A Day in the Life

9:54 AM - All sorts of stuff leaving my possession this week. LOVE IT! I have so much more to go through but it's a start and the money sure helps out right now, too.

2:54 PM - Books cleaned up and moved around and I'm ready to have visitors. I hope they leave with more books than already requested. 

$55! Food money! Yay!

4:04 PM - I just remembered that I haven't eaten yet today. Yikes. Going to make myself an omelet. I was just gone this morning and when I got home I had to spend every moment cleaning up and getting all of the books ready for visitors. I completely forgot I was hungry until just now.

6:32 PM - I still have tons of stuff to take to the curriculum book sale in June. I'd just love to unload a bit more of it before then. Cause it's a lot and a lot of books tend to get heavy, you know.

One Foot In Front of the Other

We're going through some pretty tough financial times here right now.  At the beginning of September, I started donating blood plasma again for money.  We had no money for food, after paying bills, and very few groceries in the house, so off I went to the quickest place I knew to bring in extra cash.  The first 5 donations in the first 21 days paid $50 each, so that was extremely helpful.  Now I make $60 a week doing it, donating twice a week.  At this current moment, I have $2 left in my bank account, $20 on my plasma card from my donation on Wednesday, and a small bit of cash in my wallet for any tiny necessity that might come up.  And I had a friend who just yesterday insist that she let me allow her to pay-it-forward to me and is dropping a little extra in the mail for me tomorrow.  My pride says no, but who am I to say no to her spirit-led and heartfelt gift?  Abundance comes in ALL forms.

I think Dodger has an invoice to deliver and will get paid again on Monday.  Due to some issues with the kitchen cabinet job he started back in June (the clear coat aged and discolored the paint) he had to spend time doing extra work for free.  That time also set him back on other jobs he needed to get to, paying jobs.  So things bottle-necked and just kept getting tighter and tighter until the money was just barely trickling in.  But I haven't been late on a bill yet or not able to pay and that's a huge blessing.

But in the midst of this, I made a pretty big decision about my goals for the future and I finally realized what I want to passionately pursue as a career.  I've been feeling the pull towards finding my path for awhile now but it hit full force recently because this is Dancer's last year homeschooling and I really need to put my focus on me now and work towards making a better life for my family.  But the pudding needs to proof before I can or will divulge any details.  Don't ask, I won't tell.

Also, making the big decision above also led to a few other discoveries.  I've found a non-trivial reason to focus on my healthy eating, exercise, and weight-loss goals.  With that came being ok to only do workouts that I love, which happen to be Tae Bo and kickboxing style workouts.  I truly don't care what the "experts" say, if I don't love what I'm doing it's not going to happen.

My upper back issue between my shoulder-blades has flared up recently.  Here's what I think I have, Snapping Scapula Syndrome, and it's extremely painful, so I think it's an inflamed bursa caused by the rubbing.  I really should try to see a doctor about it while we still have medical coverage.  I'm certain it's the stress that's causing the flare up.  I still work on staying in good spirits, though.  How I view my current circumstances at any point is still my choice.

So, life moves on.  I continue to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.  When the going gets tough, the tough get going.  I'm learning that lesson now more than ever before.  I've got a fire in my belly because I finally found what I'm passionate about and I am in the process of making the plans to make a career in that happen for me.  There is hard work ahead of me... some very hard work... but realizing a dream then making it a goal and planning it out down to the small details makes that hard work become efficient and doable in small steps.

The Past Two Months In As Few Words As Possible

Let's see if I can summarize the past two months of my life into a post that isn't miles long so that I can feel ok with getting back to regular blogging.  Those two months happened and I can't feel ok with just letting them slip by without saying something.

So...

At the beginning of June, I helped Dodger with a job for 10 days.  It was nice to get to spend that time with him.  We finished listening to Robinson Crusoe via Librivox on an iPad app (we started it way back last August on the FL job).

Here are a few pictures.

Entertainment center (before).
The primer didn't stick so we had to sand the entire thing! Ugh!

Entertainment center (primed).

Entertainment center (after).

Kitchen (during). I, unfortunately, didn't take any before pictures.
Everything was an ugly off-whitish faux finish before painting.

Bottom part. My job.
Screwed up my wrist and forearm doing this job. It still hasn't healed.

Lovely brown.

During that time, Dancer had summer dance lessons, tennis lessons, and dance company practice.  So, many days I was helping Dodger, then running home to take her to her things, then going back to help him when they were done.  She even helped us on the job, the last day we were there, after one of her practices.  (He is, by the way, still working on this job as of 8/3.  There have been unforeseen issues with the top cabinets and the "clear" coat that was put on them to protect them.)

All of the doors got put in the trunk of my car and brought home so we could work on them here instead of taking up space in the clients garage.  So I got my garage cleaned up even more so that there would be space to lay them all out while they dried.

The rest of June and the first part of July was filled with more of running Dancer around to her classes and dance company performances.  During the summer, her dance company performs for daycares in the area.  The kids really seem to enjoy seeing them dance.  There is, on rare occasion, one little boy or girl who's just not into it but for the most part I think they all have a good time.

Dancer has also been helping my mom and step-dad fix up the house they just bought.  So many of her weekends have been filled up with that.  She also been golfing with my dad on the weekends, too.

Towards the end of July, Dancer turned 17.  She had a bowling party at Spare Time Lanes on one weekend, thrown by my mom and step-dad.  She chose a bowling party this year because it's always so darn hot on her birthday and she wanted something inside and something for everyone to do.  My dad got her a bowling ball as an early birthday present, so that she could have it and use it at her party.  Then the next weekend, we had a birthday party for her at my dad's place.

 

She also had math club on Tuesday afternoons a few times in July (we still have one more scheduled this Tuesday).  Math isn't her favorite thing but I asked her to do it for a few reasons.  1. it was helping out another homeschooling mom who is using a specific program for this and is doing it to test it out and give feedback to the creators of the program.  2. she hasn't seen this group of friends since Halloween and that's just crazy because they all get along so well.  3. she needs to get out of her comfort zone and better to do it amongst friends.

Right now we're on a break from activities until dance starts again in a few weeks and tennis should start up again soon, too.  I've only had to leave the house to grocery shop or run to the back and that's been really nice.

Dancer is going golfing with my dad this afternoon.  I cleaned up the pile of books and folders that were on my recliner a few days ago but now it's filled with a stack of fabric, so I think I'm going to set up the sewing machines and do some sewing this afternoon.  I've got some clothing repairs to do and fabric from my friend, Sarah, to make her cloth pantyliners.  I told her that I'd make them for her because I think the prices online for them are just ridiculous.  I think I'm going to have to print off the pattern again, though, because I'm not sure where I stuck the one that I already printed off.

Sewing Like a Fiend and Catching Up on My Week

So, it's been a week since I've posted a true daily account of my days.  Let's see if my brain can remember my week up till now.

Sunday was the last dance company performance of the winter season.  Here are a few pictures from that performance at Fair Havens Christian Home.  Dad came to watch.  He rarely misses a show.

Dancer went to my mom's afterwards for the evening, so Dodger and I had a lovely evening sans kid.  Dodger made fish for dinner.  It was super yummy.

Monday, mom dropped off some things for Dancer's gardening in the afternoon.  Some dance friends dropped off Dancer's tap shoes that she left behind at Sunday's performance.  I did a bit more work cleaning up the mess of overgrowth, shingles, and wood behind the garage.  Then Dancer and I went over to mom's to have dinner and play a little Trivial Pursuit on the Wii.

Tuesday, I got the sewing machine out.  I needed to get a few patches sewn on a uniform for my friend Sarah's son.  Once I got those done, then I started sewing on a project that I started last year before my machine got super noisy and I had to stop until I could get it serviced.  I'm making a denim bedspread for my nephew.

Here are a few pictures of the work in progress.

Dancer's last tennis lesson of this session was this night, too.  She'll have a week off and then summer lessons start.

Wednesday, was more sewing and much work done on Dancer's next study term schedule.  That was the day I took the pictures of my piles around the house.

Thursday, it got cold and rainy.  I ran errands in the afternoon.  I needed to get a few groceries, make Dodger's truck payment, and get Dancer registered for summer dance classes and dance company.

I sewed and cleaned up my piles.  I also did some repair work on a few of Dodger's work pants and of some of my lounge pants.  I had some holes in my lounge pants and sewed patches in some areas.  Saving the money of buying new, the annoyance of shopping, and keeping the comfort of well worn items, was worth it to me to patch them up.

Dodger wears holes in the knees of his pants.  Well, in the right knee area because that's the knee he bends down on when he's working.  I put some old t-shirt fabric behind the worn out, thread bare, spots and then sewed zigzag stitches back and forth to patch up and reinforce those spots.  I got two pairs done.  I have two more to do.  I have to rip out the inseam a bit to be able to get to that spot, too.  He has some really worn spots on the back pockets where he puts his billfold.  I might have to take off the pockets to be able to repair them.

Knee holes repaired.

Today, I'll be trying to finish up the rest of Dancer's schedule for the next 12 weeks of study.  I'd like to get the third term worked on, too.  I probably won't finish the third term but getting it started would be good.  I will work on getting it finished next week, though, because that way I won't have to think about it again except maybe to make any changes before that term starts.

Hard Work, Yard Work, Gardening, and Pain

The part that I still needed to do after working on it yesterday is now done.

For lunch today, Dancer and I met my mom and stepdad at Hometown Buffet.  We were there to get together with other very much extended family members for a family reunion.  I really didn't find the long table very conducive for visiting.  Mom suggested that next year, we all get together at her house after lunch to visit.

After lunch, Dancer went with them to shop at Menard's for more garden pavers.  I dropped off a few more PaperBackSwap book requests at the Post Office and then after I got home, I got to work on the rest of the mess in the back yard.

I broke up the rest of the limbs, weed whacked the tall weeds, mowed, cut down some of the randomly growing trees, and chopped off the rogue limbs of some of the plants that are lining the fences.

Then I started to work on the mess behind the garage.  As I suspected there are shingles and wood back there that Dodgers's brothers threw down there when they reroofed the garage last spring.  The neighbor behind us also has a mess of weeds and overgrowth going on in their backyard that's spilling over the fence, so I also worked on cutting down what was spilling over into our space.  I got halfway down the strip by the time I decided to call it quits for the day.

Got half of the space behind the garage cleaned.

I started my outdoor work around 3 pm.  Dancer arrived around 4 or so.  She got to work as soon as she got home and they all unloaded my stepdad's truck.  I went in to shower at 7 pm.  She came in shortly after, as soon as she finished putting all of the new pavers down and planting all of the plants she brought home from my mom.

Dancer put new pavers along the side of the house.

Dancer planting all of the flowers she brought home from her granny's.

All of the pots had plants in them from my mom.
They were ones that she transplanted to share with Dancer.

The Sweet Woodruff is taking over one of Dancer's flower gardens.
She's hoping her great aunt Jodi will want some when she comes up for a visit next weekend.

When Dodger got home from work, he started to work on the last of the shutters he's been painting for a client.  I started to thaw out some burgers for dinner as soon as I got out of the shower and he cooked them up with onion and bacon later after he finished with the shutters, took a shower, and went to the store for milk and orange juice.  I'll need the OJ tomorrow for my vodka and date night with the man.

Now, I'm icing my feet because they hurt worse than they did last night.  Earlier this evening, my pain was at about an 8 on a scale from 1-10.  My ankles and feet felt almost as bad as they used to after a night of work at Kohl's when I worked there.  I couldn't even go to the store for Dodger because they hurt so bad and it was all I could do to just relax and not focus on how much pain I was in.

I've got another episode of Bones streaming on Netflix and I'm going to stick the thumb drive into my laptop and bring up Dancer's Ambleside study schedule.  I'm just going to scan things to see what I already finished 12 weeks ago and what needs to be done before the start of her next term.

Getting Back on Track

Oh, wow, the days got away from me.  This week has gone super quick and although I thought about blogging everyday, I just never forced myself to get around to it.  I have found that now that I'm back on Facebook that I'm not focusing well and tend to let myself get flighty.  There's something about Facebook usage that's very unconscious.  So I'll need to put a stop to the mindless usage.  That was one of the main reasons for taking a break from it in April.

I'm officially a week behind in my #BEDM posts.  I think I'm going to double up on the posts for the next week to get back on schedule.  The topics are interesting enough and I think they do make me touch on things about myself and my life that I might not ordinarily blog about.

I've been staying up too late and sleeping in until almost 11 everyday this week.  By the time I get up, eat, and get my workouts in, a lot of my normal blogging time is gone.  Again, it's something else I need to get back on track with.  I'm falling back into old habits.  Habits aren't easy to change.  The only person I'm hurting with not sticking to the new habits is myself.  I love to blog about my days and almost a whole week has been lost this week.  Those are days that I won't have a record of later.

I have been sticking to my workouts, though, and that's of extreme importance to me.  I have a weight goal that I plan to meet by Christmas this year.  So the extra long workouts each day are vital for me to fit in each day and they must be done early enough so that by the time Dodger gets home from work, they're done.  This way he can have the computer and TV after working hard and after such long days.

Just before dusk today, after showering after my workouts, I did some much needed yard work.  I picked up 3 piles of sticks in the front yard, swept the driveway, picked up another pile of sticks under the old swing set in the backyard, and then mowed the whole yard.  By the time I was done, my hair was soaked with sweat again and I had to take yet another shower before dinner.  I got a lot done and I always feel good after hard work.

Because I'm not an early riser, I always wait until just before dusk to do yard work.  I can't be in the sun very long because of the cream I use on my face and I try to stay out of it for any period of time anyway.  So I get just  a little bit of sunlight this way.

It's also starting to get hot here.  It's been in the high 80s for the past three days.  Two of those days, it hit 90.  I love, love, love the warm weather.  My muscles and joints move so much easier in the warm temps and I tend to breath easier, too. My seasonal affective disorder also disappears this time of year.  The winter blues fade away.

Right now, Dodger and I are watching a few movies on TV and just relaxing.  I need to get Dancer's study schedule loaded up and make sure I have our ducks in a row for her next term.  She has next week off and then she'll start Term 2 of her current Ambleside year.  I got most of it done before she started Term 1 twelve weeks ago but I know that there were some loose ends that I needed to finish up.

We have fabulous co-op classes this fall

We have fabulous co-op classes this fall! I'm so excited!

Dancer is taking two classes from one of her friend's mom... "Be a Problem-Solving Genius" ... on tackling math word problems, and Economics.  She's also taking a Drawing and Cartooning class that's being taught by one of the homeschool dads who is a colorist for one of the major comic book companies.

Also ran to the homeschool book sale today... to see if there were some goodies there.

A Day In the Life Of...

We all crawled out of bed around noon today {love homeschooling}. I had a day of running and waiting ahead of me. Dodger didn't work today but had to run an errand or two. So we all did what we needed to do to get our day started and shortly before my husband headed out he called for me to come into the living room. He had spotted a photo-op for me. He wanted to give me the opportunity to take a shot or two before he walked all over it...

Isn't it the sweetest thing? So cute. I actually squealed and said "aw, that's so cute."

Dancer had tap class this afternoon {love homeschooling} and while I was waiting in the truck (because the studio is being repainted and there's no place to sit inside) I noticed these bird's nests in the tree near me...

Here's a close-up of one of the nests...

Nearly all of the little trees around the place had a bird's nest in it but this little tree was the only one with three in it.

After tap class, we headed to the library to have Dancer's monthly book discussion group with some other homeschoolers. It's a small group but they are all really great friends. They discussed "The Giver" by Lois Lowery. It was a great discussion on not only the book but on the history of people/societies who's purpose has been to separate out people into desirables and undesirables. We discussed Hitler and how he chose who was a Nazi. We talked about the eugenics programs of the early 1900's. The discussion brought up the movie "Pleasantville" and how the people in color were shunned. We talked about slavery in the US. We talked about how it's the younger generations who are constantly responsible for changing the world and making it a place where these things will no longer happen. I mentioned how different it was between my generation and my parents generation when it comes to racism and how different it is between Dancer's generation and mine when it comes to homophobia.

We always get into some great discussions with this book group.

While we were there, I checked out a few books on beginning photography and one on crochet basics. I know how to crochet but I'd like to get better at it and the way to do that is to be sure that I have the basics down.

I picked up a few books off of the sale shelf. I even found one from Kodak on how to make good pictures. The others I found are "File... Don't Pile. A Proven Filing System for Personal and Professional Use", "She Got Up Off the Couch and Other Heroic Acts from Morreland, Indiana", and "How to Shit In the Woods, an environmentally sound approach to a lost art." Yes, I kid you not! That is what the book is called. How could I pass up a book with that name? As I browsed over the books on the shelf, my mind literally said, "Does that say shit?" LOL.

Here are the titles of the chapters...

• Anatomy of a Crap
• Digging the Hole
• When You Can't Dig a Hole
• Plight of the Solo Poop Packer
• Trekker's Trots
• For Women Only: How Not to Pee in Your Boots
• What? No T.P.? or Doing Without

Seriously hilarious! It's seriously a how-to book on taking a dooce in the woods!

After the library, we headed back out to the dance studio. My daughter was supposed to have hip hop class but as it turns out, they are forcing the instructor to cancel the class. It seems that my daughter is the only one enrolled this quarter. So we went home and now I'm watching one of my most favorite movies, Groundhog Day, on Netflix. There's nothing good on TV tonight.

Ooey Gooey Slimy Fun

Today, Dancer and I did a chemistry experiment.  We made glowing slime.  We were supposed to be doing it with a live online class but the instructor never showed.  One of the moms who was waiting online with us found the link to the video and instructions, so we ended up doing it on our own.

the supplies

our mess after making our slime

"I'm melting, I'm melting."

flat as a pancake

frozen slime looks cool!

There are some other questions that are with the instructions that we still need to answer.  We still have to heat this up in the microwave to see what it does, see if it picks up the print off of a newspaper, and change a few ingredients to see how the results change.

It was really cool to do this.  I was almost giddy.  I love science, always have.

Library Tour

Wednesday, along with some fellow homeschoolers, we went to an informative talk and took a tour of the city library.  We learned all about the Dewey Decimal System, then had an extensive tour of the children's and young adult departments.  We also learned all about the online databases and the best way to search the library system's catalog of holdings.

I thought I knew nearly everything about our library but I ended up learning some new things that will be very helpful to us.  I didn't know that our library had access to the EBSCO Database.  The librarians showed us how to use the microfilm and while we were touring the children's department, I found out where all of the folklore was shelved.  I ended up checking out about 10 books of Japanese folklore from that section.

We updated Dancer's library card so that she can now check out anything from the library.  Their age for an adult card is 13 and Dancer is 14 now.  I had them set-up online access for her and while we were checking out, I also found out that the library baskets can be checked out, too.  That made it a whole lot easier to carry all of those books home.

The morning started out pretty rough, since Dancer really didn't want to get up so early.  We did the apple orchard trip the day before, so that made an early morning two days in a row.  But she got to see and hang-out with some friends and she learned some new things about our library.  She was fine and was glad we went by the time it was all over.

Apple Orchard Trip

Tuesday we joined some fellow homeschoolers on a field trip to the Okaw Valley Apple Orchard. We learned how their family owned orchard operates, got to pick our own apples, and learned how their apple cider is made.  We had a great time.  The weather was perfect and we got to see some of our friends.

picking our own apples

honey bees are vital to apple production.  did you know you can rent honey bees?

apples are dumped onto a belt where they are washed...

and sorted.  the apples that are too small go into the bins for apple sauce and cider.  the apples on the platform are bagged and weighed and then sold in their country store.

this is their cider press.  this machine presses the apples into mush that is then pressed to get the cider.

the tank behind this holds the cider that is then pumped into gallon jugs through these nozzles.

after the tour we had apple crisp donuts and apple cider slushies and then it was time to play with friends.

Before we headed home, we bought some more apple crisp donuts to share with Dodger and I got some homemade jalapeño mustard and fresh ground horseradish sauce.  I haven't tried the mustard but the horseradish is the best I've ever tasted.  I'll never go back to the store-bought, processed stuff.

Measuring the Distance Around the Earth

On Friday, we met with a few friends to do a math experiment to measure the distance around the Earth. Denise led the experiment. We just brought along a few supplies.

The explanation of the experiment & what we're measuring. 

Denise explaining the graphing. 

Marking and measuring the shadow. 

Preparing their graph paper. 

Marking the points. 

Marking the points. 

Marking the points. 

Marking the points. 

Time to calculate.

After the experiment we compared our totals to the actual distance and found out that our margin of error was less than 2%.