Another very real day

While I was in town last night, I noticed that flood waters are receding in Hopkinsville. Bleachers are once again visible in Trail of Tears Park, and main roads are passable, at least the ones I normally use.

I got groceries last night, and was thrilled to have a manageable total, even after buying Michael's birthday present. And it only took two carts to get it to the truck! Yay!

We were all up by noon today. The dogs went out to enjoy the dry weather, and we have laundry on the line. After several days of rain, it's a nice change. Loren has been working in the kitchen making batches of stew - one for tonight and a couple to freeze. The little ones have been helping him and having a great time. Toby and Lynae are getting laundry and math done, and have earned the privilege of riding their bikes to the post office.

Jon is being Jon. He's working on compound words. He had four to write. One of them had a few mistakes, so I erased it and asked him to rewrite it. Instead, he wet himself (he'd just been sent to the bathroom 30 minutes earlier) and erased the other three as well. He told me since he had to rewrite one, he figured he rewrite them all. Since he hasn't earned the privilege of creating his own assignments, I told him he can rewrite each word 5 times before stopping to eat. That was 20 minutes ago, and so far he's only been poking the apples in the basket in front of him.

I've been at the computer, parenting, and putting out fires. I admire the mothers who can garden, can, cook, sew, clean, scrapbook, etc. while parenting. I can't seem to do any of those things for very long without focusing on them completely. But I can get all sorts of computer work done - and play, too - and still give the kids the help, attention, and supervision they need. So here I sit. It's a temporary phase, but I've done a great job of justifying it, dontcha think? ;-)

9:30 PM update - He's finally done. Praise the living God! That was only a little over 6 hours!

Sorrow and comfort

Comfort came to me from an unusual source tonight. After a heartbreaking incident with the boys which required hammers and nails and rearranging of beds, Loren and the older children each got out a poetry book. They took turns reading poems, and I was touched by Lynae's reading of Longfellow's "Christmas Bells"...

"It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Amen.

And someday the ugly, smelly, bare and trashed room in our house will be restored to a cute little bedroom with wallpaper, curtains, posters, cozy beds and toys and the sweet dreams of children. I doubt we'll be here to see it.

I'm back!

The homeschool meeting went very well, and I've just now recovered. That took an awful lot out of me, but it's so satisfying to see how God is using our dedicated group of leaders this year! We have over 40 member families already, which is what we had last year. The planning for the fall semester is coming together nicely, and I'm confident it will be a good year for PACHEK.

Ironically, the first email I received after returning from the meeting was regarding a new homeschool group in Bemidji. An old contact forwarded it to me - they're doing a survey to find out what homeschoolers in the area would like from a support group. I was invited to add my $.02, so I will probably do that this weekend. I'm thrilled that they will have a real homeschool group up there when we arrive!

Jon turned 7 on Saturday. He received lovely gifts and had a delicious chocolate cake, which Toby decorated in bright colors for him. He tried on a new attitude of snotty ingratitude for the occasion... it didn't fit very well, but we're subtly eliminating it. It was interesting, to say the least!

On Monday, we celebrated our 4 year anniversary with an adoption party. Unfortunately, not many people were able to attend. But we were blessed by the presence of the children's caseworker and a couple of dear friends. I have a feeling that Jon wouldn't have done well with other children that day, so it may be just as well that ours were the only children there. We had a great picnic at the park, with a pinata and special cake.

Tuesday was spent recovering from crashing blood sugar. LOL We cleaned the house and did yard work, and on Wednesday, we got back to some school work. It's good to be back.

Over the weekend, I began suffering from a very uncomfortable staph infection. After a few days of complete misery, I finally got to the doctor and am feeling much better with the help of antibiotics and pain relievers.

I got an amazing amount of stuff done today. I even found out how to resolve a credit report issue which has puzzled us and various bank people for 8 years. I think tonight will be the first night in months that I've gone to bed at a reasonable time (before midnight... heck, before 2am!) and slept through the night. In fact, I've done so much today, I think I will even be able to read a magazine before going to sleep. Wow. I hardly know how to handle that. :-)

Is it August already? Hm.

Maybe I should look at the date on my taskbar clock more often. Right now I'm knee-deep in preparations for our first homeschool meeting on Friday. There are so many details, it seems I'll never be ready. The kids and I did a couple days of boot camp last week, and I actually gave up. LOL So unlike me! I was just exhausted. Pretty much the only school work being done right now is what the children can do without me. The rest of the time they're working hard to help me... except Gracie, who's working hard to look cute enough to get away with whatever she wants. And I'm just distracted enough that it's working.

Jon will be seven this week, too. I have no idea how we'll celebrate. I need to think about what he can handle and what we can reasonably do, and I haven't had a chance to consider either yet. I'm sure that as soon as I pray that prayer, God will have an answer waiting for me. He's good like that.

One of my hermit crabs molted this week. After having read so many nervewracking stories on the internet about molting hermies, I'm pleased that it seems to have been successful. I hope not to find out otherwise when Blink'n emerges after eating his little exoskeleton that would fit on my pinky fingernail. I have another, larger hermie, Sundance, whom I'm hoping will molt and change shells soon. He just doesn't look like he could possibly be happy right now in his too-small, broken shell. Maybe someday I'll post pictures of my hermit crabs with their old and new shells. Some of these old shells are quite pathetic. I don't know who I expect would be interested, but I may do it anyway. Boy, could I tell stories about the secret lives of hermit crabs! They're actually great little pets if you're easily amused. They have crabinalities and everything. I also like them because they're nocturnal, like me. And quiet. Gotta love quiet.

I think I'll go enjoy some quiet with my sleeping husband before he gets up for work in 20 minutes. I admire his willingness to get up at crazy times to go to work. I never hear him complain about it. Then again, I'm usually sound asleep and snoring when he leaves. LOL