Huntington Beach

Today was our beach day.  We made a short and uneventful drive to Huntington Beach, found relatively cheap parking and pushed our toes into the sand.  My SIL had a wonderful idea of taking these beach cruisers for a spin, so we spread out among three of them and slowly made our way down the beach.  It was pretty fun!

Then we dropped them off and played in the surf.  Colin got wet to his toes, and that was enough for him.  This was his first visit to the ocean that he would remember.  The last time he was 7 mo. old.  He loved running back and forth and digging in the sand.

It was a little chilly, but the sounds and smells were the perfect thing for these winter-weary souls.

Hollywood and the horrors of driving in L.A.

Today we visited Hollywood.  I got behind the wheel to drive us there, while Dean helped me navigate by watching the right side of the car, while I watched the left.  L.A. traffic is the most freakish driving experience ever.  Nobody signals, nobody cares, everybody speeds and everybody shoots into view out of nowhere at the last possible second, making lane changes a terrifying act.  Let me take a moment to extol on the virtues of the Waze driving app.  This app made driving in Los Angeles tolerable.  Maybe even survivable.

We managed to make the harrowing drive to Hollywood, and parked in a large parking garage at Hollywood Blvd and Highland.  I joked that we were taking a risk doing that in case there was an earthquake.  Not funny.  We made our way out onto the boulevard, and met up with the rest of the family, as they parked in a different area.  Hollywood boulevard is just a scary as I remember.  That is why I don't have any pictures.  I kept my phone in my purse, and my purse clamped to my side, and a small child clutched in my arms on the side of said purse.  I was wary of anyone who came within my personal space.  And that meant everyone.  It was so, so crowded.  I hate crowds.  I hate crowds where half of them are in costume, wanting you to take their picture and give them money.  I hate crowds where women aren't wearing very much.  At all.  I hate crowds where people jostle you, step in front of you, and then stop to take pictures.  Tourists..

The stars on the walk are neat to see, as are the footprints and handprints and signatures.  I've seen them before, but Dean and the kids had not, so I followed along as they wondered at what they could see.  It was neat to see the spot where the cast of Harry Potter all sealed their fame in footprints and signatures.  It was sad to see the star of Robin Williams, gone too soon.

It was drizzly and cool, and we were hungry, so we walked a couple blocks to an In-and-Out burger.  So did half of Los Angeles, apparently, because there was no place to sit.  We finally secured a table.  A single table for 12 people.  Then another two-top cleared, so that helped.  The burgers were good, so I can see why it is popular.  As we left, a fight broke out over a parking spot between the drivers of to two very fancy SUVs.  I'm glad we were on foot.  We made our way back to our car, and left for the long drive home.  It was only 13 miles, but it took nearly two hours.  It was raining, the freeways were choked with traffic, so we took a different route through downtown.  As we left Hollywood, we took a turn and wound up alongside the Paramount Pictures Lot, which was cool to see.  As we drove on, we also ended up alongside this, my only picture of the day:

The Walt Disney Concert Hall, which I thought looked especially cool in the rain.  About this time Jordan needed to go, Owen needed to go, and Colin needed to go.  So we pulled over on a not-so-busy side street and made use of the pee bottle.  Jordan didn't understand that getting out of the car was not an option.  Dean said, "Do you see all of the graffiti?  The amount of graffiti is equal to the amount of you DON'T want to get out of the car".  We continued snaking our way south and east, all the while wary of how close we were to Compton.  Definitely a place we did not want to accidently venture into.

We finally made it back to the hotel, and the kids headed for the pool and then got right back to building with their Legos.  We ended the day with a drive to a restaurant a few miles away and had a very nice meal.

Legoland

Today is the day the kids have been talking about for the last three months.  Each morning, when Colin wakes up, the question is the same: "Is today the day we go to Legoland?"

It is a very warm and sunny day today, and we are a little too hot in our long sleeves, but we are happy to finally be here.  There was a lot of excitement as we drove the 30+ minutes it took to cover the last half mile to the entrance.  At least there were a lot of Lego figures to look at.  The parking was convenient, a shortish walk to the entrance, and then long lines to purchase the tickets.  We split up, Dean in one line and I in another, with two coupons that will get a kid in free with a paying adult.  As I wait, a lady walks by, offering an extra coupon she had on hand from her PTO.  That was amazing - it saved us $80 bucks, right there.  The ticket prices are staggering!

We first check out the area that has Lego reproductions of NYC, Las Vegas, New Orleans and so forth...  Just amazing!

 
We were most impressed with the Star Wars section, that included many different scenes from all six movies.  The scenes from Endor were there best.

Then it was time for some rides.  Colin was ready to ride his first roller coaster!  Owen freaked out in line and refused to ride, so Dean left the line with him and walked around while Jordan, Rylan, Colin and I went on the ride.  Colin LOVED it!

This was more Owen's speed...

Then it was time for lunch.  A long wait in line, followed by a staggering checkout price of $92 - and the food was only so-so... :(  At least the kids had a great time while waiting in line.

We rode a couple more rides after lunch (long, long lines...), and then the kids met Wyld Style outside the Lego Movie building that houses one of the sets used in the movie.  Best part of the day!

It started to get chilly as the sun went down, so we hunkered down in an indoors building area, while Dean went back to the van to get jackets.  Jordan spent the time building a giant chicken army.

We ended the day with a nighttime boat ride and dragon roller coaster that everyone rode.   Owen didn't like it, at all.  At the very end, we finally made the trek into the giant store at the entrance to purchase Lego sets.  The kids all received Christmas money in anticipation of visiting Legoland - with the intent of purchasing Legos there.  It was craziness in that store.  I had put them off on buying stuff all day so that we wouldn't have to carry it around, and I think everybody else had the same idea.

So some thoughts about Legoland... expensive.  Too expensive for the limited amount of stuff to do, and for the quality of food.  The nighttime lighting is horrible.  It is so dark - it is too easy to lose a child.  We didn't, luckily, but I found it difficult to let my guard down and enjoy myself.  It is also geared towards younger kids.  Jordan did have fun, but it was a little bit boring for him after the first hour, and I can see why.

After we left, it was a very long drive to our hotel in Downey, near downtown L.A.  My SIL booked an Embassy Suites for all of us, and it was a fabulous hotel!  It was the kind of layout where the floors circle around the main floor, where the breakfast area is, so you can see all of the rooms on each floor.  Several of the room doors in the hotel have tape across them.  We learned that there is a highschool marching band from Texas staying in the hotel too.  The kids are four to a room, and after a certain hour, they are taped into their room.  A security guard and several parent volunteers patrol the floors, and check the tape seals on the hour, all through the night.  That is actually a pretty good system!  Never heard a peep out of the kids.  We made it to our room and collapsed.  The kids wanted so badly to open their Legos, but we made them wait until the next morning.   Tomorrow it is supposed to be overcast and rainy, so we will be sightseeing in Hollywood.

Zion National Park

Today we drove the rest of the way to CA, but first we visited Zion National Park, which was less than an hour from Cedar City.  Here is Owen, my nephew Drew, Rylan and my nephew Connor.  My nephew Alex, the one who will be marching, is traveling with the band.  Everybody else is either behind their own camera, NOT listening that we are taking a picture, or in the bathroom.  sigh.

Zion is absolutely beautiful.  It was a little chilly in the shade, but otherwise a gorgeous day to be outdoors.  We picked up Junior Ranger books at the Visitor Center, watched a short presentation and then the kids HAD to have these from the gift shop:

Many thanks to Aunt Joyce for the Christmas money for each kiddo, and a thank you to the kind Park Service employee with a sharpie to lend me so that I could initial each tag, thus avoiding endless fighting about whose raccoon was whose.

We went on a short hike up the Weeping Rock trail.  In the spring, summer and fall there is water that seeps out of the rock and trickles down the wall.  Now, in wintertime, the water is frozen, so the giant rock wall is covered with thousands of icicles.  There is the constant sounds of ice cracking and icicles falling and crashing on the rocks below.  It was quite the show..

The trail was steep, and icy in sections, so it was a bit dicey for me in places, but thankfully there was always some small child nearby that I could hang on to, to keep my balance.  We stood and watched and listened for at least a half an hour, but alas, California is calling and we have hours of driving ahead of us.  First though, our stomachs are growling and lunchtime is near.

Las Vegas is also near, so we hatch a plan to hit a buffet on the outskirts of Vegas for lunch.  We drive just over an hour and arrive for the last 25 minutes the buffet will be open.  Kids pile their plates and we eat.  The food was less than fabulous and the casino was smokey.  We are so accustomed to living in a non-smoking environment here in Colorado, that it is a shock to the system to walk into a smoky establishment. It was also a challenge to steer small children through the casino to even get to the buffet.  So many flashing lights!  So many sounds!

Back in the car, we drive, drive, drive.  We break out the Star Wars trilogy (4,5 and 6) that Santa brought for Christmas, and the kids have a mini-movie marathon, while Dean and I crack up at their commentary.  The desert is endless.  So is the stretch from Vegas to Barstow, that moves at about 15 miles per hour.  HOW CAN THAT MANY PEOPLE BE DRIVING TO CALIFORNIA!!??  It takes forever, but we finally reach our hotel in San Bernardino.  Tomorrow is Lego Land, so to bed we go!

A family leaves for California

We left for our trip to California today.  A year ago, my SIL shared with us that our nephew, Alex, would be marching in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena with his high school marching band.  We missed out on seeing our other nephew, Connor, march with the same marching band in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade the year prior because the trip was very expensive and it wasn't feasible to take so many young children on a trip to the mean streets of NYC.  So for this trip, the stars were aligned.  We had a year to save up, the kids would be the perfect age to visit Disneyland, and it had been 8 long years since our last visit to CA.  We had a portion of each paycheck diverted to a special savings account, and at year's end, we were mostly set.  Theme parks are expensive!!

We left bright and early this morning, but still almost a whopping two hours behind schedule.  Despite the mother of all packing lists, it is the actual doing of the packing that we never seem to manage...  We are traveling in our van, and my brother, SIL, two nephews, my dad and stepmom are traveling in their van.  They live an hour away, so they hit the road long before us.  Our destination is Cedar City, Utah.

We've had some snow, but thankfully almost a full day of weak sunshine for the crews to work on the roads.  As we traveled along we fought a little bit of traffic along I-70, and decided in Frisco that it would be nice to be able to actually SEE out the windshield, so we stopped for a new pair of wiper blades.  After that, the travel was much better.  As we passed Vail, I remembered that Dean and I resolved to listen to Serial, the podcast that everyone is raving about.  So I queued up as many episodes as I could while we had cell service, we popped in a movie and made all the kids wear headphones, and then Dean and I settled in to enjoy the show.

As we neared Glenwood Springs, the canyons looked absolutely magnificent.  The snow-covered strata was so beautiful...

Funny, though, when I look at this, I associate it now with the beginning episode of Serial, as the case is being discussed for the first time.  The way people associate different memories with smells - I'm the same way with sounds.  I look at my bedroom walls, and remember painting them as I was listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

We drove through the late afternoon and evening.  I'm sad we missed seeing the beautiful landscapes of Utah, since it was so dark.  We arrived in Cedar City a dead-tired and crabby bunch, and immediately went to bed after saying a quick hello in the hotel hallway to my brother.  Tomorrow we drive to CA!

The Nutcracker

Last weekend was our Nutcracker performance.  We had a five hour dress rehearsal the night before, and then on Saturday we performed two shows.  Rylan had two parts; a dancing gingerbread and a butterfly in the Waltz of the Flowers.  Dean and I were party parents again.  Since this was our second year, we were much more relaxed and it was a lot more fun.  There was definitely a different dynamic amongst the party scene people this year, because it felt much better.  The kids were more fun, there were actual 'parents' rather than teenage girls playing the role of a man to help fill in the scene, and there was more acting involved this year.  We had to chase around our naughty kids, Dean and another dad fought over who got to bring out the toy soldier and hold his toy gun, and my stage 'daughter' took a liking to us and interacted with us quite a bit.  Last year our two stage daughters treated us like we had a disease or something.

I thought it would be much more interesting to take our pictures in front of the set rather than the hallway like last year, but the stage lighting made it next to impossible to get something decent.  I never did get a good shot of my dress, but here it is.  I added a whole bunch of fabric bits and baubles to make it more colorful and sparkly for the stage.  I was going for an Edwardian look, but you can't really tell in the pictures.  I'm not satisfied with it, yet.  I will be making changes before next year.  Hopefully losing the 20 pounds (again) I gained back since last year will be included in those changes.  It will fit much better, I'm sure.

Rylan had a lot of fun performing this year.  This girl loves the stage - absolutely no butterflies.  There was a hitch this year - there was only once dance between her gingerbread and the butterfly.  She and four other little girls were all in the same quick-change boat, so I was backstage with the other moms to help our girls strip completely out of one outfit and into another - and then back again since she was a ginger in the finale.  It was stressful, yet comical.  Rylan learned quickly that there was no time for modesty, and nobody really cares...

I have been really, really lame about posting stuff on the blog.  I never posted about our Nutcracker experience (Rylan's second, and our first) last year, so I am including some pictures here.  Rylan performed as a snow flurry.  She and her class performed alongside the older girls that were the snowflakes.  She looked beautiful.

Here we are, feeling much more relaxed as we had the matinee under our belts and were a lot less nervous.  I am actually wearing my wedding dress.  I was about 8 weeks post BR surgery here, so I was still very sore and swollen, and the dancing bothered me just a bit.  After seeing the video of us dancing on stage, I felt like I looked very washed out and pale, so I thought I needed to add color to the dress this year.  We did have a lot of fun, which played a big part in our decision to do it again this year - and probably be roped into this part for a few years to come.  (if they'll have us)  It is definitely a unique couple experience, and we really enjoyed playing off of each other on stage.  Dean is a ham.  This year we cracked ourselves up, pretending to take selfies in front of the Christmas tree during the party scene - during rehearsal of course.

Many, many thanks to my mom for putting in the long hours of babysitting so that we could take part in this!

All I want for Christmas is to be able to breathe. Normally.

In the past week our family has gone through:

4 cans of chicken soup

2 cans tomato soup

2 gallons of juice

2 liters of 7-up

1 jar of honey

1 box of tea

1 box of saltines

2 bottles of Children's Tylenol

3 boxes of Kleenex

1 box of extra-strength Mucinex

It is difficult when a family member is sick.  It is even harder when four are sick simultaneously.  You have to compete for couch space.  Feverish kids want to lay on you, as well as the cat.  There aren't enough Kleenex boxes to go around.  Somebody is going to have to let the dog out.  And it won't be me, since I can't lift my head off the pillow without it splitting into two.

My hero this week is my 8 year old daughter (the only one well at the time) who managed to make the rest of us tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.  She let the dog out.  Multiple times.  She fetched blankets, charger cords, Kleenex and made tea.  My husband, also my hero, who was just a bit less dizzy than I, was the one who made the heroic trip to the grocery store to replenish our stores, and monitor everyone's temperature.

We managed.  We survived.  We even got the tree decorated.  I kept half-lidded eyes on the breakables, as each child hung up their ornaments.  I didn't give a whit where they ended up on the tree.  We had Christmas movie marathons.  I've watched every episode of every season of Shawn the Sheep.  I think I'm good now, thanks.  Even though being sick absolutely sucks, everybody being in the same boat draws a family closer together.  United in snot.  And phlegm.  The one with the highest temperature of the hour wins....a popsicle!

And now, our little Florence Nightingale is taking her turn.  She is the lucky one.  She has four family members to wait on her.

Jordan is so, so lucky that he is in OKC at the moment...  

and now, in that post-cold energy rush, it is sinking in that I've only got 5 days to get my Christmas shit together....

So I guess the holidays are here...

I am beginning to really resent our slave-like Calvert school schedule.  It is ridiculous that I constantly have my eyeballs glued to a planner, yet it never dawns on me what day it really is.  To me, it's just Lesson Day 62, and Jordan is currently slogging though Day 32, Rylan Day 46, and Owen Day 53.  I live and breathe the mantra, How much can we get done today in the never-ending effort to get caught up, instead of noticing that fall has happened, Halloween has happened, Thanksgiving has happened, and HELLO? Christmas is just around the corner??  This curriculum is robbing us of quite a lot.  :(

Fall has happened.

We did enjoy the fall - in a very limited way.  A few leaf walks, a visit to an apple orchard, a hike, the pumpkin patch, Trick-or-Treating on Halloween, leaf raking...  It was all crammed in and between everything else that makes the fall crazy - scout popcorn, scouting for food, Fall Camporee, (all compounded by adding Owen to the family scouting roster), Nutcracker practices, Lego...  I don't like leaving seasonal and family rituals out of the schedule and then fitting them in where we can.  There is no downtime, no spontaneity, and by Thanksgiving we are exhausted.

Thanksgiving has happened.

Thanksgiving was supposed to be spent at home in CO this year, but a schedule switch had to be made in order to accommodate a family trip to CA over New Years, so we went to OKC for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas, so that we wouldn't have two big trips just days apart.  It actually worked out really well.  We had a very good week in OKC, beginning with a family get-together the evening we arrived, which was great since that gave us a chance to see everyone - including our newest grandniece, now 9 months old.  Since this year is the 'off year', in which all the families would be spending the holiday with their inlaws, we knew that our Thanksgiving would be just our family and Dean's folks.  Eight of us.  Can I just say how wonderful that was?  Don't get me wrong - I love the whole family get-togethers and all, but for this wallflower, a small, intimate dinner with 'just us', was wonderful.  In addition, this was not Jordan's scheduled holiday visitation with his mom, so he got to spend the week with us  - and more importantly his grandparents, although we did agree that he could spend the night on Thanksgiving and most of Friday with his mom.  He flies out to OKC in just a few more days, and will spend two weeks with her during Christmas.

Back to the actual event - there was no stress in cooking, no stress in traveling anywhere, no stress of a houseful of people, no stress in clean up.. there was just no stress at all!  I didn't know what to do with myself in a nonstressed state.  So I knitted.  That stressed me out, so I felt better.  My MIL handled the turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes, and I made the rolls, sweet potatoes and gravy.  This was the first time - EVER - that Jordan had the quintessential childhood experience of waking up to the smell of roasting turkey.  For 14 years that child has had to wait for that... a shame!  I have only roasted a turkey once, (last Christmas??) and that was during the day, and I can't remember if he was here or not - he may have been with his mom, who doesn't cook.  Every other holiday in which turkey is involved, the roasting happened at a house he was traveling to, so he never experience that wonderful smell that weaves its way into your dreams and wakes you up at 5:30 a.m. with a growling stomach!  So glad he was with us.

Christmas is happening.

It is now the 10th, and all we have managed to do is drag the tree up from the basement last night, and untangle the lights.  That's it.  Oh, and I put up the advent calendar.  And purchased a poinsettia and a wreath for the door.  I love, love to decorate, yet there is just no time! :(  I am in the process of clearing out about 500 curriculum books (no joke!) from the office shelves to put up my Santa and Nativity displays.  That is the safest spot for them, so every year the books have to be moved temporarily - which, as you can imagine, is a huge chore.  Especially when you have a bum knee.

I haven't even thought about Christmas presents.  At all.

We are leaving for CA in about two weeks.  I haven't thought about that either.  Other than to think about temporary pet placement.

All that is on my mind (apart from stupid schoolwork) is the Nutcracker.  After this weekend, it will be over.  This is Rylan's third year performing in her dance academy's production, and it is the fourth year they have been putting it on.  It is a 'smaller' performance overall when compared to others - the music has been edited for length, the set is more scaled back and it is performed in a high school auditorium, but it does seem to get bigger in scope every year.  This year Rylan is dancing as a Gingerbread and as a butterfly during the Waltz of the Flowers.  Dean and I are once again performing in the party scene.  We are the 'parents' of four, including two very naughty boys, so we get to do a lot of 'scolding' during the party.  Good times.  No different from our daily life.  I spent a very stressful week last week altering my dress so that it looked more 'festive' and period-appropriate.  I will post pictures eventually.  I'm not happy with it, but it will have to do.  We performed last Friday at a different high school for some elementary kiddos, and then we perform twice this coming Saturday.  It will be a long nine hours at the theater.  Last year I was freaked out by it all.  This year I am surprisingly calm.

The CSB

I'm afraid I don't exactly *love* Calvert anymore.  It's been a such a tough beginning (this trimester), as we have pushed on and forward, yet falling ultimately further behind.  I know that things will drastically improve in December when several hours in our schedule will free up, and that is the hope that I am hanging on to - with all I've got.  I feel like a doofus for saying in the past that I wanted to be accountable to somebody, because that would help us stay on a schedule.  Our insane schedule has driven me to drinking (coffee - and tons of it) and constantly updating vast spreadsheets I've made of assignments, due dates, pacing schedule and so forth.

1. I now officially hate being accountable to somebody.  I feel guilty if we take a half hour to ourselves and go to a park, or if I have to run an errand.  We're so behind it feels like every hour has potential to get just 'a little bit more' done, so we have minimal contact with the outside world (doing stuff that is fun, and stuff that we want to do).  I hate to admit that this accountability has been good for us, because we have accomplished more schoolwork already than we accomplished all of last year.  I just don't like losing so much of our freedom.  The freedom to make your own schedule is a big part of what homeschooling is all about.

2.  I am no longer okay with somebody else picking out our curriculum.  In the past week it was suggested in Owen's Kindergarten curriculum that I reread a story about a walk a child takes with fuzzy farm animals no less than 10 times.  10 TIMES.  It was to be reread during each lesson - and discussed ad nauseam - for 5 lessons in a row.  Yes, each rereading used a different approach or covered a different aspect of the story (predicting, color of animals, fur/feathers/scales, sentence structure, blah blah blah)  Owen was ready to poke his eyes out with his big yellow pencil.  Rylan just completed the most horrific math chapter on bar modeling.  She is a whiz with three digit addition with carrying, three digit subtraction with borrowing - done the traditional way, and then they throw this crap at her.  I HATE SINGAPORE. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.  I've been standing before my schoolbook cases - now covered in dust - looking longingly at the awesome curriculum we had to shelve when Calvert came along.  History of Us, Story of the World, R.E.A.L. Science 4 Kids, Shurley English, All About Spelling, Meet the Masters, Wordly Wise 3000.... so sad.  so so sad.  There just isn't time, and it breaks my heart, because this was good stuff.  I've got to find a way to work it in, or substitute things, or...something.  Something!

I am pretty sure I will not pull the plug here mid-year, but I am undecided if we will continue with Calvert next year.  I constantly sit and fantasize about how I would take what I have learned about scheduling and pacing, and make it work with the curriculum that I want to use.  The other factor is that the kids do love their online class time - and there is no way to replicate that.  What to do, what to do, what to do...  uugh.  Sometimes I don't like being in charge.  Here we are at that stupid crossroads again - what if I make the wrong decision?  What if they fall even further behind?  Am I ruining them by keeping them home?

Homeschooling is not for the faint of heart.  You've got to be strong in your convictions because you will tested.  Constantly.  I am strong in that I want them home.  I could never surrender those Aha! moments of first words, first writing, first reading to another teacher.  Never.  I would never surrender them willingly to the social ladder of the classroom, the chaos of the lunchroom and playground, or the unrelenting schedule of homework, book reports, school functions and so forth.  I want them home so that their day can go at a reasonable pace, so that they can get adequate amounts of sunshine, playtime and downtime, so that they can go long in math and short in writing, or switch it if the mood arises, so that we can Google that question, YouTube that demonstration or build that next creation.  This I am strong in.

Where I am weak is how to go about it.  There is no ONE way - yes, I know that.  But our way over the past few years hasn't worked very well.  I'm weak in the execution of it all.  I'm weak in multi-tasking, delegating, time management - and with four kids that is a big liability.  My weak side has been winning lately.  First, I sabotaged our schedule by allowing Jordan and Rylan to do an activity that was clearly in conflict with school.  It has created a huge, huge problem, in fact.  I didn't factor in the time expense, the $$ cost to participate, the shuttling kids back and forth, the group snack headache and $$$$...  These are all things that I loathe about activities like this.  For Jordan, the reward does not even come close to the pain.  In fact, there has been damage done to relationships because he is so unhappy with his group.  For Rylan, the reward has been mostly worth it.  She has learned some new skills, made a new friend and looks forward to participating.  I am just too quick to agree to things.  I really need to sit down and work out the cost analysis before saying 'yes'.  I am also not managing our time very well.  Hours slip by without much to show for it, as I spend the time doing silly things like looking for lost items, going back to the store for forgotten things, shuttling kids back and forth to stuff, and making spreadsheets about how I should be spending my time.

All of this weakness has led to some not-so-good-things.  First of all, more than once I have woken in a cold sweat - certain that I forgot to pick up a kid from somewhere.  I have even got up, and gone to the kids' rooms to do a headcount to make sure everyone was accounted for.  There is just way too much picking up/dropping off going on, and every day is a different routine.  I check the calendar about 20 times a day because I am constantly afraid I am forgetting to do something or that I am late for something.  Panic attacks.  Daily, if not hourly panic attacks.  I panic about the schedule, the schoolwork, the house repairs, the towering stack of unopened mail (what is in there?), my knee rehab, two upcoming road trips... my heart races, my chest hurts and I think I am having a heart attack multiple times a day.  No joke.  There is also the crushing depression.  It's back, and with a vengeance.  I can't get anything done.  I am so overwhelmed, I can't care about the unopened mail, the unbalanced checkbook, the unfinished compositions, the dirty house, the child that is still having multiple 'accidents' a day, or even writing on here very much.  I don't have a clue about where to start.  I went to my doctor a few weeks back to ask for help, and I am back on an antidepressant.  This time I am trying out Prozac.  It is too low of a dose in my opinion, but it is a step in the right direction, and we'll up the dose next refill.  There has been some improvement, but the panic attacks have not stopped.  :(  I also think about where I was a year ago, vs. now.  I've gained nearly all of my weight back, due to lack of exercise because of my knee, and way more comfort/stress eating than I care to admit.  I know that the daily walking/running I was doing last year played a big part in keeping the depression at bay, and that I am soooo close to getting the all-clear to start walking daily, at least.

I think that this fall has just been particularly hard.  It's been a whole slew of a lot of little things that added all together made up the perfect clusterfuck stress bomb.  Let's just call that the CSB.  The new school 'thing', the hailstorm and the subsequent house and car repairs and the constant - daily! - meetings and phone calls with insurance agents, contractors, subs, shopping excursions and actual repair work, the knee surgery/rehab and the 30+ doctor appointments I've had since July, the insane activity schedule and so on, and so on, and so on...  I can't wait for December.  Even though Nutcracker craziness will be a part of the first half of December, that's okay.  We've actually really been enjoying that, for some reason that escapes me right now.

Contractors are a whole other breed...

I am not new to dealing with contractors.  Back in 2003 I purchased my first home, a brand new build.  They broke ground in October 2002, and I moved in in March of that next year.  Since the house was just a few blocks away from my job, I visited the site almost every damn day.  Things went wrong almost immediately.  The foundation was dug and poured, and when I went to look, it made no sense to me at all.  I cocked my head from side to side and walked around the entire property several times before I realized that they had flipped the entire plan.  When you sit and look at house plans for hours and hours, trying to picture the layout, the views from windows and the light that will come in and so forth, you get used to the way you have looked at it.  To have the entire thing flipped meant that all of a sudden I had to add windows where there weren't windows before because now I had a serious lack of natural lighting issue and so forth.  It went downhill from there, for the miscommunication was rampant.  I remember those times, and so now, as we are getting the house fixed up from the storm in June, it is coming back to haunt me.

First of all, let me say that State Farm is the best insurance company ever.  Ever.  EVER.  After much squabbling back and forth about replacing several windows, they sent out another adjuster a week and a half ago to look over the place again.  Our claim estimate jumped from $13K to $24K to account for more paint, a new garage door and some other things.  The adjuster was very courteous and absolutely thorough, and has a fully operational bullshit meter.  It appears that the windows subcontractor was pushing up numbers a bit, but on the other hand, the gouges left behind from numerous golf ball-sized hail that peppered all over the house, meant that one coat of paint was not going to do the job.  I mean really, the previous agent submitted for ONE coat of paint on *most* of the house.  That's ridiculous.  It pays to complain loudly sometimes.

We picked out a new garage door, and also decided to go ahead and replace the front door and both of our back doors - those will be on our own dime and labor.  (thank you honey!)  We made our color choices and style choices, and I submitted a flurry of paperwork to the HOA last Friday for approval.  I am competing with about 80% of our neighborhood for the coveted HOA signatures.

Monday (of this past week): I finally had the line item insurance paperwork in hand to show the contractor so that he knew exactly what the insurance company was going to cover, and so we could draw up a new contract for the work to be done and how much we would pay.  He came over that afternoon and I showed him the garage door that we had picked out and he placed a call to the garage door sub.  They responded later that afternoon with a 'yes, we can do that' and it would be ready in two weeks.  Remember that.  Two weeks.  Meanwhile, we went through the rest of the list and the contractor reminded me that I needed to get a check from the insurance company. Asap.  (vermin)

Tuesday: phone call from contractor:
C: Have I called you yet today about your garage door?
Me: (what now?....)  Uh...no?
C: Oh, well they have it ready to install, and can be there tomorrow between 10 and noon.
Me: (shock and more than mild irritation) Ummm... let me look at the calendar.. (several complications), Yeah... I guess that will work.

I think about a total of 18 hours had passed since the "two weeks" statement and the "they will show up tomorrow" statement.  Now, I know that most people have the opposite problem.  They pay for work and it never gets done.  I have a different problem.  I know my contractor has a cell.  I know that all of the subs have a cell.  But nobody EVER CALLS to set up a time to come by - they just show up.  They seem to think that I am always at home, and that we never leave the house to do things, and that we never need advanced notice for anything.

People in the contracting business, hear me out.  IT IS FLAT OUT RUDE.  okay?

So I got on the phone and moved the violin lesson, arranged a ride for somebody else, told Dean we needed to clear out the garage that evening, and then freaked out because I had nothing from the HOA.  They had the paperwork for all of one business day so far, and that's only if they had picked it up from the HOA office.  As luck would have it, that Friday before I had received a nice phone call from one of the ladies on the HOA board to let me know that I had verbal approval on the paint color choices, and that the paperwork would be on its way soon, as soon as it was signed off at their next meeting.  So, with her number in hand, I called to plead my case that my contractor was messing with me and that the garage door was being installed tomorrow instead of two weeks from now and I needed approval for that.  She was very sympathetic and understanding.  Those HOA people need Christmas cards this year because our entire neighborhood has worked them overtime in the past couple of months.

Wednesday: right at 11:58 a.m., the garage guys showed up and installed the door over the next three hours.  All irritation aside, it looks beautiful and totally changes the entire look of the house.  I won't show pics until all the work is done.  I received a call from the insurance guy, wanting to know if I had a signed contract with the contractor in hand.  (I did)  He will be by the next day to get a copy.

Thursday: Insurance guy shows up at appointed time, inspects the new door, takes the contract and gives me a substantial check.  I may have trouble getting it cashed since it is large and I have to get two different banks' signatures on it as well.  This could take some time.  I call the contractor later to tell him I have the check and let him know that I will work on it beginning Monday, to get it endorsed by a bunch of different people, as this takes time, and I don't want to do it on Friday because it is Halloween, and that doesn't sound like fun.  Halloween is supposed to be about fun - not spending the day in the car going from bank to bank.

Friday:  Contractor shows up, unannounced, looks at the new garage door and then the real intention of his visit is clear:
C:  Do you have a check ready for me yet?

I seriously want to go impale myself on a pitchfork.  I would make a nice yard decoration for this Halloween evening.

A house update...

So you may remember me mentioning that our house was damaged in a storm back in June.  We had the insurance adjuster come out and the findings were that we needed to replace the roof, replace a few windows (the seals had broken), a few window screens, the shutters, gutters and get the house painted.  Plus get the car fixed.

So far, we have accomplished one of those items.  The roof was replaced on July 29th, two days before my knee surgery.  It looks beautiful.  Since then, we have had countless meetings with the windows guy, but no windows have been even ordered yet.  The windows are a huge problem, actually.  We have wood windows, original to the house (built in 1992), and they are extremely expensive to replace.  They are also extremely energy inefficient.  The way to go is to do vinyl, but a more expensive vinyl, since we have to match the wood grain trim that is everywhere else in the house.  I would love to switch to painted trim, but again, it would mean ALL the trim in the house, the doors, the banister...  The problem is, if you change even one window, you eventually have to do them all.

If the insurance company will only cover a glass replacement because the seal is broken on five different windows, that is all fine and good, BUT one of those windows also has a small half-moon-shaped nick left by a particularly large hailstone in the plastic portion of the exterior frame.  So that means the total window needs be replaced according to the insurance guy.  That's fine...the problem is, is that the manufacturer of our particular windows is no longer in the biz.  There is no other way to source the needed parts either.  Soooooo, if one window in a bay window needs to be replaced, and vinyl is our only option, then to make it appealing inside and out, all the the windows need to match, so therefore all the windows need to be replaced.  Which means a lot more money than the insurance company was bargaining.  It also means that the pair of windows directly above this bay window need to be replaced too.  Which means that there is a behind-the-scenes fight over who is going to pay how much to solve our windows dilemma.  A special claims guy from our insurance company, who hails from 'Nola, is paying us a visit next week.  A full THREE MONTHS since the roofing job was completed.  He will be meeting with our windows guy and hopefully they can come up with an agreement about how much will be covered.  In the meantime, I expect our pocketbook will be taking a serious hit.

In other developments, some random person (from the company we hired that is handling all of the repairs) showed up last week confirming what color we wanted the new gutters to be.  We don't have the house painted yet because we have been waiting on the windows for a full THREE MONTHS.  So we had no idea what to tell him about the color.  Then, on another day, another guy with a handy-dandy Honda Accord pulled up, again unannounced, to pick up the shredded window screens that need to be repaired.  I'm not sure what he was expecting to pick up, but it certainly wasn't full-sized window screens.  He said he would ask somebody else with a pick-up to come by the next day.  At least she called before she came by.

Sigh.  So I called the contractor to say that no matter what is happening with the windows, we need to move forward on the house painting before it gets too cold and wet.  He agreed.  That was last Monday.  I've yet to hear when the paint guy is coming.  We do have paint chips in hand though, so we're ready for him whenever he shows up on our doorstep, most likely unannounced.

At least we have a solid roof over our heads, so I am very thankful for that.  I just can't imagine getting windows replaced in November or December.  Totally goes against all common sense, in my opinion.

First impressions of the Calvert Curriculum

I will let my extended absence from my blog speak first and foremost as to how the whole ‘Calvert thing’ is going.  I have no time anymore, it seems.  I knew it going in that it would be a tough transition from how we used to do things, but I think there have also been some unintended consequences as well as some positive results as well.  Here are my impressions so far..

Attendance

Colorado Calvert is officially an online public school, so they have to take attendance.  For a homeschooler, the Colorado State Statute requires a minimum of 174 days, at 4 hours per day, for a total of 694 school hours per school year.  The state, of course, never checks that you actually met this.  The way a public school takes attendance is by counting heads every single school day.  (a fellow homeschooling friend jokes that she take attendance by noting if any of her boys have gone missing, lol...)  The way Calvert handles attendance is to require that the student do something called a checkpoint.  A checkpoint is a short 1-5 question review that covers the material taught in a particular subject that day.  In Jordan's case, a typical day means he has a checkpoint in each category that he worked on in that day's lesson: math, grammar, composition, reading comprehension, history, science.  As long as Jordan completes at least one checkpoint on a given day, he is marked 'present'.  The checkpoints are time-stamped.  We can do school on any day of the week, even on holidays, and if he completes a checkpoint that day, it is considered a day spent in school.  This is where online school gets brownie points for being flexible.  So far, attendance, with the exception of October Count has not been an issue for us, and it's that 'thing' I needed to hold my hand to the fire and keep me accountable, and hold my kids accountable too.

October Count

October Count is the God-forsaken day that the bean-counters in the Ed. Dept. devised to tie actual attendance to per-pupil funding.  If the child is present on that day, the school will get funding for that pupil for the year – something in the range of $7-8 K.  October Count for most public schoolers is on Oct. 1^st.  Parents get a slew of letters and emails in the weeks before reminding parents that only death should prevent their child from attending school that day.  Otherwise, they had better damn well show up.  I received much the same communication (in a much nicer tone), but because Calvert is an online school, their October Count window was from September 24^th to October 8^th.  I was in charge of making sure that each of my children completed a checkpoint, watched a video, attended class on class days, played a game and did an enrichment activity BY NOON, every. damn. day.  Only problem is, we unfortunately have scheduled activities most every morning that require us to be out of the house, so getting stuff done in time has taken just about every last ounce of sanity I had left.    I had never intended for these activities to be on the schedule in the first place, when I first signed up for Calvert.  I had made a strict personal rule: NOTHING ON THE ACTIVITY SCHEDULE BEFORE 3 PM.  I had visions of unrestricted mornings that required no rushing, yelling, searching for clean underwear or breakfast-in-a-baggie in the car just to get to some class or group activity on time.  That madness was reserved for kids that went to public school!  Well, that was the grand plan before I blew out my knee (which requires multiple daytime physical therapy sessions) and before I received a Lego practice schedule that meets for 4x a week in the mornings, (it used to be late afternoons).  L  It has been pretty ugly around here getting this October count requirement met.  Early mornings make for cranky kids.  Tight schedules to get kids where they need to be make for cranky moms.  The kids were doing checkpoints on half-finished lessons because it was 11:59 a.m. and we HAD to.  That is no way to get an education!  It’s not Calvert’s fault.  It’s the bureaucratic we-need-data bullshit I ran screaming away from 8 years ago.  Anyway – it is past October 8^th and I am celebrating.

Lessons

Each Calvert 'Lesson' equals a full day of school.  Each child's teaching manual contains a list of the subjects and activities to do for that day's lesson.  In Jordan's case, he has a list that rotates just a bit, adding in computer on this day, or switching back and forth between history and geography... so every lesson is not exactly the same lineup of stuff to do - which he and I both like.  I like that he can at least get part-way through a lesson, complete a couple of checkpoints to get his attendance logged for the day, and then we just pick right back up where he left off on the next day.  The only issue with this is that he is really supposed to be doing an entire lesson in one day.  We have a pacing guide that we are supposed to follow.  We are now significantly behind, but Jordan has made great personal strides in the past week or so, and is now getting through about 80-90% of a lesson in a day.  He’s almost there!  

Rylan has the same lesson line-up, except there is one major annoyance.  Her checkpoints, with the exception of math, have all been combined into one big one.  So even if we manage to do 5 of the 7 things she was supposed to cover, we can't do the checkpoint yet because we didn't finish.  So that day's attendance is screwed, unless we flub her answers and get to those activities we missed on the next day.  But, again, we are really supposed to do it all in one day.  It is Rylan's schedule that I am most concerned about because she is by far the busiest kid with her insane activity schedule.

Owen’s lessons are the easiest, but I have zero time to do any of the enrichment activities with him – which are the activities that make Kindergarten so awesome in the first place!  I don’t know how families with multiple kids in this program do it, I really don’t.  I am exhausted.  Each kid needs one-on-one, which means - after bouncing back and forth all day, about a 12 hour school day for me.  (not them..me.)  This includes taking what work we can in the car to fill whatever length of time we will be gone and so forth.  Every minute of every school day, somebody is working on something with me, unless I have made the blessed escape to physical therapy.  So far, this really sucks.

Math

Okay, no offense to any of you Singapore fans out there, but Calvert uses Singapore and we all hate it.  We have used MEP up till now, with Teaching Textbooks and Khan Academy as a resource.  Who ever heard of a 14 year old begging to do math 'the way we used to'?  I have!  I have no idea if I can pull some strings or not, but we can't do a whole year of this.  Singapore does such an awful job of presenting material (a short, difficult-to-understand paragraph) followed by a mind-numbing amount of repetition that calls for no variation or creativity....  MEP WE MISS YOU!  I am vowing right now that we are picking up with MEP again and carrying onward in our own way.  I can't do this to my kids.  Singapore will kill math for them, and I have been fighting like mad to keep the wonder and magic of math alive as they progress.

Reading

In Jordan's case, I am thrilled with the Language Arts component that Calvert offers.  He is learning so much with each lesson (which illuminates for me all the stuff I wasn't covering, but should have).  Jordan read Jack London's To Build a Fire during the first week. You know?  Of all the literature I read in Jr. High and High School, it was THAT short story that I remember.  Any time I tromped through the snow, I would think back to that story.  Jordan has a special appreciation for it since he has done the Klondike scout campout every year, and can personally identify with dealing with intense cold.  He is recognizing that literature does not take hold of you, unless you can make a personal connection with it.  He has also read a slew of short stories by various authors such as Edgar Allen Poe, Ray Bradbury and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  He’s checked out a couple Sherlock Holmes mysteries at the library because he really likes that literary style in particular.  Bless him.

In Rylan's case, she uses a standard classroom reader.  I do like the activities associated with it, and there is some writing involved, which makes me happy.  The rest of her work is pretty standard, and sort of uninspiring, if you ask me.

With Owen, I am reading stories or poems to him and then we discuss them.  He is learning  his letters and sounds...finally.  This is all stuff he has been working on with Reading Eggs for the past year, but only now has he been willing to sit down and actually move a pencil around on paper.  Ever since we finally broke through that barrier, he is now a willing participant in coloring, writing, cutting and pasting.  He is a whiz with shapes and counting.

The Assignments

Not only do the kids do a checkpoint for their subjects, they also have work to turn in.  Each week the teachers post a list of assignments (that are a part of the regular lessons anyway) that are due.  I have to scan them, save them to a separate file folder for each kid, and then submit them.  The first couple of weeks were tough, because it was almost 20 files.  Now it is about 8-10 that I send in on a weekly basis.

The Teachers

I love Rylan’s and Owen’s teachers.  They are real pros at this, and have easily made a connection with the kids through the online classes.  Each kiddo has class twice a week – one is math and the other is language arts.  Owen’s class is about 20 minutes long.  He puts on headphones and talks part of the time.  His teacher has the ability to turn on each student’s mic as she chooses – that way they are not all talking at once and producing feedback.  So every now and then I will hear his voice pipe up with an answer to a question she asked.  It is the same way with Rylan’s classes.  Her classes last about 30 – 45 minutes.  Owen’s class is also interactive, so he can use the mouse to do different things on a work surface on the screen, when it is his turn.  I think that is really cool.  Jordan’s classes last about an hour, and they don’t chat via headphones, except in his small-group math enrichment class.  Jordan’s teacher is new this year and I can see that she is learning the ropes just as we are.  She is a very nice lady, but a bit reserved and hard to read.  Jordan likes her well enough, but there is not a personal connection yet.

The Fieldtrips

We have had two ‘fieldtrips’ so far.  The first was a school picnic that met the Friday before the first day of school.  The kids got to meet their teachers face-to-face for the first time, and meet any other students that came.  We had a good time.  Owen’s teacher gave him a pencil and a lucky penny, and you would have thought he had won the lottery.  Rylan’s teacher has a very lively personality and she took to her immediately.  Jordan joined a game of soccer with the older kids, within five minutes of arriving.

Our second ‘fieldtrip’ was a gathering at a library about a month after school started.  The kids split off into two groups – older and younger, and did literary activities for a couple of hours with their teachers.  They had a fun time and could now connect better with classmates since they had seen them online a few times.  Jordan made quite the connection with a girl, actually.  They now exchange multiple texts every day.  Unfortunately (for Jordan, not for us) she lives over an hour away.  They have been trying to figure out a way to meet up ever since the library gathering.  We’re suggesting the families meeting up for dinner or ice cream at some half-way point.  We’ll see…

The Backlash

Unfortunately, a stinging remark or two about making Calvert our chosen way to homeschool has been directed my way, and left their mark as I have incredibly thin skin when it comes to that type of thing.  Well, any type of criticism, really.  It’s bad enough that I already question absolutely everything I do as the right thing to do every second of the day.  There are definitely opinionated camps as what is the correct path to follow in regards to how organized you should be.  Homeschooling is starting to feel as lonely as ever.  I’m worried about my mental health with the amount of stress I am under to get the work done, and how the schedule leaves zero time to fit in anything that could be considered down time with the kids – like a play date or a nature walk.

So that is Calvert for us at this point in time…I’ll reassess in a few more weeks.  By that point both Lego and my physical therapy will be done, so we will have gained back some crucial daytime hours that are so negatively affecting us right now.  

A knee update

It's been a little over 10 weeks since surgery.  The first three weeks were really rough.  I couldn't stand for more than a few minutes at a time, and walking without the walker was impossible.  During that first week I was in a haze, but I am so thankful for the meal that a friend dropped by, and another delivered by a fellow scout family - which was a nice surprise!  The following week my family (mom, brother and SIL) arrived home from a trip, and my SIL prepped a weeks' worth of freezer meals and sent them up with my brother (a total surpise!), and then she did it AGAIN the next week.  It was an absolute life-saver.  Dean did a great job in holding down the household that first week, but meal prep was a challenge, lol...  I am so grateful for the thoughtfulness and the help we received - especially the second week when my mom came every day so I could rest, and for the occasional ride the kids needed to get to this and that since I couldn't drive yet.  Since those first two weeks, I have done 16 physical therapy sessions.  I was going twice a week during August and September, and now I have transitioned to once a week for the month of October.  November will probably be two sessions in that month, and we'll see about December.  It has been a long, grueling process.  I think about only two things in life right now: knee and school work.  Knee and school work.  Knee and school work.  There is no room for anything else in my brain right now.

The therapy is going really, really well.  My therapist's name is Katie, and she is outstanding.  My sessions last about an hour and fifteen minutes.  To begin each session she massages my knee and all of the surrounding muscles, and then pushes and pulls this way and that to work on my range of motion.  I am now at the ROM that she is looking for - a 130 degree or greater bend to the knee.  It took a very long time to get there.  I can remember the first couple weeks of therapy were just so unbelievably painful, and I was still wondering how I would ever walk normally again, so I know I've come a long way.

The rest of the sessions are spent working on weight machines, an exercise bike, and doing a slew of different moves involving dynabands, stair steps and balance balls.  The most difficult for me right now is a move where your completely isolate the quadricep muscle.  You stand on the edge of a secure step with one foot, the inside of the foot of your working leg lined up at the edge.  Then you slowly lower the free foot down towards the floor (but don't touch the floor), by bending at the knee on the working leg, being mindful to only use your quadricep and not jut out your hip to the side.  Then you stand back up.  Repeat 19 more times.  I managed TWO, only going down about an inch when I first tried.  It hit directly on my most tender, sorest spot on the knee.  I am now doing 30, on a much bigger box, but it is still tough and still painful.  Another good move is called a Monster Walk.  You tie a dynaband (the color determines the resistance level) into a loop, step inside it and position it at ankle-height.  Then you walk forward across the floor, swinging one leg slightly in front of the other and then swinging it out wide before planting your foot on the floor.  Then you step forward and swing out the other leg.  It helps if you picture yourself walking like Frankenstein, but with more of a wide arc in your leg swing, AND you must have your legs slightly bent at all time - like a constant, never-ending squat.  It really, really makes your hips burn, and forces the injured leg to work on stability when it becomes then standing leg with every other step and your balance is constantly shifting as the other leg is moving through its swing.  I really feel it when the other leg is just about fully swung out and about to be planted on the floor.  For that millisecond I am at my most vulnerable for my knee to crumple, and I have to have absolute focus with every step.

I do feel a lot stronger in my quadricep, as I can do leg lifts with ease now.  My weakness is that my knee still buckles backward every now and then, especially at the end of a long walk, or when I am tired at the end of the day.  Luckily it does not move from side to side anymore - so it looks like the surgery worked.  (wink).  My surgeon is all about getting the leg strengthened again, and is a huge proponent of getting into the gym and going into rehab with gusto.  So about three weeks ago I purchased a pass from the city to get into the warm therapy pool that is at one recreation location, and into the gym at another location.  The therapy pool is not as nice as the one at my physical therapy office, but it does the job.  I go twice a week and do my pool exercises.  I walk back and forth across the pool forwards, sideways, backwards, do squats, leg lifts, bicycle swings and the stairs.  The gym location is actually the Senior Center, which is just a short drive away for me, so it is really convenient.  The facility has gone through a recent renovation, and the fitness room is bee-U-tee-ful!  It has subdued lighting, it's quiet, the machines are all new and it has a nice selection of reclined exercise bikes, treadmills, stair-steppers, weight machines and free-weights.  Best of all, in the evenings you are likely to have the place to yourself.  It has become my sanctuary.  When I am not there, I count the hours until I can go again.  Dean took out a membership too, so we can go together for an hour or so about three nights a week.

I've passed several milestones in the past couple of weeks - walking down the stairs with alternating feet, a bicycle ride, and a hike (yesterday).  The hike was a bit too much, though.  The whole way up I was intent on concentrating at where I planted my feet.  On the way down, my knee was tired, and I was terrified my foot would skid away from me on the gravel.  Luckily nothing happened, but I have a lot more work to do to increase my muscle stamina.

I've been thinking about the months to come, and I can honestly say that I am terrified of the ice and snow that will be here sooner or later.  Terrified.  I can only imagine how awful it would be if I had just gone through the surgery.

That would totally suck...

Pain junkie

Happy 1st Anniversary of my breast reduction!

In thinking of a nifty way to celebrate my smaller version of myself, I thought it would be great to go in today and get a scar revision done, and wouldn't it be *just* fabulous that it's the actual anniversary date? I mean, really, I've gone 8 whole weeks without some sort of bandaging attached to me in some way or another, and that is just entirely too long. I think that I must have reached some magical threshold of feeling 'ok' that sends a signal to my brain that I need to cause myself more pain. So, why not call up the plastic surgeon and ask for a few stitches? Yes, WHY not??

So it has been a few hours since my procedure, and my local has worn off. I have bloody bandaging, plus pain and royal discomfort. A bonafide pain junkie trifecta!! If you have ever had serious surgical sutures, you most likely have experienced the 'dog ears' that form on each end as they heal. It is triangular-shaped pucker that looks a bit odd. With my breast reduction surgery, one side looked pretty bad in addition to significant scarring, and the other side was not so noticeable but still bothersome. I could have had the revision done as early as 6 months ago but I opted to wait it out a few more months to see if the one side would resolve itself. They did change a significant amount so I am glad that I waited, but it wasn't enough to make me feel like it wouldn't keep bothering me for years on end. So I made the appointment to just get it done and over with. Now I am back to walking around with my arms pinned down to my sides, not reaching for anything, and driving using only the bottom 1/3 of the steering wheel. That was my life for a solid four months just a short time ago, and the disturbingly familiar pain is no fun at all.

I think I am really, really ready to be done with all of this surgery and recovery business. Really. I have a damn surgical shelf in the medicine cabinet that I just want to clear out. Bandaging, non-stick gauze, paper tape, scar cream, elastic wrap, arm splints (2), knee splints (3), compression wrap, blah, blah, blah...

Anyway, happy anniversary to me. It's still the best thing I ever did for myself.

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Warning

As I am sure is true about a lot of cities, there are certain times of the day where it is virtually impossible to get from point A to point B in a given amount of time.  The witching hour for our neck of the woods is 4:00 pm on a weekday.  Everybody and their dog, laptop, soccer ball, or ballet shoes has someplace they need to be.

I've been spending an extraordinary amount of time in the car during the past month.  My schedule is so full I want to cry.  It's partly my doing, as I wanted to cram trips into the most compact schedule possible, piggy-backing every class I could so that I could build up the largest chunk of at-home school-time hours I could, but ultimately I am at the mercy of the class schedule in the first place as I have to work with what I get.  If it were up to me, I would not be on the road during the witching hour.

Tuesday is the tightest commute day, and Wednesday is so full I'm wearing a stopwatch and barking out new move-out orders every half hour, it seems.  On Tuesdays, I have exactly 30 minutes to transport Rylan from her Lego Robotics team practice at point A to her tumbling class at point B.  In between these points is several miles of green space as they are in different cities. This requires that I get her out of the door on time at point A (hasn't happened yet, as Lego is fun), and that I drive with laser-sharp focus to navigate the minivan-choked roads to get to point B.  I've tried three different routes, and the interstate "seems" the quickest, provided there is no massive miles-long traffic jam, slowing down to check out the vehicle pulled over on the shoulder TO CHANGE A TIRE. *WOW*

This past Tuesday I was paid a personal visit by a state trooper on the side of a very busy three lane highway during the commute from point A to point B.  I had just pulled off the interstate, gone through a couple of intersections, and was just pulling through another one - after stopping for a red light - when lights fired up behind me.  I wasn't even aware I had a trooper behind me, as I was deep in conversation with Jordan about what spatial organization in paragraph writing means.  (This is where I can say with pride that, yes, my 14 year old and I were engrossed in how a writer can lay out a description of their topic in a spatial way.  This is new territory for us since I have mainly focused on expository writing with him over the years, and to me, I never really thought about using spatial organization when, for example, writing a five paragraph essay about 'Why I enjoy camping'.  Seriously?)

Anyway, lights are flashing in the back window.  I look at Jordan and stupidly ask him, "Me"?  Is he wanting ME?  What did I do?  I couldn't have been speeding, we were just at a stop light!"  I notice the other cars around me, which are all traveling faster than me, so no, I certainly was not speeding.  What the hell?  I start talking out loud to myself, because that is what I do when I am a little freaked out.

"ME?  Why me?  What did I do wrong?  Shit... stupid car get out of my way so I can pull over!  Here?  Should I pull over here?  Is he still behind me?  Did I just say the s-word out loud?" (winning!)

I pull over, put the window down and turn off the car.  And then I turn to look at Jordan and point to the paragraph about spatial organization in his language arts textbook and continue what we were talking about.  Like I said, we were engrossed.  Maybe that was the reason I had committed some horrible traffic violation and wasn't even aware of it.

Finally he approaches the car.  He was the spitting image of this guy:

We are big Jimmy Fallon fans, and so I couldn't help but crack a smile.  He cocks his head to the side and looks into the back of the van to survey things.  "Are they twins?", he asks as he's looking at Owen and Colin in the back seat.  My smile froze.  fuuuuuuuuuck......

(Colin is a chronic unbuckler or even non-buckler.  Half the time when we drive across town, as we unload Colin just casually slips out from his car seat.  I know that he cannot unbuckle the ridiculously notorious red button on the center buckle, so there is no way for him to exit his seat unless he didn't buckle in the first place, the twerp...  I constantly forget to make a point of double-checking before we start driving.  (winning!  again!)  So as the trooper is examining my children, I am afraid to look around and see for myself if Colin is buckled or not)

I try a diversion tactic instead.  "Would you believe they are two years apart?  So, should I pull off over there, instead?"  pointing ahead to where the shoulder is a lot wider, because right now I am in a pretty narrow spot thanks to the stupid car that wouldn't get out of the way.  He tells me no, and asks if I knew that my left rear brake light was out.  "No, really??? I had no idea". (total lie)  "Can I see your license, insurance and registration?"

Dammit.  Now we are going to really be late for tumbling.  I have yet to make it on time for this stupid class.  I hate our schedule....

I comply, after sweating for a few seconds worrying about if I had remembered to switch out the insurance card for the new one.  I continue talking with Jordan, the kids seemed nonplussed that we've been pulled over, (??), and then he comes back, gives me my cards back and a warning ticket about the brake light.  "You get that light fixed as soon as you can, okay?  Drive safe!"  How can I stay safe?  We are all maniacal lunatics just trying to get from point A to point B, on time or as close to it as possible.

I shove Rylan out the van door when we get to point B, and then after class I go in and explain to her teacher that Rylan will be late by 10 minutes every week until the end of November when her Lego team finishes with competition.  She nods in understanding and admits she was late for class too.  "Traffic...it is just impossible to get anywhere on time at this time of day!"

Tell me about it.

The New School Room

The school room is finally finished and ready for sharing!

After negotiating with Dean for some more space, we decided to clear the front room to make a dedicated room for homeschool. (Surprisingly, even after 7 years of homeschooling, we never had a dedicated space to work in. We would either cram around a desk in the office, or the kitchen table, or spread out in the living room... it was never ideal.) Our supplies and books were never all together in the same place. The piano got moved to the living room (sorta sad about that because now that room looks and feels cramped), and Dean and Jordan's maker space was taken down and may be set up again in the basement. It was a problem anyway because the little boys would not leave the tools alone. With the room clear, in the two weeks before my knee surgery I painted the walls like a mad woman, completed an art project, we made a trip to Ikea and we hung up new window treatments. I am so excited with the results!! I have dreamed of this room for years...

Here is the before. This was a golden yellow paint. I loved this color... In the mornings, when the sunrise would light up this side of the house, it would just glow - not in an irritating way..more like a soft glow, like warm baked bread. I remember picking out this paint. I was newly single, and picking out some chairs at LazyBoy. This yellow was used in the showroom in a little family room setting, and I just knew I had to have it. I got the paint (Benjamin Moore), and painted some rooms this color, and chose a softer yellow for other walls. Over the years, it got a bit dingy. Well, a lot dingy. I had also unfortunately used a flat paint, so I couldn't scrub pencil, marker, greasy hand prints or anything else off of it. By painting day, I was overjoyed to see it go. I was also excited that the very ugly brass light fixture that illuminated *nothing* was on its way out the door as well.

Here is the after...

I have True Confessions of a Homeschooler to thank for the inspiration for the desk. Had our bank account been able to take the full hit, we would have done the four separate drawer units as well, but....in using it for the past few weeks as it is right now, I like the airiness of it just being the table, alone. We made the trip to Ikea in late July, making a day of it. We purchased the following items:

2 Linnmon table tops, in white, with soft green trim around the edges
8 Adils table legs, in silver
3 Jules Jr chairs, two in white, one in pink ;)
1 Vilgot Swivel chair, in black, for Jordan
1 KNAPPA pendant lamp, 2 spotlights and the Sanda track

I love the black chair as it is super-comfy. I am buying another one for me, in fact, tomorrow, as we will be driving right by Ikea on our way to a school picnic. The one in the pic is Jordan's, the other three are for the little kids. The table tops are terrific. In the past few weeks they have been subjected to pencil, crayon, acrylic paint, ModPodge, Elmer's Glue and cat puke. It all cleaned up beautifully. Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser is your best friend.

We love the new light. I affectionately call it the Giant Cauliflower. It took some considerable dexterity to put it together, but it puts out a ton of soft light on the work surface below. Here is a pic I took at night... The light looks like it is glaringly bright, but that is just the way the picture turned out - but look at how well it illuminates the entire table! The table measures 5' x 5', so it is a pretty big surface.

This is my pride and joy. I first encountered an alphabet wall very similar to this in our pediatrician's office about three years ago.  Ever since I saw it, I wanted to make one for our home, but there was never the appropriate wall space for it. It does take a serious amount of wall space. When this room came to fruition, I thought it would be the perfect place for it. Most of the letters came from Hobby Lobby, the rest from Michael's, and the plate from Target. It took about three solid days of shopping, designing, painting and so forth to finish it. Some letters were as-is, but most of them were embellished in some way. It was hard to get a good shot of the wall from straight-on because of Giant Cauliflower, but here it is. I think my favorite is the letter "B". It is a fancy box from Michael's that is in the shape of a Book, with Butterflies on it. I painted a wooden letter B, in Black, and glued it on. :)

Alphabet Wall Art

This bookcase was built many years ago, and had been banished to the garage a couple years back. I painted it with a fresh coat of white paint, and it lives to see another day! The math manipulatives, which have  lived forever in two large wicker baskets, are now properly sorted and easy to find in their new containers, from the Container Store. LOVE that place, and they were a nice price, too! The shelf next to it holds three stacks of Calvert teaching manuals, one for each kiddo. The other four shelves hold each kid's pile of school stuff.

And that's it! School is in session, and so far, so good. We had a lot of discussion about personal work habits before pulling this room together. Having one giant table won't work for everybody, as some kids need their space. We addressed the needs and concerns for each kiddo.  No, we don't all sit around this table and slog away in our work for hours and hours until it's done. I think over the past week we maybe spent a grand total of 1 hour all sitting at the same space.  During the day the kids come and go as they rotate turns working with me, and it's nice to have such a large table surface to push some work to the side, and pull another pile closer and spread out. Calvert is especially manual-heavy, so I may be managing four different books at one time - plus the kid's stuff!

Many, many thanks to my husband for putting the tables and chairs together and installing the new lights.  The kids helped with the chairs, each getting a turn putting their own chair together.  I feel very, very fortunate to have this space for us to work in. :)

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