Feeling stressed.

I'm stressed about big things and little things; mom's house, mom's rent and all the stuff that goes into elder care, the impending visit with my son and his girlfriend (though I love them and can't wait), the conflicts between our dogs, the wasps that are haunting our back door and won't go away despite taking aggressive measures and spraying them with cans of wasp and hornet spray, my job,  my messy house, the pain in my hand, which I am really starting to think must be broken.  I did call and ask for a referral to an orthopedist today.  I'm even stressed because VBS is this week and my kids are helpers which means that I had to take the garbage down by myself and that set my hand to throbbing.  I'm not stressed about homeschooling because I don't stress about that anymore.  This is the last year and I'm kind of sad about it and maybe sad is a kind of stressed ... but we haven't started even planning homeschooling this year other than buying an engineering DVD course and planning to continue German on Duolingo. (which we recommend, by the way).    When things just keep going on and on and on like this (remember, we've been dealing with mom's alzheimers for 10 years and trying to sell her house for almost a year now) I really feel that I understand phrases like 'the straw that broke the camel's back, how it could be a silly thing like being out of chocolate that can just send you over the edge.

I can't take the Gilmore Girls advice and wallow because I don't have time but maybe Gilmore Girls will come from Netflix and I can at least escape reality for a bit while watching it.  We've just discovered it and are all really enjoying it.  

It occurs to me too.

Awesomeness and modesty.

We were sitting around today talking about possible college majors for my daughter who has to go to college to keep her Dad's health insurance.  I went to college right out of high school with no idea what to major in  and finally decided on Child Development.  I planned to be a preschool teacher because I like kids and I had several years of teaching Sunday School and I really had no idea what to do.  If I had it to do over, I might major in architecture or interior design.  I mentioned this and my youngest son said "If you'd majored in something else besides Child Development, I might not have turned out so awesome."  :-)

True that.

Great Homeschooling Article

Homeschool This. Go read this article.  It's awesome.

Here's tiny excerpt:

Gather supplies. Here is a helpful list 

• Books. More books than you can accomodate. Go to libraries, book sales, yard sales. Let the kids bring any book they want into the house, short of pornography. Even ‘Garfield’.

Limping along.

I'm trying to enjoy my summer, despite being on my third round of antibiotics this summer and feeling, basically, like crap all the time.  I'm doing the Finding Nemo thing .. "Just keep swimming.  Just keep swimming."  and even when I feel very, very bad I'm still getting in the pool and exercising.  I'm really worried about my mom's house not selling.  This picture kind of sums up how I'm coping with that.  Not well.

But, look how beautiful and clear our pool looked last night.  My husband does a really good job keeping it clean.  It's really awesome.  

I could see this spider web from the pool.  It was so detailed and symmetrical.  

For some reason, she decided to lie down on the bottom part of the table.  

This is her position to watch me eat a sandwich.  I thought it was cute.

Here's my son's plate from the other night when my family cooked dinner.  My husband grilled the pork chops and made green beans and corn, my daughter made mashed potatoes (not pictured because they  had already been eaten) and my youngest son made peas.  He kind of likes peas ... :-)

A few things.

Mom and I worked on our warm colors/cool colors afghans the other day.  We switch off and do rows on both so they are totally a team effort.  At some point this week, we went to Hobby Lobby to get red yarn for the warm one and the kids saw this poster of puppies and took a picture because it's the cutest thing they've ever seen.  

But that's only because we never got to see Freckles as a puppy.  :-)

And I've been art journaling flowers, as usual.  

I've been doing pretty well with getting in the pool and exercising and I think I feel stronger, so that's good.  That is about the only thing that's going according to plan this summer it feels like, but at least soemthing is.

The Rescue.

Yesterday I went to see mom and we worked on our afghans.  I managed to hide my fear and distress over her financial situation and we talked about this and that.  She remembered my aunt's birthday party, so that was good.  When I came home, I was greeted with the news that Piper was missing.  My first thought was "I didn't do it."  I've never been a Piper fan.  We had a rule in our house, that was 'no puppies" and I meant to stick to it, but my husband and kids overruled me, ignored my objections and brought this *&^% puppy home anyway.  She then proceeeded to chew up every single thing that we had outside, including the pool filter, which did not endear her to me at all and lately, she's been viciously attacking Freckles who is the only dog smaller than her.  I have been thinking about listing her with a courtesy re-homing service run by the humane society, but who would want her, really?; she chews, she is aggressive towards other dogs (not people), she's not house trained.  Sigh.  Anyway, I didn't take her on a long, one way drive though I have thought about it.  I'm good to her and pet her and talk to her, even though I really wish she would go live with a different family.

Last night, when we were going to take Freckles out for the last time, we looked for Piper as usual because she has to be restrained while Freckles is out.  (This is really annoying to have to do several times a day although the kids do most of it.)  We couldn't find Piper so I decided to take Freckles out the back door as usual and just watch her in case Piper showed up.  When we got out there, I called for Piper and heard thump, thump, thump and then a high pitched whine.  She was under the deck and apparently stuck and the thumps were her wagging her tail when I called her.   After trying to entice her out with treats, my husband finally realized what she was stuck on and released her so she could come out.  Anyway, we had a tiny adventure but everything is back to normal now.

A few things this week.

The beginning of this week has been rather uneventful I guess, as I wait for things.  I love waiting.  

Not.

Anyway, I'm waiting for mom's house to sell and for my 2 co-persons in this enterprise to decide wheter to take the estimate that I got and repair the house.  Meanwhile, I'm doing everythign that I can to market it myself, mostly on Facebook.  I'm also waiting for my hand to heal up from where I fell on it last week.  Not fun.  It feels okay for a while and then I forget about it and do things like actually try to use it and it hurts.  The things I try to use it for include driving, crocheting (holding the yarn), opening things, holding the sketchbook when I draw and typing, which I do for a living.  So, it's pretty often that it hurts. :-(  

Also this week I printed out my very last Letter of Intent to Homeschool, as youngest son is going to be a senior.  Can't believe it!  Cannot process.  

Enough about that.  For your viewing, uh, pleasure, I've uploaded some lovely photos from my phone, a lovely collection.  

A dragonfly on a chair.  My son took about 12 pictures, identical to this one, but maybe with the dragonfly's wings in slightly different positions.  I'll only share the one.  

A box we had used to move things out of mom's house that we only noticed this week has Cosmo's name on it.  A couple of it thought it said Cosmo Proof (like that could exist!) but it says prof.  I have no idea what that means but found it interesting.

And now here at two pictures of Cosmo, the goofy dog that he is.  He's making himself right at home.  

Party time.

We had a big surprise birthday party yesterday for my aunt, my mom's sister.  I wanted my mom to be able to attend so I drove the 2 hours to get her and bring her and was prepared to repeat that and take her back after the party by my brother volunteered to take her instead and so I got a break.  It was a good thing, because parties just wear me out.  I can behave as an extrovert the whole time I'm there, but when I get home, I crash.  I crashed hard yesterday and went to bed at 7:00 p.m., slept a couple of hours, got up and hung out with the family for a little while watching Chuck, then went back to bed.  I'm still worn out today for some reason.  I hope I get more peppy in a little while because I would like to get some cooking and cleaning done today.  Anyway, mom seemed to do well at the party.  She seemed to be enjoying everything and everyone, though when she talks, sometimes she can't make a lot of sense.  The  Alzheimers makes the wrong words come out.  :-(  Still, she seemed to have a good time and all of her sisters and brother and neices and nephews were thrilled to see her, so it was worth it and would have been even if I'd had to spend 4 hours in the car.

Thankfully, it was not raining/storming yesterday like it is today.  Again.  I think it's probably rained every day of the last 20-25 days, except yesterday.  Today, it's 9:00 a.m. and it's raining and as dark as night outside.  I really don't want to do anything when the weather is like that, but curl up under a blanket and read.

Or play Words with Friends.  :-)

Or draw.

Grrr.

I'm annoyed.  Seriously annoyed.  I had called a furniture company to come and look at my mom's furniture to see if they would buy any of it, basically to save my kids the trouble of carrying it all out of the house and the guy offered me 100 dollars, total.   Even if I sold both sofas, the loveseat, the all wood bed with book case headboard, both dressers, the bookcases, the oak file cabinets, the treadmill and all of the other stuff for 10 dollars each, I'd have more than 100 dollars.  So I am beginning the laborious process of trying to advertise it for sale on the internet.  We'll see how it goes I guess, but seriously, I'd rather donate it to a mission store than give it to that guy for 100 dollars.

And to add to the fun I'm having here, I fell on my way into the house and hurt my hand pretty badly.  I'm having a seriously hard time typing this and don't forget, never forget, I type for a living!  At 9:00 a.m. I will call the doctor's office and see if I can get an x-ray.

Fun, fun times.

Sorry, this post is not about homeschooling, but hey, it's summer.  :-)

Yesterday .

Well, it was a very frustrating day.  I didn't have any work for many hours and it was fine with me, because I didn't have a lot planned (for once) and I could flex my work, but I needed to let my supervisor know that I would be flexing hours and that's where the problems and frustration began.  She was on vacation it turns out so she didn't answer me on Spark, which made me have to go to the trouble of opening up our clunky work email thingy and then when I emailed her, it said that she was on vacation and to contact a couple of other people.  Neither one of them asnwered me on Spark or on email, and that's what made me frustrated.  I finally did get finished with work a good 4 1/2 hours after my normal time.  I didn't feel all that great most of the day because I had a headache but while I was awaiting work, I got some other things done.  I did some reading and art journaling and dishes and made a pot of potato soup and then after work, youngest son and I went to the library and got some holds and got some gas because we were well below E.  The day was not a total loss but I feel very bad when I don't get a lot done.

Anyway, here's some art.  Maybe in the future I will have a big sale and sell some of it and it won't feel like a waste of time but even though I love it (and it's possible it's kept me out of a mental hospital!  LoL) , I feel kind of guilty for doing so much of it.  Right now I'm at the end of another sketchbook, most of my sharpies are hit and miss and don't want to write and I need (?) paint or shall we say, I am almost completely out of paint but I feel guilty buying more.  :-(    I never thought I'd be an artist so I am not sure how to deal with artist guilt.  :-P  Mommy guilt, wife guilt, housekeeper guilt, I'm very familiar with those ....

Also, a bit of scandal going on as Freckles and Cosmo have started sleeping together.  ;-)

Happy Fourth!

I don't know that we'll celebrate today.  We partied last weekend with out of town family coming for a visit and this weekend, we may just stay home and do nothing.  I'm okay with it.  I was up half the night worrying about my mom's house not selling and my house is a mess and needs to be cleaned up, so I may spend the day cleaning and working at my job and then go see mom tomorrow and that will be my weekend. I've got mom's house on the agenda for Monday again.  It still needs a lot done to it

This week, I had a doctor's appointment in an old historic building in town with a museum also in the building so I took the kids and they explored the museum while I had my appointment and then we went to Wendy's for free Frostys and then walked through an art gallery.  The art gallery made me feel kind of good about my art, because I think that some of my art is as good as some of the art that was there, not all of it, but some of it.  :-)

Anyway, what we've been doing, looking into college for the girl, watching it rain (every day!), spending a lot of time taking care of the dogs because Piper and Freckles have been fighting and Freckles has been losing every time and so now she has to go out chaperoned, which seems to take up a lot of time.  Youngest son is doing school this summer of his own free will, not wanting to lose track of his German lessons.  We've been getting Gilmore Girls from Netflix and watching it in the evenings while doing art and crocheting.   My husband has gotten better from his Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and is back to work.  So that's life here, July 2015.  :-)

I put my Christmas cactus outside and it's enjoying the rainy season and sprouting these new little red nubs.  Aren't they cute?  

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