Year 3, August 7th-9th, 2018: More of the Same

I'm kind of digging this posting every 3rd day thing.  Although, I think I need to just jot down some notes to myself in an email or on my notes app or on here every day outlining what each day brought because I honestly don't have a clue what happened two days ago.  So, we'll see.  I'll type out what happened today, look through pictures, and that should jog my memory for the last two days, too.  Except, I'll totally rearrange the paragraphs to look like I typed Tuesday's stuff first.  This is a piece of writing, y'all, and y'all know that a good writer actually edits their work and rewrites stuff before printing, right?  Or were you the kind of person that just typed, typed, typed, and hit print 1 hr before your class started?  Not this girl.  I used outlines most of the time and yes, I definitely used the writing lab in college because at least for the communications class I had to, and then I wasn't afraid to use them again if need be.  So, there's that.  Here goes.

Thursday - I woke up out of a deep sleep including interesting dreams to Jared's alarm and have now had a headache all day.  But I also had a late night snack with sugar in it (allergen friendly chocolate chips straight from the bag), so, that definitely doesn't usually help.  Plus late nights this week because yeah, I'm stupid.  Actually, I've been calling Benaiah my "late night buddy" and pushing him to go to bed, too, because he is binge watching the old seasons of Doctor Who and then sleeping in until 1pm.  I, however, still wake up at 7am when littlest guy bounds into our room.  It's not a good situation.

Moving on.  Today I was dragging emotionally, but I made some steps to help that.  One stressor is always a slow computer, and since I have purposefully set aside August to stay home, stop spending money on field trips, and finish up these projects so we can start school in September, I have had the time to deal with phots and clear my desk a bit.  That's what I've mainly been doing all week, projects.  Now, these projects are actually maybe 1-2 hrs of work a day because I can't handle the physical/emotional/mental energy and/or I just don't have more time to dedicate to it on top of my daily stuff.  For example, yesterday, Wednesday, I had to clean up poopy underwear, help Justin bake a cake, oh gosh, I can't think of what else, but it was so bad and I felt like I had done nothing that I had meltdown on the phone to Jared, who thought I had butt dialed because it was all garbled.  In fact, I was actually in the middle of one of my boxes to sort though and I don't like to get interrupted because then I don't know where I left off.  I was much calmer by the time I went back to the box, wrote my notes to myself so I would remember and then set it aside to move on with my day.  So, whereas some could finish up these things in a day, it takes me weeks.  Oh well, it's what I can do.

Tuesday was a great day (as far as I can remember), lots of stuff done, phone calls, papers cleared up, social media kept up, etc. Oh potty training was ok.  Benaiah got to work.  He has had a 26 hr workweek this week and will have 28 hrs next week!  Woot! Woot!  That's good because he's currently broke.  With all of these home days, the kids are getting bored, but,.....

On Tuesday (Monday?), someone in our area posted a few things they were selling and I caught the post about 10 minutes after it went up!  This sweet older mom, who has her daughter and granddaughter living with her, was selling some big things so they could downsize to an apartment because they have some health issues.  They had tried to rent a house since January but it just wasn't working out.  So, what were they selling?  Among other things, a full size trampoline and blow up pool!  For $175 for BOTH.  Oh my goodness!!! I have been scouring social media, online selling sites, and sales for over a year for a trampoline.  I immediately contacted her, somewhat knowing we already had big ticket items for this month, but I honestly didn't care in the moment.  Our kids are so bored and I can't get them to go outside because it's hot and there's not a whole lot to do out there.  So, part of the reason we aren't doing field trips (besides the state fair, which was already planned) is so we could pay this sweet lady for an item we could use.  I'm bound and determined to stick to the budget I put together yesterday (Weds) after I realized just how strapped we are this month. It's not easy living on one income, and I'm a spender, and I want to take my kids to places, etc.  I don't want the latest and greatest, but I do want some things that others have and I tend to forget that they live on two incomes while we live on one (despite my best efforts on trying to help out financially).  I do have a small side gig but I don't think it will pay out until November when it's over.

Anyway, I have set up a plan for finances and time, and I'm ready for school routines and such in my head.  But I know I can't execute the school plans until these other things are done.  And now the kids will have something to do while I'm inside working.  Don't worry, I'll be mostly in the sunroom looking up and out the windows often and I always send out a big kid with Abishai.  Even with closed windows, I can hear the kids in the backyard while I'm in the sunroom.  So, I'm pretty pumped.  And Jared's only a tiny bit mad at me.  No, he's not mad like that.  We both don't like it when we both haven't been good with our finances.  It's a fact of life that finances are to be discussed, even argued over, plans made, plans broken, plans remade, etc.  He's a tad quicker NOT to spend on a pop or fries or a TREE, but not as quick as he used to be.  We both have to say no to everything this month.  The hardest time I have with "no" is when we drop Benaiah off at CFA because I know I can get a pop and fries there.  Thankfully, Abishai usually falls asleep and if he doesn't, he hasn't had a meltdown yet.  I think he's just old enough to take the "no" for "no."  It's hard though.  I overspent on my special foods in July, that's why August is tough, so I'm determined to eat up all my goodies I've been "saving for a rainy day."  The amount we spend on groceries each month rivals our mortgage, but it's hard to cut down on it when you also don't want to feed your kids crappy food.  Today (Thursday), Abishai ate a plain hamburger (no bun) AND 4 chicken nuggets for lunch.  And then a few hrs later ate another 3/4 of a plain hamburger for supper.  I don't think he had any carbs at either meal.  And he had a few veggies.  That's the hardest thing about going to Aldi's is that their veggie selection is thin.  Anyway, when the littlest eats that much, think about how much the bigger ones eat.  So, there's that.  And we are keeping the a/c at 79 degrees F because our electric bill is double what it should be even compared to last year.  This house doesn't heat or cool efficiently at all.  Both electric and gas bills increased significantly this year, being on the budget amount or not, doesn't matter.  But hey, we can all get in the art museum for $12!  Jared earns the money, and I stretch it.  That's how we try to work it.  Now if we could only be Dave Ramsey gazelle intense and move past being debt free (except the house), which we are, to actually having 1 month, or 3-6 months of income in savings, I would be a happy camper.  So very hard to do on one income, 4 kids in the prime of their childhoods, and one sick wife/mama.  So very hard.  Just gotta keep trying.

All of that to say, we're broke this month, but we're trying.

Some pictures to enjoy:

#truth  The leaders would gather the pictures from the day and make a slideshow for the evening.  Or maybe it was a slideshow for the church later on.  I know it was high school and tied to our workcamps, that's for sure.

Benaiah played for his school's summer chapel on Monday night, and went straight from work.  Junior year is going to be the toughest, schedule wise, for this kid.  A big dose of reality, i.e. stress, coming right up.

Doing his thing.

Driving from Grandma's house to our house on Tuesday.  Today, on Thursday, I let him drive to church and down Thompson to Great Clips (2 miles?).  I don't have a lot to say to help him, so I keep quiet.  He does hug the side of the road though.  He and I are both not comfortable letting him drive longer distances and/or in traffic and/or when we are on a tight schedule yet.

Oh yeah, I finally finished up this project of 6 or more months on Tuesday.  I wanted to match up as many missing puzzle pieces to their puzzles, so we needed to make each one to see what exactly was missing.  You'd be surprised at how many matches we actually made!  I know some throw away puzzle pieces and/or the puzzles themselves.  I have had a few of these since childhood so I don't care if they have a missing piece, I'm still keeping them.  I got this one and fire truck one in an Easter basket one year.

I'm so sad this one is missing so many pieces.  It's a tough puzzle because the pieces are not uniform at all.  Keturah gave up on it, so I did most of it.  But they were all hanging out either done, messed up or in boxes on the "art" table, so I needed to finish them up and get them off so Keturah and Justin have an area they can work on and not be so bored.  They both helped make the puzzles, too.  And over all I think we made 20 puzzles since we started back in the beginning of the year.

He found a box of cars he hadn't realized was here in the sunroom, so it was like playing with all new toys while he watched some home videos I was working on.

He also rediscovered a box of misc toys including the lincoln logs.  Daddy made this house for him.

Yes, we own a monkey, didn't you know that?  He can climb up on the half wall by himself using a stool and then Daddy helped him to shimmy up the poles to the ceiling.  He then slides down on his own with Jared standing behind him just in case.

Proof I made the kids go outside while I hung laundry.

Jared had fixed the clothesline a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't been using it because Benaiah typically needs his CFA clothes before I could get them up on the line and they would dry, so I've been just using the dryer.  Well, I just noticed that this side of the clothesline is now higher than me.  And the line doesn't move back and forth well.  Thankfully I didn't need that part of the line this time, but next time I'll have to get out a stool.  I've got my hand and arm stretched out as far as they will go and I still couldn't reach.

Legos, 'nuff said.

Still working on sorting papers, but this box was fairly easy.  This is two huge files of my medical history, bills, prescription papers from the drugstore, pregnancy papers, etc for most of my married life.  I was able to reduce it a ton.  But now I realized I have to merge these folders (which were used prior to moving in 2012) with any duplicate folders I made for 2012 to current.  That's a project I didn't anticipate.  Why is it that there's always more to do than you initially thought?  I also went through the school supplies and office supplies to get rid of duplicates and extras and kept digging out more sections to go through than what I first anticipated.  Oh well, it will all get done eventually.

I'm so bummed.  These were some mesh bags that came with cheap water balloon kits.  They were fine when I left them out last summer with my clothespins in them and I brought them inside for the winter.  But when I went to use them this week after a few months of not using them, they are all dry rotted or something ate at them.  They were literally crumbling in my hands getting yellow powder over everything.  I was not pleased.

Justin finally made his pop rock cake.  It was supposed to be  for the 4th of July because these candies actually do explode in your mouth and come to find out, in whatever container they are in or on a cake when they come in contact with air or moisture.  The "rocks" were literally popping out of the bowls and then, you could hear them pop after Justin was done decorating and we put the cover on the cake holder.  So weird!

Justin decorated it to look like a 25th anniversary cake for Jurassic Park and I think something to do with Minecraft?  This is how it looked after he finished decorating.

Ta da!  Two bulging folders now down to one moderate folder!  That's my medical history from 2001 to 2012 right there.  I kept some of the bigger bills because it's kind of interesting to see how much Jared's arm surgeries costs or the pregnancies cost.  And I kept a few of the oldest receipts/descriptions of meds as kind of a history on what I used to take.

This box was at least 2/3 full, maybe 3/4.  I think there were some empty hanging folders in here, too.  I'm hoping it will be even less when I'm done with it.

The one and only time Leah gets up to speak each year.  We had our annual children's/young adult ministries volunteer kick off last night.  That's where we get our Kidustrial Park t-shirts, meet with the staff that oversees each ministry, sign the behavior covenant, and go over policies and procedures, especially ones that have changed.  So, Leah got up to thank everyone.  Poor thing, she doesn't like doing it at all.  This year we had all the kids with us because all our babysitters were there!  Benaiah ended up watching Keturah and Abishai in the hallway because after Gary gave opening remarks, he had a meeting in the e2 office.  Justin volunteers in KP, so he stayed with us.  And of course Leah was in the meeting as well.  That's how we roll.  I was having an anti social attitude after a somewhat crazy/frustrating day, so I didn't want to be there, but that's life, and I got through it, moving on.

They had testimonials and one of my friends shared what the Access (special needs) ministry means to her and her autistic son.  She and her two girls volunteer regularly in KP, too.  Oh, one of the coolest parts was when one of the staff asked all the youth to stand up.  They made up half of the room!!!!  That's middle and high schoolers!  Not only do they serve on Sundays, but they made time to be there at the meeting.  That's dedication!  And an example of the adults in the church allowing the space for children to serve alongside them and "normalizing" what it means to be part of the church.  Pretty awesome!

Gorgeous clouds as we were leaving church.

Grandma's turn to let Benaiah drive her home.  We all are a little hesitant, but also excited for this phase.  I'm glad we get to share the "learning to drive" moments with the grandparents. 

"I did it!"

Just a few hours later and Justin's cake looks like this!  The pop rocks (and warm air) melted the frosting right of the cake!  Chemistry in the kitchen right there, folks!  Crazy!

Nursery volunteers in our new shirts.

Today's favored toys.

Yup.  Actually, this is an envelope that Jared sent to me, but the point is the same, I used to have Lincoln's zip code memorized.  I was sending back some paperwork for Benaiah's class at Lincoln this semester.

We were out doing errands today, so we stopped by Gary's office just for fun.  Wow, that's a lot of books and knick knacks!

Keturah telling Abishai he has to tell Grandpa the names of all the animals before he can get a piece of candy.  That's been the rule since Gary's been in this office and had that bowl.  I think it's been 14 or 15 years of it.  I showed the kids where the old office off of the chapel (where the stage was opposite of where it it is now and where we got married the second day). 

Saying the names of the animals.

Saying Animal Names

But this time, Grandpa gave Abishai one candy for EVERY animal!  Spoiled youngest grandchild! The others only got ONE for ALL the animals.

One of my favorite parts of vising Gary in his office is looking at all the pictures of his family when they younger.  There are photos from some of his big hiking trips, especially with Jared and Aaron, and his stuff from running the mini marathon a few times.

Some of the oldest and my favorites of all the pictures because Jared and Aaron were in middle and high school.  I don't know where they were, but I'm sure it's a great memory

There we are.  We are way overdue for new professional pictures.  Hopefully we'll do it some time this fall.  I don't have professional pictures of Abishai since he was 18 months old (I think, the math isn't making sense to me right now.  I know he was sitting in a chair, but I thought we had taken those pictures before we moved back from Canada.  Hm,....)  The pictures on the left are from our cruise 4 years ago so I'm pregnant with Abishai.  And the one with Jared in an orange shirt is a few years older than that.  Time flies!

While Benaiah was at a haircut today, I ran up to our old post office in Beech Grove to mail the LCU envelope and a package of shirts he wanted to return.  I told the kids that we did walk up here from our Beech Grove house a few times.  It's a long, long walk, like maybe 2 mile?  Anyway, good stuff.

Then we had a few minutes, so I took Abishai and Keturah to one of the playgrounds we frequented while we lived in Beech Grove.  This truck hasn't changed much in 14 years.  Justin had stayed with Benaiah.

The play structure had changed right after we left in 2012, but the backdrop is the same.  This is the playground on the top of the hill at Sarah T. Bolton park in Beech Grove if you are interested to know.

This is the view looking down the hill.  You can follow the road to the left and get to the larger playground near the stream, as well as basketball courts and baseball diamonds, and a hill we sometimes sledded on.  We used to walk here as well.

Twisty ladder.  And an older/bigger kid refused to do it!

Practicing his drum beats before worship band practice at Shelby St. tonight.

Yes, Jared did ask for all the colors they still had in stock.  I noticed when laying these out that the logo changed slightly this year.  This year's color is the dk. blue one.  Last year was red.  I miss having the button up shirts you put over your Sunday clothes.  I don't like "dressing down" in order to wear these in order to serve.  You HAVE to have you name badge on at all times, but you can occasionally get away with not having the t-shirt on.  But it is an easy way to identify you as a volunteer, especially for volunteers and the security team.  We are very, very particular with our security protocols, although we have not had any incidents that I know of.  They lock the doors to the kids' wing 10-15 minutes into service, both the inside and the outside doors, and only someone with a key, is allowed in.  Parents have to be escorted to get their kids.  The nursery side is a little more fluid in that I don't think we lock the outside doors.  There's only one entry per room, parents aren't allowed in, and there's a procedure to sign kids in and out.  We just have to be a bit more flexible because of the crying babies and more frequent potty accidents.  Anyway, we are very, very careful and like to be proactive, not reactive.

I didn't get any pictures of getting the trampoline because I didn't know the woman and I was just trying to be conversant and helpful.  Everyone did help to take down the trampoline from her backyard, including Abishai.  It was down in less than 30 minutes.  I'm hoping Jared puts it up on Saturday morning.  I think he had time tonight, but he didn't want to be out with the mosquitoes.  I don't blame him.  The West Nile virus has shown up in Illinois now.  We can wait a couple of days.  But I'm pretty pumped to getting up and getting the kids outside on it!  And Abishai was just asking today to go swimming, so having a blow up pool again is going to help with that.   I didn't get to the store on time to get one on clearance.  They switch over from summer stuff to school stuff in mid July because kids go back to school by August 1st.  Sad, I know, because summer technically goes until Labor Day and it FEELS like summer.  MY seasons run by the actual weather and the calendar, not just when you think you should be in school.  June, July, and August are summer months.  School is from after Labor Day through Memorial Day for us, and mid June for the east coast and maritimes.  just sayin' Indiana that you got it wrong.  But anyway, we'll enjoy the quiet of August before activities kick back up in September.  Onward we go!