Okay, I admit it, I am tired.

From last Wednesday until today, I've driven either mom or myself to 5 6 doctors appointments. Four for her, one two for me. Tomorrow, I've got to take my dad to one. Crack of dawn, as usual, after working until 11:00 p.m. I've done 7 work shifts during that time, ranging from 4 to 7 hours each, tomorrow with be my 8th day in this time range and my 8th work shift. Thursday, I get to be off work, but my mom has another doctor's appointment. It wouldn't be so bad if every place we went, we didn't have to wait, wait, wait. Today I just went in for a routine check and was there for over 3 hours! To top it off, one of my legs is not working properly, (I can't lift it up) but the doctor I saw today is not the kind of doctor who can do anything about that, so I'll need to make another appointment with someone else.

Sorry. Whine, whine, whine, I know and yes, I'm just playing into the hands of the person who heckled me on my blog last week and said that I was so tired and why didn't I send my kids back to public school because that would make it easier. I'll just say this, yes I am tired, but that is not a reason to give up homeschooling. I do seem to have been giving up other things, like rest, housekeeping, 4H, going to the library, although I do get a lot of reading done during these appointments. I've actually found myself temporarily bookless today and no time to go to the library and I'm on my last pair of contacts and need to find some time to go pick some more up.

But maybe next week will be better?

Our new typical days.

It's funny how things change but after a while you realize that your typical type of day has changed too.  I think our typical day now involves at least 1 doctor's appointment for someone and getting the kids to do school on their own, with my older 2 doing it pretty well and my younger one dragging his feet all day.  As I type this, it's 1:30, I'm getting ready to leave for my second doctor's appointment of the day (the first one was at the crack of dawn for mom and this one's a checkup for me) and he hasn't even started his school work yet. 

Sigh.

I'm downloading "Skinny Songs" for my MP3 player so that maybe I'll be inspired when I'm on my walks.  I don't know.  Maybe they'll brain wash me into getting skinnier?  I might even go so far as to have to change my name on here to Skinnycat.  Oh I like the sound of that.  I've got a couple of books at the digital library that are ready for download too and I need to get those and then start walking, walking, walking.  I've got to get in shape for spring summer events like going to Kentucky Down Under and the state fair.  I've really let my fitness slide lately into unfitness.  It's bad. 

Anyway, gotta go.

Getting through the weekend.

I'm finished with both shifts at the hospital and only have 3/4 of my shift for my work-at-home company to go.  I managed to get a nap between the shifts today and that helped a lot.  Only 3 weekends to go at the hospital, although the are spread out, 1 in April, 2 in May.  I'd really like to go ahead and quit now.  The boss has sent me an email asking me to work more shifts and I'm not sure how to respond to that.  I quit the job 2 months ago.  I really just want them to hire someone else and leave me alone.  How do I say that tactfully? 

While I was gone, my husband and kids worked on cleaning the house.  I LOVE when they do that.  We are moving youngest son out of daughter's room where he's been and into his older brother's room, so they worked on that.  Older son's room needs a lot of cleaning.  We may take tomorrow off school and work on that.  I'm never sure what I'm going to do one day in advance.  I'll have to see how I feel when tomorrow actually gets here. 

Nice day, but dreading the weekend.

I had a pretty nice day today. I worked this morning and then went to a Mom's night out with the homeschool group. We went to Bob Evans for dinner, then to Starbucks. This weekend I've got to work at both jobs so I'll probably be scarce around here and not blogging much. I dread the weekend so much. I may end up just going ahead and quitting the hospital job sooner rather than later. I hate to because I told them I'd hang around until May, but they could just hire someone else. That's what's going to be on my mind when I go in there tomorrow.

We may take a spring break and spring clean next week. Those 2 things are supposed to go together, right?

T-H-U-R-S-D-A-Y

T - Tunes - I've got the songs I downloaded for my MP3 player playing right now on my computer, so I've got my tunes.  ;-)

H - Happy about the fact that my Cafepress store is doing pretty good this week.  Hopefully that trend will continue.

U- Ugh.  It's raining and I have to walk because I have already used my freebie/excuse for exercise this week. 

R - Reading - Right now I'm still reading the first Pendragon book.  It's pretty good, although I think it's more my son's style than mine.

S - Still haven't gotten started on my work list today and I really, really should.

D - Don't have to work doing any transcription today.

A - Already dreading the weekend when I do have to work, at the hospital on Saturday and at both jobs on Sunday.  Only 3 more weekends after this one.

Y - Yay, only 3 more weekends after this one. 

Happy Blog-iversary to me!

It's been 4 years today  I had a little fun going back and reading the first few posts.  My kids were 6, 8 and 12 when I started this blog.  Wow.  They've grown so much! 

Making excuses.

This morning, I'm going to take mom to the doctor and we have a rule that if you have a doctor's appointment, you're excused from your list for that day.  However, this is not my appointment, I'm just going along.  So does that count?  Do I have to do my housecleaning and all that or can I just take a break this morning?  Can you see where my younger son gets It?  From me. 

However, he did get up early yesterday and finish his schoolwork before noon, in a move that surprised us all, and (he's going to be sorry when he realizes this) proving that it can be done and this stretching it out until 11:00 p.m. is ridiculous. 

Anyway, I guess I should do a few things around the house before I go.  I'm really starting to feel the need for a spring break.   I have the urge to get some spring cleaning done (can you believe that?)  The only problem with taking a break is it takes us forever to get back on track again.  Weeks.  So I don't know if we will take the chance and take a break or just keep plugging along until the end of May. 

Strategy.

Tonight, I took a break from work and strolled into the living room where my boys were playing some kind of video game and laughing.  Suddenly, my youngest said "Oh no!  My strategy doesn't work on myself!" 

Me neither, son. 

Tuesdays are easier.

When we started the art class on Tuesdays, I took some things off of our lists for Tuesdays, so on the weeks we don't have art class, like today, we've got easy days.  I'm looking forward to an easy day.  Maybe we can get some of our fun/enrichment activities in and do some art, etc.

Hopefully, my mom's a lot better this morning.  I haven't called yet, so as not to wake them up.  They're retired, you know.  She's got some problems with some disks in her back and it was causing her a lot of pain yesterday.  She was better last night and hopefully a lot better today.

I've just started reading Pendragon, Book One, The Merchant of Death and so far it's pretty good.  My 16-year-old recommended this book to me.  The beginning is really weird and I dreamed about it about half the night, trying to figure it out, I guess, in my sleep.  The other half of the night I had nightmares - about the toilet overflowing. 

Gotta love Mondays.

Even though I'm not getting up and going to work outside my home today, Monday still means getting back into the school routine after working last night until 11:00 p.m. and I don't want to.  I feel like I need a couple of hours of drinking coffee and staring.  I should've gotten up earlier so I could have done that, instead of having to jump into my cleaning and exercise routine so quickly after getting up.  Fortunately, blogging is on my list and I don't really work that hard at blogging, kind of just free-flowing ideas, so it's almost as good as just sitting and staring ...

A funny thing I've noticed since I started reading Pride and Prejudice is how many times that book is referred to in other books.  Has anyone else noticed this?  I bet Mr. Darcy has been referred to in at least 8 books I've read since beginning P&P.  (Hello, my name is Fatcat and I'm a bookaholic.)  It's weird how many times that book is referred to by others.

In other news, I mentioned that I was going to try and get an MP3 player for my birthday to a friend in my home school group and she said "Oh, I've got one at home you can just have".  It's brand new, her husband works in a store where it was marked down 90% off then he used his employee discount.  They didn't even make me pay the 3 or 4 dollars he had to pay for it, and told me to consider it a gift.  How cool is that?  Now for my birthday, I want my house cleaned by someone other than me.  That's my new birthday wish.  The kids and I made a little path in the woods and I have been walking on it already.  Now if I can just figure out how to transfer music files to my new MP3, I'll be set. 

Better get busy, though I really don't want to.

UPDATE:
My mom is headed back to the emergency room today so I've changed my birthday wish to healthiness for my parents.  Who cares about the darn housework. 

I did it.

I finished Pride and Prejudice today through Daily Lit.  I'm not sure what I'll read next.  I have not read many of the "classics".  I only read the ones I had to, to get through school.  I remember reading The Diary of Anne Frank and The Outsiders (probably not a classic, but assigned.)  On Daily Lit, the classics are generally free and the newer books cost a little bit.  For example, there's a James Patterson book on the first page that is 9.95.  I believe if I were going to invest in a book, I'd like to have the book when I was done, if you know what I mean, not just 159 emails ... but maybe that's just me.  I don't have a book budget right now, so I'll read the free ones on Daily Lit, the free ones on the digital library and the regular library and just make do with that.  :-) 

I don't know.

I'm just not really happy with the way school is going right now.  The kids are doing the work okay, with a lot of nagging and reminding, but I haven't really been involved with it much.  I wrote this schedule when I was working a lot and now that I'm not working at the hospital and I'm home more, I feel like I want to get involved more and do some fun things.  We've had a lot of fun in the past, but now we're not having any fun with school.  It's been blah.  On the other hand, my list is going well, the exercising and the cleaning, cooking, etc.  I'm going to leave it the way it is, but I might change up the kids lists some, to allow for some fun in learning. 

Our school has a name, the 3D Academy since all of the kid's names start with D.  I was thinking of making T shirts with this on them and trying to come up with a motto.  Anyone got any good motto ideas?

4H again.

Yesterday was a big 4H day with 2 classes meeting on the same day.  We had the homeschool 4H art class in the morning.  That lasts 2 hours, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.  They worked in clay yesterday, which my daughter has always wanted to do, so she's happy.  They had a very good time with this.  Then, yesterday afternoon, they had the woodworking class and built the birdhouses.   Only the 2 younger kids went with me.  The teen was on the phone and playing guitar, 2 things he does simultaneously for some reason.  The younger kids really enjoyed making the birdhouses.  They have great plans for painting them at the next meeting and will enter them in the county fair in July.  Today we don't have anything.  Tomorrow, there's a 4H first aid class that we might go to.  I do think first aid is a good skill to have and we have to be in town anyway, because older son has game time at the library.  As for today, we're home and we'll be doing school, much to the children's dissappointment, I'm sure. 

My exercise routine.

I have been exercising for the last few weeks, but honestly, between me and my dear readers, it's only been about 5 minutes of lifting weights, good for me, I'm sure, but not really adequate for an exercise routine. The absolute latest news I've read says that to lose weight, you need to exercise 50 minutes a day. I decided to put 1/2 an hour on my list and go for a walk outside, gradually building up to 50 minutes. My birthday is next month and I'm asking for an MP3 player or CD player so I can get books to listen to while I walk. I also want my husband to make me a walking track in the woods. We have 12 acres here and I really don't like to walk on the road, especially if I'm going to be wearing headphones, so a nice little circle in the woods would be great. That way, the cats, dogs and kids can go with me and I won't have to worry about their safety either.

Anyway, this morning, I put on my walking shoes and went out at 11:00. I headed into the woods to look for a kind of flat area for my path. I'd been out there for quite a while it seems, when my daughter joined me. I asked her what time it was. She doesn't wear a watch either, so she said 'when I left the house it was 11:04" Great. 4 minutes. Then, after she and I had been walking for quite a while, my youngest son came out. He had a watch. 11:08. Sigh.

Finally, we made it to 11:30. It was actually kind of fun with the kids with me. We went almost to the top of the knob we live on. We saw a hollow tree and a tree that a woodpecker had made holes in, surprised some deer and discovered a bush with tiny leaves on it (Spring!!!).

Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel like I'm in better shape, since I exercised today. If only real life was more like The Sims 2. They exercise for an hour or so and suddenly, they are slim again.

Monday Morning.

This morning I was awakened by the phone. I slept in until 9:30. My excuse is that I worked until 11:00 last night, but it's going to be difficult getting myself in gear at a decent time, in order to get my list done so we can do school. My back is also hurting because if you tarry in our bed for too long, it will give you a backache. We need a new mattress. This one is too soft, but, it's not in the budget right now.

Anywho, I'm up now, 1 cup of coffee in me and I need to be raring to go, but I'm not.

Maybe another cup will do it.

A girl can hope.

A very cool gadget.

I just found this very neat website. It recommends authors you might like based on ones that you already know and like. It's working very well with my kids favorite authors and mine. It's called Literature Map and here it is. I'm having a lot of fun with it!

School issues.

Today actually went well with the kids schoolwork.  They got it done in a very timely manner so that we could go to the library.  I was surprised.  I had it in the back of my mind to change the schedules again Monday because they didn't seem to be working well, but maybe they are settling into the new routine?  I've got no idea what to do.  I've been having some trouble getting used to my new work schedule too.  I guess I just need to give us all some time. 

Field trip, etc.

The field trip was great yesterday.  We went to the Lexington children's museum (although that's not the actual name of it, but I can't think what it is!) and the kids had a great time.  Only 3 of the families from our 9 family homeschool group could go, but we'd already cancelled/postponed it because of the ice storm last month and we didn't want to cancel again, so we took 3 moms and 6 kids and went.  There was a school group at the museum but they were only there for about half an hour.  Our kids explored/played for 3 hours.  (Explorium! That's it!), then we went to lunch and then to a candy factory.  We got to see how they make the chocolates and got a free sample of a pull candy.  Delish.  Then we came home.  Thankfully, I had volunteered to take the boys (because boys wouldn't notice how dirty my van was) and the other van had the loud, noisy, singing girls.  Apparently they alternated between singing the Free Credit Report.com song and Elliott Moose is on the loose, until the mom turned on the Jonas Brothers CD in self defense!  The boys talked quietly and drew, played gameboys, etc., so I had it easy. 

Last evening, because I was having phone issues and couldn't get anything to download, I read the rest of Twilight. (It's a book about vampires that don't hunt humans, only animals, for those who don't know what it is.) I'm still not sure if I liked it.  It's, um, different, that's for sure, the whole being-in-obsessive-love-being-incredibly-frustrated-and-also having-the-object-of-your-love-BE-your-favorite-food-which-you've-been-denying-yourself-a-taste-of-for-100-years thing.  I'm just not sure I can go there.  Would my husband's life have lasted so long if he were made of chocolate?  I can't say for sure.

Back to life and school today.  I'd really better get started on my list!

11:29:59 am

That's what time I got out of the shower this morning, thereby completing my morning routine. If I don't get my routine done by 11:30 am, the kids don't have to do school. That was a close one! The reason I know the exact time is when I walked into my bedroom, there were 2 kids sitting on the bed, with a watch, timing me!

Post weekend, thank goodness.

The long weekend working at the hospital is over. I don't have to work another one for 20 days. I really don't mind the work itself, the only thing is I can't get off from my other job so I end up having to do both on the Sundays. It' s not really that bad though. I should get started on my list this morning, but I am so tired and lazy. I just want to drink coffee and read my book. I'm reading through about my fourth book by Katie Fforde. They're kind of romantic comedies. I'm enjoying them. I've got Twilight here, from the library and I may read that next. I may also download the audiobook of it so I can clean and maybe exercise while listening to it. I think I'll go check and see if they have it. The kids and I have been listening to a book by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, another of the Peter Pan books they've written, called Blood Tide, A neverland book. It's good, but my laptop volume won't go very high so its kind of difficult to hear it. We have to turn off everything else in the room, including ceiling fans and computers, anything that might make noise. It's kind of pitiful. I may download the next one to my husband's computer, which has got speakers, so we can actually hear it.

Anyway, I guess I'd better get started on my school list.

Sigh.

I really, really just want to sit here and read. I kind of feel I've earned a lazy day.

Typical days.

Lately we have had some normal, typical days in our family and I am really grateful.  I really need to stop and think about it more than I do.  Sometimes when I'm at the skating rink, instead of thinking that the seats are hard, the music is loud and the air is cold, I should think, hey, at least I'm not at a hospital, sitting with someone in the ICU.  I need to be thinking as I'm cleaning my house about how thankful I am to be home with my family and not having a crisis.  I know tomorrow when I'm working the weekend at the hospital, I'll wish I was home!  I'm a homebody at heart, as if you couldn't tell with my work-at-home, school-at-home lifestyle. 

School ...

It's been a rough couple of weeks, school-wise. We have been trying to get the boys caught up on their math, but it's been difficult. No one's had any fun. I have been on the verge of just giving up and sending them to boarding school. When I wrote the new schedules a couple of weeks ago, I was optimistic that they would get done with these lists pretty early in the day and we'd have time for the art, novel way, science, notebooking and all of the cool, enrichment type stuff that we do in the afternoons. However, that has not worked out. It's taken them hours and hours to get done, going right into screen/work time in the evenings, sometimes going until the next day. One of the boys was grounded and working on math off and on all weekend. I'm not sure what we should do about it. I've been giving it a lot of thought though. Maybe I'll be able to come up with something to put the fun back into homeschool. I hope so. With this method, the end of May seems like a very long way away.

The deer in the headlights.

I hit him last night with the van.  Or her.  I think maybe it was a female.  It was all so fast, she just jumped onto the road in front of my van when I was on my way home from my parents house last night.  There was no time to react at all.    My van has a dent and the headlight is kind of hanging and there's one less deer in the world now.  Sad.  I really thought my daughter was going to have a lot of trouble with it, but she seems okay.  She could tell there was nothing we could have done to avoid it.

In other animal news, my brother's cat came home last night after 2 months of living the wild life on the street (presumably).  He ran out right before Christmas and my brother couldn't find him and last night he appeared at a neighbor's house meowing, was recognized and brought home.

Updates.

The temperature got up over 50 degrees today so I put the little frog outside.  I just set his whole peanut butter jar out there and hopefully he'll hop off into the woods and live happily ever after.  I haven't checked on him since he's been out there. 

I finally broke down and got Pride and Predjudice on DVD and spent several hours last night and this morning watching it.  It might have been quicker to read it after all ... still it was good and I enjoyed it.  I may still read the rest on my Daily Lit subscription or I may change it to another book. 

We're kind of struggling to get school done today.  I got my list done, but the kids have not wanted to get started.  Two of them still don't feel quite up to par and the other just doesn't want to do anything, basically.  He's in the bathroom though, now, doing his math, because that's the best distraction free zone for him.  Hey, whatever works. 

4H, colds and a frog.

We had our second 4H art class today.  It's going pretty well.  My 2 older kids had to miss it because of the bronchitis/colds that they have.  I didn't figure the other moms would be too happy with me for sharing that with their kids.  I took the youngest and he had a pretty good time.  We will have to try and tell the other 2 what we learned so they won't get behind.  I don't have the cold, I'm pretty sure I was getting it, I had a lot of sneezing and snotting last weekend, but I used the 3 or 4 Cold-Eeze Lozenges that were left over from last time and I seem to have headed it off.  Unfortunately, the other people in the family weren't so lucky.  I finally got them some Cold-Eeze today and we'll see if it helps them at this late date. 

We have a frog living in our bathroom now.  I found him the other day, in the house, when the weather went from the 70s to the 30s all in one day.  At first I thought he was a toad because he was all brown, but after a few days of living in our house, he looks more orangy than brown and I think maybe he's a treefrog.  We're just trying to keep him alive until the weather warms up tomorrow and we can put him back out.  We put some cantalope in there with him, in the hopes that it will attract fruit flies for him to eat.   It all kind of makes me wish we could get some butterflies or baby chicks or something to hatch this spring.