The J6 Journey: Year 5, October 9th-11th, 2020: Busiest Social Weekend to Date!

Phew! We have a busy weekend of socializing ahead! Who knew we could actually do this again? Is it Monday yet? First social day is in the books! I had my friend Maria come over for tea. Boy do I want to have more people in my home one on one like this! I don't mind having people over in my own space. I just get nervous going other places for silly reasons like, "Am I going to get hungry and there's nothing I can eat?" or "What if I get sick?" or "Where is the bathroom?" Anyway, it's nice to be in the comfort of your own home, that's for sure. And we set this house up SO we can be more hospitable. Maria and I had a great visit. Abishai entertained us like he does for all our guests. Keturah and Justin spent the morning diligently doing their homework. I didn't get a chance to check it today, but I'll get to it eventually, no worries. Even if it sits until Monday. I'm tired, we have a very busy weekend, etc. That's the beauty of homeschooling, I can just push off the bookwork and enjoy doing other things with people. Like today. Before I took the boys to park day, I finally got the chance to drop Keturah off to my friend Julie's house to help her with her animals. It's not Julie's fault. She has her own health conditions, her twins just graduated high school and left home, and she's just been busy. But now that that part is settled, and she's pretty much on her own to take care of her hobby farm, I wanted to finally take the step and have Keturah help her and learn from her. I felt bad that I couldn't stay with Keturah this time, and I even had to leave Keturah alone for a little bit because Julie wasn't quite home yet, but I just told her to stay out of the pens because dealing with animals is a high risk thing/sport. Respect the animals, that's for sure. So, I dropped her off, petted the horses, and off we went to park day.

We only had one other family show up but we had some good conversation. Abishai was a bit shy at first, but eventually he was playing on the playground, no problem. None of Justin's friends came but he was patient and just sat playing on his phone and getting his steps and exercise in. We did leave earlier than normal at 3:30pm because Justin needed to eat and get cleaned up so I could take him to church. He had already showered but insisted he needed another one. I think his phone is severely distracting him because he was taking forever. I was trying to get him to hurry along and drop him off early to work at church so I could get back to Julie's house quickly. Keturah had been there for 3 hrs already. My friend Julie is extremely generous, loving, hard working and sweet. I knew she wouldn't mind the back and forth and such being a mom of 5 grown kids. But, I didn't want to overstay Keturah's welcome and exhaust her, knowing she was already exhausting herself. And that's one of the biggest reasons that now is finally the right time to have Keturah go over and help her and learn. Keturah's old enough to take care of herself by herself. She's also been studying horse books and learning all the names of things and how to care for them, just like I did. (Yes, I'm highly encouraging her as she has interest and not trying to relive my childhood through her). Keturah is big enough to really be a physical help to Julie as well. With all her kids being grown and gone, she simply doesn't have the manpower she needs to care for 2 regular sized horses, two mini horses, two mini donkeys, two goats, a dozen chickens, and two geese. Never mind 3 cats and a dog on the property as well. And she's got tack and barn stuff everywhere because the barn was not properly rebuilt after the huge fire they had 4 years ago and the builders won't fix it. And someone wants their semi trailer back where she had been storing her stuff. So, it's a big mess. Her house is a mess as well with different projects. She isn't a messy person, it's just that like me, she can't do it by herself. So, it's appropriate for Keturah now to come and help her for free in order to learn and serve someone else in exchange for hands on learning and some basic riding instruction in the future. Bartering. It's what I did. I didn't own a horse, but I had access to it all because I cleaned several stalls/fed horses 3 times a week. And took care of the horse I was "free leasing" and cleaned the tack and such. It was a small barn with 4-6 horses. But boy in the muddy spring, it was very hard. And all winter, and the heat of the summer for several years. Best years of my life, really. With a very kind older lady watching over everything. Fond memories for sure.

So, I would like this to be at least a weekly thing. Julie lives 5 minutes up the road from us. Her grandson Aiden is 3 and would love to have Abishai as a playmate. We are finally going to make it happen. I know that park days are ending in a few weeks, but we could still make Fridays our play day at Julie's or I drop Keturah off while we are at homeschool park day or whatever. And soon enough, Keturah can go do things by herself. Julie is also lonely. She's used to having a lot of kids around and their friends and feeding them all. It's too quiet for her. So I know having someone else around will help fill that void a little. It's a win win. I always knew it would be. I'm grateful for our mutual friend Alisha to introducing us 4 years ago on my birthday in 2016 when we came back from Canada. It's a blessing to have someone with a hobby farm just up the road to fulfill a couple of wants, Keturah doing the horse thing, Abishai potentially having a new friend and getting to spend lots of time with animals. Abishai got to climb the hay bales, feed the chickens, pet all the animals, ask questions, climb the fences, spread out hay and it was not at all planned. It was so sweet! He talked to all the animals, "Here you go, neigh neigh, come get your water." He did get pecked by a chicken, which stopped him for a moment, but he toughed it out. He did get very, very crazy at the end and needed to come home. We had gone into Julie's house and ended up seeing her husband's Marvel collection and playing with Aiden's toys. The reason I dropped Justin off first was because I knew we would be talking for awhile at Julie's. We were there for 2 1/2 hrs. She just needed a listening ear! All told, Keturah was there for 5 1/2 hrs! Crazy! But awesome, and grateful.

So, I've had one on one back to back conversations with 3 people today! I'm actually feeling pretty good about all of them, and not too mentally tired because it was all, not surface level talk, but not heavy duty argumentative either. Just chit chat, and a lot of listening, lol. Tomorrow I will need to spend a bit of time catching up (zoo blog still isn't done). And I have no idea if I will get to the fall clothes this weekend or not. But next week is very, very quiet, and I'm not worried about it. We need these social days, too. You can't stay home all the time. You don't have to stick to the same routine every week. You don't have to do bookwork every day to have a great week. Abishai and I haven't sat done to do bookwork since Tuesday. But you know what? He learned so much this week! From going to the zoo, to seeing how to be hospitable to impromptu playing at a hobby farm (for free! no need to go to a petting zoo and pay big bucks!) Abishai and Keturah both got so relaxed, they took off their shoes! Not around the animals of course. Always wear closed toe shoes around animals. Always. So, it was a very full, happy day. Tomorrow will be more restful.

Jared just came in and went back out. Apparently his friend needed to talk. Which meant I was doing bedtime. Sigh. Abishai was very sleepy, thank goodness, but now it's already 10pm! I haven't eaten much all day either. Jared didn't get to eat supper because he was too busy. Justin said he was on kitchen crew and enjoyed using the sanitizer. They put together the food plates in the kitchen and then brought it out to the guests, instead of doing the usual buffet line. Jared has to be back at church at 5:30am to help the cook get into the building. Gary said he'd pick Justin up at 7:15am. It's going to be another long day for both of them. I'm hoping their early wake up calls don't make them too grouchy. I've got my own to do list for the morning. And although I relaxed all day and hung out with friends, I need to unwind with my TV show, which is all about Henry the VIII, the one with 6 wives. Yeah, more drama! Lol. Actually, it's fascinating to watch and learn about now that I've gone through it a couple of times with the kids and really understood the 6 wives thing. A huge lesson in human character, or lack thereof, and how corrupt the church system was back then. Crazy!

My copy didn't come today, boo!

Born out of one of his worship nights in the spring, this was a quick release.

Mom, I can't get up!

Every day!

Dog haired pants, can't where those out of the house today!

When your friend has a hobby farm....it's like a petting zoo, and farm experience, without all the fees!

I didn't realize Gary had customized his license plate. I don't think he's ever done that!

"Here chicky chicky, here's your food! I'll just put it everywhere! Lots of scoops! And then one of the hens pecked his leg! Whoops!

Miss Julia, where are the kitchen dishes at? Ok, there isn't any, I'll just make do with rocks and leaves.

The rocks need to go IN the hole in the driveway, not be transported away. Notice he was away from the animals and then took his shoes off like he owns the place.

Gorgeous evening. Warm, but not humid day.

Ugh, 6:30am alarm after going to bed after 1am. Thankfully Justin was already waking up. Grandpa was picking him up at 7:15 so he didn't have to go with Jared at 5:30am to church. But Abishai woke up, too. And he's been raring to go ever since. I texted Jared closer to lunch time that I know he wants a nap, but little guy needs some Daddy time. So they are outside working. Keturah, Abishai and I had been wandering around waiting for them to get home for over an hour. But, I baked a yummy, took a shower, put away dishes and listened to my audiobook, oh and did my Bible study. Now I'm going to knock out the zoo blog before we go out to eat tonight. My stomach is awful, so we'll see what I actually order. And Jared just ate his dinner from last night. He hadn't eaten much last night or this morning. I don't know how he does that. I feel sick to my stomach when I fast that much. He doesn't understand how food and I relate at all and just because his body adjusted doesn't mean mine will. So I didn't fast last night like on previous nights. He nearly took away my 9pm dinner. Dude. I've eaten like 800 calories today, get off. I still think I deal with low blood sugar issues, so I'll bring it up with my doctor. Anyway, feeling off today, trying to take it slow. We have dinner with friends in a couple of hours, and I think I might just go for a steak and salad and bring home the steak. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I got some cool footage of our garden spider eating a hornet. Abishai saw it! And I had some long dialogues on Facebook about the whether or not to skip the presidential race or not. One person said she was told in all her government classes that to leave it blank would result in it counting towards one another. I'm not finding that information. It's call undervoting or protest voting. You don't have to vote on each race if you don't want to. If I only want to vote on my local candidates, than so be it. If Jared votes for someone I would never vote for and I don't vote against him, then I'm probably just agreeing with him and voiding out his choice. So, like I indicated today, I'm tired of the presidential race being the only one talked about when a) the executive branch is not the most powerful, just the most visible and sensational and b) I have bigger fish to fry and daily decisions to make. Presidents don't change a country's morals in a democratic nation like ours. Churches do. So I will step back and focus on that. I have no confidence in Washington, D.C. I have incredible confidence that the system can work at the state level, so I throw myself into that instead. I need our local guys to be reelected. They represent us, our family, extremely well. And our state has it's issues, but we have strengths, too like a balanced budget and strict abortion laws and the biggest percentage going to education, although it's not used wisely, and the freest homeschool laws in the nation. We have a lot of crime and they have not handled Covid-19 as I would have wanted. We also have the most obese people in the nation as well. Never vote for a single issue. You have to take it all in. And I'd like to protest vote this year in the presidential race. I still have a few more weeks to decide.

Oh my goodness! I'm trying to write the zoo blog and I've closed my windows but Jared's talking about book prices in the fireside room and the three kids are interacting well and having fun (they really haven't been together for the last couple of days) and I don't have a heart to break them up, but I can't think! The giggles coming from Abishai and the different funny voices coming out of Justin and the little screams from Keturah. Yikes! So much fun! "I bubbled!" "Ew!" "Come play guitar!" "No, go away you stink!" A bunch of teasing and joking. What a lovely, lovely sound! Makes me super happy!

He's so big looking brushing his teeth! He can get his own toothpaste on his own toothbrush now! He still needs a bit of help to finish up getting all the nooks and crannies.

11 years ago when there were apples on the trees (we had a late frost this year and very few apples to harvest) and when the Pleastantview Orchard was Anderson Orchard.

Very timely with my discussion of all things political today. We were pretty civil, and I did ask the question to provoke a discussion. So, I did thank them afterwards for their kindness. The usual suspects showed up though.

Pumpkin baked oatmeal. It was ok. Just the right amount of sweetness. Very thick. Easy to make. I would use regular semisweet choc chips next time, not the unsweetened ones. BUT, I'm finally done with those nasty unsweetened ones! Not a new favorite and I'm glad I only made half of the recipe. The recipe came from one my favorite calm, sweet Christian family homeschool bloggers. Multi generational ministry called Titus 2 and boy do they live it (at least in their emails). But really, I can just tell they have that calm vibe about them.

Waiting anxiously for Daddy to arrive, blankie and all.

We played bikes, we went in and out of the house, we stared at spiders, we listened to audiobooks and finally Daddy and Justin came home!

Abishai said, "Mommy! I cant see the spider's mouth nom nomming!" I said, "What spider? Oh yeah, this guy!" Yesterday, the tell tale sign of this particular spider, the zig zag down the web, was there. But now, the spider had a hornet wrapped up in it and had the two legs you see here holding onto it! I couldn't get the angle right to get at it's mouth, but occasionally you could see it twitch and reposition the hornet. How incredibly intricate and fascinating! I know that this freaks out a lot of people, but at a safe distance, (I used the zoom lens of course), it's amazing to see all the details God put into these tiny creatures. From the spider, to how it's eating, to the hornet inside the web. Intelligent design just makes sense! How could anything like this "just happen?"

Unfortunately, the head is down and the rear is up, but so cool!

Tomorrow, Sunday, if it's not raining, I'm going to take the time to walk down the street and capture the colors. Just driving to dinner with our friends I got to see an incredible amount of gorgeous colors! We've had quite the dry spell (40 days or more with less than an inch of rain) and cooler temps. And then it got warm this past week. Our tree has some great mature trees, too. I could just look at them for hours. I'm hoping that they all last one more week for a little getaway. Thankfully, our part of the getaway is south so it should be perfect timing. The kids will see more bare trees as they head north in Michigan. At least they won't have to hear me say, "Look at that tree! Look at those colors! Let's stop for another picture!" Grandma loves the colors, too, but she's not crazy about it like I am, lol.

Our neighbor's tree to the north is the most gorgeous tree I've ever seen (the one on the left). Last year I don't think it was that good or it went quickly. This year, every day, the colors change more and more and it's the rainbow of yellow to orange to red. Incredible!

Someone shared this on that political thread. It's something I've been saying for years and years now. But, I'm just not interested in the presidential race anymore. I might leave that spot blank. I'm more interested in getting my local politicians re elected because we love them. That's who I think makes the most day to day difference in our personal lives. State legislature trumps (no pun intended) Washington, D.C. each and every time. The power is the in the hands of the legislatures first, and most importantly the state legislature. So why do we focus so much on just one or two guys in the top position? They don't actually have the power they think they have. They can't enact permanent change. You can't legislate morality. Jesus is the only one who can permanently change hearts. And you can't vote just because of one guy's stance on one topic. Been there, done that, and don't like the guy has done the last 4 years. If it was his VP running for president, sure, I would, despite Jared's opinion of him being a puppet for the president. He did a great job in Indiana as governor. And despite the Covid-19 crisis and it's uncertainties making it so hard to make the decisions, I think our current governor has kept our state free and out of debt. We have other issues, but politics can't solve those. So, yup, not a one topic voter and might even not vote in some of the races.

Abishai squealed when Daddy came home! I had decided to try refilling the punching bag that's been shuffled around for 2 year because of it's slow leak of air and sand, and Abishai loved it! He played outside while Daddy worked on the tree house project a bit. I had told Jared not to take a nap because Abishai needed him. And it's a good thing because we came home much later than I had anticipated from date night with friends. Check out this kid's moves!

What a fun date we had! Four of us couples from the 'hood went a great BBQ/Pub I think in Broad Ripple. I don't know exactly wear because we actually road with one of the couples. And the other two couples rode together too. It's a good thing because it was a little harder to find parking since it was a place surrounded by homes. One couple knows the manager really well and it was fun seeing him and talking with him. They've been buddies since high school. We sat outside the whole evening on one of those playground/park tables with 8 seats, two to a side, with the holes in them. Lots of conversation and smiles and laughter, even at my expense on purpose, like I'm the youngest, and don't let her have an alcoholic drink because she might get tipsy, silly things that I totally agreed with and played up the best I could. Perfect evening with less serious talk, but not too surface level either. So, yup, it's hard to explain, but it felt comfortable. And after having talked and listened so much yesterday, it was good to just listen and learn about others and stay calm, not thinking about anything too important, not worrying about kids on a playground, not trying to make up conversation with Jared. Very natural. I eventually got bored about 2 hrs in and wanted to play my phone game, so that's good. But it did leave less time for Abishai and Jared to do their thing. I had made some spaghetti and meatballs before I left and they seemed to have eaten it and put their dishes in the dishwasher. I had them do chores before we left because they were going to have their screen time while we were gone. So, they probably had too much screen time, but that's ok. We've had multiple days of being outside and/or with people. We are all balanced out.

Jared's already in bed because of the very early start time for him. And Justin and I need to head to bed soon because of the early wake up call. I think Monday is going to be a very slow late morning by the time we are done with this weekend. Just one more day of church, lunch at Gary and Leah's, and go hang out with Mahurins. No evening Crave or small groups. I think I've talked to more people one on one this weekend than I have the last 6 months. Good stuff! Reality hits Monday though. And nope, I"m not even going to touch the clothing switch right now. Next weekend, perhaps. Or during this week when we don't have any extras. We'll see.

All geared up for screen time. Abishai copied Justin's set up by putting the device up on the plastic cups. Justin does that in order to increase airflow under his laptop. Cute!

Abishai said he likes to be stuck between his toys boxes. He got to paly a couple of rounds with Daddy and then it was off to bed. Long weekend. And it's Canadian Thanksgiving weekend! So for them, it IS a long holiday weekend! Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Ah, gotta love it when Tom Harrigan preaches! A little short, but when you know that he's speaking from experience and he's been through similar things as you, it just helps form a connection. Great stuff about communion and relating it to small groups LOVE it! Then it was lunch at Gary and Leah's, hang out with Mahurins, then home for a nap. We'll go grocery shopping tomorrow night I think. We need to be HOME together.

Before Justin went to bed, he found Socks like this. This is why we will have a triple bunk bed so Socks can have the bottom bunk. It makes my heart happy to know that we can make our older, big dog comfortable. He's never had his own dog bed because we just don't have room. How cute is he?

Abishai wanted me to drop him off today and we had time because the rooms weren't open yet, so we finally dropped off our 7 months worth of tithe money! Lots of fun hearing those coins go down! Whoever in the church that made these, they are very talented and special. I wish I knew so I could thank them in person!

The offering money goes to two sponsor children that the KP area sponsors. I'm sure the church pays for them regardless of what comes in for the kids' offering, but it feels good that we are now caught up. This was Abishai and Keturah's tithe money. Justin can put his in big church or youth group if he wants.

Something to memorize on and use during communion time.

Y'all, I'm obsessed with this spider! When have I (or you) ever been able to watch the life of a creature just hanging out like this?! I mean the hornet, the webbing around it, it's all gone! No trace of it! And the spider is in the same part of the web I feel like. I'll have to look at the pictures, but I think it might have switch sides. I don't know. So fascinating!

OOOO, the web shows up more with the dew from the fog we had today! Pretty! I'm not into anything for Halloween, remember, so that's not it. I'm admiring God's designs and remember Charlotte's Web. And how this spider is killing off all the hornets around our garden, yeah!

Dew droplets!

Nada. No parts of dead insects that I can tell. Does the spider eat up the whole hornet, exoskeleton and all? What about the webbing? All gone in less than 24 hrs!

Lunch was leftovers, which was fine. Conversation was fine. I asked Benaiah a bunch of questions and he gave me his typical "stuff" and "things" answers. He still thinks HE grew himself up and we didn't help him to grow up in high school. Ouch. I bit my tongue and held onto the hope that someday, when it's his turn to have kids, he'll understand. We'll just leave that topic alone for awhile. Meanwhile, Abishai got to play with Nolan for bit. Oh, the boys did Bible class with Grandpa before lunch and Keturah and the girls did their class after lunch. It's the only time Grandpa could do it this week with the e2 event. Then in a variety of times, we got down to Mahurins. Justin stayed for about 10 minutes and went home. Keturah stayed for quite a while, but then huffed away muttering something about Kendall and Quinn moving around too fast and that they are too girly girl. I told her not to say things like that in front of them. It's fine to say, "I'm tired, I'm going to go home now." because it's not a lie. She was tired of playing with them. I need to tell her those exact words, too. She made a grand effort to play with them for sure. Only Abishai stayed with us the whole time. I don't think we expected to stay 4 hours, but we did! The women sat outside on the patio soaking in the sun and watching the kids. And the men sat inside talking and maybe watching a football game or whatever. No one's favorite team was actually playing though.

I told Debbie this, but her house makes me feel better about my house. I'm sure she'll get hers done and under control faster than I will, but she's brave for wanting people to come over when there's still a lot of finishing work to do. Proud of her for her hospitality! It was Smiths, Raquel and Sophia, Mahurins, and us. Angie and Justin had a water emergency at their house. I can only assume Erica had to finish up at church and then was probably very tired and needed some rest and playtime with her family, although Kendall was done with us. Derrick was there and stayed longer and played with Abishai when his parents left to go get Devon. It was a wonderful afternoon of just shooting the breeze, listening, and enjoying the warm wind. Abishai came home so tired that he yawned several times while going to the bathroom. I asked him if he was tired and he said, "Yes, but I don't want to fall asleep yet." He was filthy so after a bath, he played with Daddy for a few minutes on Battlefront. Then it was off to bed for that guy.

Off to bed for all of us soon. School tomorrow. I can't keep my eyes open. Nice quiet week leading up to mini vacation. Gary said it might hit 50 degrees for a high in Macincac City so he asked the kids if they still want to go. They said yes. Ok, then, have fun! The temperatures will drop by Wednesday to more normal temps in the 60's. But the fall foliage peaked around here today. I need to get out and take photos and even brought my camera with me to Mahurins thinking maybe I could convince everyone to take a walk. That didn't happen. Oh well. But the day is done. And I'm exhausted. Time to move into a another week!

Playing cards on the deck waiting for Jared and Benaiah to get back from church. I'm loving this new style of Gary and Leah not always having to rush home to make food.