Blooming

Well, I am finally putting at least one picture on the blog. We will see how many I will get on here, since it takes FOREVER on our dialup. I actually waited about 10 min the other day and it finally loaded, I hit the wrong button and whoosh, gone. So, I gave up. I will probably end up taking the camera over to Mom' s, loading the pictures onto her computer and adding them there.

We took lots of pictures of the pretty blooming trees on the land. The first picture I am loading is of Madelyn sitting the the "bridge" Aaron made over our "creek". It is really just overflow from our pond. When it gets to a certain level, it goes into the culvert under our driveway and down, down into the forest. Madelyn and Natalie have loved playing in the creek, but I have to remind them ... "that pretty clear looking water in the creek, just came out of the nasty, algae covered pond 10 feet away" It is actually springfed when there is a ton of rain. About 100 feet uphill from the pond is a little area where water bubbles out of the ground. Pretty neat.

I am caught in the cycle of work, work and more work. I am very torn between Dave Ramsey's Gazelle Intensity and spending time at home and my guilt over working so much. Madelyn is really giving me the worst guilt trip. I feel bad, but I see the end of our debt in site and it is hard not to just sign up and work whenever they ask. And they have been asking a lot. There are at least 2 day shifters on Medical leave, so that leaves a lot of openings.

I worked 7-3 yesterday, then agreed to come in 1-7 today for a pregnant lady, so she didn't have to work 12 hours (On a side note, can you imagine working 12 hours while pregnant? I refuse to work 12 hour shifts now, I put in my share of them)

Anyway, I called right after church and she said they didn't need me, so I stayed and ate the potluck dinner with Mom and the girls (Aaron had a funeral to attend and left early). Then went to Mom's to await the time for a wedding shower, and they called me at 1 saying they did need me after all. So I went in 3-7.

Once this picture loads, I am off to bed, so I can get up, have school in the morning and then go back to work from 3-11. If this picture would ever load. It has been about 10 min. now. I actually have a library book to read while waiting it takes so long.

Field Trip - Cancelled

I signed us up for a field trip a few weeks ago and paid ahead of time so we could go to this Botanical Gardens about an hour away. It was with our Friday homeschool group. I was the first to sign up, so I am not sure how many other people had signed up after us. It was supposed to rain all day, so I emailed the coordinator to make sure that we were still on for today. Since Aaron took off work, and I invited his parents who were driving 3 hours to come.
I guess I wrongly assumed that we would be notified if the tour was cancelled, but when we arrived there at 10am, we found out that it had been postponed until next week. Very irritating.
Thankfully there are 3 musuems in that town that we have season tickets to. So we decided to go there.
First we went to a place called Constitution Village, with large houses built like they did in 1820s around the time the city was founded. I didn't realize that we would get our own tour guide -dressed in period clothing, talking in first person. At one point while she was demonstrating how to use the carpentry tools, she stopped to tell us that one of their apprentices had run away and that they were offering a 1c reward if we found him. And sure enough, throughout the tour there were posters everywhere offering a reward for his finding. It was funny. Halfway through the tour, we got another tour guide who led us through the rest of it. That took about an hour.
We had a quick lunch at Burger King and then dropped off the kids with Aaron's parents at the Children's Museum while Aaron and I went to find a camera. Aaron is not a big fan of the children's museum. Not a lot to do, but the kids LOVE it! They spent about 1 1/2 hours there.
Then we went straight to the Depot Train museum. Where we got another free personal tour guide. You learn so much more when you take the tour. At one time, on the 3rd floor, they housed civil war prisoners. Pretty neat.
By the time we were done with all of this, it was 4pm and they were closing, so we said our goodbyes to the grandparents and they headed to their house. Aaron wanted to look for some new hiking boots, so we stopped at a store for while looking, then headed to Cracker Barrel where we ate supper and headed home. We got home about 7:30. What a long day, but a lot of fun. And not totally ruined by the rude person who never called to tell me about the cancellation.
PICTURES TO COME SOON!!!!! I am so excited to finally have a camera. We got the kind that you plug in to charge like a cell phone, instead of the kind that sucks up the batterys. I hope it works better. Once it is charged, I will be clicking away and loading some up on the old blog.

Sinus infection

Well, I went to the doctor on Tuesday and he didn't do a strep test, but said he thought it was a sinus infection. Which is strange because I have never had a sinus infection without having any kind of nasal stuffiness. Oh well, I did have the drainage on my tonsils and the headache. It has gradually gotten better thankfully. I also had fluid on my Left ear. I know I am getting better, since normally, I sleep 7-8 hours a night at the most and this week, I have been going to bed between 9 and 10 and getting up around 8. I never sleep that long at one time. But tonight I tried to go to bed early and it is 11:30pm and I am still wide awake.
I signed up for 36 hours next week. The plans were for Aaron and I to drive the girls to TN on Saturday, so they could stay with the grandparents. They were planning on taking them to the Aquarium in Gatlinburg and then bringing them home and meeting us at their field trip Wednesday morning. However, his parents called tonight to let us know that Aaron's granny who has gradually gotten worse over the last few years, is now not eating or moving at all. So, the trip is on hold.
And I signed up for a bunch of days, thinking I wouldn't have to worry about babysitting. Thankfully , Mom is here and can watch them.
I had to take the dog back to the vet today. It is day 9 after the "fixing" and all of a sudden, she has these little bubbles about the size of small marbles coming out of the wound. Now I know I am a nurse but this is a new one on me. Post op procedures on animals are not quite as clean as on people. The bubbles looked to be filled with fluid and it didn't bother her for me to touch them. Anyway, the vet said that was normal and that the fluid collected in the stitching area was just making it's way out. Would have been nice to have been warned, since that was normal and all. I was all worried, thinking perhaps her intestines were working their way out and she would have to go back to surgery and then there would be 10 more days of keeping a 40lb energetic puppy on a leash all the time and up. Tomorrow!!! She can run free tomorrow!!!!! Yipee!!!!
We have found the videos of the girls when the were babies. They love watching them. Makes me want another one. We need a baby! Maybe next year. Although since the one we get from Russia will be at least 12 months old, it won't be quite as small.

Spring is Coming

It was sooo nice last week. So hard to do schoolwork while it was 70 something outside. I think it is supposed to rain more this week, but maybe we will have a pretty day today.
I only worked 8 hours last week. So hard to go into work when you can walk around outside. I was hoping to work this past weekend, but I didn't.
Friday we had normal coop. Aaron took us and dropped us off, then went directly to his doctor for a checkup. We had to get paperwork filled out for our homestudy update from our doctor's, so that is what he was doing. I am mailing it today, along with our financial statement and then our social worker can finish the homestudy. Still paying off debt so we can start again. But once we have the homestudy done, I can apply for some adoption grants.
After coop, one of Natalie's classes had a field trip to this Cooks Pest Museum. It is really a nice place, free. So we didn't get home until around 3:30 on Friday afternoon. The girls spent the night with Mom so that Aaron and I could get up early Saturday morning and go to an auction at a tractor place here in town. Aaron and I rented a couple of movies.
My headache started then, so that put a little bit of a damper on the weekend.
We went to the auction in the rain. I had bought some waterproof hiking boots the day before, thankfully. The mud was ankle deep in some places. We stayed about 3 hours, but didn't feel comfortable bidding on anything, so we still need a disc and a plow for the tractor.
I ended up not working the whole weekend, which was nice to not have anywhere to be other than church.
We went to church yesterday morning, then came home and worked on the house. Aaron has pulled down a ton of old rusted fence. Thankfully, we had kept it, so we used the bolt cutters and cut it into sections, the folded it into a circle and used pliers to wrap the ends around and now we have about 10 things to put around our tomato plants to support them in the garden. There is plenty more fence, so we will probably end up making more. I have almost 18 tomato plants growing in the house.
After we ate a quick supper, right before church services in the evening, my headache started up again. I almost didn't go. Our drive down the gravel road, adds motion sickness to my headaches which is almost too much. I took some medicine on the way which made it tolerable enough during services that I didn't have to leave early, but we left pretty soon afterward. I couldn't even sing or move my head normal speed from side to side. Aaron dropped me and the girls off at mom's apartment in town and went to get me some sudafed. Unfortunately, due to all the losers who use sudafed for something other than sinuses, it is locked up in the actually pharmacy part of the store and it was closed, so he had to get me the sinus medicine that is not sudafed. It worked ok. I took some and laid on the couch at mom's for about an hour until it got better enough that I could look from side to side without regretting it.
We drove home and went to bed pretty early. And that was our weekend.
I still have a little headache today, but have already taken a sinus pill. Hopefully that will stop it before it gets too bad.

Little Artists

Monday evening we went to the Art Fair at our coop. There were probably 30 entries. Mom rode with me and we dropped off the 3 pictures at 4pm. Judging wasn't until 5:30pm and Aaron was meeting us there at 5pm, so we went to Aldi. I came prepared with a cooler with some ice. I was barely able to fit all of my refridgerated stuff in it, but it was less than 40 outside, so it stayed good.
Got back to the Art Fair. When it was time for judging, they sent all the adults out in the hallway and let the kids stand by their art if they wanted to so the judges could ask them questions. I thought the judging would take around 15 min. Well, an hour or so later, they finally had placed the ribbons and were ready to hand out the results.
In Prek/K , Hannah came in first place with her drawing of Natalie holding an apple in each hand, standing next to a flower. (she was the only entry in this age group)
In 1st and 2nd grade Madelyn came in 1st with her picture of two people looking at a princess. and Natalie came in 2nd with her picture of Hannah and her picking apples on top of a flower covered hill.
There were 6 entries in Madelyn and Natalie's age group. I was proud of them and they were excited to get their ribbons. I felt sorry for the kids that came and stayed there for sooo long waiting and didn't win.
We went shopping for cameras on Friday and the one we picked out was out of stock. So we left and I will probably go again soon to find one. I hate not having a camera!
Our tractor made it here safe and sound on Monday night. Aaron had time to come by the house, pull it into the barn before coming to the art fair. I know he is dying to try it out, but it will probably be Saturday before he gets a chance. It barely fits in the barn.
I worked3-7 pm last night. I probably would have stayed if they had asked me, but they didn't so I assumed that everything was under control. Then the supervisor called at 9:30 as I was crawling into bed, to see if I wanted to come in. I told her I had just left at 7( which she didn't realize), so I went on to bed.
Worked 7-11 tonight and am fixing to go to bed now.

SNOW

Saturday, they were predicting 2-4 inches of snow for our area overnight.
We woke up Sunday morning to about 1 inch, but it continued to snow for a few more hours. The girls were playing outside by 7:30 that morning. We had a great morning. Church was cancelled, although I am not sure we would have tried to make it if it wasn't. We have 3 miles of downhill curves to get to town.
Aaron found a makeshift sled and we all sledded for a while. Then we made a snowman that was taller than the kids. After warming up for few minutes, we went on a walk through the woods, where the snow was deep enough that it covered my feet. Then we drove down the road about 1/10 of a mile until we got to the turnabout where you can see the whole town below us.
It was a good snow day.
I went to work 3-11.
Today we have an Art Fair at our coop. The girls each drew a picture they are submitting.