Year 5, October 23rd-25th, 2020: Time to Rest

 As the previous blog post(s) indicated, it was a whirlwind of a week. I woke up today after not sleeping well, not only still in physical pain, but with mental and emotional exhaustion. I decided to cancel a playdate for Abishai at his request. Park Day was going to be in Fishers, which is a 40 minute drive and coming home would have taken more than an hour. The kids were still supposed to be on their way home from Michigan today, so no Bible class, we are still "on vacation." Because I try to leave the house in pristine condition, no matter how long I'm gone for a vacation, it was easy to "catch up."  Leah had started a load of laundry because Abishai threw up on the way home yesterday. So I finished that one and got the 2nd load all the way through the washer and dryer before this morning. I had the kids tackle the two loads first and I'm glad I did. I only had a minimal amount of our stuff to put away. Even Abishai tried to put his clothes away and he got his pjs, socks, and underwear put back right! I heard Abishai chanting, "Home Sweet Home." I felt bad about canceling the playdate but I couldn't handle another embarrassing scene. Especially after how I messed up the last hour of yesterday's drive home.

I have spent a good portion of the day going back and forth with my friends about Joe Biden, running on the Democratic ticket for President. It's been an awesome discussion and very civil. Something I love to engage in. And I thanked them for it. Other than that, we've just done nothing. I cleaned up my desk a bit. I'm glad I wrote some words for Tuesday and Wednesday and now I just have to type something up for Thursday. And when I'm up for it, I'll put it all together. I'm currently working to upload photos and it's driving Justin nuts. The bank accounts are budgeted. Keturah and I showered. Leftovers for supper. And we had a short burst of thunderstorms come through. I don't know what tonight will look like. I left probably 50 text messages for Jared and he's not responding because they have a virtual conference tomorrow. I kind of just want to be left alone. I'm feeling better now that I've talked to others. Two friends texted me (not just messaged me, but actual texts) when I wrote about how I felt. And I texted my sister. It's just good to tell someone.

Back to normal I guess. Which is not where I want to be at all. We'll see how the rest of the weekend goes and then I have 5, yes 5!, appointments next week so school is going to be all over the place. I need to rest up this weekend and do nothing. Even if it means I put off sorting through clothes, again. So be it.

I signed up, did you? Smitty is actually the emcee this time!

6 years ago I think? At a "pumpkin patch" in New Orleans. Oh yeah, right before the cruise perhaps?

Bwahahaha

I didn't need to even ask, Abishai took it upon himself to put all his snacks away in the drawers today.

Amen.

Saturday Jared had the e2 conference thing, so I played a game with Abishai and then we set up a barricade so we could shoot Daddy when he came home. 

I watched a seminar about ADD and middle schoolers, which relates to teens as well. Pretty great stuff!

I love this visual instead of putting up number of minutes. She was suggesting to use an analog clock, not digital.

Schedule of all family members.

"Masterpiece" is an "old" game, barely used, and it's about auctioning art pieces to each other and to/from the bank. We did play with at least some of the regular rules. The art cards have the artist's information and name of the art piece. Very educational. I think we played it for almost 2 hrs.

All set up with our barricade for Daddy.

Gotta take a break from watching for Daddy to eat a snack! It's all he ate for lunch! Whoops!

Abishai would not make a great sniper since he can't sit still!

Is Daddy here yet?

Always fiddling with something.

Attacking Daddy

At least I had clarity of mind today (thanks to two cups of coffee). I decided to try my lighthouse cross stitch again and discovered I really don't have much left to do. So I think I just listened to 90 minutes of "The Scarlet Letter" while I stitched two colors worth, which wasn't much overall. I have 4 colors left, but I can only identify 2 of them on the sheet. It has been the most time consuming, mistake ridden project I've ever done. The colors on the sheet didn't match the colors of the thread. They should have used some symbols. Thankfully, the sky, sand, and sea are forgivable. The fabric itself is so supple from so many years of handling, it's ridiculous. And it's only about 5x7 inches! I think I started it soon after my mom died and I went through their things. Definitely before PEI. I have a much, much larger cross stitch, of Jesus, but I think less colors and more rows of each color. That actually is easier to to do than all the starting and stopping in the smaller projects. Sigh. But, I finally got into "The Scarlet Letter" after half a dozen tries today. Now I'm hooked and didn't want to stop! I'm enjoying the audio book kind of thing because I usually listen and half watch a TV show while doing my phone games anyway, so why not listen and play my games or cross stitch. It does stick in my brain a bit better than reading right now. I'm hoping Justin can get it easier with audiobooks as well. I told him to read the first chapter which is two pages total and draw me the scene they describe because it's so rich in vocabulary. And then I'll let him go chapter by chapter with a study guide and/or me using the audio version. And our library system is the best of the best! I have so much access to so many platforms, books, TV shows, ebooks, audiobooks, ah! Anyway, that felt good and to watch a bit of this 5-step learning process by a PhD who wrote "The Switch on Your Brain" book. I still haven't read the book and it's not in an audio format for my phone app. Oh well. I think this course is quick, with only 9, 12 min videos, so I want Justin to go through it in the next few weeks. We'll see, this week is a beast, so no guarantees.

I spent the afternoon working on these week's blogs. I took care of the doing the photo backups, including CD's last night when I couldn't put two thoughts together. I had Justin make taco meat for supper and Keturah distributed the load of sheets from the dryer. Everyone got to help make their beds. Chores were done. Jared had gone for a nap and based on what he was wearing and his moaning, he didn't feel good because he didn't sleep well. Well, I didn't sleep well either. We will go to church as normal tomorrow but won't be eating lunch with Gary and Leah. Gary's out of town, Benaiah is going downtown to vote, and I don't think Leah liked what I wrote in an email last night regarding Jared's article that was in the e2 enewsletter/blog and how it was his opinion and not mine and how I hoped no one thought we were on agreement. When you are in leadership, your marriage should be solid, above reproach, unified, all the things. And I don't want to promote a falsehood. When we totally disagree on politics, how to do church, parenting, education, even how to paint a bathroom, he and I shouldn't be putting ourselves out there projecting something the other person doesn't agree with. Anyway, so there's that.

A package for Benaiah came today from Door Dash. Apparently he signed up to be a delivery boy. Yeah for a side gig! We'll have to figure out mileage and car usage and taxes, but I can ask my brother for help on that. What a big boy Benaiah is to make big decisions, lol. 

Truth

My ADD is showing, bouncing between different things today.

Socks played "blankie monster" with Abishai where he knows he can nibble us through the blanket. However, there was a moment where the blankie wasn't in between Socks and Abishai and Abishai thought it was funny that Socks was actually nibbling on him. I had to sternly tell the kids never to let him do that because I don't want Socks to become a mean old dog.

Where is Keturah? Hiding of course! But she was working on her guitar practice.

Sunday - Well, we woke up late. It's a good thing I was only staying for one service. We were out the door in under 50 minutes, including a costume for Abishai. I just have to leave more undone when we are late like that and I don't like it. Church was fine. I'm still kind of mad that I have to wear a mask and I don't see this mass increase in attendance or enough volunteers to open more classrooms so more families can come back. If you all are sending kids to school, why are you not coming to church? If people are scared to come to church because people aren't wearing masks, then why aren't they coming when we are? Maybe the social media team needs to send out photos of the congregation doing all the things they think are necessary. So, I wrote a post. And, I wasn't terribly nice. And, if I get called out by leadership, I don't care. Hey, guess what, we aren't in leadership anymore, so what does it matter what I post on social media? Ok, ok, I think I technically signed something about that for when I serve in the nursery. Whoops, I'm just remembering that now. Again, if I get called out, than I do. And if I don't, then no one cares. Anyway, lots of other things made me mad and I'm in full PMS freakout mode. Trying to distract myself with other things like learning about the brain or listening to "The Scarlet Letter."  I looked at my Bible study, too.

Leftovers at home and Jared got his usual nap. (A trigger for me, btw.) I worked on the computer. Kids had screen time. I quickly got library books and dog food at the grocery store because Socks didn't even have breakfast because we were out. Yes I picked up cookies and chocolate for myself, and milk and bananas for the others. PMS week, y'all and I can't find the stash of candy I hid from Keturah. I already ate a whole chocolate bar last night. 

School starts tomorrow. Rough week ahead I'm sure. But I'm also sure I will feel accomplished once I'm caught up on all these appointments. I don't know what else. My brain isn't functioning well. Must be the lack of sleep. As you can see, we did get outside for a few minutes and I did manage to bring in some clothing boxes. I hate going through clothes and making decisions. But now that both Keturah and Justin can tell me what they will wear, I just go by what they say. Well, I make them keep a couple of nicer things of course just in case. I pulled all the child sized clothes out of Justin's closet and drawers yesterday and didn't even check if they fit. He's taller than me and can fit in men's things. Let's just make it easy and start there. It was mostly jeans he wasn't ever going to wear anyway. After we really reduced Benaiah's things to just those couple of sets of plastic drawers and a few hangup clothing items, I think I just shifted into doing the minimal for the other two. I mean I started doing that when I started purchasing items for them when I think we moved to Canada, at least with Benaiah. I say that time frame because the copious amounts of extra pants were sizes that Benaiah wore before and just after moving. Anyway, maybe I just hope the kids learn how to be minimalist in at least one area. But Abishai's stuff is a beast. He does have his favorites, and although I try to bury them, he pulls out the same things. I might just start asking him the same questions of "Do you like it? Will you wear it?" and THEN seeing if it will fit. That typically reduces the overall amount a lot. My problem is that I ask myself that question and then discover it doesn't fit. I like it all. I haven't switched over my clothes yet. It's just some of the shirts that I need to do. But mine are all hanging up and available to me at any time so I don't have to go through boxes of stuff.  I did go through things last fall when I bought some nicer things from Old Navy, so I'm not too worried. It's just really Abishai and then deciding if I'm keeping anything of Justin's to pass down to Abishai. I think Abishai will be skinny, but Benaiah was until he was 10. So, I might need to keep a bit of both. 2-3 jeans of each size/type? Husky and skinny? Don't know. I don't really have another box to put them in to put them in the shed though. Grrr.....Anyway, it's a process, and I brought some boxes in so that's no longer the excuse. We inventoried Justin's stuff and he's good for the moment. We'll see if this box will yield anymore helpful items and if not, then we will hit the store for 2-3 jeans, one more nice dress pant/short, maybe another pair of gym pants since he wears those the most. You can get away with a lot when 90% of the time you are wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt. He's got a nice collection of hoodies going though. Hand me downs and his own. A few dress shirts. And he gained two pairs of nicer shoes for church. Justin's feet haven't grown much, so he's been able to wear the same two pairs of sneakers for awhile, plus his croc sandals. It kind of feels awesome to get this stage and think "these will be his permanent clothes until he either gets tired of them or they wear out."  I still have to think Keturah will get bit bigger and I will need to purchase more for her each season. I'm glad we don't need to have a huge clothing budget!

And Jared took Abishai to see the fireworks display at church that the youth group was doing! And per usual in this township, people started chatting about it on the township FB page. Hang in there, folks! It's just for a few minutes! And it's well controlled by competent adults! Promise! I'm just glad for Jared and Abishai to get out of the house and I don't have to leave again to get the kids. Wahoo!

Dress-up day at church (the Sunday before Halloween). Abishai had his costume all picked out a couple of weeks ago when they announced it. We rigged up this big boy costume and made it work. He wore rainboots which really helped the costume from dragging. He said he took off his costume mask at a few points during the hour. And he colored the right and left brain because they were working on doing the right thing or something. He was able to talk about the skit though.

"Look, Mom, I'm surfing!"

Keturah found the extra swingset parts so she tried to put them up. One of them got stuck though when she was trying to adjust the length. I went out to take photos for Miss Stephanie, but then remembered that I really needed to try to find some boxes in the shed for switching out the clothes. I found a small box of bigger sized clothes for Justin, and then I think that's it for the boxed up hand me downs. I think after that box I had started to just shift anything that Benaiah wasn't wearing to the back of Justin's section of the closet or the back of his drawers. Then I pulled out the two boxes of clothes I set aside of mine that are too small. There should be some size 5's in there that Keturah might want. She says she has enough, and I agree with her that we are trying to be minimal, but I know I had purposefully been saving some things or these moment, so we'll see. And I pulled out the heavy winter stuff to go through per usual. I don't know if I'll find time and energy to tackle this stuff, but we'll try.

Hey, I said you need to go exercise! Goof! This was after lunch, and he hadn't changed out of his Sunday pants/costume yet. He did change into shorts when he came in and we had to beg him to put pants back on because they were going to be outside watching fireworks tonight. I did see some adults setting up the fireworks at the back of the building. I'll try to send Jared early with Abishai.

That's a bit better. You can count on Abishai to make the kids MOVE around.

FYI, the slide isn't screwed into place yet. Which is probably dangerous. It's pretty solid though and doesn't shift. But Abishai had the idea of getting a sled out to go down on it. We haven't cleaned the slide yet, so maybe this will keep his clothes clean?

 

 

The End

Year 5, October 19th-22nd, 2020: Vacation!!!! Without Children!!!! Day 3 of 3

Thursday - Well, I screwed up big time and opened a can of worms by asking the deeper questions in the last hour of our drive home. I have that whole rant on paper and I'm not going to repeat it now. Basically, I ruined the end of vacation. I'm not the only culprit, but I heard answers I knew I was going to hear and didn't prepare myself to hear again, answers I totally disagree with and are triggering. So, the dam burst open. I was done holding my tongue. I'm mentally and emotionally exhausted. And basically, I think we need help. But let's back up and see how the better part of the day was spent.

We got up slower today because we are pretty sore. We left the Inn a little bit after 10am after taking a couple of photos of the fog over the Ohio River. I also purchased an ornament of a cardinal that I can write the date and location on to commemorate our vacation. We left just a few minutes too late and missed the cut off for breakfast at McDonald's but compromised with burger/chicken and fries for breakfast. Then we headed back into the Historic District of Madison. We started with a self guided interpretive walk called Section 8: Georgetown, 1954. It talked about the African American district, their contribution to the Underground Railroad, and how persecuted they were. Most of the homes are inhabited and are private, so it was weird standing there reading a brochure and then taking a photo. It was interesting to see how some have been taken care of and some have not. It was a good walk. Then we head over to that Doctor's office/house, but it was closed. After that, we got back in the car and headed to the Visitor's Center to sing up for a tour of that huge yellow mansion called Lanthier Mansion. The next tour was 2 hrs away so we tried to fill our time with going to the Lanthier Winery, a local coffee shop, and lunch. The history society and the railroad museum were both closed. Kind of a bummer. The Lanthier Winery had a nice walking garden, but again, no tour. We tasted a tiny bit of wine and Jared paid to taste some vodka or whatever. He chatted up the younger manager a bit. The coffee shop was pretty nice and had a ton of lunch options. Jared got a nitro brew and I got a Java Chip, with almond milk. They had a lot of cute things for sell and flavored coffee beans! And finally it was time for our tour of the mansion.

The mansion was pretty basic to eyes since I've been in many historical place of that time period. The symmetry of the Greek style was interesting. And the fact that it stayed in the family and then was deeded 100 years ago to the Indiana State Museum was very unique. They also had molded round rounded doors. The Lanthier family was prominent in the building of the railroad and financing the building of Mansion. The original family only lived there for 7 years though. They had a lot of the original furniture on display and it was gorgeous! It was a decent tour and we enjoyed it. Although Jared insisted on standing away from everyone like they had the plague. If the masks supposedly keep you from spreading the virus, you don't have to stand off in the corner. It's embarrassing to me when he does that. But whatever.

After that we made a quick stop at the toy shop again to get some stocking stuffers. Then the backroads adventure began. We were trying to get to a fire tower and delay fish our way home. Well, we left Madison about 4pm and got home about 7:45pm. We kept hitting detours and there was only state roads from Madison to Brownstown where the fire tower was. After the fire tower, we did hit Seymour, which is a bigger town near the I-65 highway and then it was straight shot to home. We climbed the Skyline Fire Tower in the Jefferson/Washington National State Forest Park. It's probably 80 feet tall. And it wasn't as scary as I thought! There was fencing along the railings and landings so I just kept looking at the stairs until I reached the top. The view was decent. Not spectacular but enough to scratch my itch. The drive up the road to the tower was crazy though. When the DNR guy said to be careful because the road was awful in one spot wasn't kidding! We were driving up on the ridge of the mountain and it was basically sheer cliffs on both sides. On that one part of the road, it bubbled up a fot in the middle and had a huge pothole. The road was only one car width wide, too. 15 mph the whole way with lots of S curves and huge hills The top of the mountain was 200 ft higher than where we started and yet we didn't go very fair laterally. That part was a great way to end our vacation. Until I opened my big fat mouth. 

I should have either said what I wanted to say earlier in the week so we could have talked through it, or I should have just kept silent. I was nervous to get these questions asked and answered before we saw the kids. What a can of worms. And now, it's over. And I don't know what to say. I thought we were getting somewhere. We had a great time actually, and did a lot and worked together. If I had a do over, I would have kept my mouth shut and left it all alone. But, that's not me. I'm the one who failed. And that's not me being sarcastic. I wish this had a happy ending. And it doesn't. This trip did reveal some things, and I can be grateful for that. We got to see some really cool things together and learn about Indiana history together. We got to be in the fresh air together and be actual grownups making all our own decisions and plans. (Which makes me exhausted, too!) And now it's over. The laundry is clean and put away. We will try to rest this weekend and then I have to jump back in to homeschooling and appointments next week. Jared has an e2 virtual conference to run tomorrow. What started out as a very hopefilled, promising adventure was just that, until the very end when our true, exhausted selves came out.  "Out of the heart, the mouth speaks." And we are sinful people, both of us. Ask forgiveness and ask for help. That's what we can do. And pray that God intervenes. So many mixed emotions. (Today, Friday, after I've calmed down after last night's tirade). Time to rest.

While Jared and I were doing our tours and things in Madison, the grandparents and kids were eating a big pancake breakfast and exploring Jungle Jim's, a huge international food store with a TON of imported food in it's original packaging. Loads of amazing, unique meats, breads, pastas, and fruits and vegetables you will never see in any other grocery store. It's pretty cool!

Nope! No insect eating here!

Ew!

Cuties!

Everybody gets a set of wolf ears when they go to Great Wolf Lodge. Adorable selfie!

A man's breakfast!

Typical of Abishai, some protein (he loves bacon and eggs) and some carbs.

Sugar carb queen. It was crushed up Oreo's on top of those pancakes! She said it was too much dairy for her.

He's not impressed.

I found these cute coasters in a coffee shop in Madison.

Some days are like that! But I cook a fresh meal ever 2-3 days (I plan ahead a bit to see when I'll be available to actually cook something), and cook enough so we have leftovers for the busy days.

I don't leave my kitchen a mess. It's not big enough for that. And I clean as I go. I've seen others' kitchens online like that and there's nothing with that! I just don't have the energy to bake like they do!

Anything with coffee and chocolate I love!

That's quite a mixture. They had your typical flavors, too. I'm not much in caramel or vanilla ones though.

Probably should have taken the photo closer to it, but I loved the brick wall and sunshine and leaves here in front of the flag down the way, which was a 13 star flag. I thought the kids would get a kick out of seeing it.  We also saw a guy with a full bred pyrenees walking down the sidewalk. Jared thought it was a mix at first, but I called it. I used to play with a full bred all white pyrenees at my friend's house every week when some homeschool families would get together, so I know the breed fairly well.

These are some unique original stone walls like I have NEVER seen before. How they stand the flat stones on edge to make like a "picket." So unique!

This was yummier than the dark chocolate mocha I had the other day. Probably more sugar. The sweet guy double checked that it was ok that the mix for it had dairy in it, and of course asked if the whipped cream was ok. Starbucks and most coffee shops I've been to always seem to ask me if the whipped topping is ok. I just tell them yes, it's a dairy sensitivity and I just try to cut as much of the dairy out as possible. But I tell ya, the whipped cream is one of my favorite parts of these "froo-froo" drinks.  And the chocolate chunk in a java chip!

Dude! It's October 22nd! Last year it was cold enough to snow on October 31st! My allergies don't like this up and down weather. It was only 65 on the 20th. And now it's back to that this weekend.

Indianapolis was the same!

Good old city water tower. Pretty typical sight out here in the ol' Midwest!

At the top of a crazy mountain one lane road, we climbed the Cityline Fire Tower.

80 ft up in the air.

We didn't have any signal in the first part of this particular national forest park, but at the top of the mountain we did! Check out those names of the "streets" aka the one lane paved mountain pass!

Abishai had fun playing with his Hot Wheels at Grandma's house waiting for us to get back home.

Another day of crazy walking! From the Lanthier Mansion, to a coffee shop, to the historical walking tour of the African American sector of Historic Madison, we managed to put in a few steps!

The back parking lot of the Inn.

Our room was to the right, and the part of the building with the better view of the river was about $30 more a night! A bit nicer rooms, too.

Bwahahaha. I ended up buying a cardinal bird ornament for our tree as a remembrance and I'll put the date and place on it myself. I didn't notice the Christmas trees sitting in the lobby full of ornaments until after I made my purchase. Whoops/

A bunch of fog on the Ohio River today because of the warmer, wetter temps.

Last look over Madison from the Inn. The fog had lifted before we got down there though.

Went north to go south. The woods look all kinds of different at different points of the day.  And, nature goes on its cycles no matter who is president or if there's a global pandemic. Life is simpler in the woods.

The start of our walking tour of the African American area of Madison. I loved doing a walking tour!

Some buildings still need some work. Some owners have really cleaned up their homes. Just like in any other city in any time period.

There's a whole tour just to see all the churches in town. So many churches because of denomination and even segregation based on color and language, like African American and German.

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There was the African America blacksmith shop.

Not on the list, but shows the architecture. The inside looked like it had original staircase and wood floors. Needs worked on but because it is on the list of historical homes, it needs special permits and monies.

First tiny African American house in town. Added onto on the back later.

Wow, this needs help!

Sinister clouds north of Madison.

One of the many church steeples we saw. Reminded me of all the churches in the town we went to for a Presidents' meeting up in New Brunswick.

Such a mixture of styles, including Greek being ever so popular! I guess the Historic Society of Madison that handles this area is housed here.

The famous doctor's house everybody talked about, but it was closed. I guess the doctor just up and left in the 1900's and the 1st floor contains all his medical equipment just like how he left it.

I thought the Madison Train Station and Historical Society was going to be open today, but it wasn't. Bummers! So we walked around the corner to the Lanthier Winery instead. Cute place, expensive wine.

Then we sat in the van for over an hour slowing eating lunch and waiting for our tour at 2pm. We had just missed the earlier tour. And that's ok. Our legs were tired and I didn't want to walk around Madison again like I had originally planned. We did manage to go up the street to a cafe' though.

Lanthier House's west side.

Dining room with Chinese-like wall paper. They were able to reproduce the wallpaper when they redid this room bcause they found a piece of it in the attic, found the company in France who made it, and they still had the original blocks it was made from! Wow!

Looking up through the staircase!

Small, weird, carved door under the stairs leading to the hallway between the dining room and the study. Have you ever seen a curved door?

They had some gorgeous instruments in this part of the drawing rooms. The guy said they only used these rooms when they had company and would seal them off the rest of the time to save on heating them and wear and tear. Gorgeous harp!

Portraits of the children.

Piano of course.

Bifolding window shades that folded into the walls! Fancy!

Kind of hard to play if you can barely see the key!

Piano? Harpsichord?

Chinese inspired wallpaper.

Chinese inspired China!

Another writing desk.

The lady of the house would still have her breakfast in bed, but the man of the house served himself in this room. Then there's the backstairs to the indentured servants' quarters and luggage room. The luggage would come from the carriage house, through the kitchen and up these backstairs, through another door leading to the main hallway that the main stairs are connected to.

Old bell like in Downton Abbey where they could ring down to the kitchen to summon a servant. All the wires were taken out when the house was updated though.

Typical kithcen of the 1800's like at Conner Prairie.

View of the front gardens to the north.

Once a month baths.

Extra clothing, sewing supplies, storage, baggage, etc.

Mrs. Lanthier when they were first married before they became wealthier. I don't remember all their names, but it's easy to look up.

I love canopy beds! And this one had a neat trundle bed that came out the end of it instead of the side.

Trundle bed for the kids.

Staircase again looking down from the upstairs.

Mr. and Mrs. Lanthier's bed. This room had the most original artifacts in it. They left most of their furniture behind when they moved to New York because it was too much to take with them. A lot of ti was designed and made for this house specifically.

Pink China procelein wash basin and chamber pot.

Gorgeous wood! Made for this house!

Not sure when it was installed, but it's an early toilet that worked on gravity!

Portable writing desk.

Lavish headboard, and original vest of one of the sons.

His telescope and there were other original artifacts of his as well. The house stayed in the family until was deed over to the Historical Society for preservation early on over 100 years ago.  It was left in some state of disrepair for awhile though during at least part of the century.

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Children's desk and toys. Their children were young when they actually lived here.

Original type of boxspring! Lol! Fabric bias tape!

Kids' room on the top floor. The ceilings were lower, and under 6 feet.

One of the children's handprints on the original paint on the wall from nearly 175 years ago. They put a frame around it and proceeded to paint the rest of the wall though.

The famous architect of this Greek style home. They used to leave their markings on the staircase railing posts like this.

North facing main entrance where the carriages would drive up.

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The south facing entrance, the fancier of the two entrances, showing off to the boats passing by that someone wealthy lives here. Very common. We also peeked into the basement windows and found some cool stone original archways that were holding up this monstrosity with it's heavy furniture.

A jam packed toy store full of name brands, foreign brands, new toys, old toys, and unique toys. I wanted to buy it all! (See pics from day 1).

I originally wanted to walk around Madison on Thursday when the day was warmer and sunnier so I could get some great artsy shots of the downtown. Well, it was very warm, and we wer exhausted, so I gave up. I'm sure you can find better photos than mine on the internet. And yes, historical downtown Madison seems to always be dead like this. Maybe they are busier during the weekend or festivals or in the summer, but it's very quiet now. The real traffic is in the modern part of town.

After a lot of back roads and detours, we made it to the Jefferson/Washington National Forest to climb a real fire tower. But we entered the wrong part of the park, didn't have a map, and there were no maps on the signs. We did find someone at the maintenance building and he directed us to the mountain where the fire tower was.  But they did have some cool camping sites and this nice pond for fishing in this part of the park!

There it is! The Skyline Drive Fire Tower!

I think this one might have been of the ones recently reopened. The guy had said that the road up the mountain was still a bit rough and he wasn't kidding.

Looking north towards Brownstown/Seymour. It was 4:30 or 5pm.

Looking south. This is where it was tricky playing around with the aperature. The climb up the tower was fine because there was some chicken wire on the staircase. I kept my head forward looking at the next landing and did just fine.

They had cleared this part of the forest of an invasive type of tree in order to plant a different kind of tree I guess.

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10 stories down? I thought it would feel and look much higher. It wasn't that bad!

Looking down from the top at the stairs.

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Checking our altitude. Almost 900 ft above sea level.

About 600 ft at the bottom of the mountain.

Then we stopped at a gas station for water and a snack and gas. It was a quick hop over to the highway and straight north until we got home. We got home about 7:45 and the kids were already home, unpacked, and waiting for us. We arrived exhausted and angry from the heated discussion we had in the last hour. And a week later, we still haven't recovered. It was a fun time, and I hate that it ended so poorly because I rushed into a conversation when we were physically worn out and that we couldn't resolve in time before seeing the kids. But I think in hindsight now, there's never a good timing for those conversations. Live and learn I guess. It's really hard to sum up this vacaiton. I had so many goals. I met a lot of the physical ones. I hit some of the mental ones. But I don't feel like it wrapped up like it should. Not a happy exhaustion. A moody one. Some things left hanging. Ok, a lot of things. I know I did enjoy the special moments, and we worked together when making deicsions about what to do next and we didn't fight over those. But I think I was overthinking the "let's talk about life" conversations. I had my hopes up too high for it. So, maybe I did open a can of worms, and that's what needed to happen. Now we have to find time to resolve each worm. That will be difficult and a bet it will take awhile. Not hopeless, but disappointing. And I'm still kicking myself for not holding my tongue. I pushed too hard and expected too much. Now I know. Grace and forgiveness of myself and him. and move on.  Because babies don't keep. Back to the grind after we spend the weekend recovering.

 

The End