Insanity while feeling sane :D

This week was insanity. Just insanity.

It's amazing how much I can accomplish when I'm not depressed. It's pretty impressive actually.

My neighbor, who I serve with in a close capacity at church had a daughter getting married. I got volunteered to help make cupcakes for it (which was fine) which then snowballed into a bunch of other things. I was glad to help. And I needed opportunities to serve. But it was a lot to do.

I baked 48 cupcakes. I made 10 batches of frosting (four different flavors). I frosted over 100 cupcakes. I made 2 bouquets and 3 boutineers. I attended a bridal shower. I helped set up at the reception. And I did the flowers for 1 wedding cupcake cake tower.

Cecily also had her actual birthday on Tuesday. That day, the girls needed baths, Mira had her kindergarten assessments, then I made two batches of frosting, a batch of scratch cupcakes and a batch of cookie dough for the girls' teacher gifts. The girls had gymnastics and tumbling, I ran errands at two different stores, and after I picked up Emilia from school, I exercised, showered, then took them all bowling. Then I came home and made "noodles" for dinner because that's what Cecily asked for, went to the bridal shower, came home and watched Cecily open her presents and fell asleep trying to write.

Mira took most of these photos from the birthday day:

Wednesday wasn't any better. Since I fell asleep so early Tuesday night, I woke up early and exercised, got Emilia off to school, then headed to the groom's parents' house to decorate cupcakes and arrange flowers. We left there at noon, came home and ate lunch, I planted a bunch of plants I bought last week so they wouldn't die sitting in their containers, and then we ran to the grocery store to pick up the rest of the teacher gifts, stuffed them in baskets in the car and took them to teachers as school got out. Then we had to go back to the store because I forgot they were celebrating Emilia's birthday on Thursday because she has a summer birthday and we are no longer allowed to make treats at home for the class, so we have to buy them from the store. She picked fudgesicles, so we ran them home to be frozen, ate a popsicle, went to the library, came home and made dinner, and straightened the upstairs because Steve had invited people over for dessert and games. They stayed until 9pm and then I actually did write for a while before going to sleep.

Emilia with Mrs. Dunn

Thursday I had more plants to plant, exercising to do, birthday treats to deliver, and a wedding reception to set up for an attend. It was a pretty relaxing day comparatively. :)

Friday I scrubbed bathrooms and kitchen floors and vacuumed and made the girls help me clean the house so we could focus on the yard this weekend. I'm a crazy person and can't let the ideas in my head slide. If I start one thing, EVERYTHING MUST BE FINISHED or I can't focus on anything else. I started on the yard, so now it must be finished. Which is why I really didn't want to start on it. Ugh.

Today, I tried something new with my hair again. I think this experiment turned out better than the last one. I curled it first:

Then wrapped a scarf around it.

Of course, I also managed to make it to church without Mira's hair being done and Cecily not wearing any shoes. You can't win 'em all.

Oh my gosh pictures.

I didn't post last week because it was Mother's Day, so I decided to give myself a break. :) I took a lot of pictures the last two weeks, so get ready for picture overload.

Okay. So. The Friday and Saturday before Mother's day was the LDStorymakers writers' conference. To prep for that, I made another keychain that I traded for a Childlike-Empress (from Neverending Story) headdress/crown/thingy. Totally worth it. I do not have picture of those. I also made bookmarks, mostly because I was able to pitch my Alice in Wonderland YA sci-fi novel to a major NY agent and I wanted to give her something so she would remember me. I do have pictures of those.

The concept sketches:

Retraced onto the pages of an old book and colored with my prismacolor markers:

The finished product laminated:

I also took Ceciy and Mira to gymnastics/tumbling where they both had a parent showcase at the exact same time. I luckily was able to see most of the important stuff for each of them, and also, Cecily didn't really care much if I watched, so that helped.

second from right

last on left

I also went crazy and decided I could cut Emilia's hair into a stacked cut just by watching a few YouTube videos. By the end, I was almost in tears, afraid I had totally messed it up. The only thing that kept me from crying was that Emilia went and looked in the mirror and came hopping back saying, "It looks great! Don't I look pretty?" I couldn't very well burst into tears and say, "I don't know!" I ended up taking her to a neighbor who cuts hair and asked her to make sure I didn't totally botch it. She said that this cut is super complicated and she was very impressed at how well I'd done. She really only made a handful of cuts and declared it good. Phew. I was just glad we didn't have to give her a pixie cut she didn't want because I'd messed it up so bad. I will be paying a professional to cut her hair in the future. Sheesh.

These are the before pictures. I actually haven't taken any after pictures. I'll rectify that this week and post them next week.

I also had my hair trimmed and highlighted again. I know! I'm sure my hairdresser thinks I'm a picky monster, but in my defense, she kept saying, "I'll just do it a little bit and then if you want more, you can come back." She doesn't like big changes like I do. :)

At first, I still wasn't sure. This is how I wore it on Mother's Day. Perhaps not the best choice. But it looked prettier from the front.

I also wore it freestyle back at the conference one day. Some pictures showed it looking pretty good (see further down), and then there was this one. Ulgh.

Last Monday, it looked like this and I wasn't happy.

But this week, I feel like I kind of got a handle on how to style it, and I really like the lighter color with the new highlights. There were a number of days this week that I actually felt pretty. So yay! I'm finally coming around to feeling like it was a good decision.

The conference itself was a bit of a rollercoaster for me. I got a request to send my full manuscript to the agent. And a panel of agents liked my first page. And I got some feedback on my picture book that I'm excited about. It was just what I needed to really make it shine. I also got some pretty biting feedback on my first chapter, missed the session where the agents looked at my first page, and forgot about the meeting where the editor was going to give me feedback. But, with the good stuff, and lots of great classes that made me think differently about writing and taught me new stuff, it was definitely an overall success. Plus I got to catch up with lots of friends I don't see often.

Mother's day was the next day. It was a good mother's day--probably the best I've had since becoming a mother. Steve got up and made me eggs and toast and oranges for breakfast. My kids made me a bouquet of paper flowers (with Nana's help) with notes to me on them. I had a relaxing morning before church and delicious gluten-free pizza for dinner and games with friends afterward.

Mira got ahold of my phone after church and began taking a bunch of photos. I was really impressed with her shots! They were well-composed and had interesting subject-matter.

She also took the one of me outside the car, this one of Steve and the two below of Cecily. I especially like the two of Cecily because they highlight the two sides of her quirky little personality. :)

This week was a huge mishmash of things.

We went to a book launch party for a mostly-facebook writer friend of mine because I thought it sounded like fun. She said it was going to be carnival style with hotdogs and a dance-off at the end for $100 prize. Why not, right? Well, it ended up being about as chaotic as a real carnival (and Steve was cranky about it the whole time), but I still had fun. One of the things we were supposed to do is do a chalk-drawing on black paper that had a picture of a tree or the word "Shatter" on it because that was the name of her book and trees were an integral part of it. All of us girls made one (Steve helped Cecily) and I'm impressed with all of them. I love the saying that Emilia chose to put on hers. She impresses me all the time.

Mira also had her last day of Kindergarten.

I dug a hole in our mountainous yard to transplant a bush that wasn't doing well where it was. Have I mentioned I hate digging holes here?

I made pancakes because quick dinners were necessary much of the week.

I switched at the winter clothes for the summer clothes for the girls (which is such a production--you wouldn't believe it!).

I went to the temple again. I love the Provo Temple. So many people think it's the ugliest temple, but it's beautiful to me.

And we celebrated Cecily's birthday since her birthday's on Tuesday and Daddy wouldn't have alot of time to be with her that day.

And a few more random, but cute pictures of Cecily:

This one's a selfie.