Monday, Monday, typical Monday. Abishai ended up in our bed, but we only slept until 8. I wish it had been 9, but that's ok, Abishai is always our little guy to get us up and moving. Jared, of course,was already out the door, so it was just me. I just love rolling over and waking up to a little guy next to me. It certainly doesn't happen that often, but I'll soak it in while I can. I'm grateful that all of our kids have had pretty decent sleeping patterns and 98% of the time, they have slept in their own beds. But there is just something special of snuggling next to a little one from time to time, especially one that will sing, "Good morning to you!" in the sweetest voice! Anyway, Justin woke up a little bit after us, but Keturah wasn't awake until 12pm!!!! I guess Sunday wore her out again. She also woke up with a sore ankle. She thinks she hurt it when (get this!) she ran from the chapel back to the East Hall to pick up where they had left off in their video game! GRRRRRR. You aren't at church to play video games! I know it's a way to connect with each other, but still, I wish they didn't. And after the second service, she ran after Jenna and her friends, too. Throughout the day, she seemed to ignore the pain, but then would complain about it if I asked her to do something. Oh no, you are not milking this, child. We can all limp from one place to another and still get stuff done, no matter how slowly we need to go.
Anyway, while I waited for Justin to do his homework so we could go over it, and Keturah to get up so I could do our together first before her other work, I puttered around picking up clutter, putting away paperwork, sending out some messages, etc. And I procrastinated yet again on calling the IRS or Medicaid about a medical bill from May. I just don't want to sit on the phone. But I have another chance tomorrow to do it. Instead, after getting school done, I took Abishai to drop off recycling, visit Daddy at work (where he willingly ran 12 laps around the couches as fast as he could), and then to the library to pick up some books I had ordered and to drop off an overdue DVD. Very necessary errands, and it helped keep Abishai from being bored, but then I wasn't home to make phone calls. Justin had his screen time in peace and Keturah finished her homework. She is grounded from electronics for two days again because of her shouting at me all day today. It's pretty typical of her to do that after a day out of the house, and we do need to find a more constructive way of dealing with it. One way is to let her sleep as long as needs to. Another way I've been trying is to not shout back and to just ignore her comments as much as I can. And, if she's really arguing about an assignment, I throw up my hands and tell her she's going to have to do it with Dad when he gets home. That usually does the trick. Today was just a bit more frustrating because she was arguing about black and white instructions that were plain as day. It's like she doesn't live in the real world and ignores what's right in front of her. That's when I get super frustrated and start losing my cool. Pre teen girls, at least this one, are very hard to deal with. I'm grateful that I've had a break between the "difficult" children, i.e. Benaiah was pretty argumentative, too, and lied about doing his homework as a 7th/8th grader when I was busy with Abishai being an infant. I've definitely learned from that and have treated Justin and Keturah differently because of that. Justin is my peacemaker, so he tries to argue, but doesn't push very hard. I can let him play around on his phone for awhile in the morning because I can trust he will get his homework done to almost my level of standard by lunchtime or early afternoon.
I just keep praying for a breakthrough with Keturah. I'm not giving up, but sometimes I wish I could. I'm praying she grows out of this or I can find new ways to reach her. We have an oppurtunity to ride horses together at a ministry that a guy at a church Gary was visiting has in Ohio. And I have every intention of trying to get over to Julie's house in Acton on a weekly basis once the weather cools down a bit and I'm passed my other surgery. I didn't start riding horses regularly until I was 13 or 14, so we still have a little bit of time to fit that in. These are just tough years but I only have one shot at this. I'm doing my best and God will fill in the rest. God will grab her attention and her heart someday. We just have to keep praying. Just like someday I will talk to my sister Kristina again. It's been over 9 years since we have spoken, since we argued I should say. It makes me very sad and frustrated that she won't talk to me. But, if we both end up at my sister Stefanie's wedding next year, it's going to be awkward if we haven't tried to send some messages back and forth before then. So, I keep praying about that. As I've said before, family is the most important asset you have. You don't get to choose your family, but you only typically have that one blood related family. So, you try to make it work at least on your end. Sigh.
Ok, moving on. It was a hot one again today. I can't wait for it to cool off so I can feel safe going out again. I had a headache come on again from dehydration today. We don't typically take a fall break because we start so much later than everyone else, but if we have a string of gorgeous days in October, I just might and line up some fun places to go. That all depends on how I feel after my surgery on Oct. 8th. The rest of this week is fairly quiet except for Wednesday when I have my chiropractic appointment (note to self: never go longer than 4 weeks between visits, I'm in so much pain!), and then hopefully get home in time to eat something and take Keturah to dance, Justin to small group, pick up Keturah, go to the grocery store while we wait for Justin to be done, pick up Justin and then go home for the night. Phew! It should work out perfectly, including the added time for lots of traffic. And this week, I'm going to have Jared take the van to work so we can have a/c in the car as we drive back and forth.
For now, I'm waiting on Benaiah to get home from work because I forgot to ask him about how his piano audition went yesterday, and I like to get a sound bite of how his day went and if he needs to vent/get advice. A lot of times he doesn't need anything, but there have been times where he has spilled his guts to me and I'm so grateful that I get to listen in to his life story. If I can rebuild my relationship with him, hopefully I can get through this stage with Keturah and become good "friends" when she's an adult. We'll see.
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| Benaiah sleeping in the "football: goal" (arms above his head) position that he did when he was a baby. Awww, big baby! |
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| Abishai trying to figure out how to get the magnetic marbles in the right places according to colors and numbers at the library. He didn't spend that much time playing and he asked to leave within 15 minutes or so. But he did pick out his own books and DVD. |
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| He even carried some of the books and insisted that we use the crosswalk. He also asked about the bikes in the bike rack outside and why one person put their bike inside. |
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| Bedtime reading with Daddy. |
Why can't every day in a single week go well? Or rather, why can't I feel good every day for a week straight? Abishai slept with us again this morning and we didn't sleep well. And then he was ready to get up at 8. I had an extremely hard time waking up. I just knew it was going to be one of those days where my patience was short and it was going to be challenged. And no, no amount of "I'm going just sing the joy of the Lord and it will all be better" will fix it. Nope. So when Keturah woke up after 11am and then was snottier and angrier than ever and shouted at me from the get go, it didn't take me long to grit my teeth through some of it, and then give up and let Jared handle it later. Well, he just happened to be out for the evening, so I still was left in charge. I hate that. I'm tryng to separate the duties of teacher and parent, trying to delegate some of the teaching/parenting to Jared so I'm not so worn out, and trying to get Jared to bond with the kids more. So I'm pretending like I'm the teaching who sent home an assignment and the parent and child have to figure out the assignment together. That means Jared HAS to read the actual assignment and not just say, "Just get it done." He has to check it before it goes back in the "schoolbag." I know that's normally the mom's job, but since I'm the teacher, and I know there are single fathers out there, it's his turn to step up the plate. I can only take 4 hrs of being shouted at in one day. I'm just plain exhausted.
But, I did finally get a step done in figuring our 2018 taxes! I filed our taxes 7 months ago and there's no sign of a refund And the taxpayer advocate service were the only ones who could tell me why. Something to do with no 1099 for my schedule C! Hello! I've filed many schedule C's in the past and have never been flagged. And why couldn't the IRS just write me a letter and ask about it? Good grief! I've never had the IRS be so non communicative whether it's been our personal taxes or when I worked as the accountant for Crescent Project. So now our file has a case number and has been sent over to the local office downtown and they are supposed to call me on Friday. I hate that, too. I have to trust them to make the phone call. And then I'll probably miss the phone call. And they said that hopefully it would be resolved by October 31st. Really?! I had to say we are "under hardship" because of this, and really, we are. We've been short every month because I had to pay off a medical bill with a credit card. And then we didn't have cash for car insurance so that went on the credit card. And then the a/c on the van went out and it needs new tires. So, yes, we definitely qualify for hardship. But I was on the phone for over 2 hours! Which means I can't homeschool or do other things I need to do. It's a good thing I cooked food yesterday so we could have leftovers today. So my brain and body are fried. At least I finally got caught up on the YouTube videos I wanted to watch. I LOVE Apologia Church/Radio but most of their videos are an hour long. So, it's taken a while. And I think I've deleted about 1/2 to 1/3 of the videos that the channels I subscribe to have put out in the last two months. I can't listen to the videos as I say, cook dinner, because it's too noisy and get too distracted with the chaos of life. So I can only listen/watch at night. I know, first world problems. Moving on.
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| Hm,....I wonder where I'm landing right now... |
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| I did take note of some cool rainbows from the sunlight coming through the front door all the way to the dining room. They moved/the sunlight shifted pretty quickly within minutes. |
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| And then there were, too. |
Abishai, Socks, and I went on a walk to Grandma's house while the weather was still cool and I was waiting for Keturah to wake up and Justin to do his work. Abishai got to play hide and seek, Scrabble, and bowling with Grandma. Socks barked at the new neighbor's yippy dog, and played along with hide and go seek. Abishai used Socks as his guide dog and an old wireless phone in his hunt for Grandma. It was so cute! We also saw a 4 inch cicada on Grandma's window screen!
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| Why is he so cute, but man, so exhausting? Time to change the pjs he's been wearing for 48hrs. But how can he get into so much so quickly? Although he did stay relatively quiet for 2 hrs without electronics while I was on the phone. |
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| I spent 2 hrs on this phone call today just so they could transfer my file over to someone else who is supposed to call me on Friday just to tell me I need a 1099 and I don't have a 1099. I think I'm going to go insane! Just give me my money dumbnuts! |
Wednesdays have become exhausting days! Well, school went well because the kids had to be up and do Grandpa Bible class at 9:30am. Hopefully that showed Keturah that getting up when the rest of us get up helps you accomplish things sooner in your day and then you can go play instead of doing assignments right before bedtime. The assignments that she and Dad did last night were perfectly fine and acceptable. I don't know if she's just trying to get attention and needs our time, or she's acting out because we haven't had much individual time with her lately, but she was much calmer today. But as I wrote on Facebook just now, I saw a couple of Benaiah's peers show off their early acceptance to college letters and it made me completely jealous and grieve again over how he doesn't care to do things the way I did it (aka study for and take the ACT/SAT multiple times, dual credit classes, apply to 100 scholarships, etc) and how much I've missed in the goals I had for him and each of the kids in sending him off to SCS. I'm never ok with "just good enough." I want excellence. And it's very, very hard to accept people who don't think that way. Jared tends to be that way, too, and it's frustrating. And I've felt it sometimes that I want to be lazy or I give up on something for awhile, but then I dig in and get all gun ho for it again. I'm an achiever. I'm a Type A perfectionist. I strive hard to achieve my goals. And when I miss them, like I feel like I have with my children, I feel riddled with grief and guilt and wonder how the families I idolize do it. Sigh.
Otherwise, the evening running around went very smoothly. Traffic wasn't too bad. We made it to our destinations with a few minutes to spare each time. This time, we dropped Keturah off at dance, drove over to Meijer to pick up dog food, dropped off Justin at small group, went back to pick up Keturah, went back again to Aldi's (across from Meijer) for the regular groceries (before they closed at 8) and then back over to get Justin from small group. Total time out: 3 hrs. Phew! The kids did try to help put away groceries when we got home, but I just didn't want to delegate the responsibility so I shooed them out. Even Benaiah asked if he could help when he came home from his own small group. He might help with transporting Justin but first wanted to figure out if his new Wednesday routine would work out. He is using his extra time at church to do homework and practice piano for Crave. So, I powered through and now I'm done with life.
Oh yeah, and Jared keeps opening up the windows to cool the house down overnight but then we are all suffering with allergies. I just felt my throat glands and they are very swollen. My nose was also out of control while we were out. Ugh. At least I got into my chiropractor today and he worked on me a bit. I feel a bit stiff still, but at least I know my back is aligned and I only had 4 vertebrae out. Meanwhile, Abishai did his thing with playing and screentime. He did a great job spending all that time in the car. And he and Keturah were pretty good in the grocery store. Justin did help well when we were in Meijer for the dog food. I detoured to look at shoes and Justin pushed me along. I did buy some that were $9 each. They were the same exact shoe, only different color and one was 1/2 size bigger. I hope I don't regret buying them because I didn't get a chance to go through my normal hemming and hawing over them. They are slingbacks with pointy toes but suede like, perfect for fall maybe? And closed toe, which I have to have because my toenails are nasty. Perfect with skinny jeans and no socks? Perfect covered up a little bit by normal jeans so that socks can be covered? We'll see!
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| Definitely need to remember this. |
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| Hahahahaha! This must be from another homeschooler! We seem to be the only ones to check out these kinds of books! The little yellow post its are the birth/death dates for each person. Cracks me up! |
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| I didn't read through it, but I thought it would be a fun review and preview to remind us of some of the important people. |
And that's all the pics I took today. Maybe I'll get a picture of Abishai's pumpkin bucket I bought him at Meijer (the kind you go trick or treating with). He put his fruit snacks in it and says he will only eat one a day. It's now on the dining room table. He did associate it with Halloween because all his YouTube shows have Halloween episodes. But I tried to explain to him that we don't go trick and treating, but we do like pumpkins and carve funny faces in them. I did think about putting out fake pumpkins at our front door this year and Aldi's had a small hay ball for sale. I might get it next time around. I need to pull out the fall decor anyway. Hm,....
Oh boy, where did my Thursday go? Another early start by Abishai, but he's too cute when he's asking you to get up and read to him. Once I finally go the morning routine done, Abishai and I played a regular full round with all the rules of Candyland! Yes, I made him follow the rules this time and he actually listened and stayed in the game until both of his characters won fair and square! Grandma and I both haven't made him follow the rules of any game because he either doesn't understand or doesn't have the patience. But now he thinks he can just make up the rules or push the pieces of the board of any game whenever he gets bored and wants to be done. Nope, not this time, buddy. Candyland is great practice for learning to take turns and follow the rules. Then I let him ride his bike outside while I scrolled through my pictures to see if there were any more flowers I need to make holes for in the black netting, flowers that might have flowered and died off in the spring time. And I'm happy to say, I got them all! Now, I think the weeds are still growing under the black stuff because it's now rising, so we need to get mulch soon. IPL never emailed me back, so I think I'll just call up Wanamaker Feed and Seed and see what I can get. I'd prefer to buy in bulk, i.e. put a tarp in Benaiah's truck and fill it up. That's a Jared project.
After outdoor time, Abishai and I went inside and we organized his new pj's. He let go of most of his old pjs and it makes me sad that he and Keturah especially let go of things easily. I do ask them multiple times and then sigh and move on myself. I do NOT want to squelch their ability to let go. They definitely need to learn to declutter better than I do. Then we had lunch. And then....
At around 12:55pm, I saw Socks nosing around and possibly eat the mushrooms we've been trying to get rid of for two years. Oh my goodness, I didn't panic, but my friend's reaction made me panic. We were supposed to go over to Leah's house for dessert to meet with some old friends from Illinois or wanted to see the kids and then I was to leave to go to my counseling appointment at 3pm. I spent the next 90 minutes calling up the ASCPA animal poison hotline, texting Jared, Leah, and Alisha, trying to make the dog vomit, desperately looking up what kind of mushroom and fungicide it was, joining a FB group to identify the mushroom, etc. etc. Socks has had no symptoms of poisoning, but what a rush. I'm exhausted from it, and then Abishai wondering when we are going to Grandma's. It cost $75 to talk to vet on the helpline, but then you get a case number and call back as many times as you need to without more fees. It was definitely worth $75 to talk to a real vet instead of calling a local vet would want us to go see them and cost so much more. Basically, I didn't get Socks to vomit, and he's had no symptoms. There's two groups of mushrooms, one affects them in 1-4 hrs and the other group affects them in 10-24 hrs. We are passed the 9 hrs mark now so I think he's fine.
So, I took the kids and the dog to Grandma's house, so that Grandma could look after the dog and the kids could visit with the Illinois people while I went to my appointment. They all were fine there. I went to Kroger afterwards to find the matching white and gold pumpkin with a B on it for Benaiah, but I couldn't find the display. Well, I went online to Kroger and found the bigger size with a B on it, in stock at our Kroger, but not at other Krogers, so, I quickly decided to try out the "pickup" service where you drive up to the side of the building and an employee loads up the groceries you bought online that they bagged up for you. It's free for the first 3 times, so today's pickup order was free. I did go ahead and order it online so that I would be guaranteed to get it. But now I'm worried that they won't package up the item until the hour before I pick it up and it won't be there anymore. I did say "substitute with a similar item" but what would be similiar? Will they contact me first? I have no idea. Crossing my fingers because I really want to have a matching set! I don't know why Benaiah didn't get one to represent himself in the first place. Oh well. I'm still going to try.
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| Waiting on Mommy to finish with the vet so we can go to Grandma's house. Abishai had his bag packed and ready to go 2 hrs ahead of time. He then stayed at Grandma's until I got him. He loves going to visit her even for an hour a time. So sweet! And I know she loves it, too! |
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| What the mushrooms looked like last year. |
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| From last August. Ewww..... |
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| These are the bad boys. Jared had sprayed fungicide on it about 5 days ago and it's been dry and hot. These have been in the yard for 2 yrs, so I don't know why Socks would possibly be interested in them. I hope he just sniffed around the grass or something. |
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| But now I know how to handle a dog that needs to vomit. You give them 3 tablespoons of peroxide. I didn't have time to force feed him it but now I'll be ready for next time. This mushroom is called armillaria, which is also called ringless honey mushrooms and low on toxicity. The fungicide is called propiconozole and is also very low on the toxicity scale. By low I mean it's not toxic unless they ingest a ton. Jared also mentioned that the fungus that is killing the trees is verticillium, but someone in the emergency mushroom identificaiton group said it grows on the mushroom and they are two separate organisms. Jared's just concerned about the verticillium because it's what is affecting the trees. |
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| These mushrooms grow in the grass that is shaded by the big tree and is about 6-10ft away from the trunk of that tree. They showed up last year as well, but darker. So, I got quick education on how to handle a dog that has been potentially poisoned, who to call, how much it costs, etc. You never know when you have to quickly learn something new. And see, this is what I mean by trying to teach the kids how to problem solve. I had to know who to contact, so I contacted my friend who probably has had to deal with it before. Then I called that number, relayed the relevant information, found the peroxide, followed through with it (although Socks wouldn't drink it), make quick decisions about who was going to watch the dog and where while I went to my appointment, etc etc. I did alot of looking up quickly pictures of the mushrooms, joining the emergency FB group, calling the vet back, writing down the info and asking follow up questions. I know I have more experience than they do, but that's the end goal when I say "go figure it out for yourself." I've heard many many stories of orphaned kids 100 years ago (or more) having to figure out how to live on the streets, or how a college drop out figured out how to become a CEO of a big company, or Joseph and Mary having to figure out what to do when Jesus was born. Surely an 11 and 14 yr old can figure out things as well. Abishai certainly can. He wanted a banana. I said I would give him a half a banana when I got up. Less than a minute later, he came in showing me half of a banana he cut himself. He had observed how we cut bananas in half and did the same thing. I hope he never losses that ability to observe and do. |
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| Wow, the original bunker, probably my favorite one. It was under the nightclub in season 1-3 I think. Anyway, there's a short season 8 coming out of Arrow so they can do one last crossover in December/January. I have followed along watching video about the new seasons but I'm definitely not as interested as I once was. And I definitely am not interested in Stephen Amell's next project having to do with professional wrestling. Nope. I've moved on. |
The End
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