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?

A tiring night's sleep.

Max's issues are disrupting my life in a very important way.  He can no longer hold it all night and needs to go out, usually once and sometimes twice and last night 3 or 4 times.  I was kind of comatose and lost count.  I know I went to bed at midnight and he woke me up at 3, 5 and 7, and then I got up at 8:30, but I kind of think there was another one in there somewhere.  Maybe not.  He also needs me to fill his water bowl a couple of times a night (it's small) so I had to do that.  I want a doggie door and an automatic watering system.

And a nap.

Max.

We took Max to the veterinarian today and found out that he has diabetes and is going to need insulin shots twice a day.  Nobody at our house wants to do this and I guess it's going to fall on me.  :-(  I'm not happy and feeling kind of overwhelmed.  I realize it could be much, much worse, but it's kind of depressing.  Poor little guy.

A funny twist on walking the dog.

Today, on our walk, we decided to let Freckles set the pace.  When she trotted, we trotted, when she walked, we walked and when she stopped we stopped.  Some of the kids really got into it and when she'd scratch her ear, they'd scratch their ear.  When she had to visit the little doggies room, we turned our heads and took a time out.  It was funny, to all freeze when she'd stop and she couldn't figure it out, so she'd give us a funny look and then go on.

There's a good post about the hidden costs of homeschooling over on The Common Room.  I'm too lazy myself to do a good post about homeschooling.  Youngest son missed the deadline today by about 20 minutes and therefore is grounded this evening from all screens.  I'm hopeful that he'll get it tomorrow.  He did get it done tonight before 5 so he didn't have to do an extra chore.  We took a walk again today and I've finally started my post-Easter resolutions and am trying to drink water and exercise.  The water is in lieu of southern sweet tea which is really sweet and sweetened with sugar.  I'm still going to drink some tea, but I'm going to cut calories by alternating with water.

Easter Dessert and Bonus Picture.

Our Easter Dessert.  It's a chocolate chip cheeseball with the Peeps bunnies thrown in there for extra cuteness.

I was only planning to put a picture of the dessert but then I saw this and wook at that wittle face .... 

Some pictures from our walk today.

The sky.

Ice made in balloons, in the freezer, overnight.

Freckles the flying dog.

A butterfly.

Our shadows and Freckles.

15 Minutes Outside, With Mom.

Lucy.

I mentioned reading the book about the importance of going outside a few weeks ago.  I still haven't been back to the library to re-check it.  I think this may be our longest streak in years of just not making it to the library.  We've been busy.  Anyway, last night it was finally cold enough, they said, to have our 15 minutes outside with mom in the cold, drinking hot chocolate.  It was 38 degrees.  So my daughter made hot chocolate and put an old blanket out on the porch.  Then we all got up to go out there and we had to get Lucy the outside dog, off of the blanket.  I'm sure she was thinking how thoughtful we were to put that out there for her.  So anyway, we got the dog off the blanket, sat down and she immediately re-joined us, making me spill my hot chocolate all over myself.  I yelped and told the kids (it was really too dark for them to really see me very well) and my youngest son said "Hey, at least you're warm!"  Then the dog started wagging her tail and made him spill his hot chocolate on himself.  "He was speaking to the dog's back end saying "Be sad, be sad, stop wagging your tail!", but she was undeterred.  Finally, she settled down near my daughter and we had a few moments of quiet stargazing and sipping hot chocolate.  The stars were beautiful last night.  It was fun and I'm glad we made the effort, just to stop what we were doing and go outside.

Raining on Freckles Parade.

Warm and cozy once again.

Freckles looks forward to garbage day.  On garbage day, I gather the garbage from all over the house, throw it in the back of the Suburban, open the front door and let Freckie in and then drive down to the road (our driveway is long).  While I'm unloading the trash into the trash container, she gets to run around, smell things and pee on them.  Oh, the pure unadulterated doggy joy!  Today, however, it is raining.  She hates rain.  This didn't affect her enthusiasm when I was loading up, but when we arrived at out destination (the end of the driveway) and it was raining there too (!!!) she was upset.  She didn't want to even get out of the truck.  I means, what's the point?!  I made her get out and she made a half-hearted attempt to sniff and even peed once, but then she was oh so ready to get back IN!  Oh well, there's always next Thursday.

Helping in a tiny little good deed.

A year or so ago I got an email in one of my homeschool email groups that someone was looking for a small dog.  I got in touch with the lady I know who rescues dogs, the one from whom we got Freckles a few years back and asked her if she had any dogs available.  She had one, a little Jack Russell named Fritz.  I forwarded her email back to the family who was looking for a dog and I never heard another thing about it, until today.  The lady who was looking for a dog a year ago, was cleaning out her old emails, found mine and sent me a note today thanking me, because Fritz has been part of their family for a year now and they really enjoy him.  Isn't that kind of cool and wasn't it nice of her to let me know that it all worked out?