Barons Sep 11th Update

Last week Norm spent a lot of time on the phone with insurance companies, etc. and making sure the Prius was towed to the place the adjuster can look at it.

This week nothing has happened with the car that we know of. We’ve been having fun driving Bolt and learning all the fun things it can do.

As far as charging, we discovered a free Level 3 charger at the Nissan dealer in Orem so Norm has been going over there once or twice a week and waiting for an hour or so while it charges most of the way. I think he kind of enjoys getting out of the house since he always goes at night when he would be relaxing and doing something on his phone anyway so he just does it there instead.

He can even keep the air conditioning, etc. on while he is charging it. I’m sure we won’t always go there because it isn’t as easy as charging it at home overnight, but $5 or so of electricity every week or more can add up.

Last week Kayla had one of her molars removed then a few days later got braces.

Kayla is in 9th grade this year and going to Lakeridge Jr. High. She decided she wanted to take some more advanced classes so she could have classes with our students who generally wanted to be there. She also really likes history and science. She’s taking Honors History and AP Geography and being a TA for the beginning girl’s choir while also singing in that and Advanced Girl’s Choir.

She is behind in math so she goes to Kumon Learning Center twice a week. She gets a packet of about 50 math problems she does in the center on Mon. and Wed. and then does another packet at home every day the other weekdays. She doesn’t love all the extra math but she is progressing quickly and understanding it and we like the program. It slowly adds new concepts and has a lot of repetition but she is actually understanding what she is doing and seems to be remembering it.

That leaves the problem of 9th-grade math. She’s not ready to be doing 9th-grade math but the school says she has to take it or she will be credit deficient. It’s really annoying because their only solution is to go to class and totally not understand what is going on and be really bored and then go to a math lab, which takes up an entire extra class.

In the math lab, it’s one teacher and several kids and you are supposed to do your math homework but if you don’t understand it, you can get help. It’s a good concept in theory, but in reality, the teacher ends up helping others while you wait to get help (and that’s if you’re brave enough to ask for help). So Kayla started out doing that for a week or two and it just wasn’t working. Then they found out she was in the wrong math lab and changed the period of that and kicked her out of the class she has with her best friend. Ugh.

So we did some scrambling and ended up going with an option Rachel told me a little about but I didn’t know much about it before. Through the SOEP program with Utah you can take up to four online classes at your choice of about 10 online schools and it counts as credit at the main school you are going to. It’s free and you can even do it for part of your homeschooling. We ended up picking Mountain Heights Academy and got accepted on the last day they were accepting applications.

So Kayla doesn’t have an A1 class at Lakeridge, so every other day we bring her to school in time for the second period. She also was able to replace her math lab class with her choir TA class. So far she has been really good at getting up at the regular time and using the two hours to get ready and do homework, whether or not it’s math homework.

She still struggles with her math but at least she can mostly skip the online lecture and not waste that time and instead she can hopefully get a decent grade because a lot of the grade is copying down notes from the slide lectures and she’s really good at taking notes. She doesn’t understand most of it while she does the slides, but then she and I sit down and work through the problems and so far she mostly gets it when I explain it. The problem is, I think we are “reviewing” what she is supposed to already know so it’s going really fast without much repetition. Hopefully, we can keep up and at least pass the class. Hey, at least I’m re-learning a lot of math. . .

We’re hoping that maybe by next year she will be caught up or closer to catching up since she’s also going to Kumon and she is progressing quickly there. If nothing else, it looks like Orem High has the math class she is taking now so she could retake the class at Orem High, if all else fails.

Ruby has been going to physical therapy for a few weeks now and she doesn’t think it’s helping much. I’m sure she is getting more flexible and stronger, etc. but her feet are still really sore a lot and the pain doesn’t seem to be improving and the doctor said it should improve by now. We go back to the foot doctor next week. I don’t have much hope that he will be helpful, so we’re probably going to have to decide if we just give it more time or try something different.

Last week I worked a lot more than usual because there was a plant swap and sale on Saturday. So I’ll explain kind of how my work goes using this as an example. At the beginning of the week, I caught up on a bunch of plant chores like re-potting, watering, and trying to find as many plants as I could to sell. I also photographed all the plants I didn’t already have photos of because I have to photograph every plant individually because people want to know what the exact plant for sale looks like.

I also usually ship on Mondays and/or Tuesdays all the orders I got for the week before. Then on Wed. afternoon I posted in the Utah Plant Purge & Sell Facebook group that I was going to have a purge starting in a few hours. That gets interest going for the purge and people tag themselves in the post which makes Facebook show the post to more people.

Then on Wed. night, I started a purge. That means I comment on one post over and over with the type of the plant, the price, and a photo or photos of the exact plant for sale. I had about 40 plants for sale to start with so it takes an hour or two? It’s hard for me to say for sure, because if I get lucky, people start commenting “sold” on certain plants, and then I have to message them and work out payment and pickup details in the middle of doing the purge.

On Thursday I found some new plants for sale and take photos of plants that sold I had more than one of that plant. I told people that bought during the purge they could either pick up the plants at my house or at the purge so quite a few people picked up their plants outside my house in a cooler over the next few days and the others that sold I put aside to bring to the swap.

Then on Friday, I gathered all the plants I wanted to bring to the swap. I brought one of all the plants I had ready and then a few extras I had more than one of that type ready to bring. I was excited because my four-foot table fit in the back seat of Bolt, along with some misc. items like camping chairs and all my plants fit snugly in the trunk.

Then on Saturday morning Kayla and I drove to this cool place in Sandy called Le Jardin that is kind of like a greenhouse that people have receptions at year-round. They let us use it for free, which is pretty amazing.

Then we set up our table and plants and tried to sell our plants. There were about 30 people trying to sell their plants and probably 200 people came over three hours to look to see if they wanted anything. It’s like a farmer’s market but only for houseplants.

After it was over, we went out for lunch in Sandy at Vessel Kitchen because we were starving and got home around 3 pm and then I had to re-organize all my plants, take a bunch of new photos, and put them for sale on Facebook Marketplace, KSL Classifieds, Etsy and eBay.

When all was said and done, I probably sold about 50 plants last week and made $800-900. It’s too bad every week isn’t like that, but it’s also good because weeks like those are a lot of work.

I’m trying to sell out of at least half of my plants so I have a more manageable amount to take care of and also because it’s just not worth all the work to sell plants for like $5. I’ve set my minimum for $30-ish – so if the plant won’t sell relatively quickly for at least $30 then if it sells, I won’t replace it and I’m selling all my “Mothers” of those plants. I started out with about 100 different varieties of plants and I’ve sold out of 20-30 varieties. I had a high of about 600 plants but I’m pretty sure I have less than 600 now. The problem is they keep growing and I keep propagating them – so I have to sell them faster than they grow if I’m going to make my goal.

Have a great week!