Our Family

Our Family
Justin (16), Keturah (13), Benaiah (19), Abishai (6), Melinda, and Jared

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Year 2, Day 212: Work, work, work!

There's nothing like having workmen in your house to motivate you to a) not fall asleep and b) get up and work on projects.  I didn't get everything done, but a couple of things.  One guy was working on the half bathroom that he has been doing for a couple of weeks now.  Then we had electricians here to work on fixing the bathroom outlets so they weren't tied to the light switch.  Well, doing that caused something else to not work and now we don't have overhead lights in that bathroom.  Kids were at each other, and so both middle ones had no TV time today.  So, I made them paint instead.  Things they wanted to paint, but it was hard to keep them being bored.  They made it through though.  Benaiah had gone to church to work and ended up painting a new set of portable stairs for in front of the stage.  We used to have stairs from one end of the stage to the other, but they built over them to make the stage bigger.  Then they made a platform for the deaf intreperator and a small set of stairs on either side of the stage.  Then if there's a wedding, they pull out the portable stairs.  I love behind the scenes stuff.  Little known fact: when the church was building this sanctuary 16 years ago, before they carpeted everything, we were allowed to come in and pray in different areas as well as add names or short prayers to the bare concrete on the stairs to the stage or in front of the nursery windows and maybe some other places. Specially writing down names of unsaved friends and loved ones.  I wrote my Dad's name down because I wasn't sure where he was at in his faith walk.  I was pregnant with Benaiah at the time, so I wrote both his name and the alternative name if he had been a girl, in front of the nurseries.  (No, I'm not sharing that name).  Anyway, neat memory for me, and at least the one for my Dad came true because he assured us that he did believe that Jesus saved him right before he died.  And so far, the older two boys have been baptized.  Keturah doesn't seem interested, but I was 12 before I was baptized, so I'm nt going to push it.  And of course Abishai is now attending class in those nurseries learning "Jesus Loves Me" every single week.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, trying not to fall asleep.  Poor Justin and his growing pains had him up until 3 am.  I was also up and I don't know why I couldn't sleep.  I did have green tea at 3 pm.  But I sometimes drink a regular cup of coffee or a bottle of pop (before the diet restrictions) a 3 pm and I'm ok.  I had started thinking about homeschool planning, so that was a big part of it.  Tonight, I went ahead and gave Justin ibuprofen, and naturopathic restless leg medication, and the essential oils.  Poor guy! For me, I drank some coffee this afternoon, but I'm feeling fairly sleepy tonight.  For whatever reason Jared also hasn't been sleeping well so he had 3 cups of regular coffee today and it messed with his nervous system a lot.  Keturah is feeling better and Abishai, well, he was fine all day doing his thing, eating a ton, sleeping a ton, growing and talking and saying things like "Alright! Babee ready?" asking Justin to play a game with him.  His brain is growing leaps and bounds every day!

I went to a field trip homeschool planning meeting with another group, while everyone else cleaned up.  This particular group is mostly for the east side of Indianapolis and has Mom's Night Out's and some get togethers at coffee shops to help newer moms, as well as this subgroup just for field trips.  Same kind of rules apply like if you want to participate in the group, you have to organize a field trip.  Some of the field trips are 2 hrs away and I simply can't do those because I can't drive that far without a lot of pain.  I'll be planning one that is downtown or somewhere else that is really close.  It is exciting though to have the time to fully participate in this group this year.  It's a smaller group than the other field trip group I'm part of that is based 30 minute south of us.  When I was able to attend a Mom's Night Out, the women were super friendly and interesting.  One of the families have similar ages of kids and in the right gender as ours and lives near us, so perhaps we can do some playdates with them.  Lots and lots of options out there in the great state of Indiana for homeschooling families and lots and lots of places to go and tour and learn.

And, I'm "done" with the Whole 30 since it's the end of the month!  But, I had that slip up midway through so technically I had to restart.  I was going to extend it by 10 days anyway because I talk to my doctor next week and she'll know what we want to reintroduce and when.  I'm still craving pop and sugar and chocolate.  I think my gut is finally showing signs of working properly, though.  Hm,...I just want some gluten free bread and pasta!  But, drumroll.....I've lost 19 lbs in 10 months!  That's 13% of my body weight!  That's excellent!  We'll see how introducing other foods back in affects it.  I celebrated by buying a brand new, but basic exercise program a homeschool mom and her personal trainer husband created which was on a deep discount before it fully launched.  Pretty basic, but it's what I need to do to turn flab into curves.  I just need to be consistent.

And that includes going outside and walking around the perimeter of the yard while the kids play.  And climbing with the kids.  Or doing exercises using the natural environment like some do in parks.  I am feeling better in some ways, but worse in others, so we'll see.

So the kids know how to pull out the pull out bed and found a way to drag all their stuff there so they could snuggle.  Fun!

Justin repainted a tray my dad made for my sister Kristina to make a diorama for dinosaurs.  It came out great and he hardly used any paint!  He choose blue for water so he can put green Lego plates on it and then build his scenes from there.  He also had to clean and sand the tray weeks before.

I love his little outfit with an apron and one of Jared's old t-shirts I leave in the paint box.  He's going to paint the little bumps in the tray that are from screws holding the short legs on the tray base, gray, so they look like rocks.

We can put a nightlight in the main bathroom finally! Before, the outlet wouldn't work unless you had the main light on, defeating the purpose of having a nightlight.

Keturah did craft a lot today.  She's one of those messy artists who needs a maid to clean up after her.

She also finished the painting that Aunt Shauna drew the outline for her last year for her birthday.  She painted a lot of it there in New Orleans when she was there while we were traveling and unpacking after last year's move.  I actually enjoyed showing her some different ways to get into certain spots and spread the paint around to make it look more natural.  I do enjoy simple painting.  I have no "eye" for anything complicated though.

I DID mix the paints in the right amounts to make the perfect skin color for Elsa!  I am not good at it, usually creating some other color nothing near what I had hoped.  I started with white, then a drop of orange, and a drop of yellow and then more white.

Aunt Shauna drew (copied from a coloring page, but free handedly drew) this picture!  Keturah did the painting.

See! The world did NOT explode just because I asked the big boy do wash dishes!
So when the overhead lights don't work in the bathroom because a fuse is broken behind the mirror of all places, you improvise.  At least the outlets work well enough that I can plug in a regular lamp.  Strange, but it works!  The electrician will be back first thing in the morning.  It was interesting to listen to him and his friend talk to each other through the floorboards either from down below or up in the attic.  They seem like really great guys, no foul language, good demeanors, and very knowledgeable.  It took 5 hrs, and a tool broke, so they had to spend a good amount of time fishing it out of the wall, lol.  Fun stuff!

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