What a Stressful/Amazing Day!

I know, how does that even go together? Well I will tell you :) I have to preface this story first. So my statistics class requires that I either show up on campus for the exams (4 in all) or I have them proctored. Obviously I am not going to Las Vegas to take them so I had to find a proctor. More easily said than done. So I admit I procrastinated a bit, I had no idea where to go to find a proctor. It had to be either a teacher (one who is working at a school currently), a police officer, or a librarian. Doesn't sound too bad does it? Except that I just moved here and don't know that many people :( So Nate kept bugging me to contact the public library. But I was very hesitant about that. For several reasons, first because I hate calling places and asking questions, also because the ladies at our branch are SCARY! They are rude and mean and grumpy. Why would I want to subject myself to that??? I sure didn't. So someone mentioned to me that MSU does test proctoring, so I got on their website and checked it out. It looked great until I saw how much it was going to cost...$30! Per test!!! Yikes. So that was going to be my last resort. I finally broke down and emailed my library (I really am terrified to talk to those ladies at all!). They were very prompt and wrote back within 24 hours.
So that was last Tuesday morning that I got the email. The very nice lady :), informed me that my branch doesn't do that sort of thing but there are two branches that do. Only those branches don't open for business until 3:00pm! Who ever heard of a library that doesn't open until that late in the day??? Weird. So that was out. I had to take the test Tues. Sept. 8 between 8am and 11am. BUT She did mention that Lansing Community College does proctoring. I didn't have much hope but I went to the website and looked it up.
Sure enough they do proctoring. I tried to open the link on the website but it wouldn't open, so I couldn't. But I found out that they need 7-10 days to process an exam request. I was down to 7 exactly! So I found the number and called. It took a few tries. I actually didn't get to talk to anyone until Wednesday! I finally got through, and basically they charge $15 per test which sounded like a steal next to MSU. I told them my situation, and apologized that it was so late in the game. She told me that we could still do it as long as my teacher got the test to her by Thursday. No problem right??? Well...
I emailed my teacher all of the info and told him that they needed the test to schedule me, and that he had to do it by Thursday. He told me that was no problem and I started to relax a bit.
Thursday: I waited most of the day for an email confirmation that LCC had gotten my test. No dice. But I did get a confirmation that my professor had faxed the test over, but it was late in the afternoon. I guess I should have explained that there is a 3 hour time difference we are dealing with, and the lady at the office was going to be out Friday and Monday. So I spent all weekend worrying about this test. Was I going to be able to take it?
Tuesday morning: My kids get up early so I was up at the crack of dawn. Waiting to hear. She finally called me at 8:15 or so. She said she had received the test and could I please come in at 11? ABSOLUTELY! I had already set up a babysitter, so I called her and gave her the scoop. Then I got ready. I packed all of my things, all the kids things, got the GPS ready, packed the car, got the kids in and buckled, then went back for one more thing, and in the process I left my keys sitting on the table by the front door...which I locked by hand on the way out.
Yes, I locked myself out of the house just 1 hour before having to be at my test. Yes, yes I really did. Oh man. So I tried all the windows: locked. I opened the garage and tried the door into the house: locked. I tried the back door: locked. Wouldn't you know I was super responsible about locking all the doors and windows for once? Yay me! Dumb dumb dumb.
So I called a friend and while I waited I tried to break in. I figured the best door to break down would be the one in the garage. But this handle is quite difficult just in general. Then I had an epiphany: I happened to have my wallet in the car, and inside I had an old credit card. So I ran a grabbed it. It didn't work on the garage door, but it did work on the front door! Yay! Grabbed the keys and jumped in the car. I only wasted a half hour. Called my friend to cancel on her, ran to the bank to get the money for the test, then dropped off the kids.
Well, let me just say hallelujah for GPS! There was so much construction and detouring that if I hadn't had the GPS I would have in no way made it to the test. It was ridiculous. But I did. I then had to parallel park the van: it was quite humorous I'm sure to be on the street trying to watch me do that. I ran up and took my test! It was great, I felt good about it. Sigh!
But that's not all folks! So you know my camera died. We ordered one and didn't expect it to arrive until around Thursday of this week. So that meant I would miss taking Pictures of Corbin's first day of school! Unacceptable. I was sending Nate to the store on the way home from work to pick up a disposable camera, when the doorbell rang. It was our mail delivery person. And she had our camera!!! Talk about divine intervention! I called Nate and told him to forget stopping at the store, we had our camera!!! I am soooo in love with it. It is amazing. So I tried to post pictures but something isn't working right. I will work on it and get them up soon. But what an amazing day! I know it all worked out because I fasted on Sunday that I would be able to take this test, and I read my scriptures yesterday. Thank you Heavenly Father! I couldn't be more grateful for the way things worked out. What a blessing.