1. The Garage Door Saga
It started with a rather chaotic Friday afternoon. I'd picked up the online shopping from Countdown in Te Awamutu on the way home from working in the store there. Then it was onto school pick up and home again.
We'd bought rather a large selection of meat that week - two lots of lamb chops, 4 lots of pork mince and 2 lots of chicken thighs, not to mention some ham for the school lunches. All in all it was a lot more than we would tend to buy in one week's shopping.
When we got home I got the boys underway helping with the ninja baking making my famous dark chocolate with sea salt cookies that we wanted to make for the NZ ninja baking drop that weekend and was also gradually getting the shopping packed away at the same time.
For whatever reason, the meat was last to go away - it had already been out for two hours by this time but I figured as it was going straight in the freezer it would be fine. It was about 4.30pm before I grabbed the keys to the garage and went out and clicked the button to open the garage door.
And got no response.
Uh-oh.
The garage door opener had been playing up for a couple of weeks - we'd put it down to needing a new battery and we had finally gotten around to replacing it on Wednesday. But it hadn't actually fixed the problem. So I'd already had a couple of moments whilst trying to open or close the door after getting on the bike trainer in the early mornings where it hadn't wanted to behave for me. I should have seen the signs then but in the busyness I just thought 'I must tell the landlord it's getting more temperamental' and that was as far as I had got with that thought.
After trying for a maddening five minutes (with cookies also rising in the oven to boot) I had to admit defeat and come inside. By this stage I was getting worked up because there was NO room in the fridge for the meat and our Friday dinner of homemade fish n chips was still out in the freezer as well as most of my frozen AIP (autoimmune diet) food that I've been relying on.
I called the landlord to ask if he had a spare door opener which he didn't. He said he could pop over later but unfortunately couldn't do anything right then. Trying to solve the immediate issue, I pulled all the fresh veg and fruit out of the fridge and put the meat in instead.
Then the phone rang. It was our solicitor in Wellington telling us the title was through for the purchase of our land here in Cambridge and there was a whole list of things we needed to organise prior to settlement (in 5 day's time). So it's probably no surprise that the cookies that were in the oven got left a bit too long and spread out all over the tray - gah!
I also had the brainwave of giving Mum our meat to put in her fridge at least overnight so shot down with the boys to the Cambridge store so she could take it home with her and the other produce could still go back in the fridge. When Mark got home from work half an hour later, he managed to pull out the side of the garage door (think old metal straight lift type door) enough to pop a rivet and Mylo climbed underneath and came out and opened the side door (which we don't have a key for) - crisis averted!
In the end the landlord came round the next day, managed to fix the opener (apparently there was a crystal loose inside - he's a bit handy being an auto electrician in a past life) and he also organised us a new door latch for the side door which we haven't been able to use without a key. So all's well that ends well there.
And the second lot of cookies for the ninja baking turned out way better - the boys and I had fun being secret delivery ninjas to 2 addresses in the Cambridge area AND we got ninja bombed ourselves with a wonderful big batch of baking in the middle of it all - the boys were in seventh heaven!
2. Not enough tickets!
The boys have had a huge week with their school production - 5 performances between them spread over 3 days. I'd bought 4 tickets for us to go along (with my Mum and Dad) to the Tuesday and Wednesday night sessions. Somewhere in my haste to buy tickets (which sold out very fast and some people missed out altogether) I forgot about the fact that actually there would be 5 of us including one of the kids coming along to each evening performance.
So when we rocked up to the door on Tuesday night, it became apparent that I'd stuffed up when the lady said 'where's your other ticket?'. Doh! Mark gallantly offered to miss out on the show (which I felt terrible about) but as it turned out another mum gave him one that she no longer needed and we managed to squeeze five of us into 4 seats.
Of course the same thing was going to happen the next night for Noah's performance - not enough tickets. Luckily Mark managed to buy a ticket for the matinee performance and was able to pop up to the Town Hall at lunchtime to see him perform.
The boys did ever so well in their various shows - Mylo as an Oompah Loopah in the junior production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Noah dancing his little heart out in You Can't Stop the Beat from Hairspray. But it was a busy week and with their last games of football on the weekend and Fathers Day as well it was a big week and weekend all round.
3. Where are my keys?
The morning after the ticket fiasco I went off to work (a half hour drive away). After I left home I realised I'd left my phone at home which was annoying enough. But no soon had I arrived at work than I promptly had a call from Mark asking if I had seen his keys. I found both his and my keys in my pocket - yeah not so helpful on my part. Mark had to think quickly and get the boys to ride to school on their scooters while he biked in - thankfully one of my work mates was heading out to Cambridge later that morning where Mark was working and was able to return his keys to him. Not my finest moment!
In the middle of this crazy week, we also settled on our land for the new house build. Which would normally have been cause for much celebration but the week was so full of other goings on, it passed by without much notice - apart from the large sum of money exiting the bank account that is of course!
We visited the section again on Sunday and found the whole access to our part of the subdivision open for the first time (it's previously all been fenced off and we've had to sneak in to take a peek) and we found the pegs are already in ready for building to start which we hope may be as early as next week.
