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.