Holly’s Happenings

No, this is not going to be one of those posts that tells you how to organize things, mostly because I have really become a very disorganized person lately! But this is going to be about what I did this weekend and what the AWESOME end result was!

I’m not sure if I’ve ever shown you the drawing I made that portrays the layout of this house. I’ll include it at the end of the post so help you visualize things better. Over the weekend my husband and I decided it was time to do some serious cleaning and decluttering! We still had empty boxes sitting around that hadn’t been put up in the attic, I still had Christmas decorations out and every where you looked you could see TONS of cob webs! We decided while we were doing this that we would also rearrange some of the furniture, or I guess I should say that I decided that because if it were up to my husband nothing would ever move from the spot it was originally put in…LOL!

When we got out here to the family room where mine and my husbands desks and computers are, I decided that it was time to majorly clean off the book shelf that stands next to my desk. It had become clutter central for this room and had papers and books piled and stacked everywhere, which made it especially difficult when I was trying to find things for school or do homework. After I got my bookshelf cleaned off I decided to go ahead and pull it away from the wall to see what all had fallen behind it. I almost scared everyone when I screamed because one of the things lying behind it was the gold bangle bracelet that my husband had given me many years ago. I also found one of my homework papers that I had to redo because I had lost it as well as various pens, pencils and receipts.

We accomplished a lot over the weekend and yes, I did also get all of my Christmas decorations taken down as well as putting the vacuum cleaner to good use sucking up all the fake snow that I had put out around said Christmas decorations…LOL! The house looks and smells MUCH better!

OK, so we moved into this house almost 5 months ago. My oldest child did not change school districts, nor did his bus number even change. But the frustrations that we’ve experienced because of his school transportation has been ridiculous! First, it took them over 2 weeks to change his bus stop from the old house to the new house. Then, once they did get it changed, he some how got bumped back to the old house, so the bus stopped stopping here. Once we finally got that fixed his bus driver went on a 2 week vacation and the sub driver started off by showing up over 20 minutes earlier than his regular driver did. The day after that, my son was out at the end of the drive on time and the bus drove right past the house without slowing down or stopping. Finally, on the third day with the sub driver, things seemed to be back on track, albeit 20 minutes earlier than we were used to. Once his regular driver came back from break, we were back to the time that we had been used to the bus coming.

Shortly after Christmas break, they split my sons bus route, and he once again missed his bus because it came 20 minutes earlier than normal. After that day, we were ready at the earlier time again. Things have gone well for almost two months, until this morning. I leave the house by 7:00 to take my daughter to her bus. As I got about a mile or so away from our house I looked in the rear view mirror and noticed a bus with flashing red lights. I looked at the clock and it was 7:02 AM so at first I thought that it couldn’t be my sons bus. Well, I was WRONG! Once again his bus showed up more than 20 minutes earlier than it had been with absolutley NO notice. So, I get on the phone and call the bus dispatcher. Sure enough, they’ve once again split the route and his scheduled pick up time is 7:03 AM. When I explain that his bus has been coming at approximately 7:25 AM I’m then told that’s not his normally scheduled pick up time and that he needs to be ready and waiting for the bus at least 5 minutes before his scheduled time of 7:03. I say that’s not a problem, but that some sort of notice or warning about the changes would have been appreciated, especially since we live about 20 minutes from his school and when I ask if it’s possible for parents to be notified of changes like this, I’m told “We don’t that”. EXCUSE ME? You keep changing the time my son gets on the bus, substitute drivers keep driving past the house without slowing down or stopping, what do you want me to do, set up some sort of digital signage that will let your drivers know where my house is and let me know when your drivers are close to my home?

Ok all you parents with teens, getting our kids up and ready in the mornings is bad enough, but having to have them ready 20+ minutes earlier with NO warning to me is asking a little too much, what do you think?