Weekending- Good-byes and Hello

Linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday-

Friday, we moved Alyssa into her dorm at Ohio State. We were given a time slot of 4:00 pm which was nice as it was Alyssa's roommate Avery's time slot as well. Prior to leaving, Donnie went into work but he only worked half a day. In the morning, we packed up the car and not everything fit 😟. I had anticipated that and contacted Avery's dad to see if he'd have extra room in his vehicle. He told me he would have plenty because Avery was riding to Columbus with her mom. Abby didn't work on Friday which worked out well- the girls ran a couple of last minute errands together and then around lunch time, I met them at Lovely's to pick up lunch for Alyssa's last lunch at home. Donnie was home by that time so we all ate together.

Then when it was time to go, Brian stopped by to get our excess stuff and then we were off to Columbus. Move in was shockingly easy and organized. After unloading all of her items, we were able to park at Ohio Stadium for FREE!! That is likely the only time that we will ever park on campus for free 😆

I am trying to think of the best way to describe Alyssa's living arrangements. Odd would be one accurate adjective.  Alyssa and three other girls share a bunk room. This space is so small that it would not be possible for the beds to not be arranged as bunk beds. Each girl has a small closet space. In addition, there are eight drawers total in two chest of drawers to share, so two each, and four open shelves so they each get one of those.

Then there is a study room for the four of them. It's small with four small desks. This room also contains a microwave and a refrigerator/freezer. I guess the purpose of this is so that if someone is up studying late, she won't disturb the others. But wouldn't it have made more sense to take the combined spaces of the bunk room and the study room and make two normal college dorm rooms? You know, two people share a room, each person has a dresser and a desk? Is normal too much to ask for?? It seems like the more people who have to share a small sleeping space, the more rife it is for problems to arise due to different bedtimes and wake up times? Common sense isn't too common! I would add "anymore" but this dorm is old. Someone thought this living arrangement was the bees knees years ago. If four people wanted to live this way, that would be one thing. I could see this possibly being something four people would want after their first year of college. Four friends may think this was a good configuration. But four people their freshman year who don't know each other? (Alyssa knows Avery of course and they requested to live together. But their preference (which they stated) was a normal room for the two of them).  

Anyway, it is, proverbially what it is. And now all we can do is pray that the four of them get along well. Add that to the college prayer list 😀. It's a long one...

We were with Alyssa several hours and then we walked around campus to get something to eat with her. OSU will never win a beautiful campus contest! Many of the buildings I find to look really odd (I guess that tracks with the weird dorm set up...) including this one. Also, I dislike it when proper nouns are not capitalized. Just... follow the rules of grammar. 

Many buildings on campus have the name "Wexner" (or wexner, as it were) attached to them. Leslie Wexner is the wealthiest man in Ohio and has given upwards of $200 million dollars to OSU. I guess his name is going to be on the buildings on which he wants his name...He was also intricately financially involved with the late Jeffery Epstein. So, there's that.

 Two instances of grammatical mistakes don't make a right but... consistency, anyway? Here is another picture of the underwhelming "wexner center for the arts" building. 

All too soon, it was time to tell Alyssa good- bye. Save your tears for the pillow or says Abby Lee Miller. Perhaps even Ms. Miller would make an exception when dropping your baby off at college...

We aren't quite empty nesters, though! Abby is still here though her time at home is drawing to a close. Still, it was nice to know we had the weekend with her.

Abby did have plans for much of Saturday. She was going to a cook out and then straight to a Cincinnati Reds game with her boyfriend in the evening. We ran a couple of errands and made cookies for her to take to the cook out before she left. 

Abby heard about a used store in Centerville that buys clothes for resale. She had a box of clothes that fit the criteria for what the store was looking for (namely, named brand clothes). We went to the store and looked around while the clerk was going through the clothes that Abby brought in to sell to them. Abby was hoping to find a Cincinnati Reds t-shirt. Not being a huge fan, it was hard to justify buying something brand new. Used would work. She didn't find a shirt though we both looked around. The store had some nice things and a few things caught my eye but I didn't buy anything. Abby was offered not a whole lot of money, but some, for the clothes the store was willing to buy. The store offered to donate the clothes to a charity that they didn't want to purchase so that was nice- Abby didn't have to leave the store with clothes that she didn't want!

Interesting name...Capitalization is 👍

I then remembered that there's a consignment shop in Springboro so we hit that up to look for a Reds t-shirt. We didn't find one but Abby bought a cute dress using the proceeds from the sale of her clothes from the other store. 

After Abby left for her cookout and baseball adventures, Donnie and I decided to head out to buy some items that we let Alyssa take with her to college. We went to a mall and sort of on a whim went to a furniture store that is in the mall and bought a lot more than we had planned on buying. We probably wouldn't have gone into the store but for a mistake that I made. During Ohio's sales tax free holiday, I had some items in my cart at Wayfair that I thought I bought. Only I must have gotten distracted (we were in a bit of an online buying frenzy on the last evening of the sales tax free holiday) because I never completed the order. But I thought I had and wondered why the items weren't being shipped to me. I realized that I unwittingly did not complete the order.

I fessed up to Donnie about my shopping blunder (I only recently realized it myself) and asked if we could look around the furniture store. We ended up buying a few things- more than I had in my Wayfair cart and way more money but... we really like what we ended up with. We didn't spend a fortune which was good since we had not planned to buy so much and have been experiencing a high volume of spending- from the unplanned car purchase last weekend, to college "things" for the girls, to items for our outdoor project, etc. We bought all floor samples so we saved a lot of money. The items all show a tiny bit of wear but you would have to look hard for the signs of wear and signs of wear would show up eventually on anything. 

Sunday morning was church and we got to see our pastor after fourteen months! He experienced a significant health crisis last year and anticipated not being able to preach for six months. Complication after complication rendered that date fourteen months. It was wonderful to see and hear from him again. He preached a powerful sermon based on Isaiah 40. 

Aside from the baby leaving home for the first time to attend a large university where she is living in tight quarters with two strangers in a campus that is in a big city, it was a good weekend.