It's college visit time again - up first, a trip to Charlotte

We have reached the point where we have two kids starting to consider college choices, so the visits are starting.  Savannah has long had UNC at Charlotte on her radar. They have a strong architecture and urban planning program.  Her passion is urban planning.  We paid them a very quick visit during her fall break.  Savannah could not stop talking about the studio space and equipment.  She talked about how studio space that was truly designed for architecture students instead of re-purposed for them makes all the difference in every way - the lighting, organization of space, desks, chairs - all of it.

The campus itself was one of the prettiest I've seen.  I do have an affinity for college campuses as I loved my own undergrad experience and find many campuses to be very pretty.

A botanical garden exists right on campus.

The building that houses the urban planning studios is actually in downtown Charlotte, so we ventured to downtown to check out the building and a nearby artsy district. We found Charlotte to look very new for the most part - downtown buildings, campus, road infrastructure, etc.  Savannah noted that it seems to have a cultured identity.

We enjoyed lunch at the cutest, tastiest French cafe and bakery.

I am not sure I've driven through the mountains in the fall before.  Even though it has been a dry season, and the colors are not as brilliant as they would normally be, it was still gorgeous.

I don't know what Savannah will do.  North Carolina is out of state, and we are not sure she can get a reciprocal agreement there as we are not yet clear on whether the program is a true combination of architecture and urban planning.  We have schools in our state that have these programs solo but not in combination.

I love him. That's all.

I went on a trip this past weekend - more on that in my next post.  Within the past few weeks, Andy and I tried to ignore a dripping sink in our master bath. Andy gutted it and redid the inner workings, but it did not fix the problem, and he reluctantly agreed that we needed a new faucet.  This is a project that should take about an hour, but in our 50 year old house, plumbing is never an easy fix.  I left town after picking out a new faucet to replace the one that may have been the original, and if not, was a generic builder model.  Andy has some vacation time this week, so I didn't expect him to get right on it, but I came home to a dismantled faucet in the master bathroom.  Andy needed another tool to finish the job.  After much grunting and frustration over a one hour project that turned into a multi-day project, we have a nicer looking faucet that does not drip.

I love Andy's resolve to work through a difficult project that is not in his wheelhouse.  In truth our house needs a full renovation, but we have a couple of good things going here.

It Works!

As a teacher who works in an environment requiring professional dress, I was anxious to retire last year - not because of the kids, politicians or parents but because my feet were making me miserable.  My maternal grandmother had lifelong problems with her feet and cautioned me to buy good shoes. She used to say you could wear cheap clothes but should invest in shoes.  Our feet were the same size, so I was the recipient of her failed shoe choices which I never fully understood until my own feet started screaming at me over everything.  I really thought I was taking her advice.  No matter how cute, or comfortable shoes appeared, I avoided cheap shoes and sought out sturdy, lasting good shoes, but even those failed me last year, and I was miserable.  I then started dabbling in expensive shoes starting with Vionics.  I bought Vionic boots last year that I wore every single day from the end of sandal season to the return of it, and my feet stopped screaming and started whining.  Thinking I had found my ticket, I bought wedge sandals made by Vionic.  The foot bed worked for me, but the strap across my toes (another problem area for me), had me anxious to get home and out of my shoes on the daily.  I found a pair of Abeo sandals that I loved and made them my go-to work shoes, but they didn't match everything.  I found myself dressing for my shoes and determining how I would dress based on how much I would be on my feet.  I finally looked for life hacks to fix my shoes so that I didn't struggle so much.  I learned online that I could fill bags with water and stuff them into the shoes or under the straps then freeze them to stretch the shoe. It took a couple of tries, but this really works.  My feet only dislike me now.  When I bought the Abeos pictured above, they did not have my size in the store, so I tried on a similar style and placed my order.  They came and slid off of the backs of my feet, so I had to go down a size.  The area across my toes turned red the first time I wore them, and they hurt, but the foot bed was great!  It took three tries with water bags in the freezer, but these are wearable now.  I most likely won't find a perfect pair of shoes. I thought I had with some Taos sneakers until I logged 15,000 steps in them the first time I wore them for any length of time.  While the left one was great, my right foot suffered two painful blisters.  I can't wear orthodics because I have a  wide foot with a high instep and high arch.  This combination makes for very bad, no good days for my poor feet, so wearable is a huge plus on those days that my go-to shoes (Chaco sandals) aren't appropriate for the setting I am in.

So if you have some shoes that need a little more stretch...

Hiking

We came for this view.  I was having trouble with one of my lenses, so I didn't get the best shot.  

Can you see the double arch?

Pictures - HOCO and Soccer

Homecoming happened just a few weeks ago. The theme was Through the Decades.  As you will see some embraced that theme and others- not so much.

Julia was in on the group planning with a couple of her friends.  They organized pictures in a park, dinner reservations and transportation.  What I love - their approach was, "if you don't have a group, join us."  

The lengths we go to for a great pic!

possibly Julia's best friend

We have enjoyed so many beautiful sunsets for the soccer games.

This one was actually the most gorgeous sunset of the season, but my memory card was full, and I couldn't get a good shot.

Senior night

soccer buds - sophomore swing players

senior big sis with her littles - she's an amazing goal keeper - wowza! fun to watch

sophomores celebrating district championship

Life is hard.

Life is hard...no surprise there as God warned us that it would be - You will have troubles in this world.

I am tired.  That is all.

The bad. The ugly.
Right now I am awaiting AAA to come jump start my van.  The battery is less than a month old, and that was a whole mess of an experience when the van broke down.  I arrived home at midnight after dropping off a van full of kids for a sleepover.  Andy is playing a citywide women's revival that he really wanted me to attend.  I was headed out to that event knowing I would be late because I have to pick up our vegetables from the co-op and knowing I would be leaving early to pick Julia up from soccer practice.  Now I am left to decide if I want to go really late and still leave early or if God is telling me just to stay put and rest.

We've been running a marathon where the finish line seems to keep moving.  Julia has been playing JV and Varsity soccer. Homecoming week included five soccer games.  All of us hit a wall that week. It's tournament time so soccer is still in full swing.  Let me be clear, despite the challenging schedule, I want to see this soccer team go all the way to the top.  They've had an amazing season and have been so much fun to watch.  Another mom from a precious family we adore has been taking Julia at least once a week and feeding her.  Mom's a two on the Enneagram, need I say more?

In addition to this I have spent hours and hours on closing out my dad's estate.  Tallying receipts, trying to figure out final closing paperwork, dealing with a checking account that we shared to pay our phone bill which was still in Dad's name until about a month ago. The moral of the story is that if you name me executrix of your estate, I forbid you to die ;)

Oh yeah, I have a job too.  It happens to be in education, and if you have paid any attention to education lately, we are being forced into more after school meetings and lots more work in general.  I have made it to the Moms in Prayer group at my children's school once in the six weeks it has met because I am at meetings related to my school instead.

Savannah is researching grad school options, and the two of us are planning an out of state trip so that she can meet with an advisor at a school.  I booked a place through HomeAway and realized that I booked it with a non-refundable deposit in a city two hours from where we are headed.  I caught my mistake after I couldn't change anything on my end but hours before the booking went through, so I DM'd the owner acknowledging my mistake and asked that he just not accept the booking.  He went forward with  booking it.  I requested a cancellation which is supposed to be processed within 24 hours, and it has not been.  I will check my bank statement and see if the deposit clears, is refunded or whatever.  I may be out the money which would suck, but the owner legally has a right to do this.  I also have a right to review his property with my experience which I will do.

Wyatt has not been behind the wheel of a car for at least two months - so much for getting some relief from another driver.

The good.
Andy and I forced ourselves to get away with some members of our Sunday school class last weekend.  We embarked on a beautiful but grueling 10 mile hike.  We needed that time, and I will post some of our pictures later.  Of course we are old and felt that hike in our calves for days.

Julia looked beautiful for homecoming and had a fun night with friends - pics to come on that one too.

I booked family pictures.

I am only a few cleared checks away from being able to close out my dad's estate account and finalize closing on probate releasing me from executrix duties.

We enjoyed a band concert this week.

 A friend shared that Wyatt had her crying in the carpool line one morning as she observed him get out of the car and pick up trash on his way into the building.

I just have to say that I watched an amazing soccer game for district championships this week.  The score was tied at the end of the game and went into overtime and then penalty kicks.  It came out in our favor, and I would be extremely frustrated had it not as the midfield ref did everything he could to hand that game to the other team.  Our players walked away with 14 calls against them to the 7 or 8 the other team received.  Three of our players received yellow cards.  Two deserved them, but one of them received a yellow card because the ref had a beef with her.  His back was turned when she got tangled up with another player.  When he turned around to find her picking herself up from the ground, he carded her despite the fact that the other player was already on her feet.  It was frustrating to watch because he ignored stuff from the other team that could have caused injuries, so they just got more and more aggressive and had free reign to elbow our striker in the face and tackle her in the box.  I later learned that the line judge on the side where the teams sat was making the right calls and then being overridden by the midfield ref.  It was one of the craziest things I've ever seen and in such an important game that would determine district champs and regional seeding.  We've experienced bad calls, of course, but the only other time we've experienced such blatant bias was when Zach played an out of state football team, and the refs penalized our team 80 yards on one drive to give the other team their only goal.  We still laugh at that one because at one point, our coach asked what a penalty was for, and one of our players shrugged his shoulders and said, "Indiana refs, Coach."  The response was another penalty backing us up further.  The coach also asked several times for jersey numbers when the refs called holding so that he could address it, but the refs would not give him any.  In that game we were the stronger team and had a solid win, and the calls did not endanger our players and the game did not really count.  Failing to make the calls that should have been made in this soccer game was a different story, but wow what a game to witness!! Fortunately, there were no injuries.  We've been through that first hand when unnecessary aggressiveness has caused a season ending injury for a classmate of Zach's, and there was Zach's injury which was caused by an illegal play - no blame to the refs on that one as the kid was sneaky enough to do it when the refs had stopped play and were not focused on that situation.

All this to say that right now I feel like that one whose faith was choked by the cares of this world in the parable of the sower.  This too shall pass.

Follow up: 

• The owner of the HomeAway apartment has refunded my money.  I am still willing to write a review about the decency of humanity portrayed in this transaction.  
• AAA came and jumped the van. I have a brand new battery and was not too worried about that situation.  The responder showed me that the connection terminals to the battery were loose- thus the dead battery.  He said the battery had more than enough charge for me to run all day, but the terminals would probably shake loose again with the vibration, so I should have them replaced.  No biggie until I looked up the price of the replacements - holy cow!  Without labor they are pretty pricy.  I just spent $1400 on this van, and we have a known $400 repair that is needed down the road.  It is over 10 years old and approaching 225,000 miles, so I think I will just watch those terminals and tighten them as necessary while I try to eek two more years out of this vehicle.  I did check the terminals after all the driving yesterday, and they were still tight, so I am kind of holding out hope that they weren't tightened as they should have been when the battery was replaced.
• Julia is exhausted.  Her social life wore her out this weekend, and I have never seen her so tired.  I have put the kibosh on any social activities next weekend.  We need to be home, together and resting as a family. 
• I was late but did attend the women's event where Andy was playing percussion.  It was a multi-cultural revival gathering and pretty cool.