Year 5, June 12th-14th, 2020: Negotiations

Ah, productive Friday. Now, how do I figure out what's bugging the big man? Then my world would be closer to perfect. Isn't it something that when you are happy and balanced, your spouse isn't feeling it? That's why you can't base your relationship on the day to day but on the overall growth. There's ebb and flow and sometimes you meet in the middle, maybe one a month, am I right? Ok, hopefully more than once. Anyway, today was great because I kept at my list doing the things I probably should do. Justin mowed. I sent an order for photo prints for Benaiah's graduation.  I exercised. I made a nice dinner. I sat outside for a little bit. I still have no clue when we'll go grocery shopping or when the pool will be finished. Sigh. When it depends on me, I can get my to do list done. But as soon as I'm waiting, waiting, waiting for others, I get frustrated. And tired of being the fire and then called out on poking everybody and bossing everybody around. Come on. Up. Let's go. I don't care how you feel. We have to. Oh, that's just me making myself do something. Not today. Today was a good motivation day. Probably because I had a few days "off" that happens every month.

It was a gorgeous day otherwise and I wish we had somewhere to go. But I have to plan that. I guess I can just sit outside and binge watch stuff while I wait. Oh yeah, we did complete the melting crayons project and I pressed flowers today. And someone was selling an old floor lamp that matches exactly the one we had a long time ago and the lamps we still have, so bingo! I scooped that right up. It was a Creek member who was selling things for her elderly neighbor. So sweet. She gave me a hug, too, and a discount (but I don't think she made any firm connections to Gary). Anyway, it's perfect for the living room (see below). No more Christmas lights are needed! Although, I hardly notice them myself. Now, to convince Jared to take a day off and run errands with me like to buy a garage fridge or new phones or whatever. Sigh. But work can be demanding and constant, too. I bet I could ask him what is the best day of the week to take off. We can't do everything on Saturday.

Ok, that's enough. I don't have much else to say. Benaiah worked a full shift and then went on date night with Ava. Um, you spent a lot of time with her this week you know. And then I get jealous that Jared has never planned date night. And he's over there just sulking for no good reason. I'm going to have to drag him out of the house soon I think. We could watch a movie together. We could sleep in tomorrow when the kids go work at Grandma's house. And this is the first weekend Gary is traveling again. Which makes me mad. It makes me mad that we finally say yes to visiting (Jared's fault) and now Gary is ready to fly the nest (Gary's fault). So much wasted time over the last three months of working on relationships because Jared refused to go out and Gary refused to stay in the way we wanted him to. So disappointing. So status quo. We were supposed to leave quarantine/lockdown changed. Nope. Not us. Not here. I'm bummed about that. We have some house projects done, so at least we have that. But it seems so trite compared to real world problems. That I can't solve. So, I'll stay in my lane. And now I'm really done.

Baby bunnies are still alive and getting some fur!

Bummers! Keturah messed with this after I took this picture. I was going to see if Mama would come and nurse babies tonight and move the leaf. We'll see what it looks like in the morning.

Awww, they wrote this week's blog post together!

Melting crayons to make new ones! Yes, I realized that we should have done it by color but I wanted to see if we could get multi colored ones, too.  I'm glad I added the parchment paper. We used the sun instead of the oven to melt them. And just as long as you didn't giggle the muffin tray, they colors stayed separated.

Looks like Abishai permanently moved into the tent. Considering that he has never had his own room before, I think he likes having his own space. He even kept going in there to change. Cutie.

Books, blankets, pillows, lamps, underwear, pjs, day clothes, and toys. What else do you need?

I opened my "Yale" huge edition of Shakespeare's Complete Works because it's the only book I've used to press flowers. It was on our list today of fun summer activities. Unfortunately, these flowers from my mom's funeral didn't turn out so well. I bet it had to do with moving and high temps in garages.

These are from the Beech Grove house for sure. Some might have been store bought flowers. But they are lovely!

Whoops, I didn't take a picture of the huge maple leaf. It could have been from our Beech Grove house or Southeastway Park or it could have been from Canada. I do have one from Canada that is in a picture frame.

Lots of yellow blooms today!

Yellow blooms and red blooms.

Oh wow, time to bring them in. That was fast! Now we have to let them reharden.

I picked a few different things from our house today to represent our time living here. Yes, all freshly picked. Now we have some pressed flowers from many places we've lived. I'm super glad that the summer prompt had this one in it!

When the crayons rehardened, we found that some clear wax base maybe had floated to the top like a layer of fat when you let some homemade chicken stock cool off. The crayons did still work, but not as colorful as I had hoped.

Lego, Lego, Lego. Actually, he had stolen Justin's ship and was changing it all around, making a jail, making a place of the ship's controls, and a place of the guns to be stored. It's usually the same straight forward bad guys vs good guys and good guys always win.  But what was fascinating was that when Keturah said good night to Abishai, she asked him what he was thinking and he said, "I was thinking about the good police putting the bad police in jail with our family." Then a few minutes after she told me this, he trotted over to my desk and said, "Mom, I don't want to hurt the bad police. I want the good police to show the bad police how to bed good." Little ears are listening.

 I wrote this on FB just now after I copied and pasted that caption:

If they only thing you can do is to have discussion with your children about what is going on, then do it. Don't hesitate. You underestimate what they can understand. Be appropriate, of course, but bring it up. Whether it be race, religion, sexual identity, discuss it, share YOUR opinions and whys. Like me, you will want them to think like you do and for the most part they will, but prepared that once they turn 16, they will have to make those beliefs your own. I love African Americans and I love police officers. Abishai loves the Black Panther movie and he loves Lego police animated shows. And yes, of course he used to love Paw Patrol. Don't hide the world from the children. Hide the gruesome parts. Tell him that a police officer killed a black man. Don't tell them how unless they ask. Tell them that some naughty black people made a mess of downtown. But the police protected the nice white and black people that were protesting peacefully. Tell them to love everybody and everybody is a child of God. (Yes, I know the difference between BLM and all lives matter now and share the difference with them.) I'm preaching to the choir, I know. But YOU are your child's primary influence, not their school teacher. Deuteronomy 6: 4-9 (after the 10 commandments were given) "4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."
 

Stefanie was asking about Justin and how big he is now and wants to talk to him about the ADD thing. Here is Stef with Justin aged 3 1/2. So little!

Perfect edition to the room! More light!

Surburbia. Quiet. Safe. #whiteprivilege or rather privileged period. No one else wanted to go outside tonight despite it being so gorgeous! Barely any bugs. Warm, but not muggy. Ah....

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....the worst being Jared being grumpy and not communicating with me. But we'll put that aside because the rest of the day was fun, at least to me!

It was 72 degrees with a cool breeze today, perfect to be outside, so no screen time for anyone! I exercised while the kids went to Grandpa's house to do yardwork and paper shredding. Then we ate lunch and I showered after Justin showered. Jared got started on finishing the pool. The pool did get done today! Mostly. He didn't rinse it out of the other water, but I didn't know that until he was halfway done filling it. So there's still tanins in the bottom. Sigh. He then cleaned up some of Justin's mowing mistakes and burned the leftover pieces of rotten ant infested wood. I then took out one of our summer prompts, the one about using  a sheet as a parachute. Well, as you'll see, that game turned from one thing to another until we had a whole pirate ship thing going! Glorious! That's what I want! Imagination! Except I was the one who had to play and help instead of Keturah and Justin.  I don't know what I did wrong when they were little or maybe it's because their teens but they never played quite like Abishai does. So I'm milking it for all it's worth. I even got Jared to play baseball for a few minutes with Abishai. We finished the day with lots of whining about chores and then I was done. I cleaned up and couldn't handle the negativity anymore. We briefly saw Benaiah before work today.

And now we are all exhausted and I'm weary. Weary of fighting and nasty words and lighting fires under butts and doing it all myself and everyone expecting things to be done. So, I'm done. Weary. It's hard to pull a negative family towards positivity. It's also hard when people tweet about other things that are seemingly more important to them than communicating with you. So, I'll load my pics and do what I can do. That's all I can do.

This was a good few slides on why calling Blacks, Blacks with capital B is what they would prefer. Not all of them can trace their roots back to Africa. Black is what it is then.

Screenshot of Abishai earning his keep today.

Since Keturah poked them yesterday after I did, and then Jared poked them today, I didn't poke them but took a picture (before Jared poked them, bummers) for comparing tomorrow.

Look, Mom, I can climb up the chain! Of course you can! He can hang from the chain, not climb it, but close enough!

Finally! We have the right connector so we can use house water in the pool. This makes me so excited! Clean water going in! It took probably 4 hrs, but it's worth it!

And the set up wasn't too bad either. We could get around it. Thank goodness we have windows between the main house and the sunroom which was the addon. I totally don't mind having the windows because we can close them and it shuts off the sunroom when we have zoom meetings and such. And, it's unique and fun!

Up and over.

Into the pool it goes. It also helps that we have a long hose, and another hose connected to it so we can pull it really far in either direction around the house. We only have the one spigot.

Sorry, Daddy Robin, I didn't mean to bother you and your nest when I banged on Justin's window. Yes, the Robin was tweeting at me angrily.

Another male joined him.

Justin wanted to try and fly. He got it up in the air!

Crash and burn and roll around. The parachute which was just to go up and down, became Abishai wrapped up in it as a slug. And then it was a real parachute for Justin. Then Justin tried to make it a sail for a pirate ship. When he gave up, I tied it to the tire swing and then we continued with the pirate theme for the next two hours.

The tire swing reminds me of a moving target ball toss! Alley oop!

Abishai wanted us to put the bedsheet on our heads and be a monster. You could see the sheet though so that was fun.

I think  I was trying to get Abishai here. But it's a good look at my new pants I'm trying for Israel. They are made of linen so lighter weight than a lot of things. I bought one color in petite size Large and the other two in regular size Large. The petite made them more cropped and less baggy. I think I'll take them with me to the mall with Keturah on Tuesday and see if they have anything in petite size there. Otherwise, they are my fat pants because yes, they have an elastic mid to high waist and big pockets and not fashionable like the 20's and 30's years old. I'm ok with that for Israel because our group is all older people. Just as long as I'm comfortable.

Burning some rotten wood.

My version of the sail for the pirate ship!

The captain steering his ship!

Daddy, come watch me throw the cannonballs! He hid them in the inside part of the tires. Perfect spot!

Today's prompt.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me. Yes, I did bring up the video on YouTube that was the sing along and showed the Disney World Pirates ride, the old one. It's the version I know the best. So cute! Abishai and I had fun bringing everything outside together.

He brought his snack bucket and water bottle, too. Snacks and water for the trip overseas!

First Mate Mom

First Mate Socks

And we added a flag. Canadian of course.

Stopping for a snack.

I sat down by the tree and immediately had a friend. Nice day outside, huh, dog?

New shirt, too. Again, not hip, but it works well with my older woman figure. And it's cool.

What a puppy dog.

Getting there.

Now if we only used our backyard more. We have lots set up, but not enough players.

I found the baseball mitts we were looking for. but they need some serious cleaning. I didn't clean them after the termites got into the cardbox box they were in in the garage. Plus they need oil or something in general.

Eek! Almost ready!

Gorgeous for June! Reminds me of our wedding day which was this cool for the end of July. Slight breeze at 10mph.

All done. Ready to warm up for tomorrow.

Sunday. I had a really rough night of sleep. I woke up at 5:30 from the most horrendous dream that including scenes from lots of other dreams I've had but in an updated way. And each scene had kind of "reset" mode like you'd come back to life again or something and do something different. The one that woke me up was about buying buried alive clutching Jared and Abishai. Yeah, it was that bad. My heart was racing and I was literally in pain from whatever position I was in and my body was tense. No fun. So the day didn't exactly start well, but it ended well. We had church over at the Smith's where we blasted the service from the TV inside the Bible barn and sat outside under their new metal awning and patio furniture and it was so gorgeous outside. Abishai was a hoot when he was playing his Bible app and showing Mrs. Adrienne what the story was about and telling her all the details. Jared made communion bread and everybody ate it. And someone brought doughnuts and cinnamon rolls so the kids enjoyed that. Abishai then scraped his left leg, toe and foot on the cement stair into the Bible barn. It was not fun and he cried and cried. So we took him home. Benaiah stayed home and watched church and went out with Ava for the afternoon. Keturah stayed at Grandma's and shred papers. Abishai and Justin then had haircuts by Mrs. Jennae in our kitchen. Yeah!

Then, I took a nap, or tried to. And Jared and I talked. And we are better now. He doesn't know why he was grumpy this week and that's fine. I told him that yes, I say, "Leave me alone." when I'm moody, and what I mean is leave me alone for a few hrs or overnight, but hit the "reset" button and try again. And talk about normal everyday stuff, not something we argue about. I just can't stand when he and I aren't communicating. We don't even have to come to an agreement about the topic, but just say something to me. I told him I need a clue word or touch that I can give him to let him know I recognize he's depressed or in a mood but I hear him and still love him and I'm here to listen, just don't shut me out for days on end. He's part of my security team. I can't truly relax in his life until I'm next to him. I know that when I watch shows like Amazon's "Victoria" that are romantic and drama I can get all mushy with Jared. And one some level, yes, I do wish he was more romantic. But deeper than that, I know we have that connection that the onscreen couple has. We express it differently, but we have it. So I want to snuggle and be close after watching those things. It's an excellent TV show, too. Jenna Coleman (who played Clara on Doctor Who and I loved her character there, too) plays Queen Victoria and is very, very talented. She started dating her co star, who plays Prince Albert and you can tell they have off screen chemistry. And Queen Victoria's story is quite interesting as well. And just like in Downtown Abby, the show includes romances with the kitchen and waitstaff and shows them interacting, and the common people as well. And it's taking us through major historical events. I looked up Queen Victoria in a couple of British Kings and Queens books I own and it's fairly accurate. I think. I could be wrong. But it's fun anyway. The costumes and sets are incredible. Don't ask me if they are accurate, but they are beautiful!

Ok, after a nap, Jared said, "Let's go be domestic together." Aka, let's get the grocery shopping done. We quickly ate something and set up the kids for Crave and off we went. Got home, unloaded it all and put it away and was off again for a meeting about Benaiah's graduation ceremony. First of all, I bought the same amount of groceries as we did before Covid happened and it cost 150% of what it used to cost. Nearly $300! The prices are much higher now. I'll need to watch myself a bit more on the spending. But we do use every little bit we buy and I whittle down the pantry stuff and stretch as long as we can. I didn't even buy anything in the non food aisle! Good grief! Second, oh, yeah, Abishai wanted to go with us! He said he wanted to go because he wants to go to stores whenever anyone goes. Oh my little extrovert.  He dutifully put on his Avengers mask even before we left the house. And at the store, I only saw him adjust it once to put it back over his nose and he left it alone after that. He didn't complain about it one bit and helped put things in our cart. He didn't even whine when we didn't get any toys. He wanted to help put groceries on the cashier belt and then pack them up when we got to the car. He also puts away all his own snacks, opening the boxes, arranging them in drawers and then tearing down the boxes for recycling. Too cute!

And then we were off to our meeting with Benaiah. Basically, everything had been decided but they wanted to meet in person and answer questions. Relatives are welcome to come into the building and sit as families on June 26th at 7pm. And then for others, it will be broadcasted live on FB live on the SCS FB page for everyone else. Or local friends can come and do banners, balloons, bubbles, etc. in the parking lot for the graduates. You have to social distance, but masks are optional. Cool. Then Benaiah got to joke around with Cameron and show off his tattoo. Jared talked to Mr. Nanney about only teaching if absolutely necessary for a fee. Ugh. But ok, fine, only if they are desperate and I don't want to hear about it. All the seniors will get a chance to share a 2 minute speech as well, so Benaiah is thinking of making it funny and we just rolled our eyes at him.  We did bring up his next steps for church involvement in the fall because they did announce that Indian Creek will open it's doors (tentatively) on Aug 2nd. Because of his work schedule, he doesn't know if or where he can be involved but he still wants to be involved on tech team. He's not really interested in the 20 somethings and college age small group and it meets on Tuesday nights anyway, which is a bummer, but he does have Ethan and Ava and tech team peeps. I'm not worried and I'm not pushing for anything right now.

And that be it. Time to finish up, watch a show, and go to bed. Jared is moving back to the office tomorrow. It's time. I guess.  Everybody seems ok with that. And now that we have the pool ready to go, we'll enjoy that this week as the weather warms up again. And Keturah's birthday is on Tuesday, dentist appointments on Wednesday, and the rest of the normal stuff. Fun times. And Benaiah's graduation/open house invites came in so I'll work on those this week. Yeah!

Walking to church like they did way back in the day. Too cool for school. Jared carried his tea in his backpack.

Abishai was so excited to play with Lucky and wnated to bring Socks with us.

Haircut day! Justin got this much hair removed from his head! Lots of hair thinning so he can make it "piecy" with some hair product.

Abishai's hair.

So much older looking!

Much better.

Looking like the 5 1/2 yr old he is!

So much hair! They hadn't had haircuts for probably 14 weeks!

Our best helper at the grocery store!

Wearing his mask like a champ.

This is why I don't like that Jared keeps opening the windows at night. Yes, it cools down the house because we have that big house fan that brings in the cool air, but it also brings in the pollen. My throat is so itchy from it.

Gorgeous day, again! But, I had to nap in my bed because I was in a lot of pain today. Otherwise I would have napped outside in the breeze! I wanted to lay down on the Smith's outdoor sofa and take a nap right then and there! It reminded me of my swing in Beech Grove that I really want to repurchase for this house. Sigh.

The End