Week 6, September 24th-26th, 2021: It's A Fall Weekend

 Friday did not go well. I had an early morning doctor visit, which was fine. We tried a muscle releasing technique, which to be honest, is the same as what a chiropractor or massage therapist has done before on me. I guess it's the extra training that makes these doctors "osteopaths"? Which, I know that for other areas, there's more to it, but we were working on my headaches. Maybe I was looking for a different kind of doctor? I'm not sure. I know it's not a naturopath, because they aren't an actual doctor that prescribes things, but I'm pretty sure the D.O. that I had before moving to Canada was something different and/or the one that I had in Canada who maybe was more naturopathic actually had a degree in medicine. I don't know. I'm so confused about it. I'm just always going to be tight and stressed and everyone can keep pressing in the same areas and I'll get some relief for a minute but it will always come back. Medication will help for now. So we'll stick with what we have going on for now. 

Then, I was supposed to call the oil changing place Jared wanted me to use to see how long the wait was. Well, I did call and they told me I would have to leave my car for the rest of the day. I lost it. I was so mad. I was trying to do a good deed and get the oil change done for him, (car maintenance is supposed to be Jared's chore) because he really doesn't want to drive my car because of his back. I had called on Monday to try and make an appointment for Friday, but they told me to come first thing before my appointment or call afterwards. Well, I wasn't going to take a chance on being late to my appointment and I don't get up that early, so I waited until afterwards. This oil change place is 6 minutes from my doctor's office so I was trying to get it done at the same time so I wouldn't have to waste my other days when I need to be home. So not only I was doing a chore that isn't mine to do, but now I couldn't do it. 

So I texted Justin to see if he could be ready to go take his written test at the BMV again and he said, he doesn't want to take it before park day. Ok, whatever. I had told Jared to take Justin to the BMV today and to take him to TCU to open up a bank account, which was the other thing we did with Benaiah at age 16. I didn't think about him needing an apointment at TCU to do it now that we are still in pandemic mode. I thought you just walk in and get whoever is available. Well, you don't anymore, so Jared set an appointment for Monday. Except the BMV isn't open on Mondays so we still have to go on a separate day to do the BMV thing which means another day out of the house, which I don't have.

I was pretty mad. And I came to the conclusion that I am just done doing errands during school hours. No more appointments either as long as I can help it. Only field trips until 3pm every day. Maybe something quick during the lunch hour. No phone calls. No long emails. No errands. I work full time educating my kids. End of story. So house maintainence, car maintainence, etc. has to be done after 3pm. And if that means only 1 thing gets done each day because I have to be back by 5 to get dinner cooked, than so be it. And if Jared has to take his lunch hour to do something, so be it. If we have to go wait in longer lines on a Saturday, then so be it. I just feel like everything came together so much quicker for Benaiah. He had everything lined up within two weeks. It's been over two weeks since Justin failed his permit test. He's left a voicemail for the owner of the Lego shop, but he hasn't called back yet. I hope Justin said the right phone number and that his voicemail is set up correctly.  

Procrastination drives me nuts, especially when I'm ready to accomplish something. Everybody waiting for that perfect moment instead of just going and doing it. I'm not sure why God gave me such lazy people to deal with. I'm worn out trying to prod them along just to maintain the basics of life. Because that's all I do, nag, and then I miss out on the joy and fun of life. I'm weary and tired of managing everyone. Sometimes I just want to quit. So I leave the house for park day. Or I find any excuse to go on a field trip and ignore being home. But then, nothing gets  done at home, too, and the to do list is still there, and I'm then more mad at that. Sigh. But at least I get out in the fresh air for a little while. And breathe and thinking about something else.

We visited a new park to us on the northside that had been redone and it was really nice. Indoor easy to access bathrooms, very shaded areas, huge towers of jungle gyms, huge trees, great breeze, and good conversation on other people's problems. After that, we brought Kya home with us to hang out for a bit. Jared took her home after he had taken Abishai to karate. Justin got her to laugh multiple times over Uno.No more grumpy Storm Trooper face. Socks was happy to have an extra kid in the house for a little bit, too. 

One of the best benefits of homeschooling, you fill in your gaps in learning. It's an incredible thing!

My awesome, but exhausted, overwhelmed friend whose older daughter is getting married next weekend (and then they are selling their house and moving soon afterwards) took the time to come to park day with her youngest daughter. And then she took the few minutes to swing on this peculiar swing with her. I think they both needed it so badly. Just say yes.

That same friend's daughter loves animals and had hatched some monarchs. This one can't fly, so she's taken care of it for as long as she can. She brought it to the park today. Since Abishai had just been playing with the pretend one at home after seeing the one at Bug Day a couple of weeks ago, I got him off the playground and brought him over to meet it. He was so excited!

He was very gentle with it.

Socks and Abishai (who was off to the side telling Kya all about the Lego minifigures) make the best chaperones and they don't even realize it. They just get right in the middle of everything because they want to be the spotlight. Everybody is just friends, but it's good to keep everybody safe and kosher.

Saturday was a gorgeous day, and it was a good thing it was. The HVAC guy and his crew was here to install the new A/C unit, although we really won't need it until the spring now. But it's done and now we just have to figure out a way to actually pay for it when the full bill comes in. At the same time, the neighbor's fence crew was here putting in the fence line that we share. So we had to be careful not to let Socks out because he was either going to escape or bother the men too much. But, we also had to monitor Abishai because he, too, wanted to chat up the guys out there. Jared was out there with them most of the time, too. The HVAC guys had to work with the system inside the garage as well as under the house, so I waited to shower until they were done. I hate staying in my pjs but if I had changed, I wouldn't have been motivated to actually shower. Since I wasn't dressed, I stayed inside and knocked off a few things on my to do list like creating Abishai's official Mystery of History binder. I hadn't accessed the file for the front page of the binders since I created them in 2012. We've been doing that curriculum for 9 years straight, and will be finishing our 2nd cycle of it this semester. Wahoo! One more kid gets to go through it at least twice. Keturah gets to help me through this first round with Abishai and/or she will be doing a quick overview through a different high school level curriculum starting next year. I think I might have the older editions of Abeka World History she can use or we'll do something else. She'll be fine.

The middle got up late, which set up a conundrum of anxiety for me at around 2pm when Jared and the other men were done and he wanted to nap. There was still other work to be done. He had told Justin to mow "at least" the front yard. Um, it's nice enough out and there's enough time in the day to mow the whole yard. Mowing just part of the yard is just not very efficient and it's weird and I'm tired of it. Just get it done. I hate these outdoor projects taking days to complete. And then on Thursday Jared had told me to have Keturah trim around the north side of the house where he sprayed weed killer but I didn't have time to tell her or supervise her, so I was hoping she would have gotten up on time to do it, but she binge watched TV shows until 2pm. So I had to get him back out of bed to tell her what to do. And I wanted the pool to be properly cleaned so it could dry properly and be put away soon. The rain earlier in the week and the sunshine had taken care of the algae and mold so it just needed the quick dirt scrubbing. But even that proved to be a huge problem between the two middles because Keturah wanted a break and Justin wanted to work on it just then. They were supposed to do it together so they could flip it over together because it's awkward and heavy. 

I just don't understand my family's lack of efficiency. I mean we didn't talk about what needed done today, but everybody knows we get up at normal time every day of the week and we typically do yard work and projects on Saturday. Why would today be any different? Plus, I had on my list for them to do science experiments because we hadn't gotten  to them all week. Both of them rolled their eyes and stamped their feet and yelled at me about that, too. Look, you've had plenty of down time during the times that I've been busy. And you two are older and you don't need that much screen time. I just don't care anymore. Life is work. At 13 and 16 in other countries around the world, you'd have it 100x tougher than you do in this country. Get a grip. 

I'm extremely tired today and frustrated at everyone. I'm about to give up again and just not do anything and see what happens. Like not do laundry, dishes, meal plan, whatever, and let them all fend for themselves. Let paperwork slide and credit cards go unpaid. Or put the statements on Jared's lap. See what he does with it. Just do my teaching job and nothing else but feed myself and take more than 2 showers a week. Then a walk around the block may be feasible and a nap and my own education and pleasure reading and time to craft. I don't know. I just need to not feel guilty when something isn't done because I have to put out other "fires." Dinner's not ready? Well, you were fighting so dinner was delayed. Phone call not made today? Well, you didn't get your work done for me to check and remember to also remind you to make that phone call. You don't have any money? Well, you didn't write yourself a note to apply for a job. I need to take my feelings out of it. #notmyproblem And if I can distance myself on a Saturday, I can distance myself on other days. 

So, just walk away. I'm just not going to do xyz. Then maybe they won't assume or depend on me to xyz and they will learn to do it themselves. I won't be the alarm clock, the to do list, the calendar, the meal planner, etc. I quit. I am the teacher only. We'll see how long this lasts. It will mean I might have to clean a bowl and spoon from the dishwasher. I will put a load of laundry through the wash (because I don't make a whole load by myself a week), but then it will sit in my room clean until each person realizes that they will have to go put away their own clothes, I won't be calling them to come and do it. I may or may not make a whole meal and if I do, it will be to my own liking. I will probably put it away but not do the dishes. I won't pick up the clutter. I won't put away the recycling. I won't take the recycling to the dumpster. I may or may not go grocery shopping depending on if I'm out of my own food, although we are about ready for a regular trip. And it's up Jared to get Justin's permit, account, and job thing done. It's on his head because that's a bonding experience, that's why I forced it into his lap with Benaiah and I'm doing it again this time. It's a "Look, Dad, I'm growing up to be a man," moment, so go do it. Plus, it's a social anxiety thing for me, and I don't want to. There's lunch hours and Saturdays and evenings. Go and do. I'm out. Yup, social experiment for October. Let's see if they like me after a few weeks of this challenge. Oh, and I'm not telling them either. I quit. And it will be really, really hard for me, too. But maybe it's the flip we need. We'll see. I can't be a martyr forever. Or I'll die early like my mother. Let's just pray this doesn't take too long. Here's too me playing what I would call a "sloth" or "teenager" or "sitting on my butt" and it's going to take sheer willpower to do it. But it will be a game and I'll own it. And I'll win. 

Socks has his annual exam on Tuesday so I was feeling around for the growths I know he has so I could show them to the vet. These two growths are not the ones I've found before though. I think these are ones that kind of come and go and mean nothing. He did have a zit or injury of some kind on his snout that I was able to "pop" and get some pus and blood out of it like I would on myself, so I cleaned that up and now the scab has fallen off, so I did the right thing with that one. I've tried to pick open these growths and they don't open up.

He also has a dark spot on his ear that isn't dirt that I will have the vet look at. And I think he has some kind of mass on his rib cage. I don't think it's attached to his rib cage though and he has no other signs of any other issues. But I know what Jared's stance is on medical intervention of any sort on animals (i.e. basically none), so it's definitely got me on high alert and I'm scared. I'm glad I found it now though so I can talk to the vet about it. We will get a full blood panel as well, and talk about his overall health. Poor puppy dog.

Oh, there's just a little elf in the backyard chatting up the neighbor's workmen while they work on the mutual fence line. No big deal or anything. Too cute!

And what, $4,000 later we have a new A/C unit!!! It still doesn't take care of all the leaky windows we have and faulty ductwork or whatever, but, maybe we'll save money on the electric bill next year! Yeah!

See that year there? I put together the older 3 kids' Mystery of History binders in 2012 after we had moved to Canada. I had bought the curriculum on a whim through Christian Book Distributors, the only place I saw curriculum sold besides Abeka books and when I looked up Math U See. I mean I had other curriculum from my childhood, but I didn't know really anything about other companies or where to find anything. I knew nothing about the IAHE either. And now look at us, 9 years later, lol. I'm so glad I have all my homeschool document files like this saved to an SD card so I can easily transfer them from one lap top to another.

And now it's the last child's turn to have his own Mystery of History binder. We put all their geography map work in there, and written answers to research questions, or flat projects, and it's divided up by continent. The middle two's binders are really, really thick after doing it for 9 years, through two whole cycles, I think the 2 inch binders and then some.

I believe this one or something similar was Benaiah's first pocket knife and it hung near the door in the Charlottetown house, up high enough so Justin couldn't reach it, but in reach of Benaiah in case of an emergency. It was in my desk drawer and I used it briefly today. So, I hung it here in the boys' room sort of to remember this from the Charlottetown house as well as to remember that it won't be long before Abishai can use it. He actually could use it soon with care. I'm just afraid it would be left in a bin somewhere and a friend might come over and find it and other moms would not be happy about that. Justin already has regular pocket knives in his drawers. And Abishai hasn't gone through Justin's drawers looking for them. And Abishai doesn't go through Jared's tool benches playing with any of the dangerous tools either, so I think Abishai knows that things like this are dangerous and to be careful. Abishai does handle table and steak knives already. So there it is, ready for my almost 7 yr old whenever he needs it. Yikes!

Pitiful doggy.

Justin needed to do some science labs today, and one was to try and figure out the wavelengths of the microwaves of our actual microwave unit based on the Hz. Well, we couldn't figure out the math for it because of the way it's written here, and we weren't sure when we cooked the eggs like the lab wanted us, too, but we understood the concept of how the waves jump from one egg white to the next. But also notice how old our microwave is. This workhorse is 21 years old. I believe it's actually something like 1500 watts, which was high for those days. I know this because I've always had to cook things for LESS than the packages say. Even now I still have to be careful. I warm up a cup of water in the microwave for exactly 1 minute and it's the perfect temperature to warm up water enough for tea to brew for 2-3 minutes without it being scalding hot and then I can drink it immediately. And we still have lots of items that will "explode" everywhere because they get too hot. They don't make appliances like this guy anymore.

See how the egg whites barely started to cook at 15 seconds in the microwave? That's because the waves jumped from one part to the other. That's the whole point. We just couldn't get the algebra to work out. I then had Justin put the egg yolks in the mircowave for 1 minute and well, they exploded everywhere. Whoops! I still ate them, but I should have said 30 seconds. It's been a long time since I've tried cooking eggs in the microwave. They come out rubbery, but in a hurry, it works.

Abishai is excited to have is very own Mystery of History binder. Although, it took a few tries to get a smile out of him because he had just come off from playing video games with Daddy. It's already learning names of places like a champ! So exciting!

I feel like I haven't talked to anyone today, because, I really haven't. I made it my goal to not nag and well, most of my day is spent nagging and reminding and correcting, so I didn't have much to say. And even lunch conversation was spent listening to Benaiah yap about his budget and then it turned political and I wasn't about to jump into that conversation although I think they were totally wrong. I didn't feel like getting sliced into a million pieces trying to explain myself when I had to leave in 10 minutes to pick up Keturah from worship team rehearsal. I asked Justin why he didn't jump into the conversation and he said something similar. He knew what they were saying was wrong, but he didn't want to be put on the spot either. Well, we will have to work on how to defend ourselves then.

Anyway, Jared took Abishai with him and they attended first service, so I stayed home and enjoyed the quiet again. I just rested my brain mostly. I didn't have to tax it with the over stimulation of sights and sounds of 1,000 people. I noticed that I could just keep the service on a low volume today, too. I didn't want the music up high and induce a headache. I didn't want to huff and puff up the stairs to the balcony. I didn't want to notice people or not or be distracted by them. But then, the audio was crappy on the online service, too. I've always noticed that the sound mix on the online service is extremely poor. It's not professional level at all. And for a church our size with our income, we should have the technology and the staff to figure it out and train the volunteers in the booth. I never understood why we were so behind on all of this. Same with the website. But today, it wasn't just the music, but the feedback on the sermon mics that were off. We had two speakers today and the echoing was really distracting and one mic was way up and the other was way down. I even texted Benaiah because I didn't remember it being that bad last time. They did fix it a little bit. And I guess it does have to do with having two mics so close together. Oh, and Benaiah was told that he's going to be switching from video stuff to audio stuff soon and I think he's going to do a great job at it. Because if the kid who used to spend every dime before he got it can now budget out his whole year's salary on a spreadsheet very carefully and very wisely can learn to do that, he can learn anything about anything. Benaiah is such a sponge. And he's applying his intelligence left and right. He got out from under the government school route and now he can apply what I taught him in the first place, life long learning. 

I tried to shoo everyone outside because it was really nice, but they had none of it. I even tried sitting outside but the bees wanted my sweetened coffee. I opted to lay down on the couch inside with the windows open instead. I didn't tell anyone when to get up or get ready. But I did tell them there was laundry in my room that I had sort this morning. I didn't do Jared's laundry or dishes. He did do his laundry. I haven't looked in the kitchen yet. I've caught up on some of my games. I didn't really read anything. I printed out blank calendars and filled them in through January. The blog is caught up. I'm about to pull out the cd back up for photos. So I feel, well, more at peace actually. And that's the point, right? More in control? By letting go of things they can all be responsible for? I reread some Scriptures this morning just to be sure that the ones I was using in my head to justify my ideas were being used correctly and I was fine. I spent a few minutes outside pulling a few weeds and sweeping the deck. I put some of the stones on top of the dead stuff near the deck so the grass won't grow back making it easier for Keturah for the rest of the year/next year. The new a/c unit only takes up half to 2/3 of the concrete pad that the old one did, so I kind of outlined that a bit, too, to try to keep the weeds at bay. And I noticed that there is definitely some mold stains on the canvas that was under the pool, so I think it should be thrown away, make that into a sandbox by putting maybe another layer of 4x4's or 2x4's on top with a cover, and then buying a real pool for next year. We can then move the trampoline next to the boys' room or some where else and put the real pool there where the trampoline was. Something like that. Who knows. Just dreaming I guess. If we ever have some cash flow. I keep thinking "if I provide it, they will go outside." And so far, only Abishai will do it. Sigh.

Ok wrapping up the night early. Yeah!

The rest of the pics I took were just screenshots you would be interested in. Since the kids and I concluded that you can't got to a meal that Leah prepared and expect it to be non dairy, this seems appropriate that I saw this today. Like seriously, I can't remember, but I bet, when they did even the Daniel fast of fruits and vegetables or whatever, they still had milk and cheese products out for the grandbabies. Let's see. Today we had chili and there was shredded cheese, sour cream, sour cream on celery, Abishai had ice cream, yup, that's it, for today. We could have gotten out sour cream and onion dip for the vegetables. Or ranch but Keturah wasn't there.

The End