Year 4, September 27th-29th: It's A Rough One, Will We Find Any Rest?

Well, monthly hormones, have kicked in and I've had level 9 pain most of the day. Yes, that bad. Nothing has helped. So I'm glad we always front load the week and work hard on the days I'm feeling good, so I can take it easy on the days I'm not feeling great.  We did make it to park day today only because it got switched at the last minute to one of the parks that is 10-15 minutes from home that we know well, Southeastway Park.  The park that had been scheduled was a good 30-40 minute away and we would have gone through the worst traffic patterns just to get home.  And apparently no one else in our park days group wanted to do that either!  It was just us, Molly M. and her Eli and Esther, and another new mom with 3 girls! We've had many new somewhat younger families join our ranks, while a handful of families with older teens have dropped out.  I'm just going to have trouble remembering everyone!  I think I'm going to make the effort to bring Keturah along next time.

It was 85 degrees when we were there, but there was a stiff breeze and we were in the shade so it felt lovely. Justin and Abishai came home exhausted and with red faces from playing in the sun. I managed to finish up everyone's schoolwork, although Keturah's work did not meet my expectations, so she has some work to do over the weekend before she can have any screen time OR horse book reading time.  Yes, we are to the point that we need to take away horse books!  She's already read them all anyways.   And yes, I've heard of other moms having to take away pleasure reading because the other parts of kids' lives were being neglected. I'm not alone at all in this.

And poor Benaiah.  He's had a tough week dealing with grownups that don't agree with him.  I'm not going to say who or what they disagree about, but he's super frustrated and it came out of him tonight in an uproar and nearly tears, not at me or Jared, but at situations.  He does want to be respectful but he's got his opinions and thoughts and I know it's hard because I struggle with it, too.  So, we came up with an agreement that he PROMISES to go apple picking with us next Saturday and I'll leave him alone this week to work on his big projects.  And no, he hasn't procrastinated.  He simply hasn't had time. Welcome to the adult world, son! He's got a lot to balance and he's already feeling exhausted. Welcome to the club.  So I did my part and stayed calm and thought things through while he took a drive to the grocery store to cool of.  I made sure to say "drive safe" this time because I know how I drive when I'm upset.  I don't say it every time b/c a) I don't usually see him before he leaves and b) it's a given, he does drive safe. And I do believe in retail therapy, as long as it's practical or the extras are within budget.  He used the time to buy food for next week, so I left money I had gotten out yesterday for my NH fund on his desk to cover it since I had forgotten to (or really hadn't had money to) the last few trips to the grocery store. He's cooled off, ate supper, and ready to tackle his projects.  He has a plan, and sometimes, he actually does stick to the plan. But it's hard.  Life is hard, right?  Trying to survive today with major pain was hard and thinking ahead to what I'm going to feel like after surgery has me at the beginning of the fear train again.  So, stop, breathe, it might not be like this. It's ok, I have a plan in place.

So hopefully tomorrow we will get a chance to rest up before one crazy Sunday again.  Stay tuned.

Abishai? or Justin?  Justin! Same age as Abishai is now, but the playground was moved from where the South Rooms at the Indian Creek Christian Church Franklin Rd. Campus are to The Gathering in New Orleans where Aaron and Shauna are.  Very cute Justin!

Abishai has been working hard at matching everything up with the card.  I think he nailed it!

It's not completely done, but we have some new harvest decorations!  Abishai was super excited to put out the hay bale and scarecrow to scare away the birds.  I'm hoping to add unique different colored real pumpkins from the grocery store soon.  I have to go back and fix some keys I had made the other day.

The in laws display got a little makeover since they took out nearly everything in this flower bed.

And the new house being built on our street (we know the owners) is coming along with some new truck every day.  They started on Wednesday I believe while we were gone so I missed all of the excavator work for the basement.  The dirt will be carted away to someone local who wants to fill in their pond. Today there was a stone slinger dump truck there.  Jared thinks it's just a brand name, but I think they literally only deal with laying down rock like for this temporary rock driveway. 

I'm right: https://stoneslinger.com/

Well, I found some rest on Saturday with a nice, solid 1 hr nap!  I haven't been sleeping well the last couple of nights because of the extra pain from the worst menstrual cramps I've ever had!  I've been comparing them to Braxton Hicks.  Yes, they are that bad. Thankfully, it wasn't as bad today, but I'm still sore in places I'm not usually sore.  My shoulders are messed up, too.  But Jared is going to be even more sore than me tomorrow because he started digging a 6in x 6in trench around the shed to put down termite chemicals that will helpful keep killing them for 5 yrs.  As soon as it cools off again, I'm going to have to go investigate the damage inside the shed.  I'm NOT looking forward to it.  And this is exactly why I made sure any cardboard boxes were wrapped in plastic extremely well on ALL sides.  Termites and water damage are my biggest fears.  I'm so very grateful that my parents bought so many rubbermaid totes over the years and a lot of the stuff in the shed is in those heavy duty totes. I think that project will have to wait until after my surgery because it's too hot!

It was nearly 90 degrees again today and will be all next week!  What in the world!  It's nearly October! My friends in NH are enjoying their Deerfield Fair (New England's version of the state fair) this weekend, and typcially they get to wear long pants and flannel shirts, if not sometimes hat and mittens.  Instead of selling lemon shake ups, they sell a lot more chili and hot chocolate! It also makes much more sense to me because wouldn't you want to judge your vegetables at the END of harvest?  Which around here, hasn't happened yet.  Because the corn and soybeans weren't planted until the end of June instead of the end of May because of all the rain, the plants have barely starting to turn brown yet. I'm just so done with this heat! It's hard to do any fall activities, like our block party and chili night, when the air temp is hotter than your chili! Come on Fall!

I stayed home all day and read for school, cleaned up, and made the chili for tomorrow.  Jared spent more money on tools and dug half the trench.  Justin spent the day with Bryce and now Bryce is staying over and going to church with Leah and Justin.  Keturah worked on homework, played with Abishai both inside and outside, and puttered.  Benaiah worked a bit more on his homework and then was off to work.  So, overall, not a bad day at all.  Tomorrow is much more hectic, but we have a plan.  All we have to do is work the plan.  I even contacted Emily and Elliot's mom earlier today to preempt the post church questions of "Can I go over to _____ house?" Good stuff!

This is the Beachy clan that we grew up.  Don't they look so nice and cool and fallish?  They've added a couple of daughter in laws and now a grandson.  Sweet!

Three Beachys plus two Reynolds (we also group up with them, and there's 7 siblings in that family).  So sweet!  At the New England Deerfield Fair!

When you finally finish YOUR breakfast at 11, but little man has been going strong since 7am.

Abishai was having a hard time because we turned off the TV, so Daddy build him a cage.  Except, by the time the cage was done, he was done and he used it to protect himself from everyone else all day.  Very innovative.

Abishai tickle time with Benaiah.

More "Jumper soccer!"  He LOVES to play "soccer" on the trampoline with anyone who will go outside with him.  He has quite the moves, too!  Now he can tumble over the ball and do his little stunt roll.  I could see him being an actor and doing all his own stunts someday!

Action shot!

Ready, jump, roll!

Jump, jump, jump!

Digging a trench, in 90 degree heat, when you're 40 years old and haven't exercised a day in your life equals lots and lots of pain.  But at least he cares and tries!

Daddy, I'm this tall!  And then he proceeded to tell me how the tape measure works.

Blow bubbles at me while I swing!  He giggled a ton when the bubbles hit his face.  I didn't get it on video though.  Bummers!

Wait, what?!  He can do this now?!  Since when!  Stop growing up, little man! He's just way too big!

Inside Abishai's cage.  He has all the essentials: trucks, cars, and trains, people with beds and chairs, his own seat, and a cooling pillow.  Oh yeah, and his water cup.

Neat play area, but Daddy just took it down.  Abishai is going to be very upset when he finds out in the morning after I told him we would keep it up.  Mean Daddy :(

That's quite interesting!

Someone likes to stay very organized! Who would have thought about laying them on their sides like this? Only Abishai!

On the day of supposed rest, we find no rest! Lol! Yup, it was a busy and great day, and I'm not upset or overwhelmed, but to prevent burnout from happening, I'm declaring October a "No friends come over on Sunday" month! And you know what? Keturah and Justin were VERY happy about that!  Sometimes kids really need us to set boundaries, or to have someone be the scapegoat when they honestly don't want to hang out with their friends.  I texted all three families we rotate through and they are all on board, too!  Sweet! No one is in trouble, nothing preempted this, I just think we need a break.  There's been a little bit of skirmishes lately between Justin and the other boys when they are volunteering especially, so I've also asked Justin if he thinks they should maybe break up the pack a bit. He doesn't need to be playing peace maker and keeping his friends in line while he's helping other kids.  So, when we have dinner tomorrow night with Gary and Leah, maybe we can bring it up and flesh out some ideas.  We'll see.

This "no friends" rule does NOT apply to Ava at all.  Benaiah hardly sees her outside of school and since they drive themselves around, they aren't a bother to me. Today they were able to escape their homework for a little bit and hang out at the park and then Crave.  They both needed that.  But Grandpa and I both want a few minutes with Benaiah just to check in, so hopefully he can squeeze us in this week, lol.  I don't think Grandpa is used to being turned down.   I went through Benaiah's schedule with Gary and it's tighter than Gary's! Yup! That's life, Grandpa, when the grandkids grow up and have their own social and work life, lol.  Sorry!

The rest of us went to the 6th annual block party at the Smith's house.  I was able to share about our new neighbors, glean some more info about everyone else, and just sit for a hot minute.  Actually, it was VERY hot, as in 90 degrees hot!  It will be 92 n Tuesday and then 65 for a high by Thursday.  Yeah! Sweater weather just in time for apple picking on Saturday!  Keturah went to small groups at church after spending time with Emily this afternoon.  Oh, and I did run to Kroger and get items I can't get at Aldi's and tried to fix the house key issue to no avail.  I'm very frustrated. It's Jared's turn to go somewhere else and get house keys made. He spent part of the afternoon working on the trench.  But again, it was super hot.  And we had chili at the block party of all things, lol.  But we are home, in the a/c, all tucked away, in the peace and quiet and tomorrow is Monday, our day of recovery.  I've got appointments this week, but we'll have plenty of time for school.  Then another super busy weekend with a concert, apple picking, retreat for Jared, birthday party and Sunday again.  Ah!  Make it stop!  Oh wait, it will after my surgery which is that Tuesday because it's fall break for most people.  Benaiah's fall break isn't for another week after that.  Anyway, onward!

Oh, and we had NO babies tonight, so I got to sit in the quiet nursery by myself for an hour. I had to wait until Elliot to be dropped off with Keturah and Emily and then take him with me to the block party.  Fun!

I had Jared's keys with me when I went to redo the house key.  Now, which one is it? Whoops! And it still didn't work!

New beautiful "windows" with Ollie the Owl in them!  He's the character that shares the Bible story in the wee one's video each week.

New signage as well that matches the KP area.  But I'm pretty sad that the old banners are gone.  Sigh.  Times change.

I took these photos and then found a second copy of the magazine in the e2 closet so I swiped it.  You'll see why in a minute.  First, Jared has a published article in the Christian Standard!  How cool!

Second, his article was published in the issue that was all about urban churches.....

.....and what do you know, but my good old friends Restoration House Ministries was in it!  Oh my friends!

I wanted this print copy of the magazine because someday, wouldn't bit be awesome that we got to be part of the New England story, too?! That's why I pray for!  Oh my heart!

As I was wandering around the office waiting for my phone to charge, I saw the original old Bible page that Gary gave Jared soon after Benaiah was born.  It's the passage that talks about Benaiah.  I think I'll take it down and bring it to Benaiah's open house.  Now,...do we have Bible passages like this for the other kids, nope! #Firstgrandchild

Then I saw this little book on Jared's shelf that I had given him years ago, maybe the first Christmas after Keturah was born.  So, I flipped through it, especially the pages on the early teen years and found some gems!  I cracked up at the word "fruitcake."

Both of these apply....where's the angel? And, yes, she disappears in her room for ages without apparently doing much.  Hm,...

Block party time! There were a couple of new kids there.  And they were all dripping sweat by the end of it.

Jared and Andrew who lives across the street from Gary and Leah.  They are new Creek members and he was just immersed this year.  Jared and Andrew's neighbor Jim (where we had the block party) are disclipling Andrew every week.

Taking a break from all the running.  At least Jim's "creek" is dry!

Gorgeous sunsets NEVER translate through my iPhone SE phone! But it was unique and gorgeous!

Wrapping up the party with a little dessert.  Abishai was upset because he wanted to tell Jenna that he was going to play video games with his Daddy when he got home.  Whoops.

Poor doggy is always left out of all the fun and games. But the Smith's dog Lucky is scared of him.  And it was way too hot.  And why did he have to lay on a gun?  Ouch!  May the force be with you, Socks!  Back to just your kids this week.  Oh, I forgot to mention that Bryce spent the night and both Socks and Abishai get all hyper when there's an extra guest or two around.  I could not get Abishai to calm down from 7:30 until 8:30 when the kids left with Grandma for church.  Then he was perfectly happy to play with his toys on his own.  Abishai is an extra extrovert!

The End

Year 4, September 23rd-26th, 2019: Home vs. Wastewater Treatment Plant (and Recovery)

Monday was normal.  Everyone slept in.  Well, not Abishai of course.  I was incredibly sleepy, and I did my best to read a book to him, but it took a lot of concentration.  Last night, I felt my ears filling up with fluid and my throat glands are swollen, so I wasn't surprised when I woke up with vertigo this morning.  Lately I've just been slowly getting up and once I'm up and equalized, I'm ok.  But my eyes were already struggling to stay focused and I was getting a headache, so I laid down mid morning to shut my eyes and listen to my Bible.  Abishai had a bit of screen time then and Justin started on his schoolwork.  Keturah got up at around 10:30, and of course had some attitude.  Her newest phrase today was that I make her mad because I don't give her what she wants. I fished out that she is getting what she wants at church on Sunday.  She was asking me for some special juice or other sugary thing for breakfast, and I said no.  I don't know if there's a deeper meaning to this, but it's something to consider. I don't give her what she wants (or needs? love? attention? etc).  But she settled down a bit after that and we made it through the day with a little bit less drama than last Monday.  Oh, except when she was trying to shift blame to me because the garage can't fit cars so how can she possibly put the bike away properly.  She's grasping at straws, that's for sure.

And although her chores were only done about 50% of the way, she managed to go outside for a bit and build a fort, and she was able to ride bikes with Jared this evening.  Keturah's school stuff was fine.  Justin's was, too.  We didn't finish until 4pm because everybody started late.  Then Justin had screen time and Abishai and I went outside to add accessories to Keturah's fort.  Oh she did not like that.  Part of me wishes I had asked permission, but then she would have said no.  However, we finally got to do what I've asked the kids to do for years: take the materials around them outside and create something.  And then Abishai played in the fort for 90 minutes while dinner cooked!  It was perfect!  Well, except Keturah wouldn't join in.  And then she tore it apart before I could stop her.  I'm glad I got pictures of it though.

The weather is perfect and we had the windows open all day.  I'm feeling exhausted and sore, so I'm not sure what that's about.  A lack of drive as well again.  I probably need more sleep.  I have so many projects to work on but no energy to work on them.  I'll give myself grace today because of the vertigo I had, but still, I have to find a way to work a bit harder first thing in the morning before I'm worn out from the day.  Onward to a new day.

I let Benaiah borrow my scrunchies and this is all he could come up with.  No kick back to Mom?  Thanks, bro.

The set is complete!  I love it!  I might not even buy real pumpkins this year.  I'll see what Aldi's has in stock this week for the front door. I'm trying to up my decorating game.

Benaiah's friend David Masengale had this on his Instagram! It's more stuff about this vsco girl thing.  Oh the stupid trends that are out there.  But at least I know about it! I'm a cool/hip/trendy/with it kind of mom!

It was time to work with Keturah on school and Justin and I looked everywhere for her!  She was hidden behind the corner of the garage, working on this!  Justin had started some of it, but she did a lot of work taking out the wheelbarrow to get long sticks to try to make a wall.  Now this is the kind of creativity I want to see!

Abishai and I added chairs, a table, a floor mat, "bowls and spoons" for food, and a fire.  Abishai even said, "We need a (paper) towel for the door!" What he meant was a beach towel.

Ready to make some "boy" food in the red bucket.  The green bucket had "girl" food and the blue bucket had tea to share in it.  I got him started with putting some leaves in the buckets and he literally ran with it!

The last of the flowers I'm afraid.  I pulled some weeds.  I know there's more growing under the black stuff, but I'm pretending it's not there.

Stirring the food.

Hunting and gathering more leaves for food.

Coming in through the front door.

Bare feet and in pjs, gathering leaves for stew.

Then, he got on his bike and went for a "leaf adventure" to gather more leaves!  He would ride down the driveway, get off his bike, pick up leaves, get back on the bikes and ride back up the driveway.  He did this at least a dozen times in the next 90 minutes.  And this is why he started zoning out at 7:30 and fell asleep within minutes.

The boss is coming back with food!

Blowing out the fire so we can go to sleep.

Night night.  Wake up, my partners!

Girl food in green bucket, tea to share in the blue bucket.

Justin came out and joined us.  Yeah!

Justin immediately got to work improving our campfire and making a grill for it.

Ta-da!

Now THIS is what childhoods are made of!

Boy food is cooking!

Daddy's home!  And he joined us in the fort!

Eating the food and then handing it back to Abishai.

Hm,....first of all, Keturah is wearing her other "new" sandals she's neglected all summer in favor of her flip flops because a nail from a board came right through her flip flop and hurt her foot earlier.  Second, is she actually problem solving and digging a hole so she can put up a pole to build higher walls?  She is!

See! You can do it!

Well, we managed to get everything done on Tuesday!  From school, to a little yard clean up, to the piano tuning coming, to showers, and some electronic time.  The day started out very slowly again, with the same reason, vertigo due to very fluid filled ears.  My throat hurts too.  I feel thirsty all the time, but I think it's my throat telling me it's sore. Great. And we have a field trip, small group, and dance class (and groceries) to handle tomorrow.  But at least we got to enjoy today.  The kids did stay outside for awhile today, yeah! And I made those fun phone calls to medical people to straighten out bills.  I also started a "honey do" list for Jared and/or the kids.  There are so many projects that are minor but feel overwhelming to me because I lack strength to do it.  Like cleaning out and putting away the kids' pool or the water table. Moving boxes or items this way or that.  There's nothing wrong with me being the boss and them being the labor.  I need to delegate more and be specific. And I can still be picky about how it's done, right? Maybe.

In order for Justin to still have some lights on while he's sleeping, Daddy made Abishia a tent over his bed. Smart idea!

All cozy for his screen time.

Trying to hide from mama in the way back.

Guys pulling the line in order to bury it in the neighbor's yard.  One guy was on our side of the fence, which is understandable and I'm so glad the dog wasn't outside at the time.

Digging the trench to bury the cable.

Drawing with chalk before Daddy got home.  Happy Fall Y'all!  I hope to add some decorations soon.

Aw, at least he wants to go to with Daddy while Jared mentors someone.

Justin made a pan cookie for his small group boys tomorrow night.  I helped a bit though. 

Perfection! (At least it looks that way since I can't eat it.)

Wednesday was chalk full of all kinds of fun stuff!  I dropped Abishai off at Jared's office, and then Grandma was going to pick him up from there.  Meanwhile, Justin, Keturah and I went downtown to both the Citizens Energy Wastewater Plant and the White River Water Treatment Plant (drinking water). They might not be high on your field trip list, but to me, it was fascinating.  First of all, a lot of things are automated at both plants, so there are not as many employees on site.  However, those employees, plus all the 100's of employees around the city, have incredible jobs that are full of: SCIENCE.  We talked about Biology, Chemistry, and Physics today.  It's amazing to me how many kids talk about going into the medical field or business field, but not many talk about going into History, or getting a degree in basic sciences.  There are all these jobs that require knowledge of sciences in order to understand how something works.  At the Wastewater plant, you need to know the difference between treating it with chlorine or UV light and that you can't mix the two.  It's also pretreated by microorganisms.  There's mechanics as to how the water is brought to the plant based on gravity and then some Archimedes' screws.  At the drinking water plant, there's similar things, but also different things like their filtering system uses a certain chemical that makes unwanted particles stick together.  You have to know how much chlorine, ammonia, and flouride that is safe to be in drinking water.  You have to know how much water is coming in, what temperature it is, if you need to add well water to it, why well water helps the river water, etc. These kinds of field trips always remind me that there's more careers out there then we really know and appreciate. It also makes me wonder, again, why there is unemployment.  I'm sure there's at least maintenance people needed. Human relations personnel, accounting, R&D, IT, etc.

The water treatment facility is 95 years old.  Imagine the man power needed in 1924 to remove sludge, open and close gates, constantly check things, etc. The grounds need to be maintained as well.  That facility also reminded me just how little trouble we've had with city water here (we are on a well right now, but we have been on city water in the past).  I can't recall more than 2 or 3 times that there was a boil water mandate, maybe 2-3 times where they told us not to water lawns, and it never tasted bad. It's quite literally a well oiled machine run 24/7 with rigorous testing daily.  Both of our tour guides LOVE their job.  They were well versed in their jobs, which includes all the steps.  In treatment.  It was neat to see how the water treatment plant takes water out of the White River (from Broad Ripple area) and then downstream the waste water plant treats their intake and puts it back into the White River. Both facilities were humongous of course.  A lot of it doesn't look pretty or isn't up to date decor wise, but like one guide said in their sample testing lab, most of their equipment is old, but it still works well, so why replace it.  They manual test and electronically test, don't worry. He also said that water bottling companies aren't held to the same high standards, so you never know what you are getting in those bottles.

Our tours started at 11 and we ended the field trip at 4:30.  We scooted back into our neighborhood to pick up Abishai, but because of miscommunication, we couldn't get back into the house because Jared had my house keys.  So, I ran Keturah over to dance class, drove to church to pick up house keys, went back to the house (Abishai was asleep by now so he missed all of this), got the cookies Justin made for his small group, dropped him off at small group, drove back over to pick up Keturah, and then finally drove back home.  I was driving for almost 3 hrs straight, ugh! None of us got a proper dinner either.  But I did get to drive on most of Franklin Township's roundabouts, including our own that opened up yesterday! But I drove too fast and rough and Abishai ended up throwing up in the grass as soon as we got home. Then I had to figure out how to get Justin home from group.  Thankfully, Benaiah answered my text and picked him up for me.  But come to find out, none of the students went to group because they were all at band practice or something. That means Justin had 4 youth leaders to himself!  He said they played video games, ate pizza and cookies, and just talked back and forth.  Crazy! No one usually gets that kind of attention in our ginormous youth group! Sweet!

But now we are all exhausted, underfed, and not ready to do anything but sleep.  We'll have to catch up on school tomorrow and play the rest of the day by ear.  I didn't get groceries done so I'll have to do that tomorrow, too. It was perfect weather to be outside near all the stinky tanks.  There was a nice breeze blowing and it was about 78 degrees.  I forgot sunscreen on myself, but I wore a longer short sleeve so my scar was covered. Plus the hard hat helped keep my face shaded. We walked lots and lots of steps, so probably miles.  We did get to bring in sack lunches, too.  The people were super friendly.  All of this is just another benefit of homeschooling.  What school group gets to get the "plumbers' tour" of wastewater and water treatment plants? None.  And yet, these two plants are essential to all of our daily life.  One reminder of course from the wastewater guy, don't put baby wipes, tapons or anything else not biodegradable down the toilet.  He said they found pants, underwear, and even 2 $100 bills! One person said, if it doesn't come out of your body, you shouldn't flush it.

Long, exhausting day, but it was worth it.  We met some new people, too.  Now onward towards the weekend.

Today was the national See You At the Pole event that started 30 years ago where students gather around their school's flagpole to pray for their schools, teachers, administration, etc.  I saw pictures from many of our areas schools on Instagram and here is Southside Christian School praying for it.

Probably the one and only time that Ava and Benaiah are allowed to hold hands at school.  Nice nearly matching shoes, too.

I found this on Facebook, beautiful, eh?  It's the outline of Michigan using the red leaves!

They let us take a few pictures at the wastewater plant, but not the water treatment plant.  Here is Justin and I's selfie.  Yes, he's really getting that tall!

Keturah in a hard hat.

This is why you don't put grease down the drain.  This is a completely covered tank with probably a couple of inches of grease, kind of dried up n top and cracked.

Here's the cleaner water after the big stuff and grease is removed.

Even cleaner water.

A dry tank at the wastewater plant.  They are doing a lot of maintenance on their 2nd primary tanks.

This is where the microbes are added.  They eat the nasty stuff.

Getting cleaner.

This is an ongoing project to build storage tanks underground of raw sewage for when we have big rain events especially.  Then the plant will catch up once the emergency is over.

Just a few old things on these plants.  When we lived in Beech Grove, our water was handled by the Indianapolis Water Company and the wastewater was dealt with by Beech Grove Waste Water/trash company of some sort. Citizens Energy bought out IWC in 2011.

Yup, good article!

We walked a TON today!

P.S. We also got to see a backwash procedure where they clean out the tanks and sludge.  Fascinating, but I think some of the chlorine became airborne.

Thursday. Oh my goodness, I am sore.   It took a lot of effort to get going this morning. I hadn't walked that many steps in one day in awhile. Plus all the driving, despite having Jared's backbrace in the car, always hurts me.  I don't know how my mom survived (oh wait she didn't really, did she) trucking us around town every day from 3pm to 10pm.  Well off and on, but yes, she made multiple trips to different activities every week.  Oh my goodness, I'm just like my mother, again! Lol.  Only on one day though, and every other day I have an appointment.  But this year, I'm spending maybe 30-60 minutes with Justin and 60-90 minutes with Keturah on one on one teaching time and my mom used to have all of us slated in 60 minute time slots where we would do the same thing, and she'd have to be done with us before the start of the afternoon activities.  Yikes! Why do I have to be so like my mom?! It's a good/bad thing for sure. Although, I can say I'm seeing doctors 100x more than she ever did, and I don't smoke.  Oh how I wish my mother was here to help with Keturah's attitude.  She did raise three girls that are all responsible adults.

Anyway, I do enjoy front loading our week with heavy schooling and then we can relax a bit more towards the end of the week.  It definitely helps this tired mama. I took Abishai outside and we blew bubbles and chased them for at least 30 minutes.  School was fine today. I went to my counseling appointment.  Then I stopped at Kroger to make new house keys after last night's snafu and I must have giggled the key at the wrong moment because now the new ones don't work in the door and there's a bit more that needs cut.  So I'll call the company tomorrow.  It's a little kiosk machine, so I'm sure Kroger doesn't actually handle it.  I did seem some interesting pumpkins there that I might get to add to the decorations I got from Aldi's tonight.  I stopped at the library and then came home.  Dinner was pizza and salad, and then we got a very light load of groceries. Justin stayed home because he had told his "semi professional" team on Overwatch that he'd be on at 7:30pm. I didn't have a piano lesson because I was supposed to go to the Christian College Fair, but Benaiah was scheduled for drumming at Shelby St. and had rehearsal and my friend and her daughter wasn't interested in going anymore.  After we put away groceries, both middle kids took showers and I made up roller bottles of the new blends I need for my headaches and scar. I did buy cheap, very small bottles so we'll see how it goes.  I don't tend to use up roller bottles, so hopefully I'll waste less this time.  It will save me from opening the sticky Myrrh bottle especially.  I don't know how or why, but Myrrh is so sticky! And I realized I'm out of Frankincense.  One simply cannot be out of that! If you don't know which essential oil to use, start with Lavender and Frankincense.

And now I'm just exhausted and hurting some more.  I'm done.

Our field trip crew.  Don't we look great in our hard hats?

Bwahahahaha! Benaiah does NOT follow this, lol.

He wanted to be near Mommy so he came in my room carrying his breakfast.

I wore out Abishai by blowing bubbles.  I had no idea that he was still into them.  But I love it when he asks for me to play and I actually have the time to do it.

The only problem is, between the grass, and possibly chiggers or mosquitoes, the poor kid now has a ton of red bug bites on his ankles and lower legs. He's not complaining about him, but the bug bites to swell up a lot like my sister Stefanie's do.  Poor little guy.

We found a new way to pop bubbles!  On our back kicking the air!

Laughing and giggling!

And, a banana phone:

Meanwhile, Benaiah just walked in at 10:45, 45 minutes after mandatory curfew by law because he just had to have macaroni and cheese from Noodles Company and had to go to Kroger to buy gifts for Ava.  Boy, you better not get caught!

The End