Finishing up the year

And, just like that, 2014 is over.

It went fast. Well, at least December did. This is probably because December can be summed up as follows:
First week: Celebrate Kevin's birthday. Finish getting ready for creche exhibit/concert. Finish organizing and arranging musical numbers. Set up for the concert. Say goodbye to Kevin while he goes off to Montreal. Execute the production. This is how it looked, by the way. So it worked pretty well, and I think it had pretty good turnout, and I don't really know how much I've explained how much went on with it on the blog and I'm not sure that I ever will. (Basically it just followed me around for more than three months and I gradually found myself in charge of everything and really not into delegating since that meant just as much work and waiting.)

Second week: Kevin is gone at his week long conference. I am tired a lot. I have very few memories about this week, but somehow Joseph and I both made it through. The night before I am supposed to accompany the ward choir in church, Joseph spends a few hours throwing up.  I hear that I am not needed after all, but then ten minutes later I find out I am needed after all. The whole episode is so funny to me that I don't even mind having to accompany even though I would have liked to sleep instead.

Third week: Kevin comes home Sunday afternoon right after Joseph threw up for the last time. Hooray for help. We spend the week slowly doing laundry, finishing up take home tests (Kevin, not me), helping with voice recitals (me, not Kevin), getting Christmas plates full of cookies we have no  chance to reciprocate, and packing for our trip beginning Friday to San Diego!

Fourth week: It is sunny and warm in San Diego! We have crazy nonstop fun with Kevin's family visiting beaches, theme parks, zoos, etc. and staying securely on Eastern Time until the last day. (I will probably talk about this more later since it deserves its own blog post.)

Fourth and a half week: We come back home Saturday. Slowly slowly slowly do lots of laundry. Go shopping most every day for one missing item, of course picking up more at the store. Rent our first Redbox movie in more than a year. Disappoint our son daily by not eating restaurant food anymore (although he pretty much only ate tortillas at the restaurants anyway).

And . . . then, here we are. At the end of 2014.

It's been real, yo.

Bring it on, 2015.

Contact

I was recently in charge of a concert/créche exhibit for my ward. There's a lot to say about it that I'll probably talk about in another post, but the thing that was most amusing and frustrating to me throughout it all was how hard it was to get in contact with people.

Gone are the days where you would simply call someone's home phone, count on them answering, and be done with it. Instead, I compiled this list of ways to contact someone and acquire information:

• Email
• Google chat
• Google docs
• Call a home phone
• Call a cell phone
• Text
• Call the spouse's cell phone
• Email the spouse
• Call a home phone and leave a message, when it turns out they were listening to the message all along and then answer as soon as you're done talking
• Send out emails to find someone's home phone number (this was for people who weren't in the ward anymore)
• More google docs
• When trying to submit the event online, create an entire account with the event website simply to send an email into the void
• When trying to track a package, call several different plausible numbers for businesses in a nearby town, only to get redirected multiple times to a completely useless 800 number and a printing company in Virginia
• Talking in person (probably the most effective method, but it also required tracking the person down)

And so on. I generally found that one or two of these methods worked for contacting a given person -- the trick was knowing the most effective method.

(Or, I suppose I could have been like Joseph's dentist's office, which just does them all multiple times. I have gotten at least two emails, one postcard, and two texts. I guess they really don't want me missing his appointment tomorrow.)

At any rate, I think it's safe to say that any phobia I've ever had of calling or emailing people has been entirely eradicated.

Although, I do still have social anxiety about google docs. Don't let me down, anonymous loris.