The J6 Journey: Year 3, November 9th-11th, 2018: Feel the Hustle

Friday we ended up not doing the park day, but focused on school and resting up for the crazy busy weekend of hustling coming up. I took the middles to church, so Justin could write his final exam for Worldview 101, and then I took just Abishai to the library to pick up the 40 or so books I had ordered! Next time, if it's just Abishai and I, I will bring in the stroller so I can put the books in it and push it out to the car. They were heavy and then I had to make sure Abishai stayed close by. Abishai actually went to the bathroom, locked the stall, did his business, pulled his pants up, and flushed all by himself! Yeah! He always takes off his pants and underwear at home when he goes to the bathroom, but it's good to know that he doesn't have to and won't in public. Yeah! Then he and I picked up Benaiah from work, picked up the middles and came home. I ate a quick supper and was back out to babysit at the Rooted Bible study celebration at the Shelby St. campus of Indian Creek. The other volunteers and I were in rare form, which made it a fun evening that passed by quickly. The celebration lasted longer than the 2 hrs, but that was to be expected. We had 5 of our 9 kids. They provided CFA for the kids and had other adult items for us. Yeah! One little 1 1/2 yr old managed to get his cookie and chips that were on a napkin from the table all the way over to the rocking chair and wanted to eat his snack in the rocking chair, all the while keeping his paci nearby. Wow! He's the youngest of several siblings, so like Abishai, he knows that if he wants something, he needs to make the effort to make it happen. Love it! He's pretty quiet and some evenings, he can't be consoled, but on Wednesday and on Friday he was an angel. Some of these nights have been long, but overall, it's been a wonderful experience and I've loved getting to know some of the kids better. I"m not sure if I will volunteer again, but it was fun while it lasted. Benaiah ended up not going a concert, so he was home with all the others for the evening. Nice!

Abishaid wanted to snuggle with Socks, so they laid down in 'Miah's stinky bed. Sweet buddies!

Tender hearted boy.

So cool that these two trailers have official logos on them from the Creek and "Baskets of Hope." Sweet! Baskets of Hope are totes that are filled with ingredients for a Thanksgiving meal for a family in need. We used to do the collection and distribution in pick up trucks, so it's fun to have some bigger and better things to use!

It was snowing!

The peep hole between Grandpa's and Daddy's desks!

Hi, Grandpa!

"Grandpa, where's my calculator?" Grandpa has this very special calculatro that Abishai likes to use. So Abishai has his "coffee" aka Sprite, eating a snack at "his" desk, and "working through lunch." Too cute! I'm still not sure if I like this new arrangement or not.

Little man fell asleep on our way to pick up 'Miah. He was squeaking in his sleep!

Daddy said that there were no more lids in the drawer at his office. Well, Abishai found one! Jared wasn't lying either, he didn't think they had any left! And a couple of days later, immediately after walking into the office, Abishai goes to the drawer, gets out a cup and lid, and opens the refrigerator to get another can of Sprite without asking or hesitating. He knew exactly what he wanted! He also grabbed a plate for his banana.

Did I JUST leave this CFA with one of your employees? Benaiah said he thinks he saw the catering order, but didn't handle it himself. They provided CFA nuggest/chips/cookie for the kids and a sandwhich for the adults. There were a few extras so it helped feed my kids at home this weekend. Funny thing is, is that I walked into the Rooted celebration with a CFA cup of pop! The owners of CFA attended Rooted so I'm sure that's one reason they helped out with catering. Love it!

Enjoying the leftovers from the Rooted Celebration. One of the perks have being volunteers/part of the minister's family, you get to take home all the goods! I'd rather not see it go to waste!

I was able to share some oils with Shauna's family because I could easily replace some of them because I had enough points saved it. I even had a credit I could use towards shipping! Score! Free essential oils!

BRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Don't ever say my kids aren't socialized! We had a full day of "socialization" on Saturday. We hit the ground running because we had some projects to work on while it wasn't raining outside and in between running kids back and forth to things. Let's see. Keturah's friend Bailey came over about the same time as Aaron, Shauna, Everly and Nora stopped by. ASEN is here because Shauna's mom, Nancy, is very ill, and they've discovered cancer, too. Shauna and the girls plan to stay for a little while, but it might be as long as through the holidays. Aaron has to finish and graduate from the police academy and start full time work there. So, prayers are appreciated. And we'll help them as much as we can, in and among the rest of our busy schedules. After ASEN left, Jared, Justin and I finished wrapping up the cardboard boxes and took them, and some totes, out to the shed, which cleared out the sunroom, fireside room and garage finally. That shed can really swallow up a TON of boxes! And now it's much more secure thanks to Dan and Mary's hard work. Yeah! Super excited about that! After lunch, I took Benaiah to work and came home. The CFA line was all the way out to the main road! I had to pull into Taco Bell just to drop him off. In fact, even of the catering vans was parked at Staples a couple of stores down. They have an agreement where the CFA employees can park in the Staples parking lot because it's huge, just as long as they don't block Staples' customers. It works well for them. I came home for 30 minutes before taking Keturah and Bailey to Keturah's baseketball practice. Meanwhile Jared finished his wood pile project, moving it away from the house and onto a concrete slab he made last weekend. After basketball, I dropped Bailey off to her house, brought Keturah home, and then after she showered, took her to a friend's house for a sleepover birthday party. Oh, throughout this, Abishai wandered around, watched a little TV with the girls, wrestled with Justin and Daddy and ate up his leftover CFA food that I brought home from the Rooted celebration night. Justin spent a couple of hours raking and bagging up leaves at the grandparents. We ate a supper of leftovers, and then Daddy left to go to a comedy club with a preacher friend. He actually spent $35 on a ticket to see this woman, whom he had heard an audiobook about. Ok, cool, it's your turn, have fun! That left just Justin, Abishai and I at home. I cleaned the floors where the boxes had been, made sure things were snug and tidy for Sunday, and went over Justin's schoolwork on Saturday. I went ahead and set up his work schedule as normal for next week, but I'm not sure if and when we have to take time off to help Shauna and the girls. We are due for a Thanksgiving break, so I'm willing to slow down or skip days as necessary. So we'll see. I'm not worried about it. Abishai went to sleep within a couple of minutes of laying down because he was exhausted from all the extra activity. Now Jared has to pick up Benaiah from work after the comedy club performance. And after sleeping, we do our normal Sunday with a couple of extras thrown in.

Breakfast brought to you by CFA! Abishai was convinced that the waffle chips were fries until he finally tasted them. They aren't the best chips in the world, but they are better than soggy fries!

Yummy!

Jared likes to prepare himself a big breakfast on Saturdays because he only drinks bulletproof coffee for breakfast during the week. He then skips Saturday lunch. While he's taking his time making his breakfast, I'm off doing a million other things while my bag toasts or something. Or I take a few bites and then go do something else for a bit. #priorities

Watcha doin'? Have screen, must watch!

Abishai's truck kept scooting away from the piano, so he had to keep pulling himself backwards the piano. Cuties!

Our shed is massive! And when properly organized, it can swallow up a ton of stuff. Once again I thanked Jared for being patient with me and letting me keep all of this stuff, hauling it around, taking the time to basically saran wrap all the brown boxes to keep out dirt and critters and moisture. It's like having a storage unit in the backyard. I love how we can switch out buckets of toys, too. And now my garage, fireside room, and sunroom are free from those boxes that were there only temporarily. These rooms aren't completely box free, but I can now breathe again and walk through these spaces without feeling claustrophobic.

And it has a loft. We are ready for anything.

Justin thinks it's funny to send a bunch of emojis that mean nothing to me. The frogs are for his favorite gamer who has a frog avatar. I don't know why he likes the squids or what 09Sharkboy is. Crazy teen!

Ewww!!!

Baby girl at basketball practice! She is paying attention well and trying really hard. Her coach seems reasonable and has already said she listens well and is learning fast. Go, Keturah!

Peak color season is here or almost gone!

Bailey's puppies! They are so adorable! And I just basically let myself in and went straight to the puppies. I've been dying to hold them! Some are more cuddly than others.

Gotta love Bailey's sister's photobombing here. But how adorable is this puppy with Keturah? She was unsure at first and almost dropped the puppy. I instinctively took it from her and held it to my chest. Then we tried again and it worked. Adorable!

We switched out the GeoTrax for the Veggietales playsets and chunky Little People playsets. Abishai is having a blast with his "new toys."

Getting them all set up.

Noah has a speedboat!

Exhaustion!

Sunday, a group of people from a church in Ontario, Canada came to visit. They were supposed to attend the ReChurch event, but that got canceled. They still wanted some one on one time with Gary, and so that happened on Saturday. It was so awesome to see and here some of the great things going on up there! I always like hearing the unique perspective someone from outside the United States has on our country. I was practically giddy at seeing them, though. Jared, Abishai and I even proudly wore red today. Going to Canada and investing in the people there, helped us to bloom as individuals and as a couple. Yes, there were some hard, hard things that happened, but being there opened our eyes to many great things, especially mine to the global Church with a capital C. Those friendships are so treasured and we want to keep nurturing them as we can. We want to partner with them, encourage them, and pray for them. Our hearts break when we hear of stories of church splits and pastors resigning. We are a broken people, and there is a level of dysfunction in the body or the family of the church at large. No church is perfect but we should champion every single church that we can, working together and not in competition with one another. Ministry is a strange thing, high rewarding but oh so heartbreaking, too. We care and we pray often for all the people and the churches we have been involved with over the years. And it simply makes my heart happy to see ANY Canadian I know! I just love our brothers and sisters to the north!

After the Canadians left, ASEN stopped by to discuss the week's tenative plans. Aaron is flying back to NOLA today so he can finish police academy and graduate. I'm going to watch the girls on Monday while Shauna's mom has her biopsy. Other plans remained unchanged for the next few weeks, but we all know that any plan could be thrown out the window after the biopsy results come back and a treatment plan is decided on. I'm trying to stay flexible but at the same time, I'm not putting our lives on hold and just sit here twiddling our thumbs. I want to move forward bit by bit in our schooling, while making the time to help with the girls' schooling and the cousins playing with each other. Right now it feels like vacation, and really, next week, the week of Thanksgiving, we will all be on vacation on some level. Jared and Benaiah don't have school, Aaron doesn't have to work, Gary and Leah are around, etc. But this week, I needed a plan, so I called the 6 adults together for a sit down in person 30 minute meeting because texting or talking through a spouse does NOT work for the Johnson family! It was a great meeting of the minds, with some encouragement spat out towards Aaron and Shauna. I'm working hard at NOT overstepping my bounds because boy do I have some opinions and I definitely understand a great deal about this kind of situation from cancer to dealing with siblings to thinking about wills, etc. But my personality, my possible enneagram number, wants to give advice and solve all the problems. And that's why I need to keep homeschooling our kids and working my business and doing what we normally do so I don't have time to be all up in Shauna's family's face. It's a hard road they are on, one that I hate for anyone to be on, and yet, we all will go through it. Pray for them and pray for us as we support them.

The day ended well with our kids and Jared and church and me doing the grocery shopping ALONE. Boy, was that different! I really missed having all my helpers! I took my time because I have a raging headache, and because I had to do all the putting in the cart, putting it on the conveyor belt, bagging it, putting it in the car, carrying it in the house and putting it away. That's a lot for one person! It goes 5 times as fast when we have the whole crew working! But now we are ready for the week in that way, so I'll worry less about that detail. Onward into the week!

Overall, my mood is great! I think taking 25mg of Zoloft makes a huge difference in my attitude and mood, fortunately and unfortunately. I've tried to fine tune all the other hormones and just couldn't do it. I still believe that maybe some day I won't need it, but I'm not going to try again for a long while, maybe as long until the oldest 3 graduate. Their childhoods are too precious to spend listening to their mom rant and rave unnecessarily just because she has anxiety and a little bit of depression. I'm still very in touch with my emotions, and can still cry, and be angry, but now I can be happy and have fun again, tickling the kids and tossing around jokes and laughter. It has been the most positive decision I've made in recent months. Now, if I could only hustle more and get stuff done that needs a lot of thinking power or the need to get over the fear of the unknown, etc. I bought some new flexi clips to sell with the intention of selling them through our online social street fairs, but I have to set up a space to do that and find a time out there that is somewhat quiet! It's a brave, big step, but I will make it happen! Just gotta keep the household running and catch up on blogs and movies we've borrowed from the library. Oh, and I made it a goal to read one chapter of the sleep book and one chapter of the book on the Enneagram, and so far, I've read a couple of chapters over a few days. I still have a lot to go though. Fun times ahead!

Happy day!

You can't go to church with my boots on and those boats will not be coming with us. Sorry, not sorry. But cute nonetheless.

The other face of exhaustion with his big squishied nose and duck lips, among his little mustache. So grown up, now get up!

Look! We have a condiment bar just like at Chick Fil A! Shelf stable condiments, so it works!

Abishai used a LarryBoy toy that says, "I am THAT hero," and was running around with it pressing it's button a million times. Abishai would repeat the phrase but as "I am a fast hero" instead of "that." Adorbs.

Running with Noah's speedboat.

This cracked me up! So Benaiah said he wanted to sit at the adult table. Well, he was only the Johnson that could sit at the adult able! He basically played host at lunch! He talked about himself a lot, but I think he enjoyed spending time with our folks from the North as much as we did. He misses Canada on some level, too. I'm so proud of him for putting away his phone and wanting to talk with adults. It's been taught well and embraced hospitality.