We didn’t have any extra meetings or anything like that on Sunday, so Frank and I actually got a nap! That was nice for a change. We had Evan with us still—he went home late Monday evening. He mentioned on Sunday afternoon that he was feeling a little homesick, so I decided to call his mom so he could talk to her. I’m not sure that was a good idea, although I’m sure he was grateful to talk to her—when he heard her voice he started to cry! I should have thought of that. But after he got off the phone he cheered up pretty quickly and he seemed fine the rest of the time he was with us.
Frank’s back was doing much better on Sunday until he twisted around really fast to catch the dishwasher door before it hit the floor (the springs are broken, and Evan forgot that he couldn’t just let it go.) That really didn’t help his back at all, and he was in quite a bit of pain the rest of the evening, but by Monday he was doing much better, thankfully.
Monday was pretty uneventful except for the complete melt-down that Jared had that evening which resulted in his getting sent to his room and missing family night. He is usually pretty good, but he can be very stubborn! The rest of us enjoyed playing a game—it was Jared’s turn to pick the activity, so we just let Evan pick what game he wanted to play instead.
Frank went to work as usual on Tuesday morning, but instead of coming home he left from there to drive down to North Carolina. He went down there to attend the funeral of a close family friend who passed away last Friday. This man (Brother Harris) has boys near Frank’s age, so Frank spent a lot of time in his home while he was growing up, and he was like another father for Frank. He did some work for him at times, and Brother Harris even helped pay for Frank to go to college his first semester. So Frank is very grateful to him for that (so am I)! Brother Harris had diabetes and had been in very poor health for many years, so it wasn’t a shock, but of course we are sorry.
Of course, it was nice for Frank to visit a little bit with his family and a lot of old friends as well. It would have been nice for all of us to go, but Jared and Tanner both had state testing this week at school and even if they hadn’t, I’m not willing to take Tanner out of school for anything right now since he is still getting caught up! He has brought his grade in science up to a “B” now, and he has a high “C” in math. Unfortunately, he is probably stuck with a “D” in social studies because they rotate that class with science, and he is off the social studies rotation until the end of the term, so there is no way to bring his grade up any further. There is one assignment, though, that his teacher said she would excuse him from doing and there is still a “zero” on his grade sheet for that, so maybe when she fixes that his grade will go up a little (it was a pretty big assignment worth a lot of points.)
Since Frank was by himself, he made really good time getting to North Carolina and back, and he was able to take the Prius, which means he got almost all the way there on one tank of gas—nice! Maybe we will all get to go down later this summer, but it’s not looking all that good right now with all the other expenses that keep coming up. So far, though, I would have to say we’ve been very lucky that the struggling economy has not affected us very much. We know a lot of people who haven’t been so lucky.
Because of the testing, the boys have not had a lot of homework this week which has been nice for a change! Tanner has been working on his science fair project, though. We went early to scouts on Wednesday so that we could meet another family there and have them do his chocolate taste test. We went to another family on Thursday evening to do the same thing. (Frank also looked at one of their computers for them and discovered that they have a virus which is going to take some time to fix.)
My friend Jeanine came to visit with me most of the day on Thursday—that was nice for me! We had a nice, long talk. I was up early that day, and it’s a good thing because I ended up taking Scott to Seminary—his ride didn’t show up. It turned out to be a mix-up—the girl who usually picks him up thought he was riding with someone else. He got breakfast at Seminary that morning—they had some kind of competition between the boys and the girls, the boys won, and the girls had to cook breakfast for the boys.
Friday was the first day of spring, but it wasn’t very spring-like. It was raw and cold! We do have some flowers coming up, though.
I also couldn’t resist buying some pansies this week—they are one of my favorite flowers! I love how they come in so many beautiful colors!
Frank also brought home a bit of spring cheer—these pretty yellow tulips.
A lady he works with gave some to everyone to celebrate the first day of spring.
We had pack meeting on Friday evening. A lot of people couldn’t make it, but we still had a pretty decent turn out, and I think everyone had fun. I knew Jared was getting the Family Member activity badge, because I helped him do it at home. I was surprised, however, (pleasantly so) when he received 4 more activity badges: Engineer, Craftsman, Handyman, and Readyman. His Webolos leader must have done those with him. No complaints from me!
Today has been a lot busier than the rest of the week. Scott had a basketball game at 8:00 am. It was the last one of the season. As usual, his team lost their game. If they had won, they would have had more games throughout the day. I have to admit I’m kind of glad they didn’t win! Scott wasn’t too disappointed. I think he has learned a lot this season and improved in his skills so it was definitely worthwhile.
After Scott got back home, I worked on scouts with each of the boys. I finished up the Personal Management merit badge with Tanner (Scott already finished), and we worked on the Reading merit badge with both of them (they are both almost finished with that, also.) With Jared, I finished up the Scholar activity badge. It’s nice to feel like each of the boys is making some progress with scouts.
Frank and I did some furniture shopping after that. We are still looking for some couches. So far, we just haven’t found anything we really like. A lot of things we’ve seen are “ok”, but we just haven’t seen anything we can get really excited about. We will keep looking.
We rushed home from shopping so that Scott and I could go get our eyes checked. I finally have a new pair of contact lenses, after wearing the same pair for nearly 9 years! (The old ones were not the disposable kind, but they still probably should have been replaced after about 2 years.) I can see a lot better now. My astigmatism has gotten quite a bit more pronounced, so I am trying a toric lens. It seems to really be helping. I go back next week to get checked again to make sure the lenses I have are really the right ones for me. Scott also has new contact lenses (his prescription changed quite a bit) and we ordered new lenses for his glasses, but he will keep the same frames. I will probably do the same, but we are waiting to order the lenses until we make sure I have the correct prescription. (I would like to get new frames, but since I don’t wear my glasses very much I am deciding to forego the expense.) The good news is, I discovered that our new vision insurance is better than I thought, so we came in under budget. Then a few hours after we got back, Tanner came inside from playing basketball outside with one of the arms of his glasses snapped in two! We were planning to get his eyes checked soon anyway, but I was hoping to keep his frames and replace the lenses only since we are also going to let him try contact lenses. Now we’ll have to get new frames also. Rats! They are doing vision screening at Tanner and Jared’s school this week, so I decided to wait and get the results of that before I scheduled exams for them. I am fairly certain that Tanner will need a new prescription, but I don’t know about Jared. He was just checked last year, but he’s been having lots of headaches, so that makes me suspect he probably needs new glasses also.
The spring cleaning bug is biting me hard! This afternoon Frank and I did a little bit of cleaning and organizing in the basement. There is still a lot to do, but we did make some progress. We threw out a decent sized pile of stuff, and we have 3 or 4 large trash bags full of things to give away (mostly clothes), as well as a bunch of cardboard and plastic buckets to recycle. Most of the clothes I went through were baby / toddler clothes. We found a box of clothes that I’ve been looking for—it included all the shirts Mom made for the older 3 boys, so now Seth has lots of cute new shirts to wear (and will for many years!) I dislike the clothes sorting routine, but we have to go through it at least twice a year as the seasons change. I still have a lot to do in that area since I haven’t done anything with the older boys’ clothes yet. Our neighbor is also spring cleaning, and she gave us a dresser that we are going to give to Tanner since he is still using a couple of plastic drawer sets.
This evening I continued my “cleaning frenzy” by scrubbing all my floors on my hands and knees. I never did get around to cleaning them last week, so I was “doing penance”! They look much better now although they never do look very nice—they are just too old. I will be glad when I can replace them someday—with something that is NOT white!
Didn't it make you tired just reading all that?!
Seth fell down the front steps on Wednesday morning, so his nose is looking pretty beat up right now. (It looks even worse than in the picture now because it has scabbed up more.) I think all of the boys have fallen down those steps and scraped their noses at some point. I will have to track down the picture I have of Tanner after he took a nose dive off those steps. If I find it, I will post it later!
Seth is talking a lot and surprises me sometimes with the things he says. Sometimes when I go in to pick him up in the morning he fusses a little and pulls at his pajama bottoms and says “diaper”, so I change him. One morning his week he looked at me and said “diaper change”. I changed him, and he was messy. I suspect that if he had just been wet he wouldn’t have cared, but it’s a step in the right direction, anyway. Since I am a “veteran” parent, I am not fooled into thinking that he is ready to be potty trained! (He’s not even two yet.) But it’s nice to see him taking steps in the right direction, at least. Seth really likes I Spy books, so this week I put in one of the I Spy computer games for him to see. He has not learned how to use the mouse or get around the program yet (I’m sure that will happen all too soon!) but he enjoys watching me do it. Seth has a pretty yucky runny nose right now (that started on Wednesday) but doesn’t seem to have any other symptoms of illness other than he’s been a bit crabbier than usual.
I have spent quite a bit of time this week reading The Grapes of Wrath, which is my book for book club this month. I read it in high school, but that was a long time ago! I didn’t remember much about it, except that there was a lot of foul language. I was right about that—it’s even worse than I remembered and after the first couple of chapters I wasn’t so sure I wanted to read it again. But I persevered and it calms down a bit after the first few chapters (or else I just got “de-sensitized” to it—I’m not sure which) and it really is an interesting (although depressing) story that is masterfully written. I don’t think I appreciated that part of it so much the first time I read it. It’s interesting to read about that part of history (the “dust bowl”) in light of all the things happening with the economy now. Once again, it helps me to feel grateful for what I have. I hope days like those aren’t coming again.
Well, I guess there was more to say than I thought! I’d better quit rambling and get to bed!
1 comment:
Your flowers look great! You are an amazing mom! I can't believe all you get done! I went through Taran and Timo's clothes this week--Timo has grown so I had 2 large bags worth! Spring definitely brings on feelings of rebirth and renewal!
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