Time flies...

when you are busy and trying to get your life back into some semblance of "normal". LOL! At least normal for us I should say. :-) GC is doing great and has become bored with staying home alone, can already walk further & stand longer at 3 weeks post surgery than she has been able to do for the past few years (and without a cane or anything now!!).

We have had my brother's birthday (Aug 15th), a visit from my dad & stepmom (who live in Saudi Arabia), our 7th anniversary (Aug 18th)...in which Corey had to work a long change window - yuck, shopping, getting GC to an eye exam for glasses, homeschool summer bowling league awards, HP Club starting back up at the library, dealing with record breaking heat & 118 year drought, and Corey's 29th birthday (Aug 25th). Phew!! :-) Soccer starts this coming week, dance classes start this coming week, and homeschooling fall bowling league starts this week. Egads!

Michael made us a new gate the other day, the other was incomplete & he didn't like how it was turning out so he made a new one. It is great, we love it and it means we officially have a fenced backyard. Now if we just had some nice green grass. ;-)

Today was my stepmom's birthday - Happy Birthday Patsy! She's in Calgary with my dad on their vacation. Hope they are enjoying it. I'm jealous because I know it is cooler than here. ;-) It is also the birthday of our friend David out in California. He is the wonderful husband of our great friend, Heather, Aunt Heather to the kids as she is their Goddess Mother (the pagan equivalent to a Godmother). :-) So Happy Birthday David!

Well...enough catching up. Off to tuck in the kiddos and watch a movie with my wonderful husband of 7 years & 1 day...if he can stay awake. Poor guy had to work 2 change windows...on his birthday! ... from 8p-10p and then 1:30a-5:30a...and then the kids woke us up at 8:15a with their delightfully loud "discussions". Can you FEEL the sarcasm? ;-)

HOME!

I'm home! Yea, I'm home! Alex was THRILLED to see me, I was thrilled to see him...and Corey. ;-) LOL! Of course as I predicted this week is starting off with a bang just in time for me to come home. Oh well, can't have everything. At least I'm home and I get to snuggle with my guys. It feels sooo good to be home.

Morgan is spending the night with GC. She'll be there to help. Tomorrow afternoon Michael & Stoli will be coming over and I'll pick up Morgan. The kids have HP Club tomorrow night and then Morgan has homeschool summer bowling league awards on Wednesday. We think after Tuesday GC won't need anyone to spend the night and we can all just take turns going over to help with laundry, cleaning, taking out the garbage & visiting. She is hoping within a week or so she will be ready to go shopping & out to lunch.

Thursday evening my dad and stepmother will be in Nashville. We can't wait to see them. It has been over a year.

Mom and I both read The Knitting Circle: A Novel by Ann Hood and thought it was wonderful. I had already been wanting to learn to knit, so has Morgan, and now my mom is asking "When can we learn to knit?" So I have made my first yarn purchase tonight. It isn't beginner yarn for sure but it is really cool and I just KNOW that in the future I will be able to use it for a project. Isn't that the sign of a true crafter?? Thinking ahead to future projects?? ;-)

Homeschool on the fly

We sent in our Intent to Homeschool form for this year and it was received. We know this because it was late and we are supposed to pay a $20 late fee. Wheee. A nice attempt to get money out of the homeschooling families for nothing. Sending in our letter a few days late doesn't change anything, make more work for them or anything..but yet, let's charge them $20/week that they are late...sure. Nice scam, eh?

The kids and I are both ready to start school officially but with GC's back surgery on July 30th that hasn't really been possible. However, we are finding ways of getting some in anyhow. Alex asked to do science the other day...but I was trying to get Morgan & her stuff together so we could get back to GC's before Michael had to leave for work. Poor little guy wasn't too happy about it. However, he has been doing math & other stuff so he is getting some in. I promise that I will do some science as soon as we are all home together. He is helping water and take care of the garden and our neighbor's canteloupe and watermelons...so there is some science in his life right now. :-) Morgan has been doing a lot of reading, visiting the library, writing her book, puzzles, drawing, taking care of plants, Yahtzee and card games where she has to keep score and do math. So officially or unofficially, we are getting education into their day. This is why we are eclectic homeschoolers...some unschooling, some book work, some workbooks, etc. :-) Whatever works for the moment, for the kid and for the topic.

Another furlough...

I don't even get a full 24 hours this time because the brother was a little late getting to mom's house. He had a good reason though...Tish will be working late & then going to the barn to administer meds to Brady (her horse) so will be really late getting home. He didn't want the 3 dogs staying home to be locked up for 12+ hours so he was trying to let them out for a bathroom break as late as possible before heading to mom's house. Considering the dogs are family and we love them too I don't blame him for wanting to keep them out as long as possible. Stoli got to come with him to mom's so Alex and I had a brief doggie fix and got lots of kisses from Stoli to share with Corey and Morgan. ;-)

Mom is doing really good on her recovery. I'm hoping she won't need someone with her around-the-clock for much longer. I think my little family is getting close to the snapping point. :-/ It is definitely taking a toll on all of us no matter how much we all understand the importance of this. I was late sending out our homeschool letter and we have to pay a late fee to the school district, Alex's medication almost ran out. He didn't actually have to miss any days but he was several hours late getting today's dose and it showed. It didn't go over well this morning with mom so I'm glad that we were heading home soon. I think between the medication being late and the stress of our family turmoil he just isn't handling it very well at all.

Morgan seems to be doing great. Thank goodness. She is coming back to mom's with me tomorrow morning. I don't know when Michael's next day off will be....please not something like Fri. I'll never make it. I had to change an appointment with my psychiatrist that was scheduled for tomorrow morning, we have our CSA pick up on Saturday, the kids have the first HP Club meeting for the 07-08 year on Tuesday evening, bowling awards are Wednesday afternoon and Corey is still on call and non-mobile until Monday morning. Even then he won't be mobile unless his boss has resolved a major problem that has occurred. *sigh* Can I scream yet? Thank Goddess venting helps or I might explode.

My dad and stepmom will be in middle TN at the end of next week. It will be great to see them again. The kids are very excited to see Grandpa Paul and Grandma Patsy. I would love to invite them over to the house so they can see it but it is NOT in shape at this point and I have no idea if I will have any time at home before they come and right now I'd die before I had company over.

Updates

GC has been home from the hospital since Friday afternoon. Michael was here to help me get her all settled and stuck around for a bit. Thank goodness because after we got her settled I realized she had 2 pages of prescriptions that needed filling, plus we needed real groceries in the house. Diet Coke and chocolate chip cookies will only take you so far. ;-) After dropping off the prescriptions at Walgreens I headed across the street to Publix. I took my time and picked up some healthy stuff for us to eat. Then headed back to Walgreens. 2 of the medications they didn't have enough of to fill and they wouldn't for a week! Of course these were the 2 controlled substances. Ack!! They had called the pharmacy at Kroger (also across the street) and they had them but I had to take the prescriptions over there since they are controlled substances and by state law can't be transferred by phone,etc. Oh, and the other prescriptions were almost ready. So I head to Kroger, run into their pharmacy & give them the prescriptions. Well, since mom had never had stuffed filled there had to answer questions, thankfully I knew the answers, and they needed her insurance card. Ack...thank goodness I had her purse in the car. Run out to the car & get her wallet, find the insurance card & give it to the lady. I tell her that I have groceries in the car will it be long and she says "just a few minutes" and they have a drive-up window that I can pick up the prescriptions. Yea, it was in the upper 90's and I didn't want my refrigerated items to spoil! Soo...crank the a/c on high and get ready to head back to Walgreens when my brother calls. Mom is in pain, what is at the house? Umm...she has pain medication from before surgery that she can have but they can't find it....they looked in the usual spots. Well, don't you know it is in her purse, which is in the car with ME! Egads. I tell them I'll hurry...back to Walgreens & get those prescriptions and then over to Kroger & get those. *PHEW* Hurry back home. It sucked that I had her purse with the pain medication in it but thank goodness I did have it because we couldn't have gotten her prescriptions at Kroger without her insurance card!



We've been working on getting into a groove. Thankfully mom isn't nearly as loopy as she was in the hospital. I think eating better, sleeping better, moving around more & such is really helping. I had to write down her medication schedule because she has 1 pain pill for main pain control, a muscle relaxer and another pain pill for breakthrough pain but she can't take them all at once or the 2 pain pills within an hour of each other. She'd NEVER be able to deal with that alone. She's getting up and moving around on her own though. My brother will be here Mon-Tues and then Thur-Fri. So I'll be home with Corey and the kids. They are coming over late this afternoon for dinner and visiting. Poor Alex is having a hard time with Mommy being gone so much. :-(

In other news, Morgan will be continuing with homeschool bowling league and dance classes. She'll be trying soccer this fall as well. The musical theatre class she took last fall will not be going on because the teacher had a new baby and needs some time. Hopefully next fall! Alex will be continuing with soccer and is thinking about bowling and tap classes. We shall see.

It has been hot as you-know-what around here lately. Columbia hit 101 yesterday and Spring Hill was about 99. Crazy hot...with the humidity & haze to go with it. Mom is lucky she doesn't have to go outside in it. I'm trying to water her plants but yee-gads there is only so much you can do against that type of sorching heat.

Happy Lammas to all our friends out there. We miss you all like crazy. I hate not having a group to celebrate with anymore. :-( Can I move you all up here?? We can all go in together and buy a big piece of land! :-)

Hospital Days

The past few days have been hospital days. GC had her back surgery Monday morning. The surgery took 6 hours, went very well according to her surgeon and is expected to have good results. The medications they have her on are making her one loopy lady...heck, beyond loopy! Michael and I have been visiting a lot. Tish came to visit on Tuesday. Thank goodness, her timing was perfect!! I had just had a scary moment with mom waking up in a panic, hanging up on me on the phone & Tish arrived right then and was able to talk with mom, check on her and call me to reassure me that all was okay. *phew*

Today Michael went to visit this morning and I headed up at lunch time. Mom had a rough night last night and was oh so loopy today. She had me in stitches quite a few times because she was talking such nonsense and was rambling on, apparently about work stuff. LOL! She did great with the physical therapist and even went for a short walk in the hall. Tomorrow they conquer the stairs. By dinner though I was easily frustrated. I know, shame on me, but it is reality folks. Mom knocked over her iced tea with sugar in it (got everywhere), tried opening the moist towelette to add to her iced tea, burst open the sour cream packet while I was getting paper towels, etc. What a mess. She did manage to eat some. ;-) My aunt arrived around this time and the distraction helped soothe things. I got mom cleaned up and left her in my aunt's very capable hands. :-)

Corey took the kids to the library this evening and they waited dinner on me. So sweet!! He's been working so hard, big project going on at work, plus taking care of the kids, and me. I'm soooo lucky to have him as a husband. Morgan has been really good. Alex has been good too. Both are doing their chores and helping out. They really seem to understand that we need them to behave more than ever during all of this.

I'm trying to keep everyone updated on mom's recovery.