International travel

Hubby is going to Italy in June. I want to go with him, but we just checked the airfare yesterday and while he can use frequent flier miles to buy his trip, he doesn’t have enough to buy mine. The current cost for a round trip to just about anywhere in Europe is around $1600, give or take. This is absolutely outrageous. I don’t remember what I paid for my airfare for London last year, but it was something along the lines of $800 less than two weeks in advance.
The other problem is right now Hubby isn’t getting paid and we’re living on savings. Even if our airfare was covered, it is still going to be close to $2000 in expenses, I’m guessing, while we’re there. I don’t know exactly what hotels and things will cost, but I imagine they’re not giving that stuff away.

Sigh. So I don’t know what to do. Put ourselves even more deeply in debt and go, or send him to this conference alone. I really would like to go with him…

One of the things I felt the need to document that probably hasn’t been before… I noticed the other day some artwork that Thing 1 scratched into the paint job of the Passat a year or so ago. She had a little rock with a sharp end to it, and while I was out in the back doing some yardwork, and I thought she was just puttering around the garage… she decided the paint job of the Passat was boring and needed some dolling up. So she scratched a little design behind the passenger door on both sides. There are also what look like initials scratched into the paint on the back, on the trunk. I heard suspicious noises coming from the garage, finally, and of course found her busily scratching away at the paint. She wasn’t very old… probably 4 or so, but she should have known better. Obviously she didn’t remember the reprimand she received after scratching the hood with a rock while we were in Jackson Hole two years before. And to think my father was worried that he put a long straight scratch on each back passenger door once with the handle of a mop thing he was using to clean the inside of the windshield when I opened the doors to do some vacuuming or something in back… Sigh. Just thought I should write that down for future reference.


Thing 2 has developed a new friend from school – Maxine, whom she plays with every week or so. Thing 1 and Sophia Blue have really become good friends. For the past several months we’ve swapped every Wednesday afternoon, with Sophia coming here one week and Thing 1 going there the next. But her mother picked up a new Wednesday shift at the restaurant she part times at, so now we take Sophia on Wednesdays and Thing 1 goes over there either Monday or Wednesday.

Thing 1 has her 2nd cavity appointment next week. I don’t know where these are coming from, I swear I brush her teeth fairly religiously at night and we picked up morning brushing too after the first cavity, which was only six months or so ago. Her teeth must be made of some sort of chalky substance.

I was released from my church calling as Enrichment Leader, and put in as the 1st counselor in the Primary. All in all, I’m pretty okay with this as I was getting burned out with Enrichment. We’ll see how long I last in the primary. I suspect they’re grooming me for primary president, just like happened when they moved me onto the Enrichment committee. They just don’t have enough moms to fill all the spots in the Primary, and I know that logically I just make a lot of sense. However, I’ve found my lack of honest religious devotion getting in the way of some things. How do I ramble on about my testimony when I am not comfortable doing that? My kids don’t say their prayers at night, let alone have any idea who President Hinkley is, we don’t read scriptures at all, let alone daily. Sigh. I’m afraid my private neglect of their religious edification is going to become public.