Finally!

Our board game haul for the year, before it was opened.

We're going to be celebrating Christmas this weekend!  Oldest son and his lovely wife are traveling today to come see us.  We're excited.  On actual Christmas eve this year, we opened some board games, but that was all and I had to work so much this week, that we only got to play one of them.  We got Coup Rebellion (the only one we've played so far) another Coup expansion I can't remember the name of,  Betrayal at House on the Hill, Magic Maze and Hanabi.   This week, I'm off work and they will be here, so we're going to open the rest of our presents and stockings and take some time to play all the games and eat some junk food.  My daughter in law is a great cook and she's bringing cookies and things like that.  She's also going to make her wonderful Mac and Cheese for us.  I'm not going to worry about any calories this week.  It's going to be awesome.

The first game we played was really fun, Coup Rebellion.

The only black cloud on the horizon for us, is that Freckles had surgery the day before yesterday and the wound is not looking great and may be infected.  I'm very worried about her.  We've had her in a crate in the living room since Thursday and she does fine in there with everyone else in the room, but when I come in there, she gets all excited and starts panting and coughing, because she wants me to let her out.  It's pretty heartbreaking.  Hopefully, she'll be okay.  I'm hoping the vet will give her an antibiotic shot today as well as some meds to bring home.  My daughter is handling all the medicine giving and carrying Freckles outside and all of that, because she's wonderful that way and because I can't handle it when one of the dogs has an issue like this.  I don't know why.  When the kids were little, I always did all of this stuff, dealing with broken bones (5 times!), ER visits, cutting the cornea (although that one did make me very squeamish!) and all of that, when it's a pet I can't communicate with, I get all upset.

This is the first page of many, many, many pages of notes that I have to use when I work my co-worker's job.  It's a lot to keep up with, plus the phone interrupts every single thing you try to do, about 50 times.   It's not fun. 

Speaking of my wonderful daughter, my whole family has been so great this week.  I've been working long days, (doing someone else's job that I'm not as familiar with) and with the commute, being gone 11 hours a day and they've grocery shopped and cleaned and taken care of the dog and made me cookies and mashed potatoes. They are the BEST.  They surprised me with some mint chocolate chip cookies the other day that were out of this world. (I love peppermint everything!).  I am amazingly blessed.

Happy New Year everyone from our house, where we're a little behind and still Christmas-ing!

Merry Christmas!

I realize it's basically over now, but I hope everyone had a happy holiday!! 

Christmas is almost here!!

I've been in the mood to make these Christmas tree thingies today.  :-)

I am just about done with my shopping and it's a good thing too, since tomorrow is the 20th and I've got to work Friday and Monday and go to a wedding rehearsal, a wedding, and an anniversary party this weekend!!   I've been able to maintain my non-grinchy attitude about Christmas.  I've been a bit crabby about some other things that have happened, but about Christmas, I'm still enjoying the season and enjoying the music, lights and decorations.  It helps a little that we're celebrating a week after Christmas, so I've got some time.  I might not even worry about the stockings until after Christmas ... I'm not sure.  I've got to work the 3 days after Christmas, 8-4:30 and with the commute, that makes for a long day.  I'm not sure how much shopping I want to do.

It's busy, but that's how I like it, if I get my sleep and some downtime, at least a little every day.  I've spent a lot of my downtime in my bedroom lately (making no noise and pretending I don't exist)  because the kids had a party here Saturday and then Monday they had an epic 8 hour game of Dungeons and Dragons.   That should be it for them for a while.  I think most of their games are taking a break this week and possibly next week.   I'm glad.  It's time for family time for the next couple of weeks.

I hope everyone is enjoying the season!!

Finally some time off!

I have a couple of days off this week and it's great.  So much to do to get ready for the weekend, but thank goodness, I have the time to do it.  We have 5 events this weekend, starting Friday with a work Christmas party that I have to take a dish for (and those people bring their A game every time, so it needs to be something kind of fancy), then we're having the board game group come here for a party on Saturday (so, of course, there will need to be a bit of cleaning), then we have a party with our old college/high school friends on Saturday night, then Sunday morning a potluck brunch and then a baby shower.  After that, ironically, we don't have much going on and really don't even have any plans for Christmas because our son and his wife will not be here for Christmas this year.  We'll be celebrating with them in January.  So this weekend is probably going to be the busiest of the season.  It's fun though.  I'm looking forward to seeing old friends and new friends and eating a lot of great food.  It's just a challenge showing up dressed and presentable with the right food and/or gift for each occasion.  It takes a lot of prep work and planning.

Thankfully, I've not turned into the old grinch this year.  We've been watching a few Christmas movies and listening to Christmas music and I'm trying very hard not to let it bother me that I don't have my shopping done.  :-P  I will get there.  Eventually.    I always do.

Old and new.

Okay, here's our old entertainment center and our new one.  Yes, we're watching Friends on both.  It's been a Friend's marathon around here the last couple of weeks.  I like the new one better than the old one, but I'm not sure I actually like it - like it.  It's too white and it blends into the beige wall too much.   It looks marginally better since my son decorated it for Christmas, but it's just blah.    I'm not sure what to do.  Should we paint the wall behind it a contrasting color?  Should we paint it or put wallpaper or contact paper on it?  I'm seriously wishing I would have waited 2 weeks for the new shipment at Ikea and paid the 300 ish extra dollars by missing the sale.  Or .. something.    The good news is that we found the third wise man behind a stack of video games on the old unit along with some seriously healthy, boisterous dust bunnies. 

A lot to be thankful for.

We keep busy around here.  We had a lovely Thanksgiving, then I worked Friday and on Saturday we were supposed to have another Thanksgiving, but it was called off due to illness (of the people we invited) and then on Sunday, my daughter and I took advantage of Ikea's continuing black Friday sale and went there and bought the new entertainment center.  It was an ordeal, because the thing that I had waited 6 months to buy (for the sale) was out of stock, but the guy who put it together for us on the computer did not notice and sent us downstairs to get it.  I've been having a lot of joint pain, and it was a lot of walking, so it was difficult.  We survived it though and the girl is in the process of building the thing now.  I'm not sure how I feel about it.  I made the decision to get a different color because the sale is ending and the store is 2 1/2 hours away and the closest thing I had found at any other stores was 4 times as expensive.  So I'm going to decide to like it.  I can't dislike it more than what we currently have.  At least with this one, the gaming systems and board games will be behind doors and not out there for all to see, cutting out the visual clutter.

Then yesterday I had to work again and today I have the day off and I'm going to try and catch up on everything that I've let go at home (grocery, phone calls, cleaning and going to the vet) and we have board games tonight.  Tomorrow I have to work and do someone else's job, which I am not happy about, but I have to do it or pretty much lose my job.  I have to do it next week as well.  Please pray it goes well.  It's a very unpredictable job.  You never know how the day is going to go.  It's a lot of thinking on your feet and reacting to other people and phone calls and deliveries and things need to be done quickly because people are in the middle of having surgery and they need a pathologist up there immediately to tell them if it is cancer or not.  So, no pressure, really.

I'm getting excited about Christmas this year, not like my usual reaction, pictured below, but I don't feel like I've had time yet to do anything about it.  There are no decorations up and I am not sure when that's going to happen.  I'm enjoying the holiday music on the radio though.  :-)

Another thing I'm excited about is that we get to see our son and daughter-in-law for dinner this weekend! 

My daughter made a book.

She used scrap leather and some paper we already had.   I'm impressed.

We're still here.

I'm not sure why I didn't post this, but 2 weeks ago, this happened.    This is my son's car.   He ran into the back of a truck with a furniture lift on it.  He's fine.  His car is not.   I'm not sure what we are going to do about that.

I'm working today and quite a few days for the next 6 weeks, but not full time and I'm grateful for that.  I'm at the point with this job that I am looking for anything to be grateful for.  I'm having a hard time with it right now and I do not want to go each day.  One reason is that my Sjogren's syndrome has flared badly because of working all those hours (I guess that's it because it happened last time too).   Sjogren's causes dry eyes, dry mouth and joint pain and I scored worse on my 4 week physical therapy evaluation than I did on my first day there, which basically never happens, according to my therapist.  I'm not feeling great, I'll tell you that.  Everything hurts, including my eyeballs.  :-/

We are still doing our board game group and we had a meeting last night.  At this point, there's usually more talking than gaming, but they enjoy it, so we're going to keep doing it.  We're planning a board game group party for the holidays in a couple of weeks.  Starting this group 3 years ago has been such a great thing.  I'm proud of it.  Some great friendships have been formed, that I hope will be with my kids forever.

We're getting ready for Thanksgiving.  I've given up on a lot of the house projects that I wanted to get done before Thanksgiving and we don't currently have our dining room table assembled and in the kitchen and there's an extra fridge in there that we need to haul away, but I'm just going to try and go with it.  :-P   I got the last of the shopping done yesterday for it, in 2 trips, because I forgot a bunch of stuff the first time.  In my defense, I hadn't had time to think through my list the first time and I was just kind of winging it.  I realized I was probably forgetting some stuff, and I was.  Oh well.  At least I don't have to go into the grocery today.    I hope.


I hope all my readers have a great Thanksgiving!!

College Issues.

My son was assigned to a group project in one of his college classes.   There were 4 people on the team.  Two dropped completely out of college before the project was due and the other one wrote, instead of the half of a 10-page paper she was supposed to write, wrote these 3 paragraphs.  My son said that when he saw this, he panicked and contacted the professor and said that they had a problem with their project.  The professor said "see me after class" and then said they would get no credit at all, even though my son had done his share of the work.  He's going to appeal it. 

This is what our school system is producing:

The sprint nextel corperation ti the forth largest telacomuneications provider in the unitedstates.this analyasis covers the history current progects finachals and challenges of the sprint nextel corperation in the united states in 2018. History of sprint Paragraph 1 Sprint is the Fourth largest wireless company in United States that sprint big around, the world in some areas in some case the long the wireless, is a long distance number three in the nations and telephone marked. Sprint have responsible for technological innovation in the 1980 and 1990s including installing the first coast to transmission, networking in the United states. Paragraph 2 The early 20th century sprint traces to the southern communication corporation. T- Mobile and sprint merger together but didn’t work out as plan so they both appeared in sprint doing there thing and T-Mobile doing there. Paragraph 3 Sprint corporation in private holding in the company for two publicly traded firms sprint Fon and sprint PCS. Sprint Fon wire-base telecommunications business providing lackluster and long-distance telephone directory publishing arm. The sprint PCS ( personal communication services) in 1988s and 1990s

A tiny update.

Life goes on.  The kids are coping with the store closing and getting together with friends for the most part.  One of the groups may not reform and one of them may lose a member, but it's fine.  I'm finally done with my 6 weeks of full time work and I don't know what hours I'm going to be working ongoing.  My boss wants to talk to me about that on Friday.  For now, I'm just going to try not to think about it and enjoy my 3 days off in a row!!!!!  Here are some pics from this week.

A drawing my daughter did with chalk pastels on suede.

It's hard to get a good picture of Cosmo, but this one is very good, getting those big brown eyes in focus.  My daughter-in-law has a theory that he's a person trapped in a dogs body because his eyes look so human. 

The prettiest little tree at the end of our driveway.

Enjoying my commute a bit more while the fall colors are blazing.  It seemed like it happened late this year and now that it rained all night last night it's probably over, but it was beautiful while it lasted.

Welcome to November!

Can't believe it's already here and I'm already seeing black Friday ads.   I finished my 6 weeks of full-time work and now we will see, I might get a couple of weeks of just working 2 days.  Maybe.  One of my co-workers broke her leg and might need surgery so I may be there nonstop until Christmas.  If that is the case, I don't know how we are going to get the rest of the remodeling done.  :-(   I'm not happy about that, but I guess I'll live.

The kids are working at maintaining their connections with friends now that the game store they always went to has closed.  They are seeing some people tonight.  I am happy about that.  Friendships are so important.  My husband and I need to get out and see friends more often.   We are still having our board game group at a restaurant and it's working out okay.  We only had about 8 last week, but that's plenty to play the games we have.  In fact, it's a challenge to find games that will accommodate our large group which sometimes gets as high as 13 people crammed into 1 large booth and playing the same game.  They never want to separate and sit at different tables and play separate games.  They want to play together  It's kind of cute.  So a couple of weeks ago, we got the game Bang the dice game, which has been really popular with them, but we needed a few extra cards.  So, we had some blank cards that we had gotten for something else and not used and my daughter drew some extra cards.

Speaking of artsy things, one of my contacts at work has a family business where my daughter may be able to sell some of her art, knitting, crocheting, etc.  It would be a good opportunity, kind of like a consignment situation.  She wouldn't have to pay for booth space or work in the store at all, just let them take a commission off the top of the sales.  Knowing my co-worker, they will be fair.  I think it sounds great.  My daughter is also pursuing another job where she can use her art skills designing things at home and I think that will be great for her.

Starting to look forward to the holidays!   We have to plan something to do for Christmas eve because I think it will just be the 4 of us.   My oldest and his wife won't be here until after Christmas.

School financial aid.

A few weeks ago, after we paid tuition, my son got a check for 193.00.Then today, he gets a bill for guess how much?  193.00.  Apparently, they refunded him when they shouldn't have and now they want it back PRONTO.  

So annoying.  Good thing he doesn't ever spend any money.  He hadn't even put it in the bank.  

A disappointment.

Our local friendly game store is closing, so the place that the kids and I have been going to weekly for a while (some of us 4 to 5 times a week) not going to be there.  We've temporarily moved the board game nights to a local restaurant and it's going well there, but we feel like we can't play any of the louder games.  We currently have plans to finish getting our home back in order and host some events here.  We have to find a home for the D&D game that my son is the dungeon master of and that will probably end up being here at our house too.  My son said a few weeks ago that the dream would be to have it here and have his friends here for several hours and eat taco soup (that I had made) and get to hang out as long as they want.  So that's probably going to happen.  They have found a home for their Friday night game and so the big question is what to do with the Thursday night game.  It is run by one of the store employees so it may just go away.  I'm not sure what will happen. 

I've told my young adults that they need to be proactive in contacting their friends and making sure that they get opportunities to get together because these are great people and they need these friendships in their lives. 

Now we just need to get this house in order.  Asap.

What's going on.

We're just progressing through our new normal, trying to get the house remodel done at a stopping place by Thanksgiving.  We're planning to have my brother and his fiance over that weekend and so that's an arbitrary goal to get the house done.  Of course, they've seen it in the glorious before state, so they aren't expecting anything.  Still, I'd like to have it looking good.  We also are going to invite the board game group kids over for some sort of holiday party this holiday season. When we see them tomorrow, we'll try and hammer out a time for that.

I'm working.  I'm still in the 6 weeks of full time and I guess I'm doing okay.  I think it makes my Sjogren's syndrome and my arthritis worse to not get as much rest as I need.  They both seem to be flaring and I am having a hard time with every task.  Not fun.   Only 9 more work days and I revert back to my twice a week schedule for 2 weeks and then I have to start subbing for people for the Christmas holidays.  That's the thing about being an as-needed employee.  You just never know and you do tend to get some of the days that no-one else wants.  At this hospital, it's the day after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas and Christmas Eve.  I am used to having to work all the holidays for my last employer so to me, it's not that big of a deal.  However, some of those days I have to work the front desk and I really, truly hate that, so that part of it is a big deal.  I'll survive it.  The boss told me last week that they are thinking of making me a part-time employee instead of an as-needed employee so I will see if that will be a better deal for me.

The young adults that live with me, girl and youngest son, are still playing D&D and Pathfinder a lot and we're getting used to them not being here and my husband and I being home alone.  It's weird after 26 years of that almost never happening.  I figure they both will have moved out within 2 years.  That's going to be hard for us, but I guess we'll survive that too.  Probably.

Oldest son and daughter-in-law are in Mississippi and we keep in touch with face to face calls.  I miss them quite a bit.    They seem to be happy there and I figure they will stay so I'm trying to adjust to that.  I'll probably survive that too.

This early Monday morning, my focus seems to be on survival.   Hopefully, we will find ways to thrive despite the changes and challenges.

Hope your Monday is going well.

Sorry, there's nothing in this post about homeschooling.  We're done with it and I haven't wanted to change the name of the blog.  I will give homeschooling advice if you comment and ask me.  ;-)

It's done!

Work and a few other things.

I'm mostly just working or on my way home from or back to work.  I spend 2 hours a day on the road.  I generally don't mind driving, and I'm usually okay with working, but this 3 weeks of working all the time has been hard.  Today I'm getting a kind of a break, because we had a tree fall down across our driveway last night and I can't go.  My husband has gone to look at it now and then we'll see whether this can be addressed with the people and tools we have here or whether we'll have to call for help.  Meanwhile, I'm blogging and I'm going to take a bit of a break.  I'm tired and sore today.  I've been working all week and I started physical therapy yesterday to address my knee pain, foot pain and lower back pain.  Fun times.

Since I'm working so much, I've kind of streamlined all my other activities.  I did get to go out to dinner with my homeschool friends last week.  Almost all our kids are out of school and grown up and moving out on their own now.  One is getting married in a couple of months.  During this 6 weeks, I've cut out my volunteering because I am not the career-woman type and I need the weekend to get the house back in a little bit of order before I start the next workweek.  The young adults are relocating their Monday D&D group to our house for this week, so this weekend we will all have to up my game.  We'll have to get the house cleaned up, the flooring finished and the furniture all back in it's regular place.

Here's where the flooring is currently - one more little strip and it will be done.

Fun.

Our board games group has temporarily lost our meeting space.  We are meeting at a restaurant tonight, hoping not to be too loud and get thrown out, but it's kids night here so I think we're going to be okay.  They are all crowded into a corner booth (9 of them!) Supposedly playing saboteur, but mostly just talking (as usual).  I'm about 3 tables away, keeping to myself, but I did tune in to hear them debate public schooling versus homeschooling.  At this point, we have 2 who have been exclusively home schooled, 4 who started in public and ended up in homeschool and 3 who were (or are currently) exclusively public schooled.  We just need some private schoolers to round out the discussion now.  😊

Okay, now they are talking about cats.

Now dogs.

I'm going to go back to reading and ignore them.   That's my role and I take it seriously.

Already the end of September, nearly.

Oldest son is going to be celebrating his birthday next week.  We won't get to see him, unfortunately, since he has moved away, but we'll have a video phone chat.  Technology helps a tiny bit in dealing with loved ones moving away, but it's hard to get everything in in half an hour a week.  :-/   Here in Kentucky, things are moving right along.  We've got half the kitchen floor done and maybe will get the other half done this weekend?  I don't know.  The young adults have a game tonight that they'll be attending, at 5 and they haven't started yet (it's noon-ish), so I don't know how much they will be able to get done.  We've gotten used to the construction zone and weaving our way in and around the tons of furniture in the living room.

Kitchen construction mess with gallery wall (still unfinished) in the background.   Fun times.  

My front yard buddies.  They are there every day when I go to work.

Just a pretty end of summer day - the view from our mailbox.

We've changed our board game nights to weekly, the girl is joining yet another D&D campaign that one of her friends is starting which makes her have 2 on Monday, board games on Tuesday, 1 (D&D) on Thursday, 1 on Friday and an occasional 1 on Saturday.   Her brother has one less that he is in since he has college classes on Monday.  A bit much maybe, but as you know, socialization WAS an issue with our homeschooling, so I am glad they are getting out there and socializing now.  They need it.

With board games, we had 1 family who does a lot of sports and their attendance is very sporadic, one family who moved away, one kid who drives herself who can't afford gas money to come all the time and so we've been kind of struggling to get an 8th player for a while.  We've had 7 regulars which is kind of an odd number :-)  and finally, we convinced a young lady from church to start coming and the first week she was there, we picked up some extra kids from the game store and the sports kids came back and we ended up with 12 players!  Who knows what will happen this week, but I think moving it to every week has helped.  Nobody has to contact me and ask if it's this week or not.  They can just show up.

My dog is going to miss me when I am at work all the time.  

I'm getting ready to go into a season of working 5 days a week for 6 to 8 weeks, which I am not looking forward to because it's too much for me, but I can (barely) handle it for a few weeks.  I admit it, I'm a wimp.  I'd love to have a work at home position, kind of, but I do think getting out there, walking a lot and meeting and talking to people has been good for me.  I know I need the money.  We've had some expected and unexpected expenses this month with the remodeling, finding out our fridge had been leaking and having to buy a new fridge and having to pay a large portion of our son's tuition since he dropped a class - my savings is looking pretty low.  I've still got plans to go to Ikea and get a new entertainment center and then after that, I'll be ready to share some before and after (or before and middle because we aren't done) pictures of the kitchen and living room.

All of this is going on in our lives and it is good, but I have a friend who had open heart surgery earlier this week and has not been able to come off to the ventilator and may have a blood clot in his lung, so there's kind of been a heaviness hanging over us this week as we wait to hear about him.  Praying it's good news.   If you pray, pray for him, please. 

Living in a construction zone.

My family has been working on the floor in the kitchen all week.  Hard.  We are all living in a construction zone.  My husband's days off end on Monday and I'm not very hopeful that they will pull this all together in 2 days.  Meanwhile this morning I'm waiting for them to wake up and trying to figure out how I will do the dishes with the fridge right there. 

The pantry is done

The fridge is in front of the sink.  

Guess I won't be cooking today. 

We got a new rug!

I was volunteering the day a local pallet store had rugs for sale, so my daughter and youngest son picked it out.  They did great and I love it.  

Finally, maybe.

We may actually get some of the stuff done to the house we've been trying to get done.  The contractor finally called me back and is coming Tuesday and also now my husband is thinking maybe he'll do the work to save money, so there's that.  I'm very hopeful that the house will be in good shape by Thanksgiving, at least the public parts of the house. The laundry room, master bath and bedroom need makeovers as well, but that will have to be for another time.  I'm cautiously optomistic about this getting done now, which is an improvement.  Part of what it took to get out of my ennui was the courage to call the contractor again and ask for an appointment.  My daughter encouraged me to do that and now I feel better.  Although that means I will need to spend my day off on labor day cleaning my kitchen.  That's fine.  I didn't really have plans anyway.

Son and daughter in law are settled in Mississippi and I think it's probably for good.  I am very sad over that.  I'm working on adjusting but it's hard.  As you all probably know, video chats are just not the same and I have been grieving.   Maybe we'll see them at Thanksgiving or Christmas.  I don't know.  We need to work on getting a place for them to sleep when they are here.  We have an air mattress, but air mattresses don't work all that well for 2 people.  I may get a sofa bed of some sort.  We just got new couches from them when they moved, but they are recliner couches, good for sitting, but not so much for sleeping a whole night.

We've settled into this season, I guess, with youngest son starting back to community college a couple of weeks ago.  He dropped a class he didn't feel like he needed and accidentally dropped below full time, losing 3/4 of his financial aid so that has dipped into my savings for the house.  He's keeping busy with schoolwork and playing D&D on Monday, Thursday and Friday, Pathfinder on Saturday and board games on Tuesday.  My daughter is doing all the games as well, and is still "officially" working on the house with me, but since housework has been stalled, she has not been as busy with that.  We really need to be serious about finding her a job.  As you know if you've been reading this blog, she's very shy, so I may have to help her again.  Last time, I actually just took her along to an interview I had arranged for myself, told them I had accepted a different job (which was true) and presented her as an alternative to me.  They hired her and she worked quite happily there until the school started experiencing financial troubles.  Sigh.

The dogs have both been in cones for almost 2 weeks, Cosmo because of a sore on his leg and Freckles because she had to have eye surgery again.  Freckles has had a cone before and took to it like an old pro, but Cosmo has been hilarious running it into things. The whole first day, he just laid around and moaned and whined, but he's gotten somewhat used to it now.  He still knocks it into about 3 things every time he moves and walks behind us bumping it continually on our legs.  I think they'll both get them off on Tuesday. 

Anyway, that's the update.  Again, trying to adjust to life's new pattern, and find the new normal.

Ennui.

Ennui:  a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.

Board Games.

We're still playing board games in our homeschool group every other week.   It's been a lot of fun.  From what I can tell from reading back pages of my blog, we've been doing this for 3 years or so.  Along the way, some kids have joined and some have moved away or just quit coming, and we've picked up some from the board game store where we meet.  We usually have 7 or 8.  It's a decent sized group and the kids have made some real friendships.  I debate sometimes dropping my involvement, but I do seem necessary in some ways, as the hostess, bringing the snacks and making sure we have a place to meet.  The game store keeps changing their hours and the library rooms are often booked on the nights we need to meet, so it is a challenge.  I'm not sure where we are going to meet in 2 weeks since we were doing Monday nights and my son scheduled himself for a Monday night class.  He is the leader of the group.  He gets a game on the table and keeps things moving along.  We only have 2 1/2 hours every other week, so we want to get as many games played as possible. 

Favorites include Werewolf, Superfight, Concept, The Resistance, Coup, Love Letter and Saboteur.  Last week we added A Fake Artist Goes to New York and Spyfall 2.  Old favorites like Dutch Blitz and Clue sometimes show up on the table as well.  Most of the games for a smaller number of players are not played as often because they like to play together and rarely split the group into 2.  We recently divided our game bags into 4 players or less and 4 players and above bags, but then we went on vacation and pulled a few out and messed it up.  I need to reorganize them soon. 

Even with all the scheduling annoyances, it's been a good experience and I'm glad we started it. 

I've just been at work.

Work.  Work.  Work.   Everyone has taken a vacation in July so I've been covering for everybody.  This is my first day off in quite a while and what did I do, I caught a virus.  I went to the doctor today and that's about all I've accomplished.  My kids were running around getting things done though.  The oldest and his wife are moving away from us (sob!) next week so they brought us some furniture and while they were here, took some of our old furniture to Goodwill.  Then they went out and picked all the peaches off our peach tree.  They look green, but they are really tasty.  We've had that tree for years and haven't ever gotten to eat any of the peaches, so we are thrilled.

We took a vacation last week to Gatlinburg and all 6 of us got to go, so that was fun - a little bit of family time before they move.  Needless to say, with work and vacation, all the plans we had for the house have not been done.   They're still here waiting for us. 

Busy.

I'm busy and I'm not really liking it.  I've got 2 1/2 weeks of full time work ahead of me and I know myself.  I know that by about the third day, I will lose the will to live and think "how am I going to get through this?".  Our new boss stopped by for a meeting and I asked her if I could work part time the first week, because I can't really sub for the person who is out (we don't do exactly the same work)  but I could come in and give the other person a lunch break, etc.  but then my 2 co-workers butted into our conversation and now it seems like I'll be working all day long.  It's hard for me with my arthritis and Sjoegren's to have the stamina to do that, but I guess I have to.  :-(   I also asked off for the Monday of the second week when no-one else is off and my 2 co-workers indicated that the always needed me on Mondays because the workload is higher, so I'm working that day too.   Really, I work so hard and I have figured out their computers, so I'm fast and most days, we get completely caught up by 1:00 p.m. and I can't imagine why I'd need to stay until 4:30.  Sigh.  Next time I am going to ask to speak to the boss privately.  Good grief.

Things are going okay around here otherwise.   My son and daughter-in-law have decided to move away and I'm not happy about that, but there's nothing I can do so I'm working on accepting it.  We will have to put aside money and time to go visit them pretty often.  Daughter is still working on the house, though much more slowly than I would like.  Actually, everything about the house is going more slowly than I would like.  We need a lot of work done and I can't get anyone to come out and look at it, so it's at a standstill.  It's frustrating.

Youngest son is getting ready to go back to school.  He and the girl have had a busy, busy summer playing Dungeons and Dragons and board games with friends, but he's going to have to cut back on that when he goes to school.  He's going to have to do some homework this semester, and take more hours --- 16!  He will be busy, busy.

That's all from here, I guess.   I'll share some pictures of various things we've seen and done.  Now that we are finished homeschooling, this blog is mostly about what we are doing at our house and to help me journal about our lives.   If anyone else is coming along for the ride and reading it, thanks for hanging in here this long.  :-)

These 2 things are hanging up at work.   

This is a game we played at my son and daughter-in-law's house, last week, when I was busy with things I enjoyed being busy with.  :-) 

A drawing of mine that I'm proud of.  

Can we still call it a field trip?

We went to the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival last night and saw "A Comedy of Errors".  It was great!  So funny.  It was like a sit-com from the middle ages.  We enjoyed it so much.  It was outdoors.  The park was beautiful, the weather was great and the company was great.  Also, the price was right, because it was free.  Wherever you are, check out your local Shakespeare performances and go! 

Trying to find my place.

I'm working.  I'm volunteering.  I'm trying to keep the housework done.  I'm keeping busy.  I'm not one of those people who can just do everything.  I get so tired.  This week I've been working most of the time and have had an event several nights this week.  Last Saturday I volunteered at the hospital then came home and picked blackberries and then collapsed. Sunday, I had to sing a solo at church, go to the grocery, make a dessert and then go to a party for my nephew and his girlfriend, who were visiting from another state.  Then, Monday, I had 8 hours of work and board games.  Tuesday, 8 hours of work and then Tuesday night dinner.  Then Wednesday, I was off work because of the holiday, thank goodness, but then we had a party that evening with some new friends and ended up not getting home until around 11:30.  Then I couldn't go to sleep that night and ended up trying to work 8  hours on Thursday on 4 1/2 hours of sleep.  Not fun.  Last night, I went to bed at 9 pm, after falling asleep in my chair almost as soon as I got home from work.  Today is Friday, thank God and I don't have plans for tonight.  I will be volunteering again, tomorrow, but I may take Sunday as a day of complete rest.  I'm tired, tired, tired. 

I also got some bad news this week, that my oldest son and his wife are moving back to Mississippi next month so I'm trying to digest that information.  It's not helping my feeling of overall world-weariness.  I'm tired.  Did I mention that? 

Anyway, here are some pictures from last week, when I was not having such a crazy week, a pigeon in the parking garage where I volunteer, the 3 stop signs at the pharmacy drive thru (I think they want to make SURE you stop.), and some of my art from when I actually had time to do art.  I don't see how full time working moms don't absolutely loose their minds.  I don't even have little kids, but helpful adult kids and I still can't handle it and the housework and the other commitments. 

I'm trying to find my place here in my post homeschooling life.