The J6 Journey: Year 6, February 15th-18th, 2021: Snow, Snow, and More Snow!!!!!

Well, it's certainly looking like it did after Abishai was born 6 years ago! In fact, Facebook reminded me of that fact today! Not as much accumulation, but it sounded like it was very tough going out there today. Chick-Fil-A even closed at 2pm today and won't open until 9:30am tomorrow to allow for the roads to be cleared. Benaiah went in at 11am for his shift, but was home a little after 3pm after they did their closing rounds. He stopped by after dropping off some brownies he made for Ava to her. Grandpa was worried about him driving to Ava's, but I agreed with him that he could use the practice. It's just a mile up the road and pretty much a straight shot, so no worries there. We could easily get to him if we needed to. I was more worried about him coming home at 3pm today. But again, he was ok. He even got new wipers and Rain-X in time for the storm, so he's thinking ahead. The church building closed down a little after noon today, so Jared came home for the rest of the day. He had gone to a late morning chiropractor appointment, so I think he was in the office for maybe 1 or 2 hrs. Kind of a useless day for him, poor guy. The rest of us were all cozy at home doing our normal thing.

We had a decent Monday, although Abishai was a bit slow to get going. He's just one of those guys where it's got to be his idea or he refuses to do it. I'm not sure how that will play out in the future, but for today, I said, I'm going to stay sitting here until 11:30am. If you haven't started your work yet, I will get up and you get to do it with Daddy tonight. That means no screen time and no putting together your last Lego set. So, I just sat there checking email until he was ready. Once he got going, he went fairly quickly. All the work we've done the last two weeks of me covering up everything but the first two letters of a word in order to work on blends really helped. He was sounding out the whole word and by the time he got to the last letter, he forgot what the first letter was. But by blending the first two letters together and saying them as a unit, and then figuring out the last letter or two, he had less overall to say and think about. He sounded out several words today without me covering up the extra letters. He's definitely getting there. I don't know how he compares to his peers and I don't care. I see major progress each time we sit down. That's all that matters. He had some math "tests" to do and he didn't quite get them right on his own, but we'll work on it. It was mostly place value. He'll catch onto all the words eventually. He understands what it is, but just doesn't remember that 2 10's equals the word twenty. It's just vocabulary. I pulled out some letter and number games I saw on the math shelf when I was rearranging gifts next to my desk and we played those today. He seemed to like it. There's an addition and subtraction bingo I think we will use again. I used it with the older kids right before read aloud time but with multiplication and division facts. Keturah was slower on the draw. She is a bit weaker in her math facts, so it's good for her to review. I introduce what we are doing for the rest of the semester, so we'll see how that goes. I have an appointment in the afternoon tomorrow, so it's going to mess with our read aloud time but oh well, we'll catch up later. Maybe they can watch two hours of the history DVD's instead of 1. Actually, it helped for them to watch that instead of reading as much aloud today so I could shower before my online counseling appointing.

Then screen time, leftovers for supper, and messing around time. Jared pulled out the original "Ice Age" movie and he, Abishai, Keturah and I watched it. Abishai laughed hysterically at the little creature with the nuts and at Sid the Sloth, but then cried hysterically when the little baby or one of the other characters looked like it was hurt or dying or in trouble. Man this kid has a wide range of emotions. At one point he was yelling at the TV, "Diego, watch out! Oh no, Diego! Diego!" and then cried when it looked like Diego had died. You know that the movie is a)doing it's job of stirring up emotions and b) perfect for that age of kid when you are getting those types of reactions. It was fun introducing Abishai, the next generation it seems, to a movie the other kids watched a ton. It's just weird that it's like I have two generations of kids in my house and we have to redo all the things we did with Benaiah. Introduce all our favorites. But oh well, it makes more memories for all of us.

Well, the wind is howling outside and I haven't done a lick of Bible reading in days. It's 10pm again. And this is why I can't get things like taxes done during the week. There's no time at all. But Saturday will be here before you know it. Such a busy week this week and we might go sledding at our friend's house on Friday when both storms are done and before it all melts next week when it's going to be a balmy 43 degrees again. Jared teased that we just need to drive through the snow on the driveway and not shovel it because it will be gone before you know it. He's not wrong. But I need to leave the house this week, so we'll see.

Pics are in opposite chronological order. Whoops!

Kudos to CFA Southport for keeping my boy safe!

8pm and it's definitely a snowstorm out there. Not so much the snowfall but the wind and bitter cold.

Benaiah stopped by to drop off a phone case Grandpa had bought Justin. He petted Socks a ton and Abishai shoved him all his new toys.

Starting a new "generation" on the classic Ice Age. Such a good movie. So funny! And Abishai got to feel all the feels tonight!

When the dog kicks in the snow, you make snowballs!

6:30 pm or so.

Enough snow to be kicked in!

Around 6pm.

4pm?

About noon, snow covering dog's tracks for just a couple of hours previously. Socks wanted to be out but only for a little while.

No one knows for sure what to do with this room. Sigh.

People over profit every time!

Dinosaury had to do some of Abishai's work for him as he got started. Whatever works!

The playground wall we built for Grogu, the Child, the Baby Yoda

See-saw.

A swing.

A ball bit.

Lots of adjustments.

Front of the Mandalorian fortress. Complete with a wall that could be easily knocked on.

Stairs and Grogu on the speeder bike.

Gorgeous mines of Cornwall, England.

10am.

Justin's seedlings like the heat of our house.

Play cars in the kitchen before the parents wake up.

Snowy day doggie.


The white out conditions in Charlottetown in the snowstorm that started the day after Abishai was born and continued heavily through Sunday into that Monday. 34 inches fell in less than 48 hrs. We'll get maybe 8 inches total from these two back to back storms and they will all melt next week.

Abishai at 2 days old!

Wide eyed to see all the crazy stuff going on around us.

One of my favorite photos ever! Benaiah was 12 1/2 yrs old. Special bond these two have I think.

What I found before I went to bed. No, Jared hadn't picked up anything for me. But why didn't he put these away before he went to bed? I didn't touch it. He put it away this morning.

P.S. Jared says he doesn't like kissing me because then his nose is drippy and he doesn't like getting snot everywhere. First time I've heard that excuse! And lamest excuse on the planet! I'm going to kiss him anyway. In fact, I had Abishai and I both kiss his cheeks at the same time. But Abishai blocked my kiss, too. Oh well, I'll get my way eventually.

Tuesday/Wednesday

Long day on Tuesday. Eventually both of my day events canceled, and then the evening's meeting went on for 3 hrs! It was a great meeting, but left my head spinning and I was exhausted. I watched some shows and went to bed. But not before I stayed up too late looking up hormones again and osteopaths and doctors. Blech. Anyway, we did get about 10-12 inches of snow! So we had a lot of shoveling to do in order for us to get out. We should have thought about getting Gary's snow blower over here, but I had forgotten that he had one. Abishai wanted to go out first and try to ride his bike in the snow because I had said he could do that two storms ago. Well, of course that didn't work. But he and I got started on playing outside. Before my appointments were canceled, I had called Justin and Keturah to start shoveling around 10am. Eventually, to my dismay, Jared came out. I was not happy that we've spent over 6 weeks with different health issues and he all of a sudden felt "good enough" to shovel. Um, get your booty back in the house, I'm calling Benaiah! We know that him shoveling in Canada made Jared's sciatica flare multiple times. Thankfully, this snow was all fluff so it wasn't that difficult. BUT, we are spending $1,000's on therapies out of pocket right now. There is no need for him, or I, to be out there. The kids can handle this and they should. Jared and I both shoveled our fair share of driveways when we were kids. Eventually Benaiah did come over and help finish the job and Jared used the snowblower on the road and sides of road. Snow blowing the road really helped because it was nearly bare today, even with the freezing cold temperatures. When I went to Bible study on Wednesday, the other streets had not been cleared by the random private snow plow drivers, nor had anyone cleaned off the roads in front of their houses, including my friends. The main roads are fine, but because private roads were still not cleared off, the public school kids had another e-learning day. I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. Most of the grownups I know grew up with snow. This is a no brainer. We know they all got a huge amount of snow the year we did in Canada 6 years ago. Can they really have such a short term memory? And what about being kind when you have a private snow plow on your truck and just use it as you go down your own neighborhood streets? Greedy people. Just a couple of passes would get most of it out of the way. In Charlottetown, roads were clear, even the side streets, in the first 24 hrs after a storm. The rural country took up to 3 days in some spots. I get that we don't have as many trucks, but we all need to pitch in and do our parts. I guess I can be glad the kids have e-learning. But I have places to go as well. I guess I will be using just our street until this all melts at the beginning of next week.

Meanwhile, Abishai was a trooper and continued to move snow with his gloved hands. We don't have enough shovels for everyone, but he worked hard when and where he could. He was so adorable as always. After cleaning off the driveway, we got back to doing our schoolwork. I had to keep reminding the kids that snow comes first when we have to leave the house and because it doesn't last long, so go play! Then academics. Today, Wednesday, I had them go out and make snowmen for me as a gym/art project. Abishai was upset that his siblings were touching his snow, so he didn't make a snowman. Instead he took the camping chair outside with some snacks, put on his coat, and sat and watched them make the snowmen like it was a theater or show or something. Lol! I bet he's going to be a manager of something someday. It was still very, very cold today, too. We made sure the trampoline and back deck also got cleaned off. The snow was being kicked into the house every time the dog stepped inside. I had to take a screwdriver to chisel out some ice that had accumulated in the door jam because I couldn't close the back door! And then I tried cleaning off the outside of the back door because Socks has left mud streaks when he paws the door wanting to be let back in and before I could wipe the glass, the cleaner had frozen to it! Whoops!

It was a long, long, day on Tuesday, so Wednesday was a bit of a recovery/pick myself up/do the dishes and pick up around the house kind of day. I managed to get it most of it done despite feeling like I'm in some kind of fibromyalgia flare. The pain isn't intense, but I'm just feeling off. My lower back hurts, and different spots hurt in my hips and legs (most likely because of weight). I've had a dramatic increase in heartburn, just like when I was this weight when I was pregnant, which could be weight related or food related since I've tried to increase eating vegetables. I did come up with a solution to that one though! I decided that I have to eat a fruit with breakfast in the morning, raw vegetables with lunch (so more on the go type veggies), and then cooked vegetables with dinner. I know, I know, many of you probably already do that, but by making it more official and tied to another activity I'm already doing, it might help a bit to help me feel fuller longer and get those vegetables in. I will try to start by eating vegetables and then finish off with the rest of a meal. That way I had room for the veggies and if I'm full, I won't eat as many other things. Basic diet stuff, but I need to actually practice it. I did drink more water today but still ended up with a headache. I woke up with very swollen hands, like when I was pregnant. Again, I don't know if it's hormones or weight. I see my PCP on Monday so I'm going to actually ask her about endocrinology. I didn't put two and two together to realize there's a specialty just for the hormones. Duh. Although we check with the most basic tests a lot of those things, there are tests that will break down those numbers even further with smaller paraemeters. I know that from my osteopath in Charlottetown, vs. the numbers I would get when tested by a PCP there. So, I know we can get a more precise look at everything, but then it's a matter of what protocol do I go with. I'm just hating the fact that I have all these symptoms of when I was 9 months pregnant and yet I'm not pregnant. There's no baby there. I'm not abusing my body to give another human life. It doesn't seem fair at all. And there's no end date, so there's no hope that it will go away soon. So today was another reminder that I do have fibromyalgia and that because of ADD, I can't always get to the phone calls to make doctor appointments happen in a timely manner. I can only do so much in a day, and because of my issues, that's a lot less than the average person. Sigh. It's very hard and frustrating.

So when Jared says, "No, you did this and this and this today." when I say, "I didn't accomplish much today." it means a lot to me. I wish he said that more often. So I told him and thanked him. I'm grateful he's not as grumpy anymore. He's still in a lot of pain, but he's coping. Today was the first time all 4 e2 employees were in the office at the same time in more than two months! Between Covid and health crisis, it's been a struggle. I did notice on an e-newsletter from a magazine that e2 has two events coming up at two different Christian colleges. It would have been nice to know those dates directly from Jared than from finding it out through somewhere else. Sigh.

See, I can't even type a full blog post right now. My hand is going numb. Just like it would when I would push a baby stroller. I know I wore some compression gloves at night for awhile. I know where they are and will put them out right now. But because my emotional state is very low right now, just trying to deal with this is setting me off to crying. Grieving the loss (again) of your health is real. Actually, being told by multiple Christian sources with good intentions that it's time "go and do" "the harvest is ripe but the workers are few" "make sure you sign up to volunteer" is very triggering to someone who wants to do those things but can't. I just can't. I used to. And I enjoyed it. And it was good for me, but I can't interact with many people or I have a meltdown. I can't physically handle much more than the basics at home. If I push too hard, I'm out for days. If I go at my steady pace and "play" and "rest" more, even if it looks like I'm being lazy playing games on my phone, then I can run the marathon. You can accomplish 20 things in a day, while I accomplish 5. I get very jealous of those with health (and wealth), physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental. Even doing this new extremely fast paced and intense Bible study is going to be a challenge, not because I don't want to do it, but I don't know how I'm going to give it the attention it deserves. I'm going to try to do it in the morning before or after Abishai's school time because that's the time I'm usually waiting on someone else to be ready for read alouds so I'm usually just flitting away my time. Sigh. I told Jared I'm jealous that he gets to go do all the fun stuff like massage and acupuncture and he told me I should just go but the budget is on high speed to getting us into big time debt. We cannot afford it. Not until I see our tax refund. But I can't get to that until Saturday. And round and round we go.

So, that's about it. It's cold. It's snowy. I'm glad I left up our outdoor Christmas lights because now it really feels like Christmas and the candy canes don't look out of place. The Christmas tree will stay up until the taxes and my IAHE newsletter is done. No one around here looks at it. It will come down eventually. It's just not a priority. And it's ok. I love the colored lights. We need color in the winter. I love walking through the room at night and seeing the lights. It's my happy place. It's fine until I have the hour to deal with it and another hour putting the boxes in the right places in the garage and decluttering that area. Ugh. That might not happen until spring. Ok, fine whatever, it's a losing battle with that garage. I keep trying and it keeps getting so disheveled. Ugh! Justin and Jared both move things to suit their needs out there. It's not something I can tackle in the cold. But it's getting annoying to move around boxes that are out of place, and the van benchseat that needs to be put back in, and kitchen cabinets that might be there for 2-3 more years. I don't know. If I wasn't such a packrat, those cabinets could have gone into the shed. Oh well. We have what I have, now what and how did I get ride of certain things? Just another one of those to do list items.

Ok, I have to stop. My hand is numb and it's really late. Let's try to tackle some of these photos and see how many videos there. I might save some of the journaling for tomorrow. Here goes.

Oh goodness, well, the to do list finally got done! It was snowing when I left at 11am so that made me nervous but the main roads were clear and somewhat dry. I almost got stuck at the recycling bins though. I saw an SUV at the other bin and thought, oh, all the snow is packed down, I'll just go over it. Well, it wasn't packed down AND I forgot that I am in a car, not a van. Thankfully, I was able to back out of my spot, but there was no going forward. But recycling got dumped, I finally went to the dentist, I picked up another Mocha Nut sugary caffeinated concoction, I dropped off expired medication to Meijer's drop off bin, a took the broken plastic box to Kohl's to have them ship it back to Amazon, and then I zipped up the highway to the dermatologist and got a bit more steroid in my keloids. As I expected, the dermatologist was very pleased at how much better my scar was. And then finally, I picked up a DVD from the library and dropped off a huge bagful of books. I was gone a total of 5 hrs. But it felt good to be out and get those things out of my house that have been staring me in the face for a week or two. I came home, did my Bible study, cooked some greens and salmon for dinner, checked the kids' schoolwork, and now I'm here. They are doing well without me on their schoolwork, even sometimes checking their math when necessary. They watched 2 hrs of their history documentary mini series today instead of just 1 since I was gone. Who says you have to know everything about a subject in order to "teach" it? Nope, you just have to know where to get the right information aka, the library and good, "living" books.

While I was driving, I listened to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I might have read it when I was in high school, but can't remember. It was easy enough to follow along, but Justin thinks it's hard to read and keep track of the characters. I told him to listen to it. The chapters are about 20 minutes long, so it goes by pretty quickly. The action does not go by fast. The scenes are long and descriptive. I think maybe 48 hrs have passed after the initial week. I'm not sure. Slow to action, but deep in philosophy and thinking about things. From the wife that wants to be an abolitionist, to the runaway slave, to the slave who won't run away so he can be sold to save the farm and the rest of the slaves. To one slave going down the wrong paths with the master giving the runaway slave time to escape to the helpers of the underground railroad on the north side of the Ohio River. And of course, a mother's love. It's an incredible classic. But I have to keep up with them so I can ask the questions and have the discussion. That's hard to do. But putting an audiobook on 1.25x or 1.5x speed is very helpful.

So, why, yes, I do feel good about my "doism" today. Jared is feeling the pain of having to redo an entire document/book because of formatting issues. I don't want his tedious job. I'd get bored. And severely annoyed and give up. Accounting can be tedious if you are in a big company and are just making entries all day, but that happens a bit less because of the automatic nature of things. But being a homeschooler and homemaker, no two day are exactly alike. Routines are great and that's what keeps days like today going. I can leave and trust that things got done. I can't believe we are finally at this point! Remember when I used to fight with Keturah to get her work done? And even last year when Justin couldn't do much on his own? Woot! Woot! Abishai learned all about animals that are extinct and used all kinds of great vocabulary from one of his Kratt's Kreatures videos. And he didn't seem to bug the others too much. And the others remembered to feed him and let the dog out. Routines are important. I'm flexible on the exact times sometimes, but knowing what comes next in the day is helpful beyond measure. So I'm wicked proud of these kids! I just forget to tell that to their faces. Sigh.

The Elijah Bible study is already so good. I have asked Gary and Leah if I should be on the lookout for any slant or wrong theology though. The author is the daughter of a famous megachurch preacher and ministry leader in Texas. Nothing raised red flags on their church's website, but this author seems to be a woman preacher, so,....that's a red flag to Gary, Leah, and Jared and the elders of our church. It's not an opinion I hold to that tightly. "Preachers/elders should be the man of one wife." is how the Scripture reads and they take it literally. It rubs me a little bit the wrong way, and I'd be fine if a woman preacher was preaching to men or men and women, but that's my humanly opinion. But since this is mostly a woman to woman Bible study (although not expressly so), there's really no issue there. I've got other fish to fry.

Ok, onward. Tomorrow we have Bible class, sledding, dinner with Gary and Leah, and Abishai's first karate class. That kid is going to be exhausted. I'm wondering if he's even going to enjoy karate because of the busy day ahead. I hope so. Next week we won't have all this beforehand, so it might go better. We are both going with him to Karate. I think he's a little bit nervous about it, too. He did say this morning after he saw the valentines from the neighbors, "Hey, Mom, this one is from Conner. He's such a nice guy. I like him." Conner is 3. Nolan is 6 and he and Abishai like to play together but butt heads, too. And Abisahi is holding a grudge from when Nolan told him that Abishai is afraid when Nolan was shaking a toy at him. Abishai said he wasn't afraid but was surprised (his words, not mine) but Nolan wouldn't listen. Abishai doesn't want to be seen as scared. Interesting. Just the fact that he knows the difference between those emotions and can identify it is amazing. Maybe they can settle their differences at day long summer camp at the end of June. I'm signing him up as soon as I can. That's going to be a busy two weeks with Keturah at CIY first, then Abishai camp on Saturday and then Justin leaves for his camp. Yup. summer camp crazies! But the older two are signed up and they are already at 40% capacity for both Mix and Move. You can't hesitate with these signups. Not at our church anyway.

Ok, that's it. I'm quickly fading. I was going to try to do more things this evening but I don't think so. I need my bed! I'm so tried!

Time for summer camps! This is what the incoming 1st-5th graders will be up to.

New intense Bible study. It's so hard to find time for these intense studies because you want to do them justice and get the most out of them, especially when a softcover book costs $25!

We woke up to 2 more inches of snow! Woot! Woot! Time to shovel again, except the shovels are halfway under the snow!

Wow! Radish seeds grwo quickly in the right conditions. This experient by Justin is supposed to show something about the greenhouse effect.

Much less seeds sprouted and they are all reaching towards the light source instead of growng straight up.

Yikes!

This sound interesting, but I need the actual graphic to read them all.

Frying collard greens, kale, fresh parsley, fresh cilantro in olive oil with garlic, slat and simple. It was pretty good and at least we ate some greens! Even Jared tried it! If you can tolerate cabbage, why not the rest of the greens family.