Weekly Review June 29 '18

Let's start with a health update. I'm doing a lot better than I was last week. However, I'm not completely better yet, which is a surprise to me. I thought I'd be 100% healthy by now. I took it easy Saturday and Sunday. I went to church just long enough to take the sacrament, mainly because I was still coughing a lot and still had slightly red eyes, and I didn't want to share my germs. (I was pretty tired by the time I got home, though.) By Monday I was back to doing most of the things I usually do, and I have continued to do that all week, but I still don't feel great. Earlier in the week I still had a nasty cough and one night I ended up sleeping on the couch because I didn't want to keep Frank awake with my coughing. The cough has mostly gone away now, which I am grateful for. My eyes have continued to improve every day also and yesterday they were almost back to normal--so much so that I didn't even have to "unglue" my eyelashes in the morning. However, late yesterday I noticed they were getting "cloudy" again and they got a little red. They are still like that, so my eyes have had a bit of a relapse. Other than that, I feel pretty well except that earlier in the week my sore throat came back and it still hasn't gone away. It was really bothering me on Wednesday night, but it is still pretty sore today. No fever, though, and in general I am not as tired and mostly feel okay. I also am not very congested anymore, so that's nice. So hopefully my sore throat and goopy eyes will go away soon.

Meanwhile, Jared wasn't feeling really great on Sunday. He still went to work at Chick fil a on Monday as usual, but by the time he got home from work he had almost completely lost his voice and he wasn't feeling well at all. He was supposed to work at both the Keys and Chick fil a every day this week, but he had to call in sick for the rest of the week. He is scheduled to work at the Keys tomorrow evening and he will probably do that because he is feeling quite a bit better now, but he has definitely had the same illness that I have had (although I didn't lose my voice like he did). I'm just glad that he is getting better quicker than I have. On Tuesday when he woke up his eyes were slightly red and goopy. Fortunately, they never got as bad as mine did. But he has had a lot of congestion and a cough and headache and general body aches. Yesterday his voice came back, though, and he said he was starting to feel better. (He could only whisper for a couple of days!) He still has a pretty nasty cough, though, so not the best thing when you are working with food!

Anyway, enough of all that. The good news is, Seth and Frank have escaped catching the same thing--at least so far. Hopefully they will never catch it. I guess I'm not going to do a daily update for this week. I don't think there is much to say anyway. As I mentioned, I took it easy on Saturday and Sunday. I didn't make it to our self reliance group meeting on Saturday, but we had another one on Wednesday evening and I did go to that one. We only have one more meeting. Between all the different vacation schedules, we won't all be in town at the same time for the rest of the summer! But we are going to keep in touch with emails and text messages to continue to support each other through the rest of the summer. On Saturday they finished the last of the 10 chapters in the book, as well as going over 2 foundational principles. Then on Wednesday we went over 4 more of the foundational principles. We will have one more meeting the week after next to finish up the last four foundational principles. Our meeting on Wednesday actually went really well. We had a great discussion, and everyone mentioned what a great program this is, how much it has helped them, and how inspired it is. So even though we aren't going to be able to complete the program as it is intended to be done, I think it has still been very helpful for all the participants.

I finished reading The Phantom of the Opera on Saturday. I really enjoyed it. Then, of course, I had to watch the movie again! I'd forgotten how good it is. I missed choir practice and a song performance on Sunday; I was sad about that. I could not have sung, though. Not much of a voice, and I probably would have had a coughing fit in the middle of the song! I did go to church a little bit early to meet with the lady who is in charge of Cub Scout day camp because I have been working on the records for that and she wanted to go over a couple of things. I need to tweak them a bit, but I am mostly done with them.

I did better with supervising Seth this week and he didn't rot his brains on TV and video games all week. He still got some screen time every day, but only a few hours. He had to eat breakfast, take a shower, and help me with chores each day before he could have his screen time. He spent more time staring at a screen than I would have liked, but that is because Jared was home and not feeling well enough to do much besides watch TV and play video games, so he spent a lot of time watching Jared play. But he actually didn't have a lot of screen time of his own. He has played with Legos some and he has been reading a lot. I decided that we should do our reading together in the mornings also and that has worked out well. We are almost through reading The House of Hades. I didn't remember to give Seth his medicine every day this week and I have really been noticing the difference between when he is medicated and when he is not. He can certainly be more of a challenge when he is not medicated, but he is also happy, creative, and funny when he is his true self. I don't like how subdued he gets when he is on his medication although of course it is definitely helpful when I need him to focus and get something done. On Tuesday he was helping me clean bathrooms and he was actually having fun some of the time. I assigned him to clean the walls of the shower and the tub, and as he was splashing water on the walls to rinse them off, I could hear him saying "And here comes another cleaning tidal wave!!!" Later on he said to me "Mom, if there were a town called Cleanington, the statue of the founder would look like this.":

Who knew cleaning bathrooms could be so fun?

Frank had a very busy week with his business. He has been gone a lot of the day every day doing work for clients. That's good, since it means income coming in. He says in between he has been applying for jobs still. He has an interview tomorrow but so far nothing else has yielded much fruit yet. He hasn't had much time to work on his office at all and since a lot of the work he's been doing for clients has involved buying new computers and setting them up, the basement is still a disaster and now there are several extra empty boxes stacked up down there. It's starting to look like a warehouse. Hopefully he will have a little more time to work on his office this week.

I was able to make it to den meeting this week. We had to hold it somewhere besides the church because it was an election day here and the church was being used as a polling place. We had den meeting at the other den leader's house but only two of the boys were able to come. (Usually, we only have four.) They decorated cups for displaying little American flags and we made (and ate!) two nutritious snacks.

I ran a lot of errands this week; a lot of them yesterday. Seth had some library books due so on Monday Frank and I took him to the library. There is a new one in Walkersville, so we went to that one. I took Jared to the doctor yesterday, mostly so he could get a note for returning to work. The doctor also confirmed that he has the same thing as me--not strep, a virus. Apparently it's been going around. Yesterday I also went to the vet to pick up more medicine for Snickers (he's on a liver support medication for the rest of his life) and I took Seth to pick up his new glasses. (Frank took him to the eye doctor last week; I probably forgot to mention that.) The glasses were actually ready for pick up on Monday but I kept forgetting to go get them. He picked them out himself and they probably wouldn't have been my first choice but I actually think they look pretty good on him.

(He loves this iguana puppet that they have at the eye doctor.)

I also picked up prescriptions for Frank and made way too many trips to the store because we kept forgetting things.

To our surprise, the new radiator for my car came in on Friday and they got it fixed on Friday too so we were able to get my car back late on Friday. We ended up taking it back in on Tuesday because some fluid was leaking and they had to replace one of the clips that holds the radiator in place. In between when we dropped it off in the morning and when they finished with it, Frank had to make an emergency trip to a client's, so I didn't have a car. My friend Marinda came and picked me up and took me to the car repair shop so that I could get my car.

I went to religion class on Wednesday and I enjoyed doing that again although I kind of sat in a corner away from other people since I didn't want to get anyone sick. Frank took Seth to the dentist for a check up / cleaning that day. Jared and I were both supposed to go too but we had to postpone our appointments because we were sick. They didn't want us in their office with our symptoms! Unfortunately, they are really booked so I had to reschedule my appointment for the end of September! Jared will be back at college by then so he doesn't have an appointment at all now. However, they are putting both of us on a list and will call us if there are any cancellations. Hopefully Jared can get in before he leaves and hopefully we will both get in before the end of July, because that is when our insurance coverage ends (unless we decide to do Cobra).

I think that is mostly what we did this week. Along with all the regular chores, that kept me very busy. I didn't feel up to exercising yet but I will try to start doing that again next week. I did start practicing the ukulele again and I have enjoyed that. I also finished reading the book about brain balance (the thing that I'm hoping is going to help Seth with his ADHD). I still need to finish a couple of assessments with him. Right now I am keeping a diary of all the things he eats every day and noting his behavior because according to the book, many kids with ADHD also have food sensitivities which can affect their behavior. I have to do this for 7-10 days. Then we are supposed to eliminate anything from his diet that seems to trigger bad behavior, as well as several other things that are common problems--including gluten, soy, eggs, and dairy products! I'm not sure what he would eat, honestly. We're supposed to do that for at least 4 weeks. I'm willing to give it a try, but I'm definitely not going to be doing that while we are on vacation, so it's going to have to wait until we get back.

Today we had Seth's friend Tate over to play for a lot of the day. He is my friend Marinda's son (remember she took me to pick up my car earlier this week?) They are moving tomorrow to Louisiana. (They are a military family; they moved here 2 years ago and they were supposed to be here 3 or 4 years but sadly their time here got cut short.) The movers came and took all their stuff on Wednesday and they have been "camping out" at their house without much entertainment, so I offered to have Tate come over today since I'm sure he's been pretty bored! Seth enjoyed having him over and they played together very nicely. He is a sweet boy who never causes any trouble. When his family came to pick him up this afternoon, we had to say our goodbyes. They are a great family and we will really miss them! I'm sure we will keep in touch, though.

I also got my hair done this afternoon. The lady who cuts my hair said a lot of her customers have come in complaining that they have been sick for a couple of weeks with symptoms like mine, so I guess something is going around.

That is really everything I have to say this week!