’s supposed to be flying out the next day. (About 9:30 am, he asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be working today?” Hmmm….let’s see, you could barely get out of bed yesterday. Do you really think I was going to assume you were well enough to drive yourself to the doctor’s office?)

Tuesday: Dave flies out for Chicago. I drop the boys off at school and head into work. After about half an hour, I admit that I’m not really feeling up to par and decide to go home. Ultimately I decided I was mostly just tired, because I definitely felt better after a nap. I do manage to finish up most of the custom orders that are in the queue. The weather has turned very cold and rainy, and I’m not looking forward to having to pack the van up. About 3 pm I get an email from tomorrow’s show coordinator stating that the area is under construction, the booth sizes will be cut in half, and offering to refund our money if we want to back out. I immediately ask for a refund. At that point, I realize that I could actually (gasp!) go into work tomorrow and make up some of the time I’ve missed this week. I have some assessments that need to be finished prior to Thursday and Friday’s parent conferences. Since I wasn’t at work earlier in the week, those still need to be completed. Tuesday night however, I realize that once again we have cold air blowing out of the downstairs unit. Finally I turned the unit off just to keep it from making the house even colder.

Wednesday: Spent the day waiting on the ac repairman again. When he comes out just after lunch and turns the system on, it starts blowing warm air. He inspects and checks things and finally announces that some of the wiring in the thermostat is probably “wonky”. I pick the boys up from school, we finish homework, and then I drop them off at church for practice for the Christmas program on Sunday.

Thursday: At this point, I *have* to go into work for the full day. I have two parent conferences that afternoon and neither assessment is finished. I can’t complete the paperwork for either conference until that is done. Unfortunately, when we come downstairs for breakfast, I discover that it’s 64 degrees in the house again. Quick phone call to the ac people, and we make tentative arrangements for an appointment that afternoon. I give her my cell phone number as well, so we can finalize arrangements. She calls back later to say they can’t get anyone out before the evening because of a class the repairman is attending. The scheduled time conflicts with Daniel’s Scout Meeting, so I send out a quick email asking if someone can pick him up and drop him off this evening. The ac people call back to say the class was cancelled and they can get out earlier after all. The repairman is able to get here about 4, but we’ve got all the possibilities covered in case he runs late. Once again, the system starts blowing warm air when he turns it on. This time they replace the entire thermostat. Dave arrives back home that evening.

Friday: The downstairs heater is working! Load the van in the morning with the stuff for this weekend’s craft show. Two clients drop by and pick up their orders. Finalize arrangements for the other three custom orders to be picked up this weekend at the show. Head into work about 10 for my first parent conference at 10:55. I have paperwork to complete ahead of time. As I walk in the door, one of the secretaries asks if I got her email saying parent had called to cancel the meeting. This just means I have more time to complete the necessary assessment before the next two parent conferences. I log into the mail system at work and discover notes from both teachers for the other students (siblings, so only one parent to deal with) saying that Mom contacted them to say she wouldn’t be able to make it. (Three parent conferences, the entire reason I’m at work this day, and they’ve all been cancelled!) I send out cancellation notices for all three parent conferences, leave a message for the second parent asking about re-scheduling. As soon as I do, one of the teachers emails back to say that Mom wants us to have the meeting without her. This wasn’t mentioned in either of the emails that the teachers originally sent me. An hour later Mom calls back to confirm that as well. I get to send out new meeting notices for the day once again. After finishing those conferences, I head out for the Post Office to mail one order, drop by the bank to put in a deposit for the orders that were picked up this morning, and then head over to get set up for the show. Set up time is 3-6. I get there about 4:15-4:30 and am heading home about 6 pm.

Saturday: The karma gods (yes, I do know that there’s no such thing) apparently decide that I’ve had enough to deal with and things are definitely smoother. I’m at the craft show, Dave drops the boys off from Christmas program practice while he runs some errands. I typically don’t bother spending money on the raffle tickets at these shows, simply because I do so many anyway. Today I buy $3 in tickets (6 plus a bonus 2 for a total of 8 tickets.) I win the very first drawing and at the end of the day I’ve won three prizes.

Sunday: Finish the show, come home for a couple of hours, and then head up to church for the Christmas program. It’s a nice way to end the week.

The countdown has started….one show tomorrow, a two day show this weekend, a show the following Saturday and the last show of the season on the following Sunday. I might actually be able to do this!