We got out!

Well, 2 months in town, but we finally got out of the house without the kids. Sure, it was for a work function for Frank, but it still counts! Frank's plant has 2 outings per year -- the christmas dinner (a little more upscale - a lot of the warehouse guys don't come) -- mostly caters to the "office" staff and then a summer something (this year was bowling and pizza - none of the office guys came, but all the warehouse guys were there!). So, on Saturday night, we went to "western bowl" (yes, country music was blaring!) and ate pizza and drank beer. Wouldn't have really been my first choice of a "night on the town" but it was a night on the town nonetheless. We met one of our neighbors who lives about 3 doors down from us and she mentioned that she had a daughter that babysat if we ever needed her... of course, we jumped on that and she came over to spend the evening with the kids.

Of course, our kids have never been left with a non-family member babysitter (should we even admit that?? ) Ellie was more than interested in this idea and she had lots of questions (shocker!) -- Would Rachael be bringing her kids? Uh, she's 13. Will Rachael be driving her car here? Uh, again, she's 13 and she lives 5 feet from us... Where will Rachael sleep? Uh, we'll be home by 10 -- she's not sleeping over... All in all it was a good experience for everyone. Except that we had no idea how much to pay a babysitter in Omaha. I think in chicago, we would have paid around $10/hour. I think minimum wage is somewhere around $7 / hour. So, I just aksed her what the going rate was (and of course, she didn't really want to answer this awkward question...) so, she himmed and hawed and finally was like, "I don't know, maybe like $5" $5??
that sounded so low to me - Frank and I went back and forth... I mean you don't want to over pay, but I would think that under-paying would be much worse. And afterall, this girl could be our ticket out of the house once in a while... Long story short, we went with $7 -- then we were up all night (ok, not really, but we did talk about it...) worrying that we had underapid her...
She called the next day and said, "um, Mrs. Williams..." [I told her not to call me that...makes me sound so old!] "My mom and I were talking and we think that you overpaid me..." CUTE! I assured her that she could keep the extra $8 and that we intended to pay her that much. Then, she says, "Ok, but next time you can pay me less." Ok, but we probably won't ... :)

It was a good change for us in our weekend plans - getting out of the house and all.
And on the home improvement front, Frank replaced all of the doors on our second floor. We just put in hollow-core 6 panel doors - not the highest quality, but certainly a big step up from what was here when we moved in and it LOOKS tons better - much brighter. (The old doors were very 70s wood-looking things...ick!) Now, it was a huge job for Frank, but I think even he agrees that it was worth it... Now, we just have to paint them all (there are 10 doors all together up there) and paint all of the trim on the second floor and we'll be on our way. I don't know how people flip houses -- even realtively small projects can be so time consuming and distracting!

Glenbard West is back to school this week, and I am not...weird... not all bad weird, but weird...
More later -