Monday
Nothing much to report. Regular stuff.
Tuesday
I dropped off both the Penguin Party Quilt and the Layer Cake Crepe Quilt at the quilter’s house! She’s already begun quilting the Penguin Party Quilt.
I went out donation-hunting with one of the Current Band Moms for an entire afternoon.
Michael, after years of listening to me complain that we need more Halloween decorations in our front yard so that the children will know to come to our house, surprised me and put up a bunch of Halloween decorations while I was at the church running a rehearsal that evening.
Wednesday
Nathaniel had his yearly check-up. While getting into the car to drive to the doctor’s office I received a text from the school informing me that they were in lockdown for a safety issue. “No biggie,” I thought, “my kid’s not even there.”
While sitting in the waiting room, walking Nathaniel through how to fill out his own family medical history form, I got a phone call from Renaissance, who had almost passed out at school and needed me to come pick her up because she didn’t feel well enough to drive. “I can’t do that right now because I’m at the doctor with your brother,” I explained, “but I can come get you when I’m done here.” I phoned Michael, who couldn’t help me, and then I turned to Ren’s friend’s mothers, aka the “OG Band Moms.” I had help lined up in five seconds.
The “Current Band Moms” group text started getting active. The “safety issue” at the high school was a student with a gun on a bus, threatening to shoot up the school with his buddy. Police were swarming the place. The nurse called us back for Nathaniel’s appointment. I tried to be a good mom and not be on the phone during my child’s appointment, but c’mon! Ailing adult child in one direction and potential school shooting in the other. Longest well-child appointment of my life.
Got a new text from the school as I was pulling into my driveway, saying that the threat had ended and that school would return to normal soon. I told Nathaniel to stay home until one of his friends at school called him and said things were definitely back to normal. Then I left with Ren’s buddy, Riley (son of an OG Band Mom), to drive to her school so we could pick her up and Riley could drive her car back home.
Ren’s instructor wouldn’t let her leave until she got to speak to me, so I had to go inside for a chat that made me decide to take Ren to the Emergency Room. Riley drove her car home while I drove Ren home, and then I took Ren into the Emergency Room, where we spent the rest of the day. Seriously. 11:00am-7:25pm.
Silver lining: I finished the Husband Christmas Socks.
Other good news: Kid with the gun on the bus didn’t actually have a gun. But he did make threats and was sent away for that.
Thursday
Football Game! Which meant Pep Band/Band Mom duties! Due to the homecoming game being canceled, this was now our big halftime show, PLUS the regularly-scheduled Senior Night AND Eighth Grade Night, where we invite the eighth grade band students to come play with the pep band so they can get a feel for what it will be like if they choose to continue with band in high school.
As part of this event, we host a Taco Potluck, with food assignments given out by grade level. I started up some taco meat in the crockpot, made two other crockpots of beans, and also posted a reminder on Facebook that we really needed people to send food to the potluck because we were expecting 170-190 kids at the dinner that night. (120 high school kids + up to 70 middle school kids.)
The Cross Country team had a restaurant fundraiser that day as well, so I had scheduled to have lunch with the OG Band Moms and one of their sons (not Riley). As I pulled into the parking lot I got a Facebook Messenger notification:
Hi Cara, I saw your post about needing meat for Tacos tonight. I went to our local butcher and they donated 40lbs of ground beef. I can’t cook all of this myself and I only have one crockpot. HELP!
Wait…WHAT?!
I then spent many minutes phoning the person who sent the message and getting the lay of the land, and then I went into Mission Mode to find people to get the meat, disperse it, and get it cooked. I wasn’t the best lunch attendee for the first part of the lunch, but darn it, that ground beef found places to go. (Credit is really due to one of the Current Band Moms who basically took the project over.)
So that was awesome! We ended up having ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-TWO band students at the potluck. It was so much fun! They took up twice the amount of bleachers in the stadium and it was such a great sight!
Friday
NO. SCHOOL. (Thank you!!)
I went to the gym for the first time in WEEKS, and then I watched movies with Renaissance, who still didn’t feel well, for the rest of the day. I drifted in and out of consciousness.
Saturday
Woke up at 3:00am. Sigh. Decided to use my early start to get caught up on my Ward Activities Committee and Social Media Director callings. That kept me busy until 6:00am. I then spent the rest of the day getting stuff done around the house while Michael worked on grinding all the stumps down in the front yard. It was A LOT of work!
Sunday
8:30am warm-up call for a small women’s choir I was conducting in two sacrament meetings that day. A year ago, before all the ward boundary changes, I was choir director and we were preparing a beautiful SSA arrangement of “The Old Churchyard,” but it didn’t come to fruition. My friend remembered it a couple months ago and asked if I’d consider resurrecting it. So we got the old gang back together, and since the original singers of the song are split between two different wards now, we decided to just go ahead and perform in both of those wards. I DID try to get singers from the other ward as well, but only one panned out. It wasn’t an exclusionary decision.
But yeah, we performed in the 9:00am sacrament meeting and the 11:00am sacrament meeting.
And there was a Linger Longer after church ended, so I helped with setting that up and making sure it went smoothly.
And then there was ward choir after the Linger Longer, so I went to that. Our pianist had gone home, so I also played the piano (read: plunked out single parts because Cara is NOT a piano player) for ward choir.
And now I am home and I am very tired and I bid you adieu.
This Week’s Progress
- Dropped off the Penguin Party quilt and the Layer Cake Crepe quilt at the quilter’s house.
- Tended to a very sick adult child.
- Finished the 2026 Husband Christmas Socks.
- Dealt with forty pounds of donated ground beef and heartily fed 192 teenagers.
- Pulled off a multi-ward women’s choir performance.
- Helped with a very successful Linger Longer.
- #absolutelyrockingit
