2 down!

So yeah, a thing happened last night and it was kind of big.  We attended Matthew's high school graduation ceremony from Ocean Grove.  I started homeschooling Matthew halfway through K when we had issues with a student at the private school he was attending.  We put in what was supposed to be a really good program in our local public school for 1st grade but that didn't work out either so we pulled him out in March after having pulled Chris out in Nov and started using CAVA.

While CAVA was wonderful for Christopher, it was never the right fit for Matthew and we struggled.  Oh god, how we struggled.  There were tears.  There were fights. There were threats of sending him back to public school. He is stubborn despite his generally easy going nature and it took me time to realize that what he needed was a different curriculum that took his interests much more into account.  That's when we went to OG in his 5th grade year.  

Things did improve but that's not to say that there were never fights to get him to do his schoolwork.  He isn't nicknamed Slothboy for no reason.  Inertia is ever a problem with him.  He's freaking smart but he is also lazy and I admit to being distracted by a child who has learning disabilities and another one who has more energy than a nuclear reactor.  So, it's been a long, hard road to get to this point in his life.

But get here we did and tonight was a celebration of a lot of years of very hard work on both our parts.  I demanded (and I think got) his best work.  I was not an easy teacher because I knew how much he was capable of and I wanted to see that with each and every lesson.  It paid off with his being on the school Honor Roll and also being accepted into the National Honor Society. 

I can see the payoff in his college classes to.  When he took his college placement tests as a high school junior, he placed into English 100 (college English).  He has been attending college classes since he was a high school fresheman and currently has a 3.84gpa there. While I frequently have to be a nag to get work from him for his high school classes with me, he is also organized and completely on top of his college classes so the lessons have sunk in.

Now a new chapter is about to begin.  While I love Matthew as a human and my son because he is truly a wonderful human being, incredibly caring and giving, smart, gifted, funny, and I could go on, he has not been an easy student for me.  I'm thankful I had the opportunity to homeschool him because I truly believe it was the best thing for him but it was also a challenge to be his teacher and not destroy our parent/child relationship sometimes.

But we did it!  We have just over a week left in this, our last school year together as teacher and student, and he still sits on my lap and comes to me for hugs and advice.  So yeah, I think we will be ok. 

 And now I just have two more to get through this but after Matthew, I know I can do it.

The 'N' Avenger

You'd think I was a parent of 4 boys or something because dang, even though they are getting bigger and older it seems like I just keep getting busier and busier.  I have so many things that I want to blog about but today, the big one I don't want to lose is the story of the 'N' Avenger.  The background is that I ask Matthew to text me when he leaves or arrives at destinations he is driving to unless I am physically present at that time.  Being Matthew, he rarely sends plain boring "arrived safely" type of texts.  Instead I got the Adventures of the 'N' Avenger for about a month:

Feb 18: If you hear anything about a masked vigilante in a red suit causing havoc on the highway, I want to say it isn't me, I'm at "school".

Feb 18: Made it. Now the naked avenger can strike again!

Feb 19: The named avenger is on his way home, now that he has fulfilled his duty to the city.

Feb 22: The Narrower Avenger is on his way out now.

Feb 22: The Navigation Avenger has arrived at his avenging destination in order to avenge some thing or other.

Feb 22: The Numerator Avenger, having again finish his duties of avenging numbers above the divider in fractions, is on his way to return to home base.

Feb 24: The Notorious Avenger is about to start a day full of avenging while being filmed by the media.

Feb 24: The Negotiating Avenger having avenged both sides to remain even in the situation, is heading home now.

Feb 24: Actually, the Nutritional Avenger wonders what we need from GNC.

No, the Net Neutrality Avenger sent his OMWHN text early like he said he would. He hasn't moved yet.  That is to say, he is still at school, sitting in the parking lot.

Having now collected his groceries in quantities suitable as to not require restocking too soon, the Non-Dairy Avenger now properly makes his way home.

Feb 25: The Nipple Clip Avenger probably shouldn't take his father's suggestions for names.

Feb 25: The Non-Euclidean Geometry Avenger, after having proven that you can make a triangle with three ninety degree angles, will be home shortly.

Feb 28: The Nagging Avenger requests your presence in the second floor battle room! Please!

Feb 29: The Nuisance Avenger wishes to know where he is to meet Kerri.

Mar 7: The nonsensical Avenger is meeting you at the roundabout, yes?

The Non-Newtonian Fluid Avenger would appreciate a slice of combo Costco pizza, please.

The New Age Music Avenger will be waiting at the extraction point, though he is taking heavy fire from the Hipster Resistance.

Mar 9: The Neanderthal Avenger is very glad he recently invented the sweatshirt to keep him warm in the water-fall.

Mar 9: The Nebulous Avenger has orbited over to Piazza's for lunch.

Mar 9: The Nitwit Avenger also needs to fix his pin so he can stop putting lunch on the + card.

Mar 11: The New Drive Avenger would like to inform you about Progressive's New Driver Discount.

Mar 11: The Nitrogen Avenger would like to note that he's about to increase the amount of nitrogen in your local atmosphere by about one percent.

Mar 14: The Ni Avenger is on his way out ni! Er...now, rather.

Mar 14: The Nitrate Avenger isn't entirely certain how to avenge a chemical compound. Um...Carefully?

Mar 14: The Avenger News Reporter, coming to you live from downtown San Mateo, where it appears a man going by the Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Avenger is beating up mimes under the pretense that they are escaped convicts.

Mar 16: The Nirvana Avenger smells both Teen Spirit and JUSTICE!

Mar 16: The Narnia Avenger may have hit a wardrobe on the way over...Whoops!

Mar 16: The Newt Avenger got better! And now is on his way home.

Mar 17: The Nigerian Prince Avenger needs your help smuggling money into your country!


That's where those adventures end but knowing Matthew, there will likely be another post like this at some point when he comes up with something new (or starts spending more time with a dictionary).

Time just keeps on flying by

So I had every intention of at least blogging once a week but after the deaths of Bowie and Rickman, well, my heart just wasn't into it.  We ended up having a movie marathon with Labyrinth, Galaxy Quest, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that weekend in remembrance.

Spending a few days in disbelief put a few things behind a little bit, most especially school and book club reading so I've spent the last week trying to get caught up with those things.  I almost had the book club book done before heading there on Monday night. I did finish it up the next day and I'm getting closer to catching up the rest of the school reading and the other day to day stuff is getting pretty close.

Of course, life goes on and there has been swim team, and acting, and soccer registration days, and swim meets.  We've made no-sew blankets and graded papers, worked on my knitting projects and reading Elfquest (new goal for the year is to get completely caught up with that!), walked many miles and signed up for several virtual races (really really pretty medals!).

Jon made his BB time in the 50Free at the meet earlier this month which meant he was eligible for Zones which is a big deal for a swim meet.  It was his first time going and he improved his time a bit more in the few weeks between the events.  We are super proud of all his hard-work and dedication and knowing it paid off is wonderful. We ended up ordering him the Mavericks team swim parka for all his hard work and part birthday present.

Speaking of birthdays, since it's almost the end of January that means we'v been starting to get ready for Nick's birthday party.  How in the world can my "baby" be two short weeks away from hitting double-digits?  Honestly, that just shouldn't be possible.

Broken things

Well, it's been a week but one that I'm happy is coming to a successful close.  Mark left for NY Sunday morning and apparently that was the universe's wake up call that stuff needed to break around the house.  Monday wasn't so bad. Matthew has his pre-op appointment which ran a little late but then we had to pick up his prescriptions then because he had to start taking the antibiotics the day before his surgery and I didn't want to try to find time for a third trip over the hill this week.  Turns out, that was a good call on my part even if  it almost (but not quite) made us late to swim team.  A HUGE thank you goes out to my friend Cecilia for having Nick over for a playdate while I was with Matthew.

Tuesday the rains hit.  Now don't get me wrong, I love the rain. I love the sound and the smell and what it does for my yard.  What I don't love is our drainage issues.  Our first month in this house we ended up with a lake under the house from the rains when our sump pump went out.  I believe it was a year ago that we bought a new sump pump because the one that came with the house died. Well, that one died on Tuesday. I went outside to check things and found it not working and things obviously needing to be pumped so I called Mark and he talked me through a few repair things that I hadn't already thought of to no avail so Jon and I went out in the rain and figured out a way to assemble the pipe that was out there to allow the backup pump we have to drain into the ditch outside out house.  It wasn't pretty but it got the job done even if it did mean that we had to go out on a regular basis to plug or unplug the pump since it doesn't have an autoswitch.  Now that Mark is home, he took the dead one apart and it's toast so we are buying two new ones so that there is a real back-up to the main one that can easily be swapped in when this happens again and no building drainage in my yard.  LOL

Back on Monday I had seen a message on Freecycle that someone had a lot of free wood to give away.  Considering that our house is all electric with room heaters, we use our woodstove in the living room as our main source of heat during the winter so long as it's not a spare the air day.  This was a great haul and I was happy to get it.  I finally got a hold of the guy and made arrangements to get the wood Wednesday after I dropped kids off at swim team.  However, when I went to start the suburban so I could haul wood it refused to turn over.  Huh, that's weird. Seems like a dead battery. So I tried to jump it with the Cruiser but to no avail. It at least started ticking a bit but it wasn't acting like it was going to start easily so I threw kids in the Cruiser and went. I ended up taking Chris with me and loading up the Cruiser with as much as it would take (Cruiser deserves major kudos for hauling this load around!), came home, threw the wood over the fence and then went to the Homeschool Game Night.  I was transporting extra kids there which ended up working out better than I could have imagined because it meant dropping off the older ones who ordered dinner so everything was out by the time I got back from picking up 4 hungry boys from swim team.  Bonus!  On top of all this, Mark's flight was delayed by several hours so I'm so very, very thankful that I had said I couldn't pick him and my friend Linda had volunteered and was still willing even when his plane didn't get in until 1:30a.  Seriously, I have some of the best friends in the world and I'm not sure I would have gotten through this week with what little sanity I still possess without them.  Thankfully, Mark was able to get the truck started today although it's still not sounding super happy but hopefully whatever is still making it cranky will be a less expensive thing to fix.  Because he is also super wonderful, he took Jon to swim and filled the boot of the suburban with more wood from that pile.  Apparently there is still lots left so I'll be doing the same thing tomorrow.  I'm guessing at some point we will need to actually stack it somehow in our yard rather than just throwing it over the fence but you know, it worked and it was pretty fun to do! LOL

And then there was today.  Up at 5:30a so I could be out of the house by 7a to get Matthew to the oral surgeon.  His orthodontist said he needed all his wisdom teeth out before they erupted and after seeing on the xrays were impacted and there was no room for the others to come in nicely either, I can't argue.  Today was the day and now Matthew may not be broken but I'm guessing he is not exactly going to be my sweet happy boy when he finally awakes from his slumber.  Thankfully they put him completely under for the surgery (although Sleeping Beauty took 2+hrs to wake up after they were done because it's Matthew) so I spent 4 hours sitting in a waiting room trying not to fall asleep.  Once I got him home, he drank a little protein shake, took pain meds and antibiotics, and promptly fell asleep.  Doctor says surgery went well and he should recover nicely so the big thing for the next few days will be keeping him as comfortable as possible.  

So yeah, that's been the week so far.  I have spent the rest of the day mostly chilling because I'm exhausted although I did find the energy to rearrange a few things in the upstairs closets for ease of use that I've been meaning to do for a while.  Also, despite all this stuff going on I've been continuing to track my food and keep the carbs down (nothing short of a miracle considering the serious lack of sleep I've had the past few nights) and been hitting my step goal every day.  Not sure I'm going to hit it today but I'm going to try.  I'm also going to try and get a lot of sleep tonight.  Lots and lots of sleep.  

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

2016 Goals

So I've decided I'm not one for resolutions and I really hate having to decide on them on a specific date so I've been thinking and considering and deciding on my personal goals for this year.  I'm not resolving to do anything but rather putting out my intentions that these are the things that I want to achieve for myself for various reasons.  I also decided I want a written record and since one of them has to do with this blog I will put them here.  So here goes, in no particular order:

• Blog more - I find that I really miss writing my thoughts down so I want to start working to make that more of a habit.  Not trying for daily or anything like that, just simply more than I have the past couple of years (which really, isn't saying a whole lot).
• Reading goals - 120 books, 40 new authors, 40,000 pages.  I have put these on my other blog (which gets way more attention than this one) but I want them here as well. I've been hitting my books read no problem most years, and the same with the new authors (though I spaced and only got 39 last year) but the pages, oh, man, the pages one kills me almost every year.  Going to keep trying though.
• Organization - This is more of an ongoing thing.  I've gotten my desk mostly under control (and even when it's not, it can be again quickly) so finances are also now under control. I'm good with Nick's schoolwork but not as good about Jon and Matt and that is something I really want to change.  Also there are some trouble spots in the house that I would like to focus some attention on and find better ways of dealing with.
• Decluttering - Now that we have been here 3 years, we are finding out more and more what works here and what doesn't.  There are also boxes of things that have still never seen the light of day.  I want to at least go through those boxes and figure out if it's stuff that can stay and where it should live or if it can go.  I also have some boxes of stuff that needs to go on eBay and I'd like to at least start getting that stuff listed and out of the house.
• Movement - Yeah, the dreaded exercise one.  I need to do it and I do for a while and then I fall off again.  I've been pretty good about doing a lot of walking when the weather is good but it's harder when it's not and I can't get out when the kids are at swim.  I'm debating about a gym membership for that but haven't decided fully.  Right now, the task is to find 30min a day (so really an hour with getting ready, doing it, and then showering and such after) of purposeful movement 5 days a week and at least 8,000 total steps/daily.  My two end of year goals are to hit 10,000 daily steps on a regular basis by the end of the year and to do at least 2 planned races of any length (although I'm eyeing doing a 5k and a 10k but we will see which ones catch my eye).  I still would like to do a 1/2 marathon at some point but that's not this year and I'm okay with that.
• Health - Nope, this one is not about losing weight. It's not that I don't know I should or anything like that but rather I don't want that to be my focus.  My focus is on my carb addiction.  That has continued to be my biggest problem area and that is the one I am going to focus on.  I can't go without them, that is simply just not possible.  Nor am I interested in some super restrictive thing like Atkins.  I find that to be unrealistic long-term and more likely to trigger month long binges than anything else.  My goal is to monitor my carb intake through tracking my food on SP, paying less attention to calories consumed and more attention to carbs, fiber, and balance of fats/carbs/protein.  Also, lots and lots of water.  My problem with that has not been drinking sodas (thankfully) but rather just not drinking enough liquid period so I'm tracking that too just to make sure I'm getting enough.
• Being Positive - I feel like I'm generally happy but realistic but I know that I also tend to be anxious and allow certain things to bug me.  I did a #100HappyDays thing on FB last year which I'm still doing 363 days later.  I figured I'd go til I hit a year but now that it's coming up, I haven't decided if I'm going to stop or not.  I kind of like doing it.  All I do know for certain is I want to continue to keep finding positives in each and every day and continue to be grateful for all that I have.  It's too easy to get caught up in all the crazy day to day stuff.
• Crafting - It's hard to get a lot of crafting done while trying to teach kiddos, transport kiddos, read, and everything else but I really enjoy it so my big goal here is to just try and make more time for it.  I've finally finished my cross-stitch that I was working on for years and the Doctor Who scarf that I started in '09, then ripped out and restarted in '13.  Now I've got a movie-accurate Slytherin scarf I've started (I'm taking bets on how long before I switch to size 4 needles from the recommended 2s, and how long to go to garter stitch from the rib) and a hat for Nick with yarn he picked out many, many years ago (and then finding the yarn to make a coordinating scarf).  It's my first hat and I'm only two rows in but the goal is to at least finish the hat this year.  I'm also getting ready to start a new cross-stitch project that is actually for me and not someone else.  Plus I'm working with the boys to do no-sew blankets.

So those are my goals. I'm using Habitica to try and track my to-do lists which it's not fabulous for but also habits that I'm trying to cultivate and daily things which it's definitely better for and it's fun. If you join, let me know so we can defeat monsters together.  I've also got a FitBit now which I'm pretty happy with so if you have one, friend me so we can support each other.

2016?! Seriously?!

I knew I'd sort of abandoned this blog so I decided to check on it and realize that the last time I posted was in Aug 2014.Um, yeah, wow.  Never meant to go that long without posting.  It's not super important or crazy things have been happening around here but still, I do enjoy putting my thoughts down and I'm a bit sad that I let this slide for so long but it's a new day (and a new year) and I'm trying to get a bit more organized and I want to start making this more of a habit again.

So with that, where are we right now:

Nick is now 9 (almost 10) and in 4th grade. He is in swim team and has just been bumped up to Bronze Level from Club. He still plays soccer and roller hockey, is involved with YAW, and is continuing with his piano lessons. He loves hanging out and playing with his brothers and friends and it's a rare break that we don't have extra kids in the house.  He also continues to have more energy than a nuclear reactor and keeps us in a perpetual state of exhaustion.

Jon is now 14 and has spent the last 6+mos telling me how he'll be 15 this year and gets to start learning how to drive. I've spent the same amount of time sticking my fingers in my ears and saying "lalalalalala" really loud to try and ignore this fact.  I have a few more months of that and then I'm pretty sure reality may intervene.  I can't say I'm looking forward to it.  When he isn't reminding me of that, he is usually to be found in the pool as he swims with his team 4xs/wk. He is also enjoying YAW and declares that his freshman year of high school has been waaaaay easier in terms of schoolwork than middle school. We'll see how long he continues to think that high school is a piece of cake. Although, since he is taking Home Ec every year and gets to bake a lot, he may not change his mind.

Matthew is a senior in high school this year and enjoying a slightly easier class load with robotics and digital photography as extra electives to help round out his mandatory English, Econ, and Govt classes that he needs for graduation. He continues to maintain a high gpa in his JC classes as well which helps me to know that he can do the work for others even if I have to struggle constantly to get basic things done for his classes with me.  He loves his music and is still taking piano and guitar lessons which have been going great. He has been doing a lot more creatively with his guitar and writing his own songs for it which has been marvelous.

Christopher completed his AS studies in Accounting and took some extra Accounting courses at the JC. He is now working on becoming a Certified Public Bookkeeper while he is still working at the local UPS store.  He has been there for about 16mos now and has learned a lot. In his spare time, he lives in front of his computer playing lots of video games or is at the blood donation center so we can sell his blood for movie tickets. It's a good trade-off.

Mark is still with Yingli Americas.  There has been some turmoil with the company so we are not sure what this year will bring in terms of his job situation but at this point we are almost out of debt other than the house and a little credit card with plenty of advance warning so it's a much better situation than we have been in previously.  When not at work, he is either researching political stuff, playing Puzzles & Dragons (an addiction we all share although his is by far the worst), or brewing beer.  That last has continued to make messes in the garage and take up tons of space but it keeps him happy. LOL

As for me, life has been going along.  Lots of cleaning, lots of teaching, LOTS of driving kids to activities. I seriously spend an insane amount of time either in the car or sitting around waiting while they do their stuff.  I read a lot and actually managed to finish up Nick's birth announcement that I started back when he was 2 or 3 (I think) and the Doctor Who scarf I started first back in '09 and then ripped out and restarted 3 years ago so those were great accomplishments this last year.  I am also still volunteering with our local AYSO as registrar because I'm apparently still too dumb to say no to friends.

So there's a brief catch-up. Now to keep writing!