August 19, 2023 - Saturday

Today was a very busy day...for Ben. Which made it seem like a busy day for me too, honestly. He got up and went to breakfast with Jesson, so I was alone with the kids in the morning. I mean, we really just chilled out and played, but I had a near-panic attack when our Switch stopped working. 😓 I was upset enough that I asked Ben to stop and buy us a new one on the way home from breakfast! I'm right in the middle of Zelda!! I would be so upset if I couldn't play anymore! Thankfully, we had started to see this coming a few weeks ago and discussed getting a replacement soon. He went out and picked it up and then I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how to get everything transferred over. Since we have a Nintendo Family account, I needed to get each person's profile moved over and all of the game data and save data moved over too. This might have been easy for most people, but I was near tears half of the time. 

Ben and Jonas headed off to play Magic for the rest of the day shortly after lunch, the girls went off to do their own things upstairs, and I got to relax and play for almost two hours. Yay! I did a little laundry and got food ready for the family dinner at the CACH co-op tonight, while the dread of being in an uncomfortable situation with no friends and nobody I even really know just grew and grew. I had to take the girls with me to go get the stinking supply bags for Oasis and then we stopped at the Dollar Tree so that I could get some supplies for the new bulletin board I'm going to do this week. The girls loved going there! And I didn't feel so frustrated that they each wanted something. 😅

We pretty much had to turn around and leave as soon as we got home from the store, so I grabbed the casserole and headed out. I pull up to the potluck a half an hour late (By choice. I really just couldn't handle being there and wanted to put it off as long as possible) and it's being held at someone's house, which is really a MASSIVE Christian summer camp. We parked like 1/4 mile from the enormous pavilion where all of the food was, which was overlooking the big pond. I could see a house in the distance and all I could think was, 'Ugh. It's going to be a WALK when the girls have to pee.' The girls immediately ran off to go play and I'm just standing there awkwardly in a crowd of like 100 people holding two chairs and a crock pot, wishing I could melt into the ground and disappear from this place. I saw someone with a name tag that said Erin and that is the name of the person who had been texting about new member stuff, so I said hi to her and her husband ran over to grab my food and get it onto the table. I really, really wished Ben had come with me!!! I put the chairs down and just kind of stood there for about 10 minutes. Literally, talking to no one, staring around, not knowing what the hell to do at all. There was a super long line for food and I thought, 'well, at least it'll give me something to do, rather than just standing here like a weird', so I stood in the food line. I finally spotted the other Dwell member I met before and grabbed my chairs and crashed on her little set up under a tree. Her husband didn't come either and she was super gracious and chatted with me the whole time. Thank God. I think I would have left within the first hour if I hadn't found someone to talk to. Later on in the evening, I ran into someone that I talked to at the meet and greet who lives in our neighborhood. We ended up talking for about a half hour and then she introduced me to a couple of other ladies that also live in our neighborhood. I ended up sitting and chatting with their group until after 8, which was pretty good. I really still wanted to leave, but felt rude leaving while people were actively talking to me, so I was there later than I expected. All in all, not a complete and total failure of an experience? But not something I'm eager to repeat. Sadly for me, I will basically be repeating it on Tuesday night at this orientation thing I have to go to. Nobody will have kids there, but there will be more of a format and less just forcing people to awkwardly socialize.