The last day of school?

Today is the last day of school for the county schools.  I almost celebrated by running into the school bus on our tiny little one lane road.  Now the city pool will open and we will start our summer routines.  These 3 weeks we've had in advance of the schools getting out have turned out to be just a rest period since I haven't been feeling too good (better today) and the kids just wanted to goof off for a while. Today, we finally got a pretty good start on the decluttering we need to do in my bedroom before we paint it.  When you are a homeowner, there's always a big old list of things that need to be done.  After we eat dinner, we're going to get in the pool so we don't have it too bad.  Ahh.  Summer.

A few pictures from lately.

The grocery bags that my daughter is crocheting into a mat for a homeless person to sleep on.

The next step in the from grocery bag to mat procedure.  This is called plarn for plastic yarn.

This is a Christmas ornament she made to give as a gift at the baby shower.  She had made a similar ornament for the couple when they got married.

The butterfly mural we did at creativity night. From http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/

Giraffes we drew at Creativity night.  I think the top left is mine. 

I don't like headaches.

I've had one for several days now, most of the time.  Each day, it is has seriously impacted my ability to work, making it take much, much longer to get my lines done.  I mean like 3 hours longer.  I have really been struggling.  Today I planned my day in my impaired head.  I thought, eventually I'd finish work and then I'd get up, wake my son up for work and go to town to get the Prilosec that I forgot in my headachey shopping yesterday.  Prilosec is a daily necessity for me and I'm completely out.   The only flaw in this plan is that when I woke said son up for work, he got ready for work and took the car that we share.  My husband is gone in his car too, so I'm without transportation.  Whenever he gets home, I'm going to have to go to town.  It frustrates me, because if I had been thinking clearly, I could have went earlier today.  Honestly, I'm barely functional.  If this thing doesn't go away by tomorrow I might have to go to the doctor.

I'm very glad.

That we have a light week this week.  We don't really have anything going on.  We need to focus on getting our house together, getting our summer chores done, getting our exercise program started and having a fun summer.  I'm so glad we don't have a party or baby shower any of the days this week after attending a party, a baby shower and then a party slash baby shower this weekend.  I don't know why those things seem to pile up like that, everything in one weekend, then nothing for a while, then 3 or 4 things, then nothing.  I guess that's actually a good thing.  Now we should be free to do our own thing until Father's Day weekend and I hope we accomplish a lot although now it's storming and that tends to make me not want to do anything.  :-P

Memorial Day.

I hope that you are having a wonderful memorial day, celebrating your freedom today.

Wow.

Curious Boy's Book of Adventure

This is the latest book my youngest son is reading.  It's about building treehouses, learning to fish, safe ways to build a fire and make S'mores and various other things.  He's really enjoying it and has been scouting the area around our house for the perfect treehouse tree.  Yesterday, he said that a book he had read recently said to put down the video games, turn off the TV and do some fun stuff.  He said "I already have all day long to do fun stuff because I don't have screen time."  I asked him if he was glad we did screen time the way we do and he said that he was, because if we allowed him to play video games all day long, he would and he'd miss all the coolest stuff.  Wow, validation on screen time control policies from my baby.  They really are growing up.

Boys. Brothers.

My youngest son asked that he be awakened early this morning.  He usually gets up on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons but lately our TV connection hasn't been all that good.  He said that he wanted to get up anyway so he could see his older brother.  With the oldest working 50+ hours this week, time with him has been rare.  For the last hour or so, my boys have been having a conversation which has ranged from the kitchen to the living room, to their shared bedroom, both of them talking, talking, talking, sometimes at the exact same time and this conversation is punctuated with all kinds of boy noises, sound effects and loud booms, fake fighting and laughing.  The big boy has been picking up the smaller one to see if he's heavier than the books he had to lift at work last night, which is funny.   I love it.  I find it funny that I wanted a girl when I found out the youngest boy was on the way.  I already had tiny girl clothes.  I had a 22 month old girl who wouldn't mind sharing a room and a 5 year old boy who would mind sharing, but I got a boy and I am really glad that I did.  It's been good for everybody.

Busy busy day.

It's my own fault I'm so tired right now.  I promised my youngest son that I'd take him yard-saling on top of having to work my usual shift and having to meet the homeschool moms for mom's night out at 4:00 p.m.  So I rushed and got my work done very quickly, then took him to several yard sales and a thrift store on the lookout for Legos and YuGiOh cards.  We didn't really find any.  We got home and then I had 5 minutes before I had to leave again.  For mom's night we went to a salvage grocery store (our latest fun thing) then to eat out and then to Hobby Lobby.  We drove an hour each way for this, after we met, with 15 minutes of solo driving before that.  Thus, I am experiencing, the above-mentioned tiredness.  Actually, I didn't eat out.  I just had ice cream because I didn't want to risk getting glutened.  I have way too busy a weekend planned.  I've got work tomorrow then the first of our summer fun nights at church.  I don't really expect much of a turnout since it's Memorial Day Weekend and a lot of people will be camping, but I want the ones who do come to have fun.  Then Sunday, we've got a baby shower and I'm in charge of the games.  I'm thinking we'll make playdough babies and play baby gift bingo, but I'm not sure.  Sometime this weekend, I'll need to figure that out.  :-P

The first get er done day of the summer*

The kids have been out of school for over a week now and we should have already started the spring cleaning, summer work and also the summer fun list.  However, we had 3 or 4 days of no air conditioning and I know we are wimps but we didn't feel like doing a whole lot and getting overly warm, although we did do some of it.  The second reason we haven't really started yet is that I have had yet another urinary tract infection and those things are simply no fun.  I have been to the doctor now and gotten and antibiotic and hopefully am on the mend.  I have been checking things off today quite well.  I've gotten my oldest son's laundry done.  He usually does his own laundry, but he is going to have to work a 12 hour shift tonight so he had to go right to bed when he got home.  I've also gotten Max a vet appointment for this afternoon to check on his blood sugar levels, taken the garbage out, loaded the dishwasher, began hoeing the garden (late, I know, see above) and done some general cleaning tasks.  In a few minutes, I'm going to tackle decluttering in my bedroom.  We have way too many books in there and some of them need to go.  Later, after we get back from the vet, if my fever has subsided, I'll probably get in the pool.  I really love summertime.

*Get er done is local speak for get it done day.  :-P   We do live in Kentucky you know? .

Summer Fun List?

So far we have swim on our list and that's it.  We're also going to go on a field trip to mammoth cave this year with the homeschool group.  We don't vacation in the summer usually, but in the spring, winter or fall, to avoid crowds, so that's not on the list.  We do have rope to put up a swing and need to get  holes drilled in a board, so we can put that up.  We'll pick blackberries when they get ripe, go to the state fair, participate in the 4H county fair exhibits as we usually do. 

Okay so that gives us.
swim
mammoth cave
put up swing
pick blackberries
state fair
county fair

I'd also like to try some new foods we've never tried before.  I've always wanted to try rhubarb but have no idea where to get it or how to prepare it.  A couple of weeks ago we tried a food, that believe it or not, none of us had ever tried before, marmalade.  Reviews were mixed.  It's not my favorite, but it's okay.  We should also make homemade ice cream because that's fun.  There's a new coffee shop in town that I'd like to visit, but I don't know if the kids would.  We should try and visit the science center this summer.  It's been a while and our membership runs out in August.

So that adds

Try rhubarb.
make homemade ice cream.
visit the coffee shop.
science center.

Also, we would like to walk on a path that goes by the lake.  We see it as we drive by and is there anything more irresistable than a path that winds around by a lake and you can't see where it goes?

Walk on path and see where it goes.

I'd also like for someone to take the kids fishing, but I don't want to because I'm squeamish about worms. 

So probably not fishing.  :-)

Hey, at least it is a start.  What's on your summer list?

The air is fixed.

It's nice because today the pool temperature is only 74.  The crazy kids are in it, but I don't think I could take it.  I'm way too much of a wimp for that.  Tonight's low is going to be in the 50s, but then it is going to start warming up, up, up and then it will be warm enough for me in the pool.  I did get in the day before yesterday when it was just so incredibly hot in here, but yesterday and this morning, we kept it under control with the cooking outside, turning some computers and things off and putting a ginormous fan in the living room window.  Now that summer really seems to be getting here, I need to get a summer fun list together.  I've been looking at this site to get me started.  :-)

Like, Africa Hot.

Okay, not really, but it's hot in here.  Our air conditioning has been faltering off and on all season and now it needs a new blower, which we won't get until tomorrow.   So the priority for the next couple of days is staying cool and not getting crabby with it.  Fortunately, I went to the grocery yesterday and so we have ice cream.  We have a refrigerator that works for cool drinks, an ice maker  and best of all, a swimming pool.  It's not all that big, but it works and once you get in there and get out, you stay cool for quite a while.  Also fortunately, my oldest son who now works third shift, can sleep through the heat much better than my husband who used to work third shift.   Also, I'm using an idea I got from a brilliant friend and cooking with the crock pot sitting outside on the deck.  :-)

What do you do-ooh-ooh.

With the extra Klondike bars in a package when there are 4 people in your family who can eat them and 6 in the package?  They've been on sale for the past 2 weeks, so we had to buy them and then we have this dilemma.  Last week, we had a drawing to see which 2 of us got 2 and this week, the other 2 get to have 2.  This is my week and I'm very excited.  :-)

One time, a long time ago my brother in law stopped by just as we were trying to decide who got the last Klondike bar in the package (before my oldest son went completely lactose free) and we gave it to him.  I told him that he pretty much saved us from having to fight to the death over it.  :-P

Today, Sunday.

I don't think I've got the summer cold that everyone else in the family has had this past week, but I've got something.  My back hurts and I have a fever and I feel really pretty bad.  Everyone else had a sore throat and a cough. Joy.

I'm adding another art blog to my sidebar.  Go and check out some of the blogs there.  There are some really cool ones.  The one I'm adding tonight is Art with Mr. E.  It has a lot of fun art projects to do with kids.  I'm planning an art night for the kids at church so that's why I'm looking at so many art blogs.  Next month, I'll be doing a craft night and a RAOK (random acts of kindness) night and I'll try and show you some of the links to things I'll be using. 

For the art night, we'll be doing a mural from Art Projects for Kids. 
and playing this game Rainbow Tag.
and we might make some of these fun snacks. 

Doesn't that sound like fun?

Victory!

My youngest son has dysgraphia.    

I noticed when he was a preschooler that he wanted nothing to do with drawing, coloring or the pretend writing that little kids do.  He never drew anything at all until he was 4 and we got a new van and he drew a picture of it.  The other 2 kids I had would draw and write all the time at those ages, so I sensed something was different.  In kindergarten, his teacher said that he might be dyslexic.  I had read that with certain kids it is normal to read at about 10 and write quite a bit later so we took it kind of easy with him and sure enough, he did read at 10.  He went from Dr. Suess to reading JK Rowling that year.  He has a very impressive vocabulary (which is reportedly important for life success).

As for the dysgraphia, success has come more slowly.   To address this, we have done a variety of things.  We had him assessed by an occupational therapist who did therapy with him for a few months.  She discovered that because his right arm had been broken by falling out of the bunk bed when he was 4, it was quite a bit weaker than the left so she gave him strengthening exercises for this and worked with him for a while, then she released him and said that he just needed practice.  But he still couldn't write.  He was reversing letters and his writing was illegible.  I have had him doing copywork for the past 2 years and if he reverses a letter, he has to do the whole thing over.  This seems to be working, although I really don't know if it's just maturity or if copywork has made any difference.  I was very excited when he wrote me a note this week and then when he was playing with his friend the other day after 4H, he voluntarily wrote some game notes down. This is huge people!  Huge!

About 3 years ago (someone else wrote the numbers, either me or his sister.)

It says "do not wake me up.  I did not sleep well."  Please!.  PS if it is 3:00 p.m., wake me up." Every word is spelled correctly.  They are mostly legible.  Only one S is reversed. 

Getting started?

Yesterday, we started on the spring cleaning.  We did a tiny bit during spring break, but we need to do the rest of it now.  With me working most of the day each day, it's a little difficult to get going after I finish work.  My attitude is the problem.  After I've worked, I want to relax, not get up and work.  You know?  But it needs to be done.  Yesterday was my day off from my regular job so I was able to get quite a bit done, but just a drop in the bucket.  We need to do some serious decluttering around here. (AGAIN).   I should take some before pictures, but that would be embarrassing, so I won't.  :-)  I also need to get started on the exercising.  I'm counting yesterday's several hours of cleaning as the beginning of my new exercise routine.  I was talking to my mother in law yesterday and she has found an indoor pool in our area where we can swim for 5 dollars, so I may swim at home this summer (the only exercise I will consistently do) and then swim indoors for the winter, thereby avoiding the exercise all summer and turn in to a slug every winter syndrome, which is my usual routine.

The kids are out of school and can do basically whatever they want all day except for the couple of hours that I want them to clean, but you'd think I was killing them to hear them complain.  They avoided the dreaded "why do we have to clean?" question, but instead asked "Why do we have to clean right now?" which they say is different.  :-P

Terrariums.

My son's terrarium.  I don't know why the picture is distorted.

My daughter's terrarium from the side.  It's kind of dark.

My daughter's terrarium from the top.  There are seeds planted in the soil area, that hopefully will grow and fill that in.

A tiny necklace terrarium my daughter made, with some moss, some dirt, some sand and a tiny seashell from the gulf coast.  :-)

Not much today.

My mom's dog Tinker, poor little funny looking thing.  :-)

We did not do a whole lot today.  I worked, but while I was working, I developed one of those excruciating pounding headaches that make it hard to concentrate.  I finally got done, but it was kind of rough.  After I worked, I put a warm washcloth on my eyes and laid down for a while.  That made the headache abate somewhat but it didn't go away completely.  After my nap, my daughter and I went to the library briefly and then to my moms house, where I beat her at 2 games of UpWords.   The headache finally stopped in the middle of the first game, thank goodness. 

Youngest son begged to play on his computer this morning, when it wasn't screen time and I said no and so he played Legos while listening to Ranger's Apprentice for most of the day.  I am still glad we set the screen time limits and have stuck to them.  Otherwise, all he would do would be play video games, all day, every day.

The girl has been reading all day.  The big boy has been sleeping all day because he works the night shift.  It's almost 8:00 p.m. and he just got up.  He's got the cold that has been running through the house.  It's funny, when I was actually typing the word cold, I sneezed.  I hope that doesn't mean I'm getting it. 

I can't share pics of the terrariums because my daughter won't upload them from her camera to the computer so I can access them.  Someday she will, I'm sure and then I will share. 

Today, we've got 4H.

I'm excited about the lessons we are going to do today.  We're going to make terrariums and then if there is any time left over, which I suspect there will, I'm going to make the kids do a drawing of some sort.  They can enter several different things in the county fair and one of them is a drawing.  I've been to Art Projects for Kids and got some good drawing instructions.  If you haven't visited that site, you should.  I also looked at ton of fun terrariums on Pinterest.  There are some really cute ones.  If you go there, be careful.  I don't consider Pinterest to be family friendly although it is quite fun, sometimes you'll see something you didn't really want to see.  I'm not sure how the kids will do with the terrariums, because some of them tend to just rush through things, but we'll see.  I'll post pics later. 

Interviews.

I asked the kids one interview question today.  What are you going to do now that school is out?

Boy said "Play heroscape." and he is doing this quite loudly behind me as I type this.

Girl said "Nothing."

So there are their exciting summer plans.  LoL.

Sometimes my work is kind of funny.

This was just dictated to me.  Notice the numbers.

DIAGNOSES:
1.  Rhabdomyolysis..
2.  Equivocal cardiac enzymes.
2.  Permanent pacemaker.
3.  Hypothyroidism.
6.  Diabetes mellitus.
8.  Hyperthyroidism.
9.  Hypertension.
11. Advanced age.
9.  History of normal echocardiogram.

Seriously, he numbered them this way.  I didn't, of course, on the report, favoring the more traditional 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,  numbering system myself.  :-)  I think it's kind of interesting that he ended up with 9 at the end, which actually is correct.  Next time you feel kind of dumb about something, remember this guy.  He has advanced degrees in medicine.  We all do silly things from time to time.

This guy also never, ever, ever codes a report as the right type.  He always puts the wrong number in when he dials into the system, so I have to listen to see what in the world he's dictating.  This particular one was a consult coded as an echocardiogram.  I guess it keeps it interesting?  

The First Day of Summer.

Okay, we realize that it isn't officially the first day of summer but for us, it is.  Woo hoo!  No school today.  No whining about school today.  We need to sit down and make a summer fun and a summer work schedule.  Must do both.   Mom wants to lose some weight this summer and so we need an exercise plan.  We also need to get the house in order and do the rest of the spring cleaning.  We also don't want to neglect doing some fun and interesting things and getting together with our homeschool group.  It might be helpful to combine some fun and exercise by doing those with the homeschool group when we can.  I wonder if they'd want to come over and work on our house?  Probably not.  Painting my bedroom would go quicker with 20 of us though.  Could we call that "art"?

Happy Mother's Day.

Scary moments.

Today when my daughter and I came home from the guitar lesson and the grocery, we couldn't find my youngest son anywhere.  We searched the house, went outside and yelled very loudly and got no response.  I called my husband to ask if he'd picked him up.  He hadn't.  What seems in retrospect like 15-20 panicky minutes went by with us yelling and searching.  I was just about to call 911 and report a missing child when he came walking around the end of the house.  We've got one of those houses with no windows on either end and he was at the far end, away from the driveway, playing in the dirt, with his noise cancelling headphones on, listening to Ranger's Apprentice.  He sure did give us a scare though.  He's been told not to have the headphones on outside, out of sight of the house.  In his opinion, since he could see the house right there next to him, he did nothing wrong.  We may need to say that he needs to be able to be seen from the house, not see the house, if you know what I mean.  He did apologize later for scaring me.

The last day of school.

The kids have been working mostly on math this week.  They've had to go back and correct any of the lessons where they scored less than 80.  I gave them a break on writing, mostly because the girl is sick and she begged and begged not to have to do writing.  I really think they are doing more than the public school kids would do on their last day or so.  For last days of school when I was a kid, I remember field days, sitting around, watching TV, movie day and stacking chairs and tables.  We went out and cleaned out the gutters yesterday.  Do you think that counts for anything?  Probably not.  We did it in addition to school, not instead of school, anyway.

While we finish up here today, enjoy these pictures of my mom's garden.    My daughter took all of these Wednesday.

Can you spell anything with these letters?

My letters in last night's Upwords game, all consanents consenents consonants.  Obviously, I can't spell even with all the letters of the alphabet at my disposal, but this was challenging.

My mom's selection of letters.  She has all vowels but one.  Fortunately, these bad hands came halfway through the game and so we could use the letters already on the board to work with. 

Some pictures.

Gluten free groceries.  We didn't need bread this week, so pretty much everything I bought was gluten free.  It's not weird stuff we eat.  :-)

One of my daughter's drawings.

The "super moon" after it was higher in the sky and not quite so super anymore.

The crochet mats made out of grocery bags that the 4H kids are going to try to make.

Summer planning.

This is the last week of school.  Three more days.  The summer looms ahead of us.  12 weeks.  In my opinion, we have 3 priorities to accomplish this summer.

1.  Finish the refinance plans we have been working on procrastinating about for over a year.  (Don't ask.)
2.  Exercise/fitness.
3.  Have fun and promote family bonding.

There will be other things we'll do but these are the main things.  I also want to do some volunteer work and work on my book some more and take a little time to stop and smell the roses. When one of the kids asks me to play something or do something with them, I'm going to try most of the time to say yes.

At this point.

I'm getting used to the twice daily insulin injections for the dog.  I forgot him today until 2 hours after I was supposed to give it but I guess better late than never.  Today he's got to go get his blood sugar checked at the vet. 

We're all getting used (I guess) to oldest son being a working man.   He seems to be doing okay with it.    He does not want to do this for the rest of his life and I think that's actually a good thing.  I don't want him to either.

This is the last week of school.  We took fewer breaks than the public schools so we are finishing up way earlier than they are and way earlier than we usually do.  It's nice.  The kids are happy about it, that's for sure.

I wish I got the summers off from work, but I don't wish that enough to get a job in the school system ...

Last night we had the 4H needleworking class.  My mother in law taught the kids how to make crochet mats out of grocery bags for the homeless.  It went really well and now my daughter has a big old project to work on.  The goal is to get it done by the county fair the third week of July.  

A fun experiment.

If I read about a fun science experiment somewhere I like to go ahead and do it while I'm thinking about it.  The one we did today involved a tea bag and a match and we had tea bags from the salvage store which contained some really disgusting apple cider tea.  We weren't going to drink them, so we set them on fire.  Here's what you do. 

1. Make SURE you have the supervision of a responsible adult.
2. You can choose to go outside or not.  We tried it outside, but the wind kept blowing it over on its side and it wouldn't work, so after watching the video on Youtube and seeing that it looked pretty harmless, we tried it inside. 
3.  Take the staple, string and tag off the tea bag.
4.  Empty the tea out.
5.  Straighten the tea bag out so that it is about a 4 inch tall cylinder.
6.  Twist one end together and stand it up on its open end on a cookie sheet.
7.  Light it on fire just under the twisted part, near the top.
8.  Watch it.  The teabag will catch fire, then when it is almost burned up, it will rise up in the air about 4 feet and then gently float down, while it is going out.  

If your house catches on fire, keep in mind, that it is not my fault.  I told you to go outside.  

Feels like summer!

Picture of our creek, not our pool.  I don't have any good pictures of the pool.

I got in the pool today.  Can you believe it?  May 6.  That's the earliest I've ever gotten in the pool.  We don't usually have it up until memorial day weekend.  The temperature outside was 87 degrees and the temperature inside is not much better since our air conditioning does not seem to be working.  It keeps freezing up.  I did some chores around the house, got very, very warm and decided to just get in the pool.  I felt much better for a while, but now I'm back inside and getting very warm again and so I might have to go back out there.  It's so nice to have it as an option.  I'm thinking if we leave it up until September I can get 5 good solid months of exercise in before we take it down and I turn back into a slug.  I really need to get a winter exercise plan.

Trying to organize.

This time, it's not my house, it's my blog.  I've been blogging since 2005.  Can you believe that?  So now, finally, I'm going through some of the posts and labeling them.  I've made labels for funny posts, homeschooling day to day posts, whining and all kinds of labels.  After I get it done, I'm going to start looking for ways to give my blog a new look and a way to get at the useful stuff through all the silliness and whining.  :-D

An actual homeschooling update.

Today, the 2 younger kids, my homeschool students, slept in. I won't tell you how late they slept because it's embarrassing.  I was very, very intent on getting my work done today, concentrating hard and I pretty much just let them sleep.  Every time I'd get up to go to the bathroom or something, I'd nudge them on my way back, but they slept on anyway.   Finally they got up and shortly thereafter I had to take the girl to her guitar lesson.  Then we had to take overdue books to the library, get gas and get groceries.  Consequently, it's 9:00 p.m. and they are just now finished with school.  Still, better than a few weeks ago before I instituted the deadline (you know, the one we ignored today?).  Next week is the last week of school, so they may be inspired to just get it done.  I know I would. When they get done, I  need to work on the record books.  This is something I have really been slacking on.  Then, we all need to throw ourselves into housecleaning and home improvement tasks.  Sometimes I would like to just get a small condo and have a building manager and a housekeeper do that, because it sure does seem to want to take up all of our free time.  :-P

Not AS bad.

I know this is supposed to be a homeschooling blog and this week it's been all about my oldest son's job, but this is actually a stage in his educational process, the time in his life, when he learns that he really wants to further his education so he won't have to work so darn hard.  :-P.   I think even MY job is starting to look good to him now.  His night's work last night was not as bad, helped, I'm sure by the fact that he got 11 hours of sleep yesterday.  He really, really needed it.  Also he only got assigned to the most difficult work task for a couple of hours, instead of all 8 and the other hours he got to do the easier job that he was actually hired for.  One more night and he'll have the weekend to rest and contemplate his life plan.

Okay then.

Well today, oldest son came in and said it was pretty awful at work.  He had to pack over 30,000 magazines into boxes and now he is exhausted and his back hurts.  I've been there but I hate to see my kids suffer.  I really hope he can sleep today.  Yesterday was pretty much a bust in the sleep department.  None of us are going to be all that perky today as there was a wolf spider in the living room last night.  My daughter tried to wake my husband and I to deal with it, but I can't cope with spiders and my husband wasn't getting out of bed.  So, she and her dog got in on my side of the bed and slept with us.  No one slept all that well.  Who could with something like that in the house?   I dreamed about spiders and, for some reason, proper comma usage.  When I got up this morning, youngest son had trapped the mama spider for daddy to deal with later and was busy killing the hundreds of babies that she carries on her back.  Now my husband is awake and dealing with the spider in the bathroom.  I don't know what we'd do if he couldn't handle it?  Call 9-1-1?

Move out?

Another job update.

Oldest son came in from work this morning and said that it went okay.  He didn't hate it.  As I said before, thankfully, he's not me.  He's got a better work attitude.  Actually he's got a better attitude in general, but he's not hormonal or just plain crabby or whatever I am.  :-P   He did finally manage to get to sleep yesterday with the help of a little Benadryl and so he was reasonably well rested.   We'll see how today's trying to sleep during the day goes.  Now I'm going to sit here and be thankful for my job where I set my own hours.  

The moms from the homeschool group and I went to the salvage grocery store together and saved a ton of money.  I got some pantry staples for less than half price and also a bunch of junk that I don't usually buy, fruit snacks, Capri suns, Snickers and gum.  My youngest son came to me and asked if he could have gum, then came and asked if he could have a Capri and then came and asked if he could have a mini-snickers.  Finally, I said "there's nothing in there you can't have" and he said "that's a really good answer."

Being helpful.

One of the doctors I type for is very helpful.  He spells the word S-E-S-T-A-M-I-B-I for me very carefully every single time he dictates it.

Unfortunately, he spells it S-E-S-T-A-B-A-M-I.

It begins.

My son begins third shift (overnights) tonight and of course he can't sleep.  We spent 10 years watching my husband suffer through trying to work third shift and he finally got off of it a couple of months ago.  Now we begin again, trying to be quiet ...

Sigh.