The oldest.

My oldest son is now officially in Peru.  He's traveling there as part of a class that he is taking for the summer intercession at his school.  He had to get up at 3:00 a.m. yesterday morning and he didn't call me to let me know he had arrived until 1:30 a.m. this morning, so it was a long, long trip.  His phone did not work there, but thankfully he was able to call me on someone else's.  It cut off after I heard his voice saying he had arrived, but I was thankful to be able to know that.  He will be there for 10 days.

When he finishes this class, he will have 30 credit hours of school for this year.   I got him a camera and he says he's going to take lots of pictures so hopefully I will be able to share those in a couple of weeks. After spending a day yesterday in anxiety with my son traveling, my heart goes out even more to those people in Oklahoma who are affected by this tornado.  So sad.

Okay, better late than never, right?

We finally started the cleaning today.  I'm doing the kitchen, starting with the fridge, daughter is cleaning the boys room because they can't and the boy is outside picking up the garbage that the puppy has shredded in the yard.  We have to work around how we work best and apparently, that is in separate rooms.  :-P  

Saturday.

We were supposed to go to our first big sale for 4H Means Business club today but we didn't go for several reasons.  One was that we only found out yesterday that it was supposed to be outside (it is a park, but in our defense, we've sold there before and we were in the visitor's center) and then it was predicted to rain today, I have been suffering since yesterday with some pretty severe vertigo and my daughter just felt like she didn't have enough stuff to sell or at least, that's what she said at 6:30 a.m.  It may have been more of a case of 'now that I know what it is like to wake up at 6:30 a.m., I don't want to."  but she made the decision not to go.  My new plan for this club is when her brother gets home from Mississippi, he can take her to all the Farmer's Market sales all summer (which are all at the crack of dawn) and then when he goes back to school, she can take a break and do a bunch of crocheting and knitting to get ready for the next time he's in town.  I don't mind going with just my daughter and selling, because we really end up talking mostly to each other and I feel more relaxed, but to me, this was going to be dragging my vertiginous, slightly nauseated self someplace to sit out in the rain and cold and make 7 hours of conversation with virtual strangers.  This hits my shyness funny bone somehow.  I know I'm weird and backwards, but I would rather stand up and sing a concert or give a speech than sit and talk one on one to almost-strangers all day. Also, in the plan, my daughter needs to get her learners permit and start driving herself to these things, although, she's so shy, I am not sure if she would go without someone going with her, even then, although she has come out of her shell somewhat recently.  With her older brother, you can drop him off anywhere and when you come back, he's friends with everyone there.  Anyway, I'm working today and I actually prefer it.  :-P.

It's weird.

With the kids being out of school.  Nobody else we know finished this early but we went right up to Christmas, started promptly back in January and didn't take a spring break or a fall break.  So here was are, done in May.  We were going to start spring cleaning yesterday, but they begged for 1 day off, then their father got them working all day on the pool anyway, so they didn't really end up getting the day off.  Today, I was planning to give them a list, but I didn't get around to it.  So I guess we'll start tomorrow.

I did my volunteer shift tonight.  I was kept very, very busy.  As soon as I walked in, one of the nurses waved towards me and said 'over here, over here' and there wasn't a time I wasn't holding a baby for the next 4 hours.  Busy busy.   It's more rewarding to hold the babies than do the laundry, which is what I do if all the babes are sleeping peacefully.

Tomorrow.  We clean.

Maybe. 

Mother's day stuff.

The cookie said Happy Mother's Day, but then it kind of melted.  Still tasted good though.

Pictures

Frog on the patio doors. 

Piper.  She's saying "I have no idea how this happened."

My new headphone covers.

Demonstration of pole top rescue.

Out and about yesterday.

I got as much work done as I could and then we went to our homeschool group 4H club at a local ceramics studio, painted some ceramics and visited with everyone.  It seems like forever since I've seen them, but the prom was what, a week and a half ago?  My daughter still has the blisters, so it can't have been too long.  Anyway, after that we went to another 4H class, which was the electricity class.  This one is run by our local electric cooperative and they do an excellent job.  Yesterday they demonstrated their pole climbing and pole rescue methods.  It was super cool.   We have pictures but there is always a delay in my stories and my pictures on this blog, since I am not the one with the camera.  Both of my old cameras have issues and I am not even sure where they are and my phone takes pictures, but I don't have a computer cord for it.  One of these days, I'll get a camera so I can be a better blogger.  :-P  

I went over to see my mom yesterday as well, after all the 4H clubs, gave her her mother's day present which had finally arrived along with mine, which was a pack of Sharpies in all kinds of cool colors for my art journal.  Then, I came home and typed for another hour and a half. I must have got the hospital caught up because there's no work this morning and I've been sitting here looking at 5 cds of prom photos.  I think our photographer worked a little too hard.  She's wonderful, but I really don't think we needed every minute documented.  Next time, I'll encourage her to sit for a while and take a break.

Okay, someone has dictated a report for me to type, so I'm off.
 

A good day.

Yesterday was a good day, an oasis in what was otherwise a kind of a bad week.  It was really good.  We went to church, then to Walmart to buy supplies, then came home and baked a jam cake for my mom and made scalloped potatoes for my mother-in-law's party.  Then we went to both places.  At my mom's house we played UpWords and at my mother-in-law's party, we played Rollick, which turned out to be pretty hilarious.  We had gotten it for Christmas and the kids don't care for it, but we grown-ups do.  I kind of think once my kids get out of their self-conscious teen years and feel comfortable enough with the people they are around to act out things like being a cat using the litter box (LoL!) they'll enjoy it too.   It turns out my husband and his brothers are particularly good at charades.   Last night, when we got home, I got to spend a few minutes with the new Sophie Kinsella book, Wedding Night.  I hope it is as fun as her other books to read.  Even later last night, the kids and I finally finished listening to The 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear, a book my son really enjoyed, but my daughter and I not so much and started on the next book of the Kane Chronicles which is part of the Percy Jackson series.  My daughter has started doing a lot of the night reading, when it's a book she likes or owns, like the Percy Jackson series.  I also got wished a Happy Mother's day for the first time, long distance, from my son in Mississippi via Facebook.  Not my favorite way to be wished a Happy Mother's day, but it will have to do, I guess.  Our sermon at church yesterday was about embracing the stage of life you are in - which is something I'm struggling with now, especially since my most recent birthday.  :-P

In other news, when I said 4H was dwindling down, I was mistaken.  We have 3 4H meetings this week!  I had forgotten to write 2 of them down.  It's a good thing I checked.

Happy Mother's Day.

Someone was busy last night at my house, cleaning my kitchen (which I admit was a mess when I went to bed), making a Happy Mother's Day sign for the living room, decorating a cookie for me that says Happy Mother's Day.  I also got chocolate.   I'll share pictures later.  Meanwhile, everyone have a great day.

End of last full week of school.

And it's 10:00 p.m. and school is still going on.