My son has suddenly decided that he will join everything in school. Although I really appreciate finally seeing ambition sparked in him, it also means that I am lugging him all over Western Wisconsin. Next year looks to be even worse as he has even bigger plans for his final year in high school.
Can you believe it? He's going to be graduating next year! We have absolutely NO money saved either. My big plan for the rental properties helping to pay for his college came up empty when the myth of property values only increasing was busted. Thanks Bush. Deregulation really does work! (note sarcastic tone; cause you know that the people in the Gulf of Mexico are living deregulation right now -- but that's another post...)
My parents came for a rare visit to see my tulips in bloom. And the early hot weather almost left them with nothing to look at! Luckily we got some cool weather right before they came and the ones that were left hung on long enough for their visit. We also took them to the MN Landscape Arboretum. They had tons of tulips left there.
And I was going to go to the arboretum this Saturday to see all their peony in bloom, but that plan was shot in the ass when a bizarre thing happened earlier this week...
My husband got a call asking us about our next door neighbor. Apparently she put us down as a reference in her application to host an exchange student. After my husband told the woman how great our neighbor was, the woman asked if we would take an exchange student. They had a student whose host family had backed out at the last minute. He said that he'd get back to her.
I was, as usual, ready to leap into the adventure; but SSB was, as usual, a little more hesitant to take on the challenge. JD, our son, was excited yet nervous. We decided that I would call her and ask her some more questions.
The woman was practically signing me up as I spoke to her. She was a very positive, energetic person and it was hard to say no. She said that she actually still had four boys to place and went over each of them with me. In the end, I couldn't say no. We decided to take the Brazilian boy that she had originally asked my husband about. His letter to his potential host family sounded like something that my son would write, and the parents letter sounded like something we would write about our son. Sounded like a perfect fit.
We've always talked about getting an exchange student, but never got around to looking into it. This just dumped into our lap. It was Fate. And when Fate throws something like this my way, I don't think too much about it, I just do it. It is generally a great gift.
Besides, I figured that we'd have all summer to get our house in order. And that put everyone at ease.
Then I got a call from the exchange woman asking if we could set up a time this weekend to meet at our house so that they could look things over and take pictures.
WHAT?!! Ugh! My house is in shambles because it is growing season and I have mud and planting stuff everywhere. Plus there are tons of home improvement projects that we have been putting on hold. We have a huge hole in the plaster in our stairwell that we have been living with since we bought the house. The ceiling in the hall upstairs still has water damaged wallpaper hanging from it from before we bought the house. I never completed the trim in the bathroom after we tiled. The house exterior had never been completely painted since I got injured at work so it is half green, purple & blue and half white in no pattern that makes sense. Our front steps are falling apart. Our screens on the porch are still shredded from the hail storm about ten years ago. In other words, our house is a mess!! And don't even get me started on my son's room!
So I am scrambling to put a ginormous bandaid on everything. I am almost finished painting the front of the house so at least when they take a picture it will look nice. You can actually see the carpet in my son's room now. SSB cleaned the porch - WOW, does it look nice! And now I just have to do EVERYTHING ELSE!
Wish us luck :)
2 comments:
I work with a number of Brazilians and they are all cool people. I'm sorry you have to work so hard to get everything done. Hopefully, it'll all be worth it!
Shannon, I have liked all the people that I have met from Brazil. They have been so friendly with a good sense of humor. They seem to be both energetic and laid-back at the same time. In other words it doesn't matter what happens, they stay enthusiastic.
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