Okay, now it's pretty much gone.

As usual, the pictures are random.  This is our raccoon who steals cat food.  The cats are used to it by now.

August, that is.   Some good things have happened this month and one is that my daughter has decided to do a medical coding course.  I'm going to do it too.   I loved my job at first, but now my duties have evolved and now I'm a medical transcriptionist/receptionist.  I don't want to be a /receptionist.  I just want to do my job and not answer the phone.  I also don't like the unpredictability of my job.  Some weeks I barely work and some weeks I live there.  I've been basically living there for the last few weeks I am exploring new levels of exhaustion.  I'm so tired.  I sleep 8 hours and I'm still tired.

Anyway, I'm very excited that my daughter has chosen a career path and is getting some training.  This has been a concern of mine for quite some time.

I think the grocery store was trying to tell me something.  "Don't go nuts!"    "Think!"  

Okay, now August is almost half over.

It's crazy how fast the time is zooming by.  I've been at work.  Work.  Work.  Work.  I both hate and don't mind it.  I hate how much I'm gone and how tired and sore I am, but my workplace is a pretty good place.   Today I'm off and I'm thrilled about that though.  I'm exhausted.

We've also been trying to deal with a huge bunch of fresh produce this week.  Our peaches on our peach tree got ripe and we picked them before the woodland creatures got them all and I've been trying to eat as many as I can, freezing some, making some into smoothies, etc.  Also, my father-in-law sent us a bunch of tomatoes, apples, beans, onions, watermelons, and peppers and we've been trying to put those in everything we eat and get those used up before they go bad.   It's been stressing me out, to be honest.  Huge bags of everything all over the kitchen has seemed messy and breaking finding time to do all that peeling and cooking has been difficult.  Today, we have an apple crisp and green beans cooked and in the fridge and a bunch of peaches for smoothies in the freezer.  There's still a lot more to do, but we're making progress.  I realize that this is a particularly first world problem to have.  Too much!  Too much paid work and too much free food.  What a week and what a weird problem.

Peach smoothie~!

Other than that. I don't even know what's going on.  I haven't talked to my family this week as much as usual.   Hopefully, this weekend will remedy that!  The young people here are going to a new game store in our small town now and they're going tonight, so maybe not.  I'm glad they are getting out.  I can remember when we were homeschooling and our homeschool group split up and socialization was a problem.  It's not now, thank goodness, and also, this is the best part, not my responsibility.  They're grown up.  I don't have to make arrangements for them.   I'm both happy and sad about that.
Like I said, it's a weird week. 

Yesterday we had a sale at the gift shop of the hospital where I work and I bought myself the most ridiculous, over-the-top sunglasses that they had.  These made me and my co-workers smile yesterday!

It's almost August!!

Back in my homeschooling days, I would be happily looking at the Rainbow Resource catalog and having a great time picking out a curriculum for our school year, which I would then probably change out in December and start something new in January.  It was always so much fun planning and ordering and getting out supplies.  Sigh.  I miss it.

We're getting ready to celebrate our daughter's 23rd birthday.  Oh goodness.  It doesn't seem possible.   No back to school for anyone this year as our youngest has graduated college.  So it's weird. 

I'm waiting for the peaches on the peach tree to be ready to eat and hoping that something else doesn't eat them before we get them picked like they did one year.   I'm also pondering whether to apply for a full-time position that's come open at work and trying to lose weight (that never ends, but I have lost 30 pounds this year through intermittent fasting!) and casually shopping for a dress for my brother's wedding which is in October!!  I'm very excited about that.  My brother is going to get married for the first time to a wonderful lady that we all love.  I'm going to have a new sister-in-law!

I'm also working a little (very little, sad to say) on my book about homeschooling and playing the Sims 4 hundred baby challenge in my spare time.  I need to play less Sims and work on my book more.   Some things never change.   By that, I mean me.   :-) 

Summertime!

I've been doing summery things.  I've been swimming in the pool most days and I love it.  We went to see Shakespeare in the park, which was fantastic again.  It's funny, Facebook notified me that we went exactly a year ago on the same day.  This year we saw As You Like It which was excellently performed, but it turns out, is not my favorite of the Shakespeare plays I've seen so far.   I've seen 4.   In order of my favorites, they are 1.  Comedy of Errors, 2.  Julius Cesar, 3. A Midsummer Night's Dream and 4.  As You Like It.  The Comedy of Errors production that we saw last year was the absolute best.  It was fantastic.  In a couple of weeks, I'm going to get to see Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which I'm also excited about. 

Also in summertime things, I made my daughter go try and pick blackberries.  We didn't apparently have very many blackberries on our property this year so she only got a very few.  It was 1/4 of a cup.  So what did I do?  I made a tiny vegan, dairy, gluten-free cobbler.  It was good!

I'm working on writing a book about homeschooling and raising kids and trying to work on that a bit every day, hoping to have my rough draft done in December.

My husband is working at home at lot this summer, which is nice.  He's getting to be here and not do the long, long commute 3 days a week.  

The young adults who live here are still doing gaming and D&D, hanging out with their friends.  My daughter's job is out for the summer and hopefully, my son will find his first job soon.  

That's our summertime update, which admitttedly, I am writing mostly for myself.  If any blog readers are still reading now that I've stopped homeschooling, hello!  

  

Homeschool printables.

Great homeschool printables here. 
5 Js Homeschool.

A little better.

I just passed the 3 month mark after my surgery and I had a really normal day yesterday.  Nothing was particularly hurting and I was able to get a lot of stuff done.  It was wonderful!  I hope to get to the point where most days are like that.   I cleaned.  I cooked.  I got in the swimming pool.  Yay, normal life!

I made it.

Of course, I made it through working 4 days this week.  It was a little hard on my knees and hard on my back, but honestly, at this point, I'm used to working through the pain.  I got a lot of work done and it was fine.  I wish I'd been more on top of the cooking and meal planning, washing dishes and other things around the house, but I was pretty much wiped out every evening after work.  I was off on the fourth and used that time to get caught up on the laundry and dishes, but still, for some reason, didn't cook anything.  I've been eating a lot of oatmeal this week, so I guess that's good for me.

Last weekend, we met our oldest son and our daughter-in-law in Alabama and had a couple of relaxing days visiting and hanging out.  We had a lot of good gluten-free food and played a lot of games and enjoyed the company.

Youngest son is now officially on the hunt for a job, since he graduated and now we're back from our tiny but expensive vacation. 

For the fourth of July, we didn't party or do fireworks this year, we just went to the movies.  We saw Yesterday, which was a really fun movie.  I highly recommend it!

How it feels.

I'm back to work and kind of back to a normal life.  My husband and kids still have to do a lot for me as they did before the surgery and I'm thankful for it but I am not even back to where I was before the surgery.  I don't think.  That last week before the surgery was pretty awful, with my knee sliding out of place and having to miss work, so I'm not sure if it's better or worse now, I just know it's not great.

Yesterday I had to work, so I went to bed at about 10:00 p.m. the night before and tried hard to sleep, but my knee and my back were working against me.  I've aggravated my old back injury this week.  So, I can't really sleep on my sides because it hurts my knee and I can't really sleep on my stomach because it hurts my back and I've never been a back sleeper.  I just can't do it.  So, I got some sleep, but not enough.  When I woke up, my knee was stiff and I could barely walk.  I got it into the shower, barely, and took a shower, got dressed for work and got (with difficulty) in the car for my 45-minute commute.  About half an hour into the drive, my knee feels done with it, but I can't really stop there and rest - I gotta go to work.   So I get to the parking garage and start my walk.   It's quite a ways.   I manage to make it to my desk, but at this point, I'm pretty tired and hurting and want to go home, but I'm too sore to do that, so I stay and work for the next 6 1/2 hours.  I'm lucky I have a light schedule right now.   I spent a lot of that time with an ice pack on my knee and one on my back, doing my medical transcription, which, fortunately, is pretty sedentary.  It was hard putting the hours in, because I was just plain hurting, but I did it.  Then I had to commute home, 15 minutes walking and 45 minutes driving, only there was a traffic jam and I ended up doing an hour and 15 minutes of driving.

Today, I'm so sore I can barely walk.

Next week I have to work the whole week because a co-worker is taking vacation days.  Do I feel ready?

Um, that would be no.

This is the third-to-last hallway.  Almost there.