It's only the second week of January

This week has been long and stressful.

The "fun" began Monday morning when the alarm clock went off at 6:30 to get the kids up for school. With Christmas break the last two weeks we have been sleeping in a little bit, ok a lot. Usually I can't sleep in past 8 but, I've been worn out finishing up the college semester driving to Mesa every weekend. After the kids left for the bus I crawled back in bed and stayed there until 9 or so.

Tuesday it didn't get any easier to get up when the alarm went off. But I didn't crawl back into bed and I didn't take a nap. It's a good thing I had a lot going on or I would have taken a nap. Today I started giving all three girls piano lessons at home. Piano lessons from me to my girls is what I choose to give them for Christmas. When I was contemplating what to get them that would be of value and be used longer than a month I came up with the idea. I knew I didn't want to get my kids a bunch of toys or crap to fill their rooms that they just don't need. Breanna is 12 and it has taken us a few years of trying to really limit our Christmas spending to worthwhile gifts. I still buy the two little girls a few toys, after all they are kids, and that is what kids want for Christmas. But you know what, It's only two weeks after Christmas and that Princess cash register Ashley had isn't getting played with. But, the little pieces that came with the cash register are strung all over the house, making me supper happy. When I bought her the toy I said it would be a playhouse toy, she agreed. With it being so cold outside the girls just don't want to play in the playhouse much this time of year. Actually I went in the playhouse yesterday and it could use a good cleaning and organizing, that might make it fun to play in again.
Anyway, where did that all come from? Breanna did really good on her first lesson. She has taken violin and flute lessons so she understands beats, measures, counting notes, and that when a note is on a different part of the staff it's played differently. She really just needed instruction on where middle C is on the piano and on the sheet music, check easy.
Ashley has never had any musical training, but Ashley is quick to pick up new concepts. Today I taught her the basics of hand placements, counting notes, measures, beat, etc. She did really well, better than I expected. I only had her practice 30 minutes so she wouldn't get tired of learning and then she could just play around with the piano.
I bought a big bucket of small gumballs today and they can have one for each 5 minutes they practice. They can either eat them or save them in their gumball machines. So far, they have all been eaten. I think the gumballs are going to be the only thing to get Nicole to practice her piano. Today she lasted through about 15 minutes of basic instructions until she was allowed to play. She did great when it was one note, for one beat. When I changed it from a whole note to a quarter note she had enough for the day. Actually I'm surprised she lasted as long as she did because she had not taken a nap yet. Everyday when Nicole comes home from school she needs to take a nap or I just have a crying baby on my hands. Frequently she will fall asleep on the bus ride home and be woken up to get off at our stop which makes her mad. Just tonight when Ashley was getting ready for bed she mentioned, "Nicole fell asleep on the bus again today and I just told her to wake up, I wasn't even loud, and she yelled at me to not be so loud."

I didn't realize this entry was going to be this long, and I'm only on Tuesday.

Wednesday was the second day of lessons. Nicole did nothing with the lessons today, she was toooo sleepy. I'm not going to make her do piano if she's going to hate it, she has time to learn it. Breanna picked up a book and just went at it. I sat by her at the beginning and then realized she had it. I just did cleaning and some chores around her so I could hear her playing and make sure she doesn't go onto a new song until she's fluent on the current one. Once again, check easy. Ashley needs me to go one on one with her and help her count the notes. But still she made really good process. I might be a little biased but Bre and Ashley seem to have musical talent, is it to early to tell? Maybe I'm just a proud momma.
Wednesday night I had a showing at 6:45 pm. I normally don't show homes the late in the day and especially not at night. But a guy named Jeremy works with Brian down at Chase and his in-laws are looking for a larger home. Because Brian knows the guy and Brian was willing to come along I was willing to show at an inconvenient time. That's really time to be home getting the kids ready for bed. The house was a lovely home. I didn't care for the layout and neither did the client. The weird thing about the home is, it was vacant (nobody lived there) but everything was still there. I'm not weired out about the furniture being there, see that all the time. But, there was still food in the pantry, clothes in the closets, pots/pans in the cupboards, and make-up in the bathroom. The only indication that the home really was vacated was the fridge doors swung open and nothing inside. In the pantry there was an unopened box of Girl Scout samoan cookies. I know if I moved that would be coming with me. And if I didn't take the food with me I would give the unopened items to a friend or food bank and chuck the rest. I wouldn't leave food behind in the home to go bad. It's like the people just walked out one day and didn't come back, like something happened to them. I know they didn't, they just moved back to the Phoenix valley.

Thursday was crazy busy also. I put an offer in on a bank owned home for someone in the ward. I think they have a really good change of getting the home, their offer was well padded with earnest money and down payment.
Breanna had her audition for the Eastern Arizona College Children's Theater production of Beauty and the Beast. I was really nervous because I had only heard Breanna sing the song 1 time and I had been trying to get her to do much more. She blew me away. She sang the song right after where Gaston has just asked her to be his wife. With the busyness of the day I didn't bring my camera but really wish I had. She started the song off with disgust in her voice that Gaston asked her to be his bride. She even put her hand on her hip at one point. Then the song transitions to a more meaningful tone about what she wants from life. Bre had GREAT projection in her voice and her eyes were really taking in the audience, like she was really feeling what she was singing. Toward the end of the song she slowed her pace, lowered her tone and sang about how she wants so much more than they've got planned. Stunning.

Friday I received a counter offer notice on the offer submitted yesterday. I had to counter their counter on quite a few things. I just love dealing with large banks, not. There is another offer on this same home so I have to play generous so the buyers have the best shot of getting the home. At least these buyers are smart, if they can get the home on terms they are comfortable with great, if the bank gets crazy they will walk. Good for them, I like smart buyers. I ended up leaving my computer at work today because I had 3 homes to show after 5:00 and I was just going to swing back by and pick it up. Well that didn't happen so I'm using Brian's and it's just not the same.
Oh poor me, my laptop is at work so I had to use my husbands laptop. Isn't it insane that we have 4 laptops and 1 desktop computer in our home. Just last month I finally got Brian to get rid of 2 other desktops that we obviously didn't need but he has been holding onto for 2 years. One of them is a million different pieces from a million other computers. He has assembled the pieces he needed to make a cool computer in function, it just looks like junk.
Somehow speaking of junk reminded me of trying to show a home today. I went and picked up a key from a certain unnamed real estate office today to show a home. The home is vacant so why it's not on lockbox I don't know, maybe they want all the control. This home is on the outskirts of town and the showing is scheduled for after work hours so the key better work. It doesn't! I'm not too happy, you wasted my time and the clients time. Now I have to drive back into town to exchange keys, reschedule with the client and then drive back to the house, grrrr. I put over 40 real estate miles on my car just today.
At least tonight at 4:00 Chase finally got the docs sent to title for the loan Brian is doing for my broker. They were supposed to be at title days ago and everyday a new condition would come and delay the final underwriting. He worked so hard on this file just to have it make him look bad to the buyer and seller. I wish underwriters/loan processors actually cared, their reputation isn't at stake if they don't do what they promise. The buyer of the home is our next door neighbor, wish that couldn't have gone over smoother for him. At least he's in the home tonight. Now I just hope he sells his home to good people who aren't weird or throw late-night parties.