Long Week-end

I had a very long week-end. While it is always nice spending the week-end with a friend of mine, the purpose of this visit was more of a babysitting, supportive role rather than a hang out, relax and have fun role. I picked up blue and black cohosh and dong quai for her and basically sat back and kept an eye on her while she took the herbs so her body could expel the dead baby she was carrying. It was not a top ten pleasant week-end. We were basically trying to induce labor. The contractions finally started becoming strong and regular last night and this morning she started bleeding. She had an appointment this afternoon and she was deemed in good health and sent home to continue miscarrying naturally.

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Part of laboring involves walking so we drove into town and went to the mall. Amazingly enough, it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be people-wise with it being the first "Christmas Shopping" week-end. It was not crowded at all. I did find a new favorite store for nice, long, modest skirts. And, they are reasonably priced. (Reasonably priced meaning they are around $10 each.) I like them. I want them. But, I do not need them. (I do need to mend some of the skirts I do have.)

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We also went to Toys R Us. THAT place was insane. The place was packed. But, I did do all of my Christmas shopping Saturday. (Well, except for one or two people.) I got each of the girls their gift and I got Husband his gift. Charlie's gift will be gotten at Gander Mountain. We are doing one gift each this year for the children instead of the typical three gifts each. We can't afford more. The chaos with the house basically did us in. However, we are going to have Christmas in our home and the house will be decorated both inside and out even if it kills me.

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Saturday, Hannah will be three. That is just unreal. I can't believe that my baby is turning three. Yikes. Where does the time go?

Stuffed

I am stuffed. We ate around noon and I am still feeling stuffed. I had fun cooking the food. SIL made a corn casserole, cranberry jelled sandwich type things, and pineapple upside down cake. The cranberry things were interesting. I had never heard of them, but what she did was get a couple of cans of jellied cranberry sauce and slice them, mix mayonnaise, cream cheese and Splenda, spread it on the slices, sprinkle with nuts, put another slice over it, and sprinkle nuts over all of it. It was good.

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We also had turkey and ham. This was the first time I had shopped for meat in a long time. I also made mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, baked carrots, salad, and Husband made the stuffing.

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A friend of mine was here yesterday when I got back with SIL from shopping. She came straight here from an appointment she had with her midwife. She's 15 weeks and there is no heart beat. I feel bad for her. I am going to spend the week-end with her.

Thanksgiving

I've been thinking about Thanksgiving this year. This will be our first time celebrating it in six years. While I have some objections to Thanksgiving and how the first Thanksgiving really happened, the ideals of what it should be should not be forgotten. And that is taking the time out to say "Thank you" to God for His many blessings. While we should do this daily, taking the time to celebrate our many blessings with friends and family is not bad. We just need to be mindful when we look at the historical aspect of Thanksgiving that we look at the truth and are not celebrating that truth.

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With that in mind, as you sit with your family tomorrow and celebrate Thanksgiving, remember to give thanks to God for the freedom we have to be able to be with our loved ones and say a special prayer for those who are across the ocean serving and are separated from their family and loved ones. Say a special prayer for them and their family.

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I have a lot to be thankful for. I am truly blessed.

Sleepless Night

I was having nightmares last night. Ones that I have not had in a long time. It was most likely triggered by the stress and now that we have some answers (details of that will be later this week) everything just manifested itself in an old nightmare. At least that is what the logical awake part of me is thinking. However, when gripped in the middle of it, it is not much help.

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The only major difference with the nightmares I was having last night and my "usual" ones that I have not had in a long time is that I was my age now. In my old ones, I am a child. Which makes sense considering.

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I kept getting beaten and I couldn't stop it. I had bruises and welts up and down my legs and back from my lower ribs down to my ankles. I just kept getting hit over and over and over again. It wouldn't stop. I don't know who or what was hitting me. I couldn't see. When I woke up, I could still feel the pain from the nightmare across my back and sides of my lower ribs.

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Anyway, that was my wonderful night last night. My children are awake and I need to get ready for work and drink more coffee.

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Oh, and the annoying thing is, I went to sleep last night happy and in a good mood. Husband and I had been laughing and joking and having a bit of fun. (Hush! That is not what I'm talking about!)

Avoiding

I have been avoiding blogging because I am just too depressed to deal with things. I am tired of having my life up in the air not knowing what is going to happen with us, our family, our home, and our farm. Hopefully, this afternoon will answer many of the questions I have.

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Meanwhile, weather class is going well. Except for with Charlie. He is just not paying attention and doesn't seem to get anything. I need to remind myself that I have had this frustration with him before and he would surprise me with what he did pick up. But when I say something then ask a question with the answer being what I just said and he stands there saying "Uuuuhhhhh.... Weather?" It is really annoying.

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He has scouts tonight and there is a canned food drive. We are going to go to Aldi's and Charlie is going to pick up a few cans. We will match him dollar for dollar with what he spends out of his money.

Possible Lessons

There is a good chance that my children will start taking French. I have a good friend that I have done a lousy job at keeping in touch with due to both of our lives being chaotic. Anyway, she is offering French classes and I am checking with the homeschool group to see who might be interested. Even if no one is interested, I am still going to have Charlie and Bethany take lessons. Her husband is offering lessons in math from jr high level up through advanced mathematics for anyone who is interested. He is also a philosophy professor. (Well, was until ISU closed the philosophy department.) So, hopefully someone might have an interest in that. I'll use him when my children are older.

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Yesterday, we spent the day at a friend's house. We had stayed over the night before. Husband went hunting with her future husband and Charlie. They didn't bag anything, but they did have fun. Charlie got to handle the shotgun. He didn't fire, but he did get to handle it. My baby boy is getting big.

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Well, I need to head to work here.

The previous blog entry was from my husband. I am guessing he did not realize that he clicked on my blog instead. As you can see, we are still at pretty much of a stand still about when we can get back home.

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In other news, Charlie is really enjoying Cub Scouts. He had a meeting last night and had a lot of fun. He also had a good time at the library yesterday. We did a weather class (I am the one teaching it and learning a lot of stuff myself as we go along) and one of the moms had a bunch of stuff from Japan. Her sister is living in Japan right now and will be coming home for a few weeks in December.

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I have been slacking on keeping the homeschool blog up to date. We have been working, but I have not been posting. I went to Education World to look for some materials and while there was looking for the Grade 3 Spectrum math book, but they were out. I need to look online to see what I can find that way.

Today I filed a police report on the Man who stole from us. I don't know when or where this will all end but it is becoming tiresome.

The death threat by a sad impotent man who is angry with the wrong person, me, is a pathetic joke. He should be angry at the one who hired him and didn't do the job right. He should be angry with himself for continuing to do sub standard work. But no, I am his target. I am able to defend myself enough said.

I also have taken my case to an attorney in town and have gotten a bid to have the damages repaired correctly. I feel very disappointed that it has come to this. I detest using lawsuits, but this is the correct action in this case. When wolves in sheep's clothing come to you in your time of need to devour you it becomes necessary to use the legal system to fight the battle.
I detest dishonest construction contractors. I hope that our lives can get back to "normal " one day, but right now there is no estimate of when that may be. There is no magic pill that can make this ok, there is no real sleep, there is no rest. Just the vision of what we had fading away.

Busy, busy

Yesterday was packed with not being home. Although I did not have to be at work until 8:30 or so, I worked late which is no problem. But as soon as I got home, I changed, had the children change, and we went to Danville, IL for church service. We were about five minutes late. We got home around 11:00 last night and here I am up early to be back at work.

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Hannah did not go with us. She is sick with a fever. The other day I was playing with her and her hands felt hot. She herself was fine with no fever, but her hands were HOT. That is usually the first indicator of her going to be sick. Why that is, I don't know. On Wednesday night, she was not wanting to sleep in her own bed and she was very restless. I kept getting kicked in the face and got no sleep. Again, no fever yet. But last night, I come home from work and have all the children get ready for church and Hannah felt hot. So I took her temp. 100.1. She stayed with SIL and the rest of us went.

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Saturday (tomorrow) I am supposed to have lunch with a wonderful friend of mine but I need to call her to reschedule. I messed up. I forgot about workshop. This month is going by too fast. Anyway, I am going to see if we can do it next week or do it during the week when I am not working. We were going to go to the Indian restaurant.

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The children are doing very well staying on track with their schooling. I still need to update the homeschool blog to document what was done yesterday, but I will do that today when I get home and do both yesterday and today then.

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I am going to check on Hannah, have some coffee, and get ready to go.

Veterans' Day

I want to take the time to wish everyone a wonderful day today. I will be spending the day with my favorite veteran.
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Thank you all who have served. For those who are still serving, may God watch over you and protect you.

No church

And not from a lack of desire. As I was getting ready to leave, I had a helping phone call. The newborn was having nipple confusion due to the hospital giving the baby a pacifier. Mom was an emotional mess and the baby had bad latch issues. After several hours of patient work and encouragement, the issue has been resolved and the mom and baby were nursing beautifully when I left.

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I get really frustrated when I hear about nursing moms being undermined like this mom was. But, that type of thing is why I am here and is a part of the work I am doing to get rid of formula and pacifiers from being distributed in hospitals.

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Tomorrow is my first weather class that I will be teaching. I am very nervous and feel highly unprepared. I hope it goes well and I am able to teach across the ages while keeping it fun and entertaining. I have the book How the Weather Works that I will be working from. It has a lot of experiments in it that I would like to do with the class. Tomorrow, I am going to do a basic and then look for input on weather phenomena that they would like to see covered.

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My new job is going very well. I worked yesterday morning and had a wonderful time with Miss L. I will be working Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays with Saturday being a fill in as needed. I did make them aware of the 17th being a La Leche League meeting and needing to leave early for that and they are ok with that.

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Well, time to gather materials for tomorrow.

Long while here

It's been a long while since my last entry. I have been posting on the homeschool blog our daily work, but have done nothing here. I started a new job today helping to take care of a sweet, sweet lady. I really like it and like the family I am working with.

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Charlie is doing very well with his school work. Last night, I set out his school work that I wanted him to do today and he was done by noon. I am pleased with the progress he has made. He's getting more focused and showing more interest in wanting to know more about certain things. I am going to take that and run with it.

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The other day, I realized how much I miss baking when I made a loaf of cranberry bread and a carrot cake. Both were completely gone in a matter of a couple of hours. I definitely want to get back into baking.

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There is more I want to share about what is going on in our life, but I can't yet. When the time comes, I will let it all out. But right now, I am remaining silent. Which is probably why I have not been blogging. I have stuff I need to work out mentally, but can't at this point. At least not on here and this is my outlet.

I'm running away

Or rather I wish I could run away sometimes. The children were in rare form today. They just had so much energy and being unable to focus myself, I could not focus them very well. I left to pay the mortgage and the vehicle payments and went to visit my best friend and hung out there for a couple of hours. I had to get away from the chaos that was my children.

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Tonight was a coalition meeting and my voice recorder worked very well. I had Bethany with me and I ended up looking at her at one point and saying "Is your hair on fire!?" She kept getting in my face to talk to me as I was trying to talk. It was annoying. That was one small thing out of what was basically a "how cute" little girl who was going around to the different ladies saying "I love you" to them and giving them hugs and kisses.

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I have to write something for the January newsletter breastfeeding related and I am going to do something on nursing while pregnant and tandem nursing. I am organizing my thoughts already. I am going to go over some old blog posts and read a bit of what my brain was like then. Exhaustion comes to mind.

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I am also going to work with Crisis Pregnancy to do breastfeeding classes once a month or so. Someone from there will contact me in the next week or two.

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The coalition is going to do something to recognize business that go out of their way to accommodate nursing moms in the work place. We are going to have a ceremony and invite the mayor. We will have it in August to coincide with world breastfeeding week/month.

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Basically, I see me being busy in the near future.

Long Day

We did quite a bit today. More than I like to do on a Sunday, but it was stuff that needed doing. I picked up a new digital voice recorder for the Breastfeeding Coalition of the Wabash Valley meetings so I can accurately take notes. I also picked up some thing for tomorrow's homeschool co-op class. Tomorrow, I will start my weather class. Hopefully, I don't completely blow it.

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In running errands, I took Hannah with me and decided to make it a special treat with her. We went out and had dessert for dinner. She felt like the biggest little princess. We went to Applebee's and I spoke with a manager about Dining for Donations and I will talk with the Coalition tomorrow night about that.

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Tomorrow is going to be a long, but hopefully productive day. While it would have been nice to enjoy that extra hour of sleep most people got with daylight savings, unfortunately my children do not understand the concept of the extra hour and so they were up at their normal time. Bah, humbug!