Funeral, etc.

We made it through the funeral, but only because of the love of our family and friends. For the past few days, people have been thinking of us, praying for us, singing to us, baking, cooking, giving, clearing snow, reminicing, crying with us, hugging, kissing and holding us. Without them, we could not have made it. I am so grateful for every single one who did what they could to help us, from the ones who did small things like bring me the coffee creamer I like and keeping me supplied with Hershey bars to the ones who shoveled snow for hours from the church grounds.

Dad.

My Dad passed away this morning at about 7:00 am, surrounded by his family. Please pray for mom, my brother and I now.

Not good.

Things are not going well for us at the hospital right now. 

Update on Dad.

He's still in the ICU but he is off of the ventilator.  Please pray he is able to stay off it and get his strength back up.  Thanks for thinking of us, everyone. 

Dad in the ICU.

My Dad fell at home today (maybe fainted?) and is now in the ICU and is on a ventilator.  Please pray or send warm thoughts.  We need them.

It is always something.

Yes it is.  I've been struggling to make new line count quotas that have been put in place by my company and today I lost 95% of my dictionary on my Shorthand word expansion program.  This ought to be called My Right Hand because it's about that valuable to me.  Now, the only dictionary entries are from aa to ad, which I'm just guessing is 5%, probably closer to 1%.  I'm SO frustrated.  I've got an email in to the company that produces it and I hope they can help me.  If I have to rebuild my whole dictionary again, word, by word, I'll never make my line counts. 

I apologize for the whining.  Sometimes I just need to vent.

I'm going to go now and have a bowl of chocolate ice cream and quite possibly cry.
(I actually typed BOWEL the first time, appetizing mental image --- that's an occupational hazard.)

Wednesday the 20th.

Today we're doing various things.  I have decided some things about the younger 2 kid's math.  On Monday's they'll be doing math with Dad, on Tuesdays we'll be working on the math notebooks (kind of a personal reference), Wednesday watching our math DVDs on a subject, then on Thursday doing worksheets on that subject.  On Friday, we'll be doing either math review or a problem from the book Calculation Capers which are math reviews as one large problem, such as planning a party and seeing how much it will cost to get drinks and cake, rent the skating rink and getting a 10% discount.  My daughter begged to do one of these today and surprisingly, I let her, even though it's not Friday.  :-)    I'll try and match up the review, the worksheets, the capers and the notebooking to the same subject, which shouldn't be all that difficult.  If things get too labor intensive for me, I tend to decide not to do them, so I need to balance their desires to have a variety of different math approaches with my need to keep it simple.

For my youngest for spelling, we're using the Sequential spelling lists, which normally he would write, but he has some issues with writing, so I'm letting him type them on the computer (today they used KidPix, above), spell them verbally, spell them with scrabble tiles, etc.  He's enjoying this much better than he would if he had to write them and he can concentrate on spelling instead of the mechanics of writing.  A couple of days he will have to write them, but not every day. 

We've also been doing some cooking.  The kids made Belgian waffles (oh they smelled yummy!) for themselves for breakfast and I made salsa chicken (yes, again!) for lunch.  

It's 3:30 and we're still not done with school, so I'd better stop blogging and get on it.  Speaking of blogging and cooking, I watched Julie and Julia yesterday and was not impressed.  It was just kind of blah, not something I want to see again and not what I expected.  Oh well.

It's definite.

My son has been walking around for 6 weeks on a broken ankle.  If we'd went to see the orthopedist as soon as it happened, he would have been in a cast and on crutches for 6 weeks.  As it was, the immediate care center doctor told us it was not broken, but if it was not better in 10 days to go seen an orthopedist, leading us to have about 100 conversations like this.

Me:  "So is it better, do you think we should go to the orthopedist?"
Son:  "I think it's better.  Its somewhat better.  Yes, I do think it's better.   We should wait."

Then about 2 days later, we'd have the exact same discussion.  Finally, I decided it really should be better than it was and took him in. 

Since we did not get it looked at in a reasonable amount of time, now the plan is different and does not involve a cast.  We are going to wait 6 weeks, do another CAT scan (or MRI?  It was not clear which it was, I think CAT scan.) and if the bone fragment is still not attached/healed, go in surgically and take it out.  The doctor also said that there had been a very bad sprain and that he could see that the ligaments were healing, but that they had been seriously stressed.  I'm glad to know that the ligaments aren't torn.

Anyway, we'll know in 6 weeks I guess.  The thing is, this boy has broken a couple of bones before; he once broke a small bone in his foot while running in the living room, then a few years later, broke his collarbone while sleigh riding.  When he had those accidents, he was very much a little boy with lots of crying and it was easier to tell how he was feeling.  Now, he's a very stoic young man and it's difficult for his parents to tell.   Eventually, we did get him the care he needed but I sure hate that the delay might mean he has to have surgery.  I don't think he'll be brave when it comes to the needles, although he might surprise me.