Year 6, February 15th-17th, 2020: Old Ways

 Jared, I, and Socks sounded like old, old people/animal today with our groaning and moaning. Jared with his surgery soreness, me with menstrual cramps, and Socks with his old sleepy dog look. Sigh. It was one of those "can't get anything done because I hurt too much" days. My mind was willing, but the flesh, no way. The kids managed to do some school. I took the boys to their dentist appointments (more on that in a minute). Jared tried to take a nap this morning but there were two family text strings blowing up, one with the 6 adults about everybody's health and then one about it being Leah's Dad's birthday and what he would like to eat, etc. Those two text strings didn't help my mood or energy levels and I finally had to put my phone done to charge. We managed to put away a load of laundry and cobble together some leftovers for supper. Abishai continued to make messes and I said that after tomorrow's playtime, we are cleaning it all up in every single room and starting afresh on Sunday. It's still unclear if Jared, I, and Abishai will make it to church, but I'll have to drop Keturah and Justin off at some point for middle school worship and to serve in the 1st grade room. It's just a matter of how we feel by then. 

I was thinking about taking down the tree tomorrow, but that's probably not going to happen. I think I have some room in my week to tackle that. I've just been getting so overwhelmed and tired by 3pm that I don't want to do anything and by the time I recover, it's time for dinner. I did push myself this week to make some phone calls, but I didn't finish them. Baby steps I guess, but if it's just baby steps, you'll never catch up, will you? Nope. I guess I'll give myself the same advice I gave a woman about her son, he will get as far as he gets academically, just stay steady, challenge him in his weak areas but don't dwell there. And don't do just the easy stuff either. There's a lot on my heart and mind right now.

The update that went around was that Gary is still not feeling good, same symptoms, and he was going to lay down on the couch every 20-30 minutes on his stomach to give his lungs a chance to breathe? I'm not sure, but the fever was still there, too. It's Day 8, one of the worst days. I've never "seen" him so ill before. Leah remains fine. Jared seems to have taken a baby step back and is tired and sore. I'm not letting him go to the west side tomorrow. He needs to monitor the virtual e2 conference from home. And I'm just not myself today. My stomach hurts inside, as well as the cramping. At least the headache is totally gone. That's was a menstrual migraine yesterday and it was very, very bad. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and feel so much better. Being a woman sucks sometimes and I am thankful I have a gynecologist appointment soon. I'm just in so much pain that I can't stand up to correct school work or to concentrate on it for long.

So, instead, I sat in my computer chair with my heating pad that I had been craving to use all day, and put my new laptop together, downloading programs and tweaking apps and icons. It was a bit of work because it really didn't come with all the things you need like Adobe, a decent word processor, Zoom, iCloud, Quicken, do9 to merge scans into one document, iTunes, find the DVD and music players, all the things. No wonder this computer was a bargain! It didn't come with anything preloaded! Oh Firefox instead of Microsoft Edge. And no, I don't want to subscribe to things like Microsoft Office. Just let me buy the program outright and keep it for as long as I like, even if a couple of the features become obsolete. And no, I don't want to save everything to the cloud, I just want a free word processing program that isn't notepad. Good grief. And no, I don't want these preloaded games. So, I got a lot of it it down, but the iCloud isn't quite working so I'm doing the blog on the older computer for now. I did order a laptop case for the new one though.

Now, back to the dentist. I was able to walk Abishai up to the door and stand in the lobby for a minute, but I couldn't go back with him as we have done all these years no matter their age. For a millisecond, Abishai "clung to my skirt" but then when the assistant reminded him that Justin was back there, he immediately let go and practically skipped into the back room. I then had to go wait in the van. What kind of world are we living in that I can't even sit in the lobby? It's a good thing we've known this dentist for 30 years. But I miss the chit chat and updates about people's families, and I didn't feel like I got a real chance to ask any questions. I don't know if Justin asked about his front tooth that he thinks is in his way to eat and talk because it's a little longer than the other one. I barely got to ask if any of Abishai's teeth were lose. But it was just weird to have my babies inside and me sit outside in the van. So strange. In and out. I didn't like it. But at least Abishai didn't make a scene and was a very big and brave boy. They helped him pick a prize and all that. He's growing up so fast! And then he gets the big nerf gun out and shoots us while Jared and I were finishing up dinner. Go figure. And he thinks it's beyond hilarious to have stinky farts. Oi! 

I was answering someone's question about what to do next because their 1st grader was a whiz at spelling and vocabulary so I told her to use Abeka spelling grade 4-6 or try these out. It's a great set of books for anyone!

This is what our mornings sometimes look like. Jared and I are still in bed, and little guy comes to play, snuggle, jump into the blankets, roll out of them, for over an hour.

We did another hot cocoa bomb today. It was ok.

Great idea to use the umbrellas as roofs for his fort. Now he has a nice little snuggly spot.

Complete with snacks and water!

I was showing Leah and Shauna what I picked up from the library. I'm listening to an audiobook about the real Mr. Selfridge (and wishing I wouldn't get distracted because now I've missed a few parts). But this book is about the show and a bit about the actual history. I love the behind the scenes stuff.

Gorgeous photos!

I can't wait to read this!

Sad that my boys had to go into the dentist's office all alone. Glad I can trust the office ladies to take care of them. When did they get so big?

A screen shot from Justin's Instagram account. His account only has photos of Legos and screenshots of memes. Geek! Nerd!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas? No, but there's some good bit of snow coming down! It's certainly cold enough!

Barely outside for 10 minutes. But that's the beauty of all that hair. It stays on top of the fur and never reaches his skin. Pyrenees is a range of mountains between Spain and France. These dogs are built for these conditions. He will dry in no time, too.

Well, the snow continued on through the night, so we woke up to our 2nd winter wonderland of the 2020-2021 Winter Season. Woot! Woot! I was always taught that December through February is winter, so in mind, the season always extend over both years, whereas I think most media just sticks with the second year. But it also is relevant to where you live. In PEI and in NH, you can get quite a bit of snow (or not) in December but temperatures are definitely winter temperatures by then. Anyways, there's the playlist of the kids in the snow today: Winter Wonderland January 16th, 2021

Ah, it's late. I was actually a bit more in that book about small pox and it was a chapter on anti-vaccinists, kind of perfect for what we are about to head into now that the Covid-19 (or whatever) vaccine is available. It's quite interesting to me. And then Michael W. Smith was on a live tv performance with other artists at the Grand Olde Opry in Nashville, TN, so I tuned in for that. He actually played a brand new song that was quite twangy (or maybe the band, that wasn't his guys, but a twangy spin on it) about his dad. And he's writing a book about his dad, too. When an artist has time on his hands.....he needs an outlet for his creativity! Not the first artist I've heard to write new songs and books during lockdown. So, that was fun

Saturday. I had no plans. No one else did either. Ok, that's a lie. I wanted a "perfect pickup" of the house. And I wanted to work on some project that doesn't have a deadline and doesn't have a huge impact or whatever, like my audiobook or hanging some photos on the wall, or cross stitch. I did get a bit of reading done. I worked on a project of photos that I had bought materials for 3 1/2 yrs ago, and then lost the bag that had the project in it, and about 6 months ago found it again. Oh, and I went over Justin's homework after he finished it. 

Keturah did the 3 parts of her room she wanted to do, and had her screen time. I saw a bunch of clothes hidden in different corners that she says she doesn't know how they ended up there. Hm,.....Abishai made a road down the hallway of course.....and Justin did his own thing.

Keturah and Abishai went out in the snow this morning and then Justin and Abishai played hide and seek in the dark after supper. Poor Jared had to smell tacos but couldn't participate. He's still feeling crappy, mostly surgery soreness, but everything is adjusting, including his stomach, so he's not sure what to eat. He spent a good part of the day interacting with people in the chat box while their virtual e2 conference ran from 9am-1pm. He said it went fine.

I've had a moody sort of day, just worried about my weight and my health. Being in more pain than my average pain load for 3 days straight will do that to me. I get the "I'm never going to feel better" syndrome going. Well, actually, there isn't as many of those "feel better" kind of days as there used to be. I think it's because our days are listless. Same mundane routine. Nothing to look forward to and plan for. No activities. So, I'm going to look into something that is consistent, like karate lessons or something. Oo, maybe I should do it for all 3 kids. I don't know. Something. And those playdates need to happen to. And Abishai birthday party planning now that Jared's surgery is over. That will be my focus this week, birthday, playdates, phone calls to doctors. That's helpful to flesh it out. Sigh. I'll finish that photo project tomorrow.

I've also noticed that I take less photos and I don't post to Instagram that much. I've posted a few longer posts on FB lately and didn't get the response I wanted, which was basically, "me too" kind of responses. Instead, the criticism flowed towards myself or other. Um, I didn't come here for advice, thanks. Just nod your head in agreement and move on. So, I guess I'll post my musings to Instagram because they still go to FB as a story, but people don't comment on them as much. I can't even share things with my extended family without getting advice or a contradiction or correction. I was looking for empathy, not scrutiny. Even Jared did that to me today. No wonder I want to go hide and I post less and less and I don't care if I have relationships with others. It's safer at home, although it's very claustrophobic and I find myself running away from the chaos and noise and fighting and criticism within my own four walls. I need to find a place where I'm not expected to perform or hold my tongue or always be happy. I'm not sure church or Bible study is the right place. Mom's Night Out is Friday, so maybe that will help. We need some consistent positive places and events to go to, and ones that I sign up for a longer commitment and not just a one off event. Although I said on my post today that I'm afraid of commitment because of my own health. But I think I need to get over that fear and/or have a backup plan if I can't take a child to their karate lessons or something. Right now, I'm the only driver, but the others will be back on the road in a week. If my mother can do it with her bad back and restless leg, then so can I. Sigh.

Back to the snow.

Yeah! I got to use the snow magnet!

Keturah very kindly helped Abishai put on his snow gear twice today.

Little mother hen.

Tromp, tromp, tromp. And no, we didn't shovel or clean off cars. It will melt soon enough.

Awww, he's old enough to remember to do snow angels! He ran through the snow and then flopped down to do one!

Then he threw snow at the glass door while he waited for Keturah to come around to the front.

Before 10 am.

Climbing in his snow gear. Nothing stops him.

Sliding around, and Keturah doesn't have the right gear on, but she went anyway.

Back to the front.

Time to try out the sleds! Not enough snow and not slippery enough, but they tied a rope to one of the sleds. Keturah pulled Abishai down the driveway on the sled.

They decided to make it "rain" snow on top of Abishai's head by wiggling the tree branches as he stood underneath.

I wish I could eat this every day. But eggs are high in cholesterol and my stomach is sensitive to them. Sigh.

No! Don't go in the shed! I can't believe he can open it by himself now! That 2 inches of growth last year really made the difference!

Where'd he go?

Peek a boo.

Red cheeks! Done with Round #1.

This was in the photos I was working with. It might have been right before or right after they had Everly. And yes, those are earrings that Aaron is wearing! Keturah spotted them and said, "This must be an old photo because Uncle Aaron has earrings!" Yes, the children do know that Aaron had earrings in college and soon after. But he gave them up soon after this pic.

I have larger variations of these, but not displayed, so I'm making a hanging collage of sorts to go on the short shelves holding other various old photos and frames in the living room.

Good answer, BUT, I have a solution.

I'm pretty sure I found these in Canada and in the US.

But by far, this is my absolute favorite line of GF products. Schar. All their bread products are amazing!

Look, Ma, I can lay down because there's no toys in the hallway.

It doesn't look it, but it this is more cleaned up than before. And the boys doing their electronics time.

Ah, clear couches, clear floor, and clear table. Back to normal.

Cleaned up so I don't trip over anything on the way to my desk.

But I always have more clutter to wrestle with!

Let's do some drawing Daddy!

7 month old Keturah. So adroable!

Wait, what?! We didn't shovel and you said it's undeliverable because the driveway is icy I bet. Well, hopefully by Monday it will have all melted. I think it was my multivitamin though, which I'm completely out of . Not fair.

The old ways, eh? Like going to church at 11am instead of 9? The room was definitely fuller at 11. I agreed to go because it as Tom who was preaching. Abishai was very, VERY excited to go to class and I think the others were pretty excited to go to Crave and small groups. So, all seemed "normal" sort of. We still had masks. Not happy about that. But I don't have time or energy to make a stink about it. I will after I either test positive or a get the vaccine. Because at some point, the masks have to come off. Maybe when 75% of the nation is vaccinated or had it? But what if it's evolving and this year's vaccine won't do anymore like the flu one is? Well, I'll worry about that in the fall. It's too early to make a stink.

Side note: every time I post anything on social media or even send a text message to the extended family, I get some form of criticism sent back to me. I wish I could post and someone say, "Good job!" and move on. Sigh. I do that a TON on social media. If we were in person that's how we would react. We wouldn't give our opinion so easily, would we? Maybe that's why I have an even harder time in social settings. But as I told Keturah in the car on the way to Crave, you can't learn to talk to people until you practice doing it. And that's what I wrote down today during the sermon. If I screw up talking to people again when we are having a hard conversation, I can at least pat myself on the back and said I was bold enough to have the conversation. I practiced and I sucked, but at least I practiced. I have a hard meeting coming up this week or next. I've already written notes for it. With ADD, I've heard a lot of people dwell on and practice conversations before they happen and boy do I do that! Write it down! And then I can let it go until that conversation happens. That's why my phone is so important to me, I write it all down in there, it's saved, it transfers from one device to the next, I can sync it to my computer and copy and paste into a word document. All the things. I started doing that for my counseling sessions and it helps. It might be easier to do it on the computer or in a notebook, but those aren't as handy and then I have to transfer them, but I've done it before. Anyway, side note over.

On our way out to get to church, we couldn't find Jared's keys. We had to drive separate because the van was still full of recycling, which finally got taken care of today thanks to Justin, Jared, and Abishai! I hope Jared didn't do too much lifting. But I know Abishai had been eager to help. And I did try to do it myself several times and the bins were full. Well, I took Justin to church early for Team Huddle and then Jared called, so I raced back home to give him a key and lock up. When we got home after church, I searched and searched, including areas where I lay things down by accident because I'm distracted by something else. Well, I was getting pretty upset because I really don't remember what happened at/after the hospital. I thought I had put them in Jared's coat in his outside pocket so he could find them easily when the friend picked him up to take him home after the surgery. Since I stayed and had my own keys, I didn't need to go fishing them out again for us to get home. I was the one who put everything away when we got home, including his coat, but I don't remember putting the keys away. We even searched his coat pockets and couldn't find them. Well, he did search the bottom of the closest during lunch prep and found them and hung them up but didn't tell me! So, after lunch and more contemplation, I'm sitting on the couch in the fireside room about to cry, and he comes over and pats my head and said, "No, you're not (I had said I suck as a wife)." But again, he didn't tell me! I go to get my keys later to take the kids to Crave and there they are! Ugh! Then tell me you found them! Actually, that's what I would normally say, but I didn't. He's still hurting a lot and I'm still being tender towards that, so I let it go. At least I got a pat on the head and assurance I don't suck. He does suck when I got to lay down with him to wake him up for his nap and he farts and then I can see his eye wrinkles because he's smiling. See! That's where the kids get their farting from! Good grief!

Actually, I spent probably 90 minutes finishing the photo project today. Leah asked why there was no Abishai and so I had to explain that the rest of the photos on the shelves are pre Canada and that I don't have regular frames for their yearly photos anymore. I had used them for the cruise photos and now I did put a family collage of photos from our last photo shoot in one of them. All the kids have a 4x6 from that photo shoot on their infant collages down the hallway. Gary and Leah update their photo frames (well, some of them) while I have left the smaller ones as they are. I know what my kids look like now. I want to remember what they used to look like. Anyway, it was a bit hard to measure out all the string lengths, and I took my time, but I think it came out pretty good. I'm sure some creative modern person would say it looks silly but whatever. See the photos of it below.

After I dropped the kids off, I came home and started working on my new computer. I had to download Quicken and make sure the bank account websites were all set to go. Well, I guess it just took a little bit of time, but the passwords had transferred for all the websites through the Firefox browser login. Sweet. And I did find my iCloud photos as well, but I have to arrange the actual folders again. I'm not planning on transferring everything, but maybe some. I did backup everything onto the SD card and the external drive over vacation, so I'll do that again really quickly and then move everything over tonight hopefully. Once I have the new computer where I want it, then I'll delete the files on the actual computer here. Same with Quicken and other programs. I'll have to also work on getting a new backup set up on the external drive for the new computer. One step at a time, but overall, I don't have to fear losing any of my productivity or files anymore. For example, some of the homeschoool teacher editions are only a download, so I still need to access them. And past assignments if I wish. But I might not put all of them on the internal drive. I'll probably just start over and if I need something, I'll put in the SD card and find it that way. This is exactly why I had saved almost everything to the SD card in the first place. Easy to get the SD card even when the computer crashes. So worth the time and investment and piece of mind. Most people use cloud storage now so they can bring up their documents on any computer. I'm not really ready for that because what if their clouds crash or they go out of business? Nope, I like having my raw data files thank you. At least for now.

Oh wow, major developments at youth group. High school will have a retreat at Camp Allendale over spring break and middle school will do some serving here in the city. Limited spots so I had to jump right on and sign up the kids. I didn't hesitate. These kids NEED these opportunities. I'm sure the tax refunds will cover it.... but, we'll have to see about CIY registration in February. Justin said that there will be CIY this year.  Now, let's just cross our fingers that they don't need proof that they've had the vaccine before they go. They won't need it for the March events because the vaccine will not be available to them by then. But, I don't know if it will be available for everyone by July. Definitely next year it might be a problem. Can't wait to see what happens between now and then, not! Sigh. But, the kids are signed up and that's that. And then they announced that Chad Monahan is stepping down has the main youth minister. He's going to be moving over to the Connections team. But first they need to find his replacement. Sigh. More changes! And they haven't even filled all the necessary leadership needed for youth ministry as it stands. Maybe they don't need to because not everyone will be coming back to youth group. Maybe it will be the first year that they take less buses to Move. Well, with social distancing, the event will have to be smaller anyway. Not my problem, not my problem, not my problem. But I have to stay on top of registration for it. I hate change. But I guess now is as good as any to reinvent the youth ministry. It was going so strong for years and I was hoping to get Keturah through it as is. Sigh. Ugh. Not fair. I hate change. Kids don't seem to mind because they aren't close to Chad. They'd be more upset if Luke Greene left. Why can't things just stay the same? Grrr.....the old ways are leaving out the door very quickly. And I'm left grumbling. And reminding myself, it's not my job at the IAHE to come up with how to make an in person event be virtual. It's not my job to fill the staff positions of the church and come up with the programming opportunities. I don't have to vision cast for any of it. I'm on the receiving end for most of it. I just have to wait, see what is done, and say yes or no to individual events. I can't program my kids' entire childhood, except, I kind of do. I wanted activities for them, so here we go. I still need something outside of church though.  That's the assignment for this week.

Gotta love Keturah's emoticon or whatever you call it.

Oh my goodness! Abishai can actually draw! He drew Daddy and himself holding hands! Woot! Woot! Now, I know for some kids, this kind of drawing is done when they are 2 or 3, BUT, we aren't big into coloring in our house. I don't know why. I stopped pushing it after Benaiah showed no interest. So, this is so sweet!!!!

All I have to say is I totally agree. I still don't think they know what they are doing. Maybe doctors do, but the people are in charge of getting the information to people don't understand the science at all. Let me live already!

Genius child and his contraptions.

Project is done! I hung the photos using fancy string and name tag holders. It was tricky getting the photos in and even trickier to make sure the strings were approximately the right length. I hung them from the pegs.

These two shelves hold a variety of old photos and frames from before Canada. Thus, there are no Abishai baby photos. We never did official photos of him except for his 2 week old ones.

It definitely covers up the markings on the walls, lol. We'll take down the icicle lights again after winter.

Remember that time when...Jared taught a real class in philosophy at a college?! Thanks Facebook for the throwback!

Abishai had a whole jail going and paddy wagon of sorts, too.

I love how the door opens upwards and he found enough flat pieces for the roof. He broke a big Lego plate though trying to get them off of it. And it was from his fire house set. It's easily replaceable.

Abishai came up with a way to put a blanket over a mini figure! And then when the flat pieces aren't in use, they can be stored right on top of the pillow, kind of like how you fold a real blanket! Genius!

There's so keys! I know I hadn't lost my mind! They were in Jared's coat pocket and had fallen out when he took his coat out of the closet today. Sigh.

Wait, you all just got home. Where did you all go? They had to change their clothes for bed after youth group. The dog looks a bit confused, lol.

And this should be the last blog post from the old computer! Woot! Woot!

The End