Week of 26 March

It’s been a while since a week has gone by without being documented on the blog. That fact alone tells a story. We’ve been busy. It’s been a good busy. I’ll try to upload pictures from the week later today.

Sunday – 26 March – The day began with our typical Sunday activities. Mike did a great job leading us in a discussion of Phil. 2 in RE (Religious Education). I’m really enjoying these books (New Inductive Study Series) in an RE setting. They require “some” prior homework and thinking on the subject; but they don’t seem to overwhelm folks as a Precept upon Precept course does. The discussions have been fun. This is the first time that most (if not all) in the class have done any inductive study. It’s been a good “break in”.

We were so impressed with how Jill, our RE director, is supporting us with Zander’s class and their treats. They all had FG approved snacks and seemed none the worse for it. We did have to cut doughnut hour short when Mike and the boys didn’t know where the “approved” treats were for Zander (in my hand)….but all in all it was a good day for him at church.

We sponsored an “old fashioned picnic” for the youth out at the lake later Sunday afternoon. Jill actually did all the work and we simply provided man-power. It was a fun day. I continued to work on notes for the Spiritual Gift Seminar in the evening.

Monday 27 Mar - Our very first SAGE co-op pick up day with Shop Natural out of Tucson, AZ. It went incredibly well. We weren’t sure how it would work to meet the truck but it was great. The driver was in the parking lot of a local church earlier than he told us. There was only one car ahead of us when we arrived, so we had virtually no wait time. All of our items were in. Adrienne and her sons Cian and Jordan came to help load things into our home and to show us how to invoice items. Most everyone showed up when expected to pick up their items…basically worked like a charm and was fun to boot. {G} Most of these women have been part of a working co-op where everyone met the truck at a church, invoiced and sorted together. We can’t have the driver move to an alternate location unless we have over $700 of sales. I’m not sure we’ll consistently be there. We were over that this time…but I’d rather continue to meet the truck and ferry the stuff to our home than not be able to order one month because we are under $700. We’ll have to see if we continue to be over $700 each month. We are also considering how we want to do this. If we meet at a church it will require significantly more time for me to be away from the family. By doing it at home I only had to leave the kids for 20 minutes while we picked our order up. Everyone (from our 4 yo – adults) helped bring boxes and bags into the house. All the older ones helped invoice and sort. We like family projects and we may want to keep it as a family service project as long as we can handle the volume. It’s only once a month. Ladies were still able to visit and socialize when they picked up and it was fun to have them in our home. We had two men show up and I was glad that Mike had someone to talk to. {g} We’ll see.

Tuesday – Mar 28 - School. More prep for Gifts workshop. Speech therapy. Baking…10 of us met for the workshop. It was “ok but not excellent”. That’s my assessment. I’ve been told that my assessments are always harder on myself than others would be….but that’s a good thing. I’m not depressed that it wasn’t “excellent” – I’m only noting what I’d do differently. Everyone did have a good time. We served smoothies and wholesome banana muffins.

Wednesday – Mar 29 - I finished up April’s PWOC newsletter so it can be printed and passed out on Sunday. We decided we’d earned an afternoon of play at the park so the kids and I met Adrienne and family at the local park. It was a great day for the park. We’d had a thunder-storm the night before and most seemed to think it would be too wet for the park…but it was wonderful. It was cooler than usual and unpopulated. The kids have seemed to move from big light saber wars to bike riding. This park has a sidewalk track that circles the park area….nice for walking and bike-riding. Nolan is ready to have his training wheels removed…hope to get that done for him soon. We KNEW it would only take some motivation (provided by Jordan and Coby getting bikes and learning to ride and Nolan wanting to keep up with them) and some practice.

While at the park I fell again. I was holding Stacia. We were showing another lady my sling. She had wanted to try it and so I gave her mine, Adrienne was showing her how to put it on and I walked across the pavilion and plopped myself down on the concrete bench. The drawback to my plan is that I’d forgotten the middle section of the bench is not there – it’s a wheel chair access. I hit the back of my head really hard on the edge of the concrete table as I went down to the concrete ground. Thank GOD that Stacia only hit her cheek on the table and that I was able to hold on to her and she landed on top of me. I hit my head hard enough that a lady across the park heard it. I felt like I’d scrambled my brain…the first night I had a splitting headache, dizzy, nauseous….

Jared, Arielle and Nolan went to Christian Church for the kids’ program. They are doing a VBS for the next six Wed nights. They really enjoyed it. Adrienne’s boys had invited them to attend. Josiah dropped them off and Adrienne brought them home. Mike worked late and I nursed my headache.

Thursday 30 Mar – My head continued to ache but other symptoms lessened. We had speech. We took Jared, Arielle, Zander & Stacia with us to speech so that we could go spend some time in the park. There were a ton of folks there from our local homeschool group as we got there a bit earlier than we usually do. We were able to visit with them. I found that without Adrienne at the park I need to do more hands on playing with Zander. When she and her family are there Zander has two or three buddies to play with and I can visit with the Moms. Ah well – the point of the day was to let the little ones run off energy and for me to nurse my headache…not to visit. I did meet a “mentor mom” that I’ve been hearing about for weeks. She told me that she is pregnant with her 9th. I also met another family new to the area. It’s always fun to reach out to new folks.

Mike worked late again on this night, but the evening went quickly as Krista and BreAnne called. Jamin and I also took all the kids on a bike ride /walk. Josiah worked too.

Friday – 31 Mar – PRODUCE DAY! Every two weeks we get $100 - $150 worth of produce. This is always a fun day – there are usually a couple of surprises too. It’s much more fun than driving to the grocery store. The truck was an hour late on Friday…but that gave more time for me to get to know new women. I was sad that my two cases of apples were very bruised…but I have crock pot applesauce cooking as I type and plan to begin Stacia on apples this week. The rest of the family probably won’t eat it – and I’m missing BreAnne who was our lone applesauce eater. {G}I planned to make a lot of dehydrated apple chips anyway and these will be great for that. The other produce all looked very good and the house has a lovely “produce” smell to it.

This was Mike’s day off but he spent quite a few hours at work. He got home at about 3:30 and we went out to buy milk and pick up some FG approved pizza for dinner. My head is still hurting. Mike worked on filing our AK PFD’s (dividend from oil money) online. I had to come and do my own as I had to hack into my old account. Who would have guessed I’d learned enough to figure out how to get into an old account. {g} We aren’t sure we’ll be able to get our PFD’s while we are down here. It looks like there have been some changes to the program. Ah well – that led to dreaming about how long it will be before we can move back “home”. The kids got out the big screen and projector and watched *Chicken Run* while we worked on PFD’s. I gave up and went to bed with my aching head. Mike woke me up at 2 a.m. getting into bed (he had a day that required some decompressing). I found myself thinking of a couple of friends who are going through deep trials and praying for them and that led to me being wide awake. I decided to update the blog now so that I won’t continue to feel “behind”.

Oh yes, discovered a strange thing in the bathroom and called the exterminator who had sprayed for termites in June. Yep, termites. That is really common down here…but we’ll need to keep on top of it. He sprayed some stuff in and puttied the whole they’d made and we are to continue to watch it. He told me that yesterday was the first day of the year that he’d seen the termites swarming (yards, streets) and that it is common this time of the year. The things we learn as we travel from location to location.

Misc –
~Arielle has proven herself to be the “keeper of the eggs” and faithfully remembers to turn the quail eggs.

~I discover that having big sisters away from home can be a huge support to a mom in the trenches. Just a word of encouragement from them and wowee did one of my little one’s attitude change. I never guessed I was raising my own support system all those years ago. {bg}

~We finished week 27 of school. We all feel the need for a spring break and are looking forward to our camping trip where there will be no “school” (but probably lots of learning) and Mike and Josiah won’t be working.

~We have completed week 6 of Feingold. I spent some time reflecting on the changes we’ve seen in our home in the past 6 weeks. The most obvious ones are in Zander…but we’ve all changed our eating habits. Josiah and Jamin (instigators of the Great Bacon Revolt) have made my week by commenting on the changes THEY see in Zander.

~ My thumb has healed remarkably quickly. It’s a bit funky looking but doing great. Still numb but that may take a long time to mend itself…and it still hurts when touched but I’m no longer wearing the huge covering and it does have some sort of skin over the whole area.

That’s the week…..pictures later. I know more happened but I can’t remember at this time in the morning. Just realized it's April Fool's day....now what can I do to take advantage of the day????