Year 3, May 8-10th, 2018: One of the Busiest Weeks

Oh this phone snafu is going to drive me crazy!  Nevermind the pollen, children who won't listen, and a week filled with appointments.  So, where did we leave off....yes, the phone.  It got sent back to the warehouse without being delivered.  Oh yeah, I found that out Tuesday morning when I check the delivery status because I thought it was coming that day.  It was sent back on Monday.  I couldn't deal with it then, which made me extremely mad, because I had a chiropractor appointment.  I dropped Abishai off at a friend's house and took the middles with me so they could do homework.  I walked into the appointment huffing mad and the poor employees did what they could to calm me down.  I quickly calmed down and refocused, which was a good thing because the chiropractor and I went over my x-rays.  It's not good news.  Some or most of it can be fixed over time.  And I think some of the damage is permanent, particularly in my lower back.  He was hopeful and confident.  He's really nice, and has been doing this for 32 years.  I tried to make him understand that I understand the importance of chiropractic treatment and that I know my parents suffered with back issues a lot.  I've got several sections of my spine going in the wrong direction.  It's going to take a bunch of adjustments and therapies to retrain the muscles around the bones, too.  So, I am hopeful, but also mad at myself for waiting so long when I knew better.  This chiropractor is very, very generous and has given me a huge, HUGE discount on all services because I'm self-pay.  And I can set up a payment plan pretty much in any amount I want.  Overall it's not cheap, we don't really have it in the budget and I have to reevaluate all my activities again, saying no to more things than I want to, even those $2 coffees or dollar store treats.  And no to things like a trampoline for the kids or a nice swing for me.  Thankfully we have some money saved from the tax refund.  I just get so frustrated at how much it costs us to keep me healthy.  But, Jared reassures me I'm worth it.  I'll be canceling my other physical therapy so we don't have both going at the same time.  And maybe, just maybe, this is the "miracle" help I'm looking for.  The key is going consistently and keeping up afterwards with maintenance.

So, I got home from that appointment and set to work with what we could get done on my/our only afternoon at home this week, like school, which has taken a huge backseat this week.  I have some projects I want to finish up with the kids with it, but I simply don't have the time this particular week.  But after looking at the calendar for the rest of May and the first part of June, there's enough time to get it all wrapped up well, IF I don't schedule anything else!  (I've said that before).  Speaking of scheduling, on Monday, Mr. Nanney, Benaiah's prinicpal told Jared that he would be getting an award at the school awards dessert night Tuesday night.  Oh, ok, add that to the schedule because we weren't going to go because it's mostly about the sports awards.  Well, they do perfect attendance and Honor Roll, too, and Benaiah made the A/B Honor Roll!  Jared and I kind of laughed though because final grades aren't in and we think he'll have a C in Bible.  He didn't get perfect attendance because he worked reChurch in the fall and had to leave school early on a couple of occasions for appointments.  Oh well, it's fun to get these awards, but in the grand scheme of things, they don't matter as much as work ethic and social skills, which he has.  It was nice to hear what the coaches said about their teams, and apparently, a lot of players had never played sports before.  They learned a lot, made a ton of progress, won a few games, and had fun.  Most of them earned "letters" for their jackets because they played in 50% or more of the games/events.  Southside has Women's and Men's basketball, and track and field.  I'm not sure if they had women's volleyball this year, or maybe only in the fall and they got awards then, but that's ok.  I think some of the volleyball players were seniors last year and so they left and the rest of them played on the basketball team this year, thus they didn't know how to dribble and run at the same time.  But that's how it goes in a small school.  Benaiah's siblings helped themselves to about 4 desserts after having been asked to take 1, and Jared left with Abishai after Benaiah got his award because Abishai wouldn't sit still.  Gary and Leah couldn't make it because of prior obligations.

Wednesday dawned as every other Wednesday.  "Gymanstics track."  But I was exhausted, so Abishai and I went to the dollar store in search of some caffeine for mommy and a treat for him and his siblings.  We came away with a nice hangar for the hummingbird feeder I bought and some white regular sugar to make the hummingbird food.  That's right, this household hasn't had plain old white sugar in months.  We didn't have brown sugar for months either until Christmas came and I needed some for cookies.  We've had the same powdered sugar package for at least a year.  I have a bag of stevia that I've had for more than a year as well.  We have plenty of sugar in our junk food and we don't add any to tea or coffee, and I don't bake from scratch anymore, so we don't need it! Kind of interesting, don't you say?  Maybe even shocking in our culture?  But it's truth.  But by body tells me I find sugar in other ways.  I have to take back some of the clothes I bought though because some of them don't have real pockets in the front.  And they aren't leggings.  They fit pretty well though, so I hope to find something like them.  I just have to have pockets!  Anyway, I digress, but it has to do with my weight which frustrates me...moving...on...

Gymnastics, lunch, PT, and then I came straight home instead of returning clothes because I wanted to try to get some work done at home.  I ended up puttering around with several things instead of focusing on blog writing.  Whoops.  Abishai got in trouble for dumping out food when he was angry, so I sent him for a time out in his bed with his paci/blankie and he promptly fell asleep for 3 hrs again.  I had had the replacement phone sent to the church this time because I knew I wouldn't be home, so I picked that up from Jared on my way back to the house.  I spent a good amount of time watching it reestablish itself.  And praise the Lord for Apple products!  I don't know if androids do this or do it this well, but, because I pay for a huge amount of iCloud storage, there's plenty of room for my phone to be backed up every day without me having to worry about deleting apps and pictures.  When I went to boot up the new phone from the backup that ran sometime on the day it was stolen, all my settings and apps and pictures were there.  I had already known my pictures were safe because you can log into parts of the iCloud from the website on a PC.  (or I assume an Apple computer might let you log into more information, maybe?)  And all the changes I have made in the last 6 days to my calendar or notes from the website were listed on the phone's app after it all synced up.  I just have to put passwords into all the apps that need passwords and we are good to go.  My screensaver is even still there.  I reordered the same case I had bought last July when I bought the phone, which was easy because Amazon keeps a record of your orders.  No searching involved.  It should arrive on Thursday.  I'm stoked!  We need to reestablish my phone number, but I can text without actually having service.  I bet I can FaceTime, too.  Oh, and all my text strings were also intact.  I was surprised by some of this because I thought I had said no for certain things being backed up, but I'm glad I hadn't.  I only say "no, don't back this up" for apps that are web based like Facebook or my train game.  Even Instagram data is saved on a server somewhere, so I just have to log in and it's all there.  The PC version of Instagram is just a shell though.  You can't post on it, only view others' posts.  So, I'm up and running for the most part within an hour's time.

Oh, Bible Bowl is over, so Jared was able to come home for supper and to mess around in the yard with the kids.  Gary's teaching tonight, so Benaiah will come home with him after Benaiah does tech for that particular class on "The Hurting Parent or Grandparent."  You'll have to check out this week's sermon to get a taste of the topic.  Basically, it's about when kids, even grown adult kids, do things that hurt you like immoral stuff or stupid stuff.  There's so much more to it, but I kind of zoned out a bit this week.  And I'm slept since then.  I know I wrote a bunch of stuff down and said "ouch, I need to work on all of these things" multiple times.  But, they were also things I have read over and over and just need to apply.  It's been a hard week of taking the time to apply these things, but I think I had a couple of successes.  Anyway, there's that.  Now I get to update all the pictures, do what I can to caption them, and then finish the blog with tomorrow's stories.  Friday is the big train ride day so I want that to be a post all it's own.

Thursday: This morning was a slower morning than the rest of this week, but I still had things to do.  Like check homework from the day before, and clean things.  But it got done.  I went for another appointment and the kids watched their historical DVD's and played outside with Grandma.  Jared and Benaiah got home early so we could eat dinner and go get some groceries so we could pack a lunch for tomorrow.  Now that's all done and I have a headache.  Time to finish up and sleep.  We rise at 6 am in order to leave by 8:15 pm, but it will be worth it!  And we can nap in the car.  Score!

Abishai moved his water table from the deck to the grass all by himself.  It was not full of water though.

It did get pretty warm and Jared had bought a new hose nozzle, so swish! Abishai was in control and Justin had to run!

Abishai was in total control of the hose!

Future fireman?

Purple lilac bush/tree?

Ours isn't as bright as others on the street, but the yard hasn't been treated in the last 5 years, i.e. no fertilizer and no weed killer.

Abishai brought his excavator outside and said, "My tire flat. I fix it. Daddy fix it."

So we found his tools and got to work.

Measuring the tire.

And when we couldn't fix it, I suggested we take it inside, so Abishai used his tow truck!

It wasn't really broken, but it was fun to pretend.  He pulled on the tow truck and I lifted the excavator inside.

Benaiah and some of the guys from school.  He likes some of them, but gets annoyed by others.  The boys and girls do usually sit at mixed tables, but they decided to separate themselves for the awards night.

Benaiah likes to tell stories about Abishai, so it was sweet that he put Abishai on his lap in front of his schoolmates.

Receiving the A/B Honor Roll.

Another day, another boy who desperately needed more sleep.  He was in trouble for tipping over a bowl of snacks out of anger, so I put him to bed with his paci and blankie, and bam, he was asleep for 3 hrs!

I started making iced tea for myself instead of drinking pop this summer, but some men are oinking it down before I get a glass.  Grrr.  I hadn't had any cups of tea out of this batch yet!  Crazy boys!

We set up our hummingbird feeder today!  Pretty painless!  Can't wait to see the birds!

"I help.  I do it my big self."  The kids did some yardwork today.  Justin mowed the front lawn, only getting the dandelion patches at first.  He didn't realize he just needed to mow as usual, i.e. in stripes, not patches.  Goofball.  It took him 2 hrs to do the hilly front because the mower self propelled mechanism isn't working  right.  Then after supper, I sent Keturah to pull up crab grass and move branches, and Jared putzed in the yard with his baby trees.

Benaiah's Honor Roll certificate.

This is pretty cool! Although it's still weird to hear "Gary and Dan" in the same sentence and isn't this just Gary's door? Nope, it's for the both of them now.  Ah! Weird!  I'm glad I have another year to process it.  But my question is, where will all the pictures in Gary's office go? The marathon pictures, the family pictures, the framed Ph.D. robe.  Eeek! But yes, the youth group encouraged the kids to do something encouraging!  Neat!

The big helper in Mommy's gloves and shoes!

Now is Miah's shoes!

Getting ready for tomorrow's big trip and this is what I find on my desk.  Yes, I knew he was leaving it.  Yes, I knew what to look at, but I think it's sweet that he cares that much about his DS and wants to take care of it well.