Painting the bathroom.

In her own meticulous way, my daughter is painting the bathroom.  I was going to do it.  I have time now that I'm unemployed, but she knew that I'd just walk in there and start painting with no prep because that's what I do and she couldn't stand that, so she has been coming home from work and working on it every night this week.  Last night she finally got the green paint up there.  We thought we were picking a very subtle, light shade, but it's bright in that small room!  I think I like it.  We'll see how it looks with the shower curtain back up and the pictures on the walls.

Cleaning and organizing.

That's what we're doing.  I'm unemployed for pretty much the first time in my life; I'm not homeschooling or taking care of mom or little kids anymore and I have a lot more time on my hands.  This is good for my house; I am getting a lot done.  I've got so much stuff in my closet, it's incredible and yet you can still step in and look around to find what you need.  I've cleaned out all of the kitchen cabinets and drawers.  I've cleaned the linen closet.  I've touched up paint and varnish.  We have visitors coming for Thanksgiving and that gives us an incentive to try and make it look nice.  This weekend, we will be building front porch steps and painting the bathroom (which is actually already in progress).  I've been cleaning and generally organizing for weeks.  We got the bunk bed moved and now we have to figure out what to do with my husband's office   It's exciting and a little stressful.  :-)
Tonight I'm going out with friends and tomorrow I'm going to a baby shower.  This weekend we are working at the store where we sell crafts.  It's been a crazy busy November so far.   It's a beautiful day and my helper, youngest son, has taken off to go lie in his hammock for a while.  I may have to mobilize him to get back in here and finish his work!  This makes me feel kind of like I'm still homeschooling.  :-)

Kinda feel like I'm in limbo.

You all know how I like my routines, my lists, my knowledge of what I need to do on any given day and I want to get settled in a routine, but without a job, I'm finding it difficult.  I interviewed for another one last week, but they didn't offer it to me and honestly, it wasn't a good fit.   Lately I've been concentrating on getting the house in order, lots of cleaning.  I've been washing the walls and getting ready to paint the bathroom this week.  I also washed the walls in a couple of other rooms.  This week I have big plans to clean the oven/stove, clean off the porch and all kinds of other exciting things too numerous to mention. We also have plans to see friends and go to a baby shower for someone I really don't know all that well.   I kind of feel like I'm in limbo, but sometimes that's just life.

We had a board game meetup yesterday that went well.  Basically, we've gotten to where it's just 3 families, but it makes for a good group of about 6-7 and they have a good time playing games and talking.

I saw the rheumatologist this week for my long-awaited visit.  Basically all she has to offer me is pain meds and physical therapy.  We'll see how that goes I guess.  Apparently, my double-jointed-ness in my knees is the main problem, as I suspected.  The hypermobile joints are unstable, causing sprains and causing the arthritis to settle in later.  :-(

Today, my daughter has biofeedback for her migraines (which is helping) and then we may get the bathroom paint and start on that.  The bunk bed is almost completely reassembled in its new location  (exciting!) and now we need to start moving the office, building new porch steps and repainting the kitchen ceiling, so lots to keep me busy.

We are anxiously awaiting the ACT results which may possibly be posted on Tuesday, election day, which we are also kind of anxiously awaiting/dreading.  I'm pretty sure my candidate won't be elected.  I'm supporting Johnson as an alternative to the 2 main parties, which both, pardon the expression, suck.

So anyway, that's what's going on with us.  Not exciting right this minute, but in the next few weeks, we've got Thanksgiving, putting up the Christmas tree, Mom's Christmas shopping day, a Christmas Bazaar, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Gilmore Girls, Thanksgiving visitors and lots and lots of fun stuff.

Big Changes.

In addition to the tiny home improvements I'm doing, all together as a family, we're doing some big rearranging.  Sixteen years ago, my husband built a triple bunk bed for our youngest son and put it in our room.  The plan was to move it to the boys room in the future and use it for both boys.  We did intend to do it while they were still children, but we didn't, so we're doing it now.  It was so big and unwieldy that it had to be completely disassembled to be moved and so far, it's taken 2 days, but tonight, we are hopeful that it will be done!  We had been using it for storage in my room and when we moved a lot of mom's stuff out of her house, it was stored in it as a humongous storage unit.  So I have been working for a long time now, cleaning out my closet and then cleaning out the bunk and putting anything we were keeping in my closet and now I have an organized closet (mostly) and we have our big bedroom back ... but not for long.  My husband's office is going to come in here, giving us our large living room back ...,  The whole house is going to seem so much more spacious.  I'm excited.  I'll try and share pictures later.  :-)  Meanwhile some random pictures.

Pumpkins etc. at the fall festival at church.

  

A van we saw at Walmart.  My son said  "It's unusual to find a car asking to be washed, speaking in the first person plural."  (It says "wash we please").

Tiny Home Improvements.

I've got a little can of white paint and I've been going around making improvements to our house in tiny ways.  I need to repaint most of the house, but I don't want to/don't feel like I have time to, so right now I'm doing touch-ups here and there.  I tell you, having dogs and children is hard on a house.  :-)  I took pictures and sent them from my phone to my computer because I prefer blogging on the computer for ease of typing, then I carefully saved them naming them paint 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.  I was pleased with the paint job that I did yesterday and wanted to share it, but I cannot find them on my computer.   My photo file skips from "Outback" to "Pam" and I can't figure out where paint went.  So just imagine my baseboards and window sill looking a tiny bit better and there you go.  

Today, I've got to go to the grocery and a few things to do to get ready for the fall festival at church.  My son and I had dentist appointments today but the dentist called and rescheduled us!  :-)  So since I can't share the pictures I wanted to share, here are some random ones.

The Ohio River.  The thing that looks like a ghost sailboat is a piece of paper reflecting on the car window.

Duncan.

Squinch.  You can't see her mustache in this picture.  :-) 

The sky above my house.

Our front door (which also needs to be painted but probably won't be.)

Still defending homeschooling.

At church yesterday I was talking about the little store where we sell our art.  Someone asked if we were going to keep doing it.  It has been a little bit profitable this year, mostly for the girl.  I don't know if I want to keep doing it but she does.  The main reason I decided to go there and sell things was that they required us to volunteer in the store and I wanted my daughter to be able to do it and get work experience.  She did learn to use the computer and the cash register and greet customers, bag their items, run their credit cards, etc., but now she has another job and is thriving in it.  So, I'd be okay with letting this one go.  We were discussing that my daughter is/has been shy and is getting out of it somewhat and one of the ladies there said "Well, did you homeschool her the whole time? That's probably why she is shy."  Now if homeschooling caused shyness, I'd have 3 shy kids instead of only 2.  My kids are introverts and the youngest is a bit shy, the girl is more shy and the oldest is fearless when it comes to meeting new people and doing new things, not shy at all.  I tried to explain it, but I don't think I got anywhere.

Oh well.

How We Raised Our Kids To Be Friends.

The main thing, of course, was homeschooling.  We didn't start until their 6th grade, 3rd grade and 1st grade years, but homeschooling was the best thing we did for our kids.  They spent a lot of time together, which helps with siblings being friends.  We also did a couple of things to help them learn to negotiate, one was a "kid of the day" system.  Each kid had 2 days a week where they were the kid of the day.  I took the extra one.  On that day, if there was a dispute that couldn't be solved or a choice to be made, the kid of the day won it.  If we were out and about and needed to get something to eat, the kid of the day chose the restaurant.  The kid of the day got to choose the TV shows at Grandma's house where they had cable, which led to the hilarious mix-up one day when they thought it was youngest son's day, but it was oldest son's day.   Oldest looked at youngest and said dramatically "You made me watch Spongebob!"

Another thing that may have contributed to our success with adult kids who get along and really love each other, is the screen time limits.  Since screens could not come on until 6 to 7 pm (It changed over the years) they kind of had to interact throughout the day.  They had school together and then they had free time without screens together.  They played a lot.  They had elaborate play scenarios that would range all over the house and outside.  They constructed huge things in the living room out of books, video cassettes, Lego, K-nex, etc. and of course, pillow and blanket forts.

The main thing I did though, was to coach them on how to compromise.  If they had a toy they were fighting over, at first I would talk them through a compromise where one could play with it for a predetermined period of time, then the other one would get it.  Kid of the day would get to go first.  We'd come up with ideas where each could be overall happy with the plan.  Then as they got better at this, I started trying to get them to compromise without involving me at all.  I did this by solving the problem most efficiently, if they were fighting over the toy, I'd take the toy away for the day.  If they were fighting over TV shows, I'd turn the TV off the rest of the day.  I'd say "you have 2 minutes to work something out or the TV goes off for the day"  (or "the toy is mine!") and let me tell you, they learned how to work things out.

I emphasized that we were a team.  When my oldest broke his ankle and we had to take him to immediate care, one of the other kids started whining about something and I said, "we're a team" and the whining stopped.  Everyone knew that the oldest had to come first at that time.  When he had to be non-weight-bearing on that ankle for 14 weeks (not even resting it on the ground when he was sitting) the other 2 kids waited on him hand and foot, without complaining.

Of course, they occasionally get on each other's nerves.  Sometimes somebody needs to retreat a bit, go outside, go in their rooms and set boundaries on how much one person can talk to another person without a break.  ;-)  (Some of us are very, very talkative and other people need to THINK!)  Our family is not perfect, but the kids get along very well.  People have commented on it many times when we have spent a lot of time with them, so I know it's unusual, but it's not difficult to do.

I credit Parent's Magazine for the kid of the day idea.

A slow Internet funny.

Those of us who have to put up with slow Internet occasionally get some laughs out of it.  For some reason facebook , when it can't load a photo,  will put in a placeholder, a description of what is on the picture.   It amuses me.   Here are a couple of examples,  one is a  prom picture and one is of a friend's son sitting with some other kids waiting for sports practice to start.