Up, Down, Up!

When I was learning to write, I remember having a terrible time learning to write the capital letter "N".  I finally memorized "up-down-up" and actually still chant this to myself when writing this letter!  Well, the letter "N" describes the last few days, also.  I wrote in an earlier post that Lily was stopped by a talent agent at the mall. As a result of this, we all went to Connecticut yesterday for an appointment at their office.

We found out that the office was located across from the Norwalk Maritime Aquarium, so we went there, first. It was very neat!  They had an IMAX theater, and we saw a film about the Great Lakes.  Boy, IMAX is cool!  The screen was six stories high, and the sound was everywhere!  At one point, we felt like we were falling over Niagara Falls!  Okay, Mike didn't think that was too good, but it was cool!  The best thing is, that Rory has been studying the Great Lakes in school - we are reading "Paddle to the Sea" by Holling C. Holling, and "Paddle" just got all the way from Lake Superior to Lake Ontario.  We also saw seals, jellyfish, stingrays, and giant sea turtles among other things.

Then, on to the appointment.  When we met with the director, we were told that we had to pay a large amount of money for the kids to get pictures taken.  The pictures would be sent to prospective employers.  We were not quite sure what to do, having never had any experience with such things.  We talked it over and put it on a credit card, with the stipulation that we could cancel within three days if we changed our mind.  Well, today we found out that there are a lot of complaints against this company with the Better Business Bureau, so we cancelled the charge on the credit card, and sent the required certified letter to the company to cancel the picture appointment, and any other services.  So, it was a little bit of a letdown, but also a relief.  The headache I have had since yesterday is finally gone.

On a bigger "up" note, my schedule actually seems to be working!  We didn't follow it, yesterday, because of our trip, but we started in today.  Rory actually finished some of his work ahead of time, and got extra play time!  I missed a section of time while dealing with the whole modelling deal, so Rory got to play when he should have been having school, but he was very good when I explained that it was my fault, but he was going to have to finish some school after lunch.  He also said that he had a good day!  I think he was proud of himself for getting his work done well.

Mike was off work today, so we all started trying to organize the basement.  If you have been in our basement, you will realize what a big deal this is.  If not, just imagine a non-smelly garbage dump, and you have some idea.  We had bought some shelving last week, so Mike got all of the paint arranged on that, I got some of the other stuff organized, and the kids "worked" on the toys.  Everyone got filthy, but at least something got done!  So, all in all, it was definitely an "N", thankfully not an "M"!  I also finally got the last wall in the kitchen painted on Sunday, and if the kids go to bed on time, I may be able to paint the trim tonight.  Progress!