Busy, but mostly good busy.

Today I tried to work with a lot of interruptions.  The phone was ringing.  The kids were talking.  The kids needed help draining the macaroni they were cooking.  The dog needed to be taken to the vet for a blood sugar test and we needed groceries, but I couldn't combine those trips because I couldn't leave the dog in the car while I got groceries with it being over 100 degrees.  I still didn't get my complete amount of lines, but I ran out of work about an hour and a half ago and I took that as a good excuse to get in the pool for a while.  Now I'm out, I'm blogging, I'm eating Cheetos and watching a little CSI. (multitasking) and in a little while I'll check and see if there is more work.  That's one of the disadvantages of working at home ... you're always at work.

But probably not today ...

We probably won't get anything done on the house today.  I'm having one of those days at work.   I get frustrated not being able to get my work done very fast, because I'm having a hard time understanding my English-As-A-Second-Language physicians, bless their hearts.  Without their difficulty speaking English, I probably wouldn't have a job, but sometimes, sometimes, it just kind of drives me crazy.  We got a lot done yesterday so I shouldn't expect to get a lot done today.  That doesn't seem to be how it works.

On the subject of homeschooling, I'm kind of thinking we should start early, maybe kind of soon (after the painting and tiling) and get some of the days out of the way.  I wonder how that would go over?  Get some school done while it's insanely hot outside (105 degrees Fahrenheit) and later, when the weather is nice, take some days off.  

Getting busy and doing the happy dance.

We all got up and got busy on the house today.  We cleaned while my daughter finished up the kitchen floor tiles.  She actually enjoys doing it and every time I start to do it, she says "here, let me do that", so I let her.  :-)

Did you get the most important part of that?  FINISHED up the floor tiles.

Happy Dance!

The kitchen is done.

Now the laundry room, then the bathroom, then the post construction clean up and then ....

we can start painting the bedroom. 



 

A little light reading.

Guess what youngest son is reading now?  His geometry textbook for next year.  It's Life of Fred, so it is a combination of a geometry textbook and a funny story book.  He's already been rereading his textbooks for fractions and decimals and pre-algebra this week.  He's always said that he doesn't like math but he's good at it, but now he might just be starting to like it.

Maybe 75%.

That's how much of the kitchen floor tile we have done.  We work on it a little bit each day.  Today though, I want to get finished with it.  I'm not sure if we will because we have a bunch of errands in town that we need to take care of, a list of things I need to pick up (including Max's insulin) that seems to get longer and longer and at least that one that can't wait until tomorrow.  He's almost out.

Giving Max his twice daily shots has pretty much become routine.  My husband and I share the responsibility though neither of us like it much.  When we first had to start doing this, we had a discussion about who should do it.  My husband was the only one with any experience giving shots since he had to give me steroid shots during my last pregnancy because we thought the youngest was going to be premature.  I could do shots, though they made me feel a bit squeamish at first.  Oldest son has always been freaked out by needles, but since he's had to have surgery 3 times and had to have IVs, he's come a long way, but not far enough to give a shot to the dog without passing out.  Daughter is worse than he is, with the same needle freak-out.  She's almost passed out at the doctor's office after getting a shot and at the hospital when visiting a friend when talk turned to the subject of needles.  Youngest son said that he'd be the backup if something dire happened to both me and Dad, because he thinks that maybe he can do it.  He's never passed out or felt like passing out.  So we do it.  Max is doing okay with it, though he's had reactions a couple of times and had to get a does of Karo syrup to get his blood sugar levels back up.  It's kind of scary.

So anyway, back to the order of the day ... work, errands, floor tiles and hopefully, at long last, getting in the pool.  

Sleepy.

So last night I finally did get done with work.  It was about 8:30 pm  Then, daughter and I got in the pool and had a lovely swim.  After we came in, oldest son, the night shift worker, got up for the day and we ended up staying up until 1:00 am to visit with him.  Then we got up at 8:30 to get ready for church.  After church, there was only one thing we could do .... NAP.  Daughter and I slept for about 3 hours while youngest son, left to his own devices, studied the atlas and when I got up he wanted to talk about planetary axis's with me.  I think that's supposed to be axes, but that seems kind of silly, so axis's it is for the purposes of this blog.  Then, he studied for a while on plate tectonics and continental drift, and then started watching It's America Charlie Brown.  I tell, you, you can't turn off the learning around here.  After the girl and I got up from our respective naps, we put down a few floor tiles, picked blackberries and got in the pool.

Hot!

It's calling me.

My goodness it's hot today.  Our air conditioning is acting up again.  It's about 85 in here.  That's probably not really all that hot by normal standards, but when you are spoiled rotten to central air it's hot.  If I EVER get done with work today I am going to get in the pool, but I despair of ever getting done.  I overslept this morning and then my sons were doing a lot of talking this morning and the phone rang several times, then the dog had a reaction to his insulin and between all those interruptions, I'm only a little more than halfway done at 4:00 p.m..  It's going to be a long, long day.  Actually, it already has.

Summer schooling.

Okay, we are not doing a formal summer school study.  We never do.  We just go ahead and take the summer off from school.  However, kids don't stop learning.  You can't make them.  This week, my youngest has been reading the almanac and the atlas, listening to audio books, working on his tree house (mostly in his head, very little actual outside work in the hot, hot sun!).  My daughter has been crocheting and doing a little math to see how many rows she needs to do each day to get it done by July 2.  Apparently 5 rows a day.  I know it's not much math, but it is a little.  Plus, she and I have been working on tiling our floor, which has got to be good for spacial reasoning or something.  We've been swimming, which should count as PE.  My daughter wants to do the Presidential Active Lifestyle award thing again this year.  My oldest son is getting an education in REAL LIFE at his first job and he seems to be doing fine with it, although I miss him.  I started to put lactose free milk in the mashed potatoes and then I thought, he never gets to eat with us anymore anyway, so why bother.  Yes, it is odd to miss a kid's special dietary needs, but there you are.  I do.  I went ahead and made them with the Lactaid milk, just in case he wants some later.  It is the weekend coming up so we may get to see him a little bit.  

Random pictures, summer 2012.

Cat posters on my daughter's door.

My 10 dollar yard sale chair.

Nerf darts, in storage.  These things are all over the house. 

Youngest son's 4H poster.

Ikea shower curtains that I'm using as window curtains.

My favorite Ikea pillow.

Pillow my daughter made.

Youngest son's favorite books right now.

Pool.

Heroscape board set up.

Pumpkins growing in the front yard from last years jack o lanterns.

Youngest son's library selections this week.

Daughter's needlework from last year.

My husband's needle work from years ago.  Thus hung in our oldest son's nursery but is now in the kitchen.

More of the same art wall, kitchen.

My daughter's owl drawing.

More art wall.

The yarn pile.  Her room needs some work, but we're working on the kitchen right now.

Girl shoes.

I did mention that it was going to be random pictures didn't I ?

Happy first day of summer.

We did more of the same.  More work.  More blackberry picking.  More swimming.  More laziness about getting our work on the floor done, but really we didn't have a lot of time.   Actually, yes, we could have done it during the time we picked blackberries or the swim time, but our friends were going to be at the pool and we wanted to see them and we didn't want the berries to go to waste!  The floor is first on the list for  tomorrow. 

While I was supposed to be working, I went over to Donna Young's Website.   and looked at high school planners.  I haven't been able to buy one like I used for my oldest and so I printed one out from her website to use.  She has a ton of great stuff over there.  You should go check it out if you are, as I am, right on top of things in planning the fall semester.  :-P

Another project my daughter has been working on.

The knitting of this is done, but she needs to do the fringes at the ends.  She's jumping from one thing to another this summer, enjoying not having to do schoolwork and getting a lot of projects finished.  This scarf is knitted from pom pom yarn and as a bonus, you get to see our new floor tiles.  They're still not all down but we're getting there.  We had an attack of the lazies yesterday.  After we picked blackberries, we were hot and tired and all we could think about was getting in the pool.

Today is a busier day.

We've got 4H this afternoon and it's our community service project day.  Each club is supposed to do a community service project each year.  We've chosen a charity based on the fact that the person who runs it is a friend.  I am not sure what kind of work they do.  I know that they support and educate teen moms and I know they give out a ton of diapers and formula so we've been collecting diapers for them.  The lady who runs it will tell us all about the work they do, we'll give her the diapers and do a photo op for the scrapbook.  After that, we get to go out to eat together so that will be nice.  I don't see my group much in the summer and I miss them.

A good summer day.

We had a very good summer day today.  I worked of course, that's a given.  Then my daughter and I went over to check on my mom for a bit, then came back and picked blackberries.  We'll probably have a bunch of chiggers tomorrow, so we may not be so happy about that, then.  We found a new patch up on the hill, so we got a lot.  We had plenty for a cobbler, but the kids ate them all.  We'll have to try again tomorrow.  Maybe I can pick up some vanilla ice cream to go with the cobbler.  What we have now is Mint Chocolate Chip and I just can't picture that being very good.  :-)  Then, we got in the pool and exercised and goofed off for quite a while.  After I got out, I started picking more blackberries, I don't know if more had gotten ripe or if we just missed them and I got to listen to the kids in the pool singing hilarious songs in the pool, ad libbing new words to the songs at times.  I really enjoy summer.

Overheard.

These are some comments I heard this weekend while the 2 younger kids were playing Kirby, Return To Dreamland.

"Stay away from the pineapple"

"Was that me?  Sometimes I think I'm you."

"Ow".

"I went the wrong way."

"The beam hat fits you better."

"The time has come for the whole planet to bow down to me ..."

"I didn't say I was perfect at it.  I just said I'm better than you."

"Face the wrath of my umbrella!"

Happy Father's Day.

We aren't going to be doing a lot today, but we'll get together with my husband's Dad this evening. 

My discovery.

I have discovered the magic words to use when you want your teenagers to go to the grocery with you because it's dark and late and you have to drive your husband's car and you really don't want to go alone. 

Are you ready to hear them?

"I'll buy you Krispy Kremes."

The week in review.

My husband has been off work for 10 days working on the house and of course the car, because every single time he takes off work to work on the house, one of the cars breaks down, but I digress.  Anyway, he got a lot done and got the kitchen floor ready for the tile to go down and yesterday we started putting it down.  I'm very excited!   I'll show pictures when I get a chance.   We've set an end-of-June deadline for our refinance after procrastinating about it for at least a year.  The interest rates are low and I hope they will stay that way until we get through the process. 

The youngest son's tree house is progressing.  There have been disagreements and differences of opinion between him and his dad through the process, but they have worked it out now and the floor platform is being built, post holes are being dug (one of the compromises was not to attach it to a living tree, but build a freestanding platform beside a tree.)  and on my husband's version of the weekend, which for him comes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday each week, the plywood will be brought home in the truck (hopefully) and the rest of it can be built.  Otherwise, we might have to cut it in half to bring it home in my Suburban.  I don't know if that will work or if it will mess up the structural integrity of the structure, so we'll see I guess. 

Work schedules continue to be weird here.  I work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,  Friday and Saturday during the day.  Oldest son works M-F third shift, which is overnight 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. and husband works 4, 10 hour days on the weekends, Friday through Monday.  None of us has a traditional 9-5 M-F schedule but there's always at least one adult at home.   

I really, really need to give some time and thought to the kid's school subjects and schedules next year.  I'll have 2 high schoolers!  They'll be in 9th and 11th grades.  I am happy to say that my older son's transcript has been accepted where we sent it so I guess I've done okay with record keeping for him and can do it again for the next two.  I'll admit though, it is a little intimidating.    After the refi I'll get to work on their schedules.  Maybe.  You know me, I might leave that until the day before school starts!  :-P

Iron.

I have iron deficiency anemia.  Most of the time it doesn't bother me, but if my hemoglobin drops down to a certain level, I start to feel symptoms including headache, irritability, fatigue and heart palpitations.  It's not fun for me or anyone in my general vicinity.  :-)  I don't tolerate my prescription iron pills well.  My nurse practitioner and I have tried to find iron that I can tolerate, but so far, we've really not been successful.  The pills won't dissolve in my stomach or something.  I won't tell you all the details, but it is not pretty.  So this week, I've been very symptomatic and I have been trying to come up with something to do.  I bought some chewable children's vitamins with iron and I bought a bag of spinach.  The first 3 iron rich foods on the list I read were, canned clams, liver and spinach.  I'm not a fan of any kind of seafood, canned or otherwise, so I can't imagine that I'd be able to stand canned clams.  I don't mind liver if it's breaded and fried, but since I am gluten free, I can't just go to KFC and order some.  Theirs would be breaded with wheat.  So, I'd have to bread and fry that liver myself.   That's kind of icky to me, but I may have to end up doing it.  Anyway, I focused on the spinach.  I tried a green smoothie which was pretty much disgusting.  I was pondering this last night while talking to my youngest son and driving past Chili's.  He said that it was a shame that I couldn't make the spinach taste like Chili's Texas Cheese Fries.  This got me to thinking and voila, I came up with a solution.  I was very pleased to discover that it worked.  I put the spinach in the blender with some milk and then added that into my baked potato soup.  It's yummy.  It looks like broccoli soup instead of potato soup but it tastes pretty much the same. 

The only problem is that I read last night that iron that comes from plant sources like spinach is more difficult to absorb than iron that comes from animal sources, like say, for instance, clams or liver.  So, this may not help my symptoms.  Still, I'm going to try putting ground up spinach in a lot of different recipes before I take the plunge and try frying liver.  Eeek.

Watch out family! 

A little peek at my work.

I'm working today (of course) and I just finished typing a tummy tuck, also called an abdominoplasty.  When they took off some excess skin from the patient's abdomen, they had to relocate her belly button, also known as the umblicus.  The doctor said this "

The umbilicus was relocated, defatted and sutured with 4-0 PDS sutures at the 2, 4, 8 and 10 o'clock positions to create an innie.  

I guess the technical, medical term for a belly button that goes in is "innie".  :-)

What we currently have checked out of the library.

This does not include anything my husband and oldest son may have out.  The ones that look like something an adult female would read are probably going back unread, since I haven't been much in a reading mood lately.  All the ones you think a kid or teen would read are going back read, pretty much.  One is lost and really needs to be found soon.  Is it any wonder a librarian publicly thanked me for boosting their circulation numbers and I assume, helping them get more funding? There's treasure everywhere : a Calvin and Hobbes collection / Bill Watterson. The woman who changed her brain : and other inspiring stories of pioneering brain transformation / by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young. The terra cotta army of Emperor Qin / Caroline Lazo. The son of Neptune / Rick Riordan.> The passion of Mary-Margaret / Lisa Samson. The magic thief / by Sarah Prineas ; illustrations by Dominic Harman. The LEGO ideas book : unlock your imagination / author, Daniel Lipkowitz ; fan builders, Sebastiaan Arts, Tim Goddard, Deborah Higdon, Barney Main, Duncan Titmarsh, Andrew Walker. The indispensable Calvin and Hobbes : a Calvin and Hobbes treasury / by Bill Watterson. The extraordinary education of Nicholas Benedict [sound recording] / by Trenton Lee Stewart. The days are just packed : a Calvin and Hobbes collection / by Bill Watterson. Shanghai girls : a novel / Lisa See. Oh, yikes! : history's grossest, wackiest moments / by Joy Masoff. How cool is this?. Henny on the couch / Rebecca Land Soodak. Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone [sound recording] / by J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban [sound recording] / J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. [sound recording] / J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter : building the magical world / written by Elizabeth Dowsett. Good clean knock-knock jokes for kids / Bob Phillips. Garfield weighs his options / by Jim Davis. Garfield shovels it in / by Jim Davis. Garfield potbelly of gold / by Jim Davis. Dragon Ball Z: Vol. 7 / Akira Toriyama ; translator, Lilliam Olsen ; touch-up and lettering, Wayne Truman. Dragon Ball Z: Vol. 6 / Akira Toriyama ; translator, Lillian Olsen ; touch-up and lettering, Wayne Truman.Dragon Ball Z: Vol. 5 / Akira Toriyama ; translator, Lillian Olsen ; touch-up art & lettering, Wayne Truman. Dragon Ball Z: Vol. 4 / Akira Toriyama ; translator, Lillian Olsen ; touch-up art & lettering , Wayne Truman. Dragon Ball Z: Vol. 3 / Akira Toriyama ; translator, Lillian Olsen ; touch-up art & lettering, Wayne Truman. Dragon Ball Z: Vol. 2 / Akira Toriyama ; translator, Lillian Olsen ; touch-up art & lettering, Wayne Truman. Dragon Ball Z: Vol. 1 / Akira Toriyama ; translator, Lillian Olsen ; touch-up art & lettering, Wayne Truman. Dragon Ball Z. Vol. 9 / story and art by Akira Toriyama ; [English adaptation by Gerard Jones].Dragon Ball Z. Vol. 8 / story and art by Akira Toriyama ; [English adaptation by Gerard Jones]. Dragon ball Z Volume 15 / story and art by Akira Toriyama ; [English adaptation, Gerard Jones ; translation, Lillian Olsen]. Dragon ball Z Volume 14 / story and art by Akira Toriyama ; [English adaptation, Gerard Jones ; translation, Lillian Olsen]. Dragon Ball Z Volume 12 / Akira Toriyama ; [English adaptation by Gerard Jones ; translation, Lillian Olsen ; touch-up art & lettering, Wayne Truman]. Dragon ball Z Vol. 13 / story and art by Akira Toriyama ; [English adaptation, Gerard Jones ; translation, Lillian Olsen].     Dragon Ball Z Vol. 11 / story and art by Akira Toriyama ; [English adaptation by Gerard Jones]. Dragon ball Z Vol. 10 / story and art by Akira Toriyama ; [English adaptation by Gerard Jones]. Discovering lost cities and pirate gold / James de Winter. A web of air / Philip Reeve.13 curses / Michelle Harrison.Harry Potter and the goblet of fire [sound recording] / J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the half-blood prince. [sound recording] / J. K. Rowling. A giant problem [sound recording] / by Tony DiTerlizzi & Holly Black. The battle for Skandia [sound recording] : / John Flanagan. The burning bridge. [sound recording] / John Flanagan. The icebound land. [sound recording] / John Flanagan. The kings of Clonmel [sound recording] : / John Flanagan. The legend of Zelda : four swords part 1 / [story and art by Akira Himekawa ; translation, John Werry ; English adaptation, Stan! Brown].The nixie's song. [sound recording] / Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. The sorcerer of the North [sound recording] : / John Flanagan. The wyrm king [sound recording] / Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. 100 most awesome things on the planet / Anna Claybourne.How to draw Nickelodeon Avatar, the last airbender / illustrated by Shane L. Johnson. Pokémon visual guide / Cris Silvestri & Katherine Fang.Ranger's apprentice : the lost stories / John Flanagan. The Calvin and Hobbes tenth anniversary book (Comic strip) / by Bill Watterson. The curious boy's book of exploration / Sam Martin. Brisingr. [sound recording] / Christopher Paolini.Eragon. [sound recording] / Christopher Paolini. Erak's ransom [sound recording] : / John Flanagan. Halt's peril [sound recording] : / John Flanagan. Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets [sound recording] / J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the deathly hallows. [sound recording] / J. K. Rowling.

Sibling gifts.

My kids have never had much money.  They get 3 dollars a week allowance which we started to help them get some idea of how to manage money and they can do chores for more.  They've never asked for an increase at all and when my 19 year old son started working, he went from 3 dollars a week to over 300 dollars a week (but so far, he's being good and saving for college like he should).  So anyway, they have been creative over the years with sibling gifts.  They have made things at times, but the most popular gifts, especially for the youngest son, are gifts of time.  My older son gives him a certain number of hours of play time each year and youngest son uses this to get his older brother to play Heroscape with him.  This year, the girl gave him 5 coupons for games. For each coupon, she'll play the game of his choice with him.  Right now, they are playing Yu-GI-Oh.  It's Tuesday.  His birthday was yesterday and he's already used 2 coupons.  :-)

A minute ago she played a card because it was "cute" and noting "most of the cards in this game are not cute."  :-)

Speaking of the 3 dollars a week they get, check this out.  It's interesting, although the first time I looked at it I looked at it completely backwards.  See how your income stacks up among the world's population.

The next phase.

My youngest son has moved from the receiving gifts phase (he got money from everyone) to the spending the gift money phase.  He's placed an order on Amazon.com and he's working on design plans and pricing for a tree fort.  He really, really, really wants to build it and I think it's finally going to happen now.  His Dad is helping him.  Hopefully they can figure it all out and get it built. 

Celebrating.

Tomorrow is my youngest son's birthday, but we're celebrating today.  I'm going to make a pot of chili and we're going to have cookies and ice cream.  It's what he wanted.  He wanted one of the big chocolate chip cookies with icing on it.  The gluten free members of the family will be having K-toos which are very much like Oreos and chocolate chip ice cream.  Youngest boy may have been a surprise to my husband and I (but not to God), but he is a treasure.  :-)

A new direction.

I'm meditating about taking my blog in a new direction, which is to say, away from whining, more about homeschooling, more about focusing on the positive and enjoying life as much as possible.  Yes, there is some stuff going on in my life that I wish wasn't going on, but I am not going to okay, I'm going to TRY not to sit around and feel sorry for myself and really I'm going to try and not write about that stuff.  It really doesn't make for a good blog.  So in that spirit, I'm going to share some of the crafty stuff my daughter has been doing lately.  She's been in a crochet mood.

The mat for the homeless crocheted out of grocery bags. 

Sadly.

My Thursday didn't end up as well as I had hoped.  :-(  My mom went to the doctor with her sister yesterday and there was some not encouraging news and now my brother and I are trying to figure out what to do.  It's not easy.

Th-th-th-thursday.

I'm probably one of very few people in the world who looks forward to Thursday every week.  It's my day off work!  Yay!  Today I'm going to do all kinds of exciting things, like going to the grocery and the credit union and cleaning and going to see my mom, but not, and this is very important, typing any echocardiograms, cardiac catheterizations or knee replacement surgeries.  :-)  I will probably also work on my Cafepress store.  My son showed me how to make transparent designs, so I'm going to make some dark colored T shirts for my store.  It might be weird, but I'm excited about that.  My son is also going to work on translating my book on going gluten free into a PDF so I can upload it to Kindle.  My efforts to convert the Word file have not went well.  I can do some computer things, but not all. 

I guess I'd better get going.  Have a great day everyone. 

Aren't you just so glad it's Thursday? 

:-)

4H needlework club.

The girl had needlework class today and they worked on the crochet mats that they are making for the homeless.  A lot of the kids hadn't been able to remember how to proceed once they'd gotten home and the regular teachers weren't all that sure how to proceed either (we had a guest teacher last month, my mother-in-law and we should have asked her to come back today and help, but we forgot.  :-(  )  So the next best person to teach it was my daughter.  She walked in with her half completed mat, every row straight and perfect.  I was very proud of her.  Everyone wanted/needed  her help and she was going all around the room showing everyone how to do it.   It's a big step for such a shy child, a kid who just learned to crochet herself a year ago.

Still not really.

We've still not really started on either our cleaning or exercising goals this summer.  No adventures.  No walks.   I've got a terrible case of inertia when it comes to those tasks.  I'm working at my job and that's pretty much it.  I know that's an aspect of my personality.  I focus on one thing for a while, then something else for a while and then something else for a while.  I never seem to have all of the balls in the air at the same time.  When I do kick in with exercise and home improvement projects and cleaning, something else will fall by the wayside.  Yes, you can have it all, just not at the same time.

Beautiful day.

It is just gorgeous.  My oldest son apparently has recovered from his work shifts (ah, youth) and went kayaking today with some friends.  It turned out to be a great day for it.  It's hard for me to sit in the house and work today.  The younger kids and I went on a trip to the mailbox/fossil hunt.  We had creek rock delivered instead of regular gravel for our driveway so now every trip to the mailbox brings interesting fossil discoveries.

One thing and another.

We've had an interesting week I guess.  The two younger kids and I have been getting some things done and having a regular week.

The oldest son has been working, working, working.  He did 2 twelve hour shifts in a row, yesterday and the day before, came in this morning and collapsed.  He's been asleep for 12 hours now and if he doesn't get up soon, we'll have to wake him up in a little while to work tonight, though I hate to. 

Yesterday when I was getting ready to cook a meatloaf, the oven heating element started sparking like sparklers on the fourth of July so we're going to need either a new element or a new stove.

Then today, the brakes on my husband's car caught fire.

It's really not Friday the 13th is it?