Year 3, August 19th-22nd, 2018: Midweek Update

The good days and the bad days. Actually, I've been very laser focused this week, trying to finish up the big paper project so I can go into school prep mode.  Well, after Sunday's normal busyness, Monday and Tuesday were great, but Wednesday was very sidetracked and ended up being an errand day.  So back to laser focus on Thursday-Saturday.  The poor kid are begging for people time, but I don't want to even be distracted with their comings and goings.  It IS Benaiah's first week of school though, so we are working on the new routine.  So far so good.  I can outline that below in a minute.  Gluten update: As soon as I finish this last batch of brownies, I'm done with gluten forever.  Seriously, I feel like crap.  Bloated and icky and all sorts of wrong.  My energy levels have plummeted, too, because with the gluten comes regular carbs and some sugar carbs so I crash faster.  I'm definitely going to do a "cut out all the gluten/most carbs/most sugar and eat just meat and veggies" detox starting by this weekend.  Well, I will cut back slower than that, but still, I need to feel better.  The weather has been great, and the kids have been out on the trampoline a lot, so I haven't thought too much about them not enjoying the weather at a park or something.  I really should take them to the park, but perhaps Grandma can.  Laser focused now because next week I only have 1-2 days at best to tie up loose ends and get the school stuff out before being gone for Labor Day.  Then I want to dive right in to school, but we'll see.  If we are too tired from the trip and not organized well, I will wait.  It just depends on how the next week goes.

Yup, back to the routine, except Justin's small groups didn't start yet, so he had to just hang out at the office.  Next Sunday is twice as busy as normal though.  More on that later.

Now that Keturah is on the worship team (basically they just do the motions to the songs, they play a cd with the music and singers on it), Abishai is feeling a little left out that he isn't a helper yet.  Actually, there was a 1 yr old in his room in nursery at 4:30 because he was happier over there than in our room.  Leah was helping the little boy, and Abishai also took note and helped keep the little guy entertained by letting trains go down a ramp and crashing, causing the little boy to laugh.  Abishai could tell us a good part of the story, too.  This Sunday is his last Sunday in that room and then he "skips" the 2/3 room and heads straight to the 3/4 room in Kidustrial Park preschool!  He's sad he won't be in the "yellow" room, but the toys are virtually the same in every room so he'll be fine in the "blue" room.  We'll be gone over Labor Day weekend when promotion from Nursery C to KP happens, so he'll just move up the next week.  There will be less walking to do because all 3 kids will be in the main KP area during the 11 am service!  Justin helping in 1st grade, Keturah in her 5th grade room, and Abishai in the 3/4's room.  Exciting!

The youth group leaves out games for the teens to play during their free time, so when they go to their worship time, it's sort of "free game" to us.  Not really, but I thought this was really cute.  Abishai was cracking up laughing pressing the button and sending the cards flying at Abishai.  Don't worry, we picked up all the cards and made sure they were all face down in two piles ready to go.

Then Abishai found out that he likes to literally "hang" on the basketball rim all by himself!  No fear this kid, no fear!

Introducing....Abishai the acrobat!

Introducing....Abishai the rock climber!  He climbed up the stack of chairs holding onto the connector piece.  He went up and back down by himself.  Mountain goat.

Ok, Benaiah's crazy schedule.  So, we pranked him and he did smile about it.  He said he's leaving up the sticky notes as long as they last or don't get in the way.  Sweet!  His week is going ok so far, but he's grumpy from his crazy busy schedule.  Let's see if I can outline it for you:

 Sunday: Church all day either drumming in main service at Franklin Rd or Shelby St. or for Middle School Crave or video switching, drumming/slides for youth group.  Basically he's in the building from 7:30am to 8pm every Sunday, unless we have Sunday dinner (and this week he mowed Gary's lawn in 1 hr and 15 min between dinner and being back at church by 3:20.
Monday: School 8 to 3:30; work 4-10 or 11
Tuesday: School 8 to 3:30; work 4-10 or 11
Wednesday: School 8 to 3:30, until leadership mentoring starts and he'll be at church from 2:45 until suppertime or later.  D groups/small groups from 6-8pm when they start in September (not at church but he has a ride)
Thursday: School 8 to 3:30; family time; rehearsal most weeks at 7:20pm at either church campus
Friday: mow Gary's lawn, work from 11-4/5 or 11-8 or whatever they schedule him for.  Which this week it is his privilege to dress up in the CFA cow and go to the Franklin Central (local high school) football game from 5-8pm on Friday!!!  He's very unhappy about it, but I guffawed and I am still laughing so hard over it!  My son, the one I used to take to CFA to see the cow, is now THE COW!  What a hoot!
Saturday: mowing and schoolwork and usually a 2-10pm shift at work.
Sunday: Rinse and repeat

I'm not happy with him gone all the time, but we'll leave it just like that.  It's too hard to explain all my feelings on the matter.  Moving on.**** I didn't move on, in fact, I wrote a long journal entry about it and couldn't get back into finishing the blog post.  Some reality points hit home very hard and sent me in a whirlwind of emotions.  Life isn't always pretty y'all.****And now I'll really move on.

The second to last box of my paper clean out project had employment records.  When Jared worked at UAC during college, he had to write out these requests like when he was sick or didn't take a lunch or forget his ID badge. I threw away some of them, but kept the ones like these because I could imagine him writing these out during that year we were dating long distance.  He wrote "Good friend from NH visiting." Um, I thought we were officially boyfriend and girlfriend at this point.  Cracks me up that he wouldn't admit to others.

Several months later...again..."Friend from NH coming for a conference."  Dude, we were dating!

And this one correlates to when they helped a preacher move to Massachusetts and then I put my college stuff on the semi trailer that took it back to Indiana the summer I went to college.  My parents did not travel well and weren't there to set up my dorm room, but they did fly out when I graduated.  Anyway, these things are like GOLD to me!  Just wait until I share what else I found in the next box....in the next blog post.

A huge storm came through and was done within 15 minutes.  Now THAT'S a summer storm!

20 boxes at the start, added a few more into the mix because of type of project (aka I needed the current files and the fire safe box, plus other electronic items), and ended up with 13 or so.  This is mid project.  I was sorting through papers as I transferred them from right to left.  I ended up not sorting some personal papers because I couldn't emotionally do it.  So, I ended up using the last plastic bin I was going to get rid of, but at least there will be no more brown boxes!  The brown boxes behind the files are books that are sorted and purged and need a bookshelf in my room.  They will be transferred to my room until we can find a suitable bookshelf.

They had a dancing competition at middle school Crave and Justin got in the right eye by a hand.  What is with this kid and injuries at church?! The other guy didn't know he hit him.  Whoops. Dancing like the video below?  Only this is a llama shaped bell, not a cow bell.

Lots of mommy snuggles because he can.

Here's lots of trampoline videos.  Some of them are short clips that I can make using different filters on Instagram.  Some of them go in reverse! Or include special music! Enjoy!

Uh oh, someone got into the brownies without asking.  And no, he did not get a piece that night.  And as soon as that pan of brownies was done, I went back to being gluten free.  I can't wait to heal and feel back to my new normal.  Gluten causes too much inflammation for me.  Not worth it to eat it.

Abishai asked to paint with water color but he ended up giving his cars a bath and painting them instead. I rolled with it and tried not to fuss.  He was occupied and easy to clean up.  Unlike the massive explosion of cereal he had all over the floor because he violently shook the box up and down and the inner liner wasn't sealed properly.  Nearly a full box of cinnamon toast crunch was all over the floor.  I made Justin and Abishai pick it up because I hadn't had my tea yet and I just couldn't handle it.  I was madder than I should have been. 

New oils to try and help these particular body parts.  I'm pretty excited to try them and clean out my system and not necessarily go off thyroid medication but boost my energy levels a bit.

Did anyone else watch these movies multiple times a year in the 80's?  Well, my family did.  It was foundational to my love for the mountains, for bears, even for homeschooling.  I think my parents longed to be these folks.  My mom always wanted a log cabin and she totally fit the bill on the clothes of the 70's.  My dad loved plaid shirts.  It was my Dad's 68th birthday today, too, how appropriate.  Jared, the three younger kids, and I watched it together.  And the kids didn't wince too hard and didn't say they were bored.  It is a bit more awkward than I remember it, and unrealistic, but so full of wholesome goodness, which was refreshing.  I haven't watched it in 20 years so I didn't remember a lot of the details or exact storyline.  And I have a totally different perspective now that I'm the mom and not the daughter.  I do caution parents with really little ones that there are a lot of animals chasing down different family members, who do get scratched up a bit.  No one dies, not even the dog, though.  But the loyalty the mom has to the dad and expressing fear but not arguing for days on end, again, it's so refreshing.  The board of education sends the kids their books, so yes, they are homeschooling! I don't know how much I related to that when I was a child.  Just the great work ethic and everybody pitching in and NOT complaining was wonderful.  So different than a lot of the family movies today were the siblings fight and the teens roll their eyes at the parents and there's sneaking going on, etc.  Obviously, it's not true to life in that sense, but for kids to SEE that it can be possible to live a good life while being respectful and obeying friends is a good thing.  I can't wait to watch #2 and #3 with them.  Even Abishai was asking about this or that animal, "Are they going to run away? Did the bear hurt them? Is that the good bear or the bad bear?"  You see, there's a very friendly grizzly bear named Sampson that I name my biggest teddy bear after. And they used real, trained animals like grizzlies, grizzly cubs, mountain lions and cubs, donkey, raccoons,  and birds.  There's not a lick of CG animation in these since they were made in the 70's.  So, think about what the original Star Wars trilogy feels like in the terms of acting and green screen and props, and that's exactly the caliber these movies have.  Love them and how they influenced my family!

We took Abishai to the doctor today because his paci clip had pinched his skin about 6 months ago and it now looked "angry" and infected.  The doctor did confirm that it is probably infected and gave us a round of antibiotics to help it along.  I have no problem with that since we don't use them often.  I do want it healed quickly.  It's near his left arm armpit and is exposed most of the day when he doesn't have a shirt on.  It was just a little thing but it now looks like the largest pimple ever.  It did not have puss in it though.  The official term is molluscum contagiosum infection.  It's kind of like a wart and it may take up to 2 yrs to go away.  It's caused by a virus getting into open skin or wound, which was our case.  There's no other bumps, and since it's been 6 months, there's not much to worry about.  It's just a little tender because of the infection.  So, I took the kids to McDonld's on the way home.  The pop machine wasn't working well, but I got enough to help me last through our crazy Wednesday evening.  Abishai got two treats, the ice cream and fries, and he didn't hesitate dipping the fry.  He ate the fries and left the ice cream, so I ate the chocolate part and Justin ate the ice cream.

Oooo, I like these new labels!  Having the dosage instructions in bright colors makes it easy to read!  We haven't had this kind before, but I'm guessing it's on par with amoxicillin which is usually what we get.  The kids haven't needed anything stronger than that and it's rare that we even get that.

Aw, it's almost the whole family!  Since I had to drop kids off early so that Justin could get to Bible Bowl while I had a chiropractor appointment, Grandpa was still at the office, too.  Yes, Gary did transition fully into the e2 office and it's been a little bit of an adjustment getting used to him being there.  The kids run and play while we are there, so I hope it's not disturbing him too much.  Next week, I will be babysitting for a large Bible study that will meet for 10 weeks, so we will have to come early every week.  Eventually, Benaiah will have small groups on Wednesday nights as well.  We are definitely those church all day Sunday and Wednesday evening people.  That used to be the norm for church folks. 

Mountain climber.  He did use the wall to rest his back on.  I can't wait to see if he really does like to climb mountains and I can share this picture with him.  So strong!

I see the moon and the moon sees me on this cool late summer evening.  The weather has taken a turn for the cooler, with cool nights and moderately warm days.  Fall is coming.