A temperature in the mid to high 60s is perfect for sitting under a blanket and reading a book and that is where our temps were most of this week despite it being summer. I have absolutely loved it.
It’s made me want to jump up and down, but I can’t since my knee is still healing. I have, instead, been doing some dancing in place while grabbing my grandma’s blanket and running to the couch with my Kindle.
If you didn’t read my Sunday Bookends, post, you might not know that I fell on my sidewalk last week while trying to take groceries into the house. My foot caught on the curb, I went flying, and my left knee took the full brunt of the impact. When my knee made contact, I had a horrible feeling that this was not going to be one of those falls you shake off and move on from.
So far it hasn’t been. I’ve been stiff and sore all week. My entire body reacted to that fall, and I’ve been a bit of a sore mess all week. Not a big of enough mess that I couldn’t have a fairly good week, though.
No ER visits this week despite that fall so that’s one good thing.
There were other good things about the week, though.
Little Miss attended an art class all week with the local 4-H group. Well, Tuesday through Friday.
On Monday, the kids and I drove 45 minutes north to visit with our homeschool evaluator and family friend. She learned about our school year and interviewed the kids and then wrote evaluations for both children for me to hand in to our school district to show they had a good education this past year.
On Tuesday we started the art class which was for four hours a day.
It was only a week long but there will be other 4-H events throughout the summer, including the horse and pony club which meets a couple of times a month, and a baking club which will be meeting every Monday in July. I also found out yesterday that there will be another art class like this one in August.
The building the classes were held in is an old shoe factory that built in the 1940s. It now houses a state representative office and offices for various community or county organizations.
My grandmother once worked at the shoe factory. She’s been gone since 2003 and was two weeks shy of 94 when she passed, so that gives you an idea how old the building is.
The building has, obviously, been remodeled and I love the mural that is on the walls when you first walk in.
The mural was painted by Kat Badger, who paints murals all over the world, but was thrilled, according to an interview with the local TV station (WNEP) to paint a mural in her own hometown. The mural features all the different aspects and features of Sullivan County – the waterfalls in the state park near here, the covered bridge in a tiny town near us, the people who worked in the shoe factory.
It’s truly beautiful.
The building is only about eight minutes from our house and all the other parents left their children there, but I was somehow asked to pick up the lunches each day, so I stuck around and mainly sat in the car and read books or worked on my book. In other words, it was relaxing in many ways, sans having to get lunches.
The plants outside the building in interesting “pots.”
On Friday I usually get our groceries, but I had to drive to the town we live in to take Little Miss to class, then back to where we live to pick up lunch. The problem was that when I got there, the business that was supposed to provide lunch never made it, saying their manager had denied the request to make a lunch for the local 4-H group. They did not, however, let the local 4-H group know this so at the last minute the local, family-owned supermarket was called and made subs for the group like the small town heroes they are.
After having to wait another half hour for that order then going back and waiting another hour and a half for the class to end, and then driving back home, I was glad I had decided to wait until today to pick up our grocery order since it is a 40-minute round trip to do that.
Next week, so far, looks to be a lot slower week. It is supposed to get very warm so we will probably be inside or in the sprinkler most of the time.
My dad has had a lot of health issues this year, so we haven’t been able to get the pool at his house going. Some things are going to have to be laid to the side this year, I think. There aren’t a lot of public pools near us but maybe we will find one to go to later in the summer.
There is a lake but Little Miss insists something touched her leg last time we went so she resists visits there. I still insist it was just some seaweed-like material and not some sort of lake monster but she doesn’t want to believe me.
I did enjoy looking at our wild roses this week. I was disappointed that some of our peonies didn’t bloom, but I think the frost at the end of May might have destroyed one of them. I missed their hot pink blooms but I was able to admire the dark pink blooms of the other peonies. Sadly, my knee issue didn’t let me get as many photos of the flowers as I wanted this week but I was able to get a few of the roses at least.
How was your week last week? Do anything interesting, exciting, or simply relaxing? I’d love to know.
The fields in front of my parents’ house were sunlit and golden. Beyond them were the green of the trees and beyond them the blue hills in the distance. White, puffy clouds drifted across a brilliant blue sky.
I stood at the top of the fields and looked at it all and thought about how four days earlier I’d been on my way to the emergency room with what felt like my heart skipping and wondering if I was going home again, yet unable to accept I wouldn’t.
I’ve had my heart skip before over the years. Many times. On this day, though, the skipping wasn’t stopping and had been going on all day, almost non-stop. I can take it happening a few seconds, sure. But all day? That was weirding me out.
It started at 4:30 a.m. and kept me awake for two hours. I got some more sleep, woke up and it was still there.
Still, I hadn’t fainted. I wasn’t even dizzy. Could it really be my heart? I didn’t think so but it was the same feeling I’d had for years when my heart skipped so that must be it.
I had taken my heart rate and it was a little elevated but later it would go back down again. So I would decide again it probably wasn’t my heart but a muscle twitch or reflux or who knows what.
Around 6 at night, I took my blood pressure after we got batteries for the machine. It was way too high. I took it again. And again. Still high.
We were on our way to the emergency room.
The long and short of it is that the tests showed my heart was fine, other than racing faster than it should have been. Yes, my blood pressure was high, but not as high as my machine was saying at home (still very bad, I won’t lie).
It could not have been anxiety. I told the doctor that. I could feel my heart skipping.
The feeling in my chest was so weird – again I’ve had it before and have learned to ignore it. That day I couldn’t ignore it. It wouldn’t stop.
The doctor was kind. He didn’t tell me I was crazy. He didn’t tell me it was “just anxiety.” He told me that while he didn’t feel like I was in immediate danger at all, I should go to a cardiologist and get on some medicine for the blood pressure.
Once again it was apparently anxiety. I’m still not sure, though, since I started to notice I could almost recreate the feeling when I touched or pressed on my upper abdomen.
Now I’m wondering if I was either having stomach issues that were making my chest area feel weird or if it was a muscle twitching. I do not, however, believe it was only anxiety because for most of the day I didn’t feel very anxious, other than the feeling I was having. I tried to carry on my day like any other day and keep my mind off it. It was until we found batteries for the blood pressure machine and I checked it did I start to really get nervous.
I was diagnosed with a type of tachycardia when I was 18 so I’m used to being told to visit cardiologists and I have a couple times before – always being told my heart is okay. I’m used to my heart rate going up when I’m tired or have had too much chocolate. I also found out that being dehydrated will raise a heart rate since they poured two bags of fluids in me to try to get the heart rate to go down when my blood work showed I was slightly dehydrated. In case you are wondering — it didn’t go down until I went home.
So on Thursday, I was at my parents’ thinking about how lucky I was to be sitting there looking out at the fields with the sun pouring on it, even though the heart flipping feeling continued throughout the week.
I started connecting the feeling to when I ate, to when I was sitting hunched over and worried about situations going on with our family, and to when I was, yes, anxious. Still, it wasn’t the same feeling I get when anxious, and the muscles in that area felt tight so I added stretches to the prayers and massaged the muscle and then the real help (besides the prayers) was a CBD rub-on stick.
Sitting and looking out at the field reminded me of Tuesday morning when I’d woke up after the ER visit, looked out in my backyard and saw the wild roses blooming. I hadn’t thought they would bloom yet and there they were – almost like a message to me from God.
I’ve been waiting all year to see those roses again and God knew it.
He gave me my roses in the same way he gave me peace and energy that day I was dealing with what I thought was my heart going all haywire. I was amazingly alert and with it and had energy well into the night when we came home even.
I didn’t think I was having a heart attack. I really thought my heart had gone into an irregular heartbeat. Like Afib.
It’s hard being the person who is always told she has anxiety and then she actually does even when she was convinced she wasn’t dealing with it on a particular day.
Yes, I have legit medical issues – hypothyroidism for one – possible fibromyalgia for two. Maybe one of them went haywire and I’ll follow up with my doctor to see what her ideas are (which probably won’t be much because she is honestly so useless it’s not even funny. It’s why I am looking for a new doctor).
After all that drama on Monday, I took my parents to an orthopedic appointment for both of them on Wednesday and found out my dad has a pinched nerve in his back. That’s been causing him incredible pain and unfortunately, we found out there is not much we can do about it.
On Thursday I was at my parents to celebrate my older (much older) brother’s birthday and it was a very nice, relaxing day. The first relaxing day I’d had all week.
Yesterday was even more relaxing since I didn’t have to go anywhere. Today I had to go get groceries and drop The Boy off at his friend’s house about 40 minutes away. I might be doing that while you’re reading this.
Tomorrow I am hoping for another day to relax, but may end up taking my parents to a family reunion instead since they both need help getting around now.
So that was my week – very little time for relaxing but plenty of time for praying and trusting God to bring me through.
How was your week? I certainly hope it was better than part of mine.
Our temps have remained mild this week which means I can still enjoy a warm cup of tea without making myself overheated. Today I am sipping peppermint tea with honey. Yes, I am a creature of habit.
Yesterday was one of the weirdest days I have had in a long time. It was one stressful thing after another and it didn’t let up all day. I won’t detail all of that stress here because some of it relates to private matters for others but I would literally hang up the phone and someone else would call with another situation. Thankfully none of it was at an emergency level and everyone is fine physically and no one is in the hospital. But, still, wow!
The other weird thing is that everyone I talked to was having a weird day too or my weirdness rubbed off on them. It was … to keep using the same word … weird.
By last night I was just sitting and staring at a type of emotional numbness from it all.
One good thing yesterday had going for it was that it was a beautiful day.
Little Miss and I traveled 20 minutes north to pick up our groceries and stopped by a couple of little libraries on the way back. Unfortunately, I only found two books and neither of them was very exciting. One is the autobiography of Michael J. Fox.
I was able to unload some of my books too, however.
The one little library is located along the Susquehanna River, on a river walk.
The other is an old British phone box and I’m really not sure where it came from but it is the makeshift library in the little town I went to school in. Their very old library was washed away in a flood several years ago. Little Miss wanted to pose in the little library so I snapped a photo of her.
Thankfully the weather is beautiful again today so hopefully I can perk up some.
Little Miss has a friend over and they have already had some fun jumping on the neighbor’s trampoline, sliding on the Slip N’ Slide, throwing water balloons, and just hanging out together.
The Boy helped my dad lift a headstone at the little cemetery down the road from Dad’s house and then helped a man who restores and cleans some headstones at another cemetery.
The Husband is, sadly, working.
Later I hope to be reading, which I tried to do a lot of this week. I didn’t even watch a lot of TV but I do hope to watch an old movie tonight because I miss old movies. I haven’t watched any in the last few months.
Thursday was our last day of homeschooling and I’m grateful for the break. I will probably start a few lessons in July but nothing too major until August.
The Boy’s technical school is out but he has a few English and History assignments to finish up for me. He will be a senior next year and Little Miss will be a fourth grader.
I haven’t yet told all of you that I’ve started a YouTube channel (just shorts for now) and a paid Substack – so I am telling you know now because I have to admit to all my regular readers that I have no idea what I am doing. I also have no specific goals for the channel or the paid Substack. You can also follow me for free on substack, which will be where I post my monthly writing update (which is free), and will soon be posting sneak peeks and other goodies for paid subscribers.
I will be sharing my main blogging here, however, because I feel like WordPress is my safe little haven where I’m just free to be weirdo me. Not that I won’t also be weird on Substack because I can’t get the weird out of me.
(Today’s post is sponsored by word weird. We’ve all been weird or known someone who is weird. If you too would like to be weird, then visit this blog often and learn more about how you too can be weird.)
One thing I don’t really like paying attention to with all these social media sites is stats. Stats are very suffocating. I just want to have fun making videos or sharing about what books I’m reading or – yes – sharing about the books I’ve written. After doing a little analyzing and looking at stats this week I was reminded again that numbers don’t mean anything if connections are not made and relationships are not formed. I was also reminded I’d rather have the connections and relationships than the numbers, which is why I’m going to post only when I feel like it and not think I have to post all the time to “build a following.”
The only one who should be followed is Jesus and he doesn’t keep track of his stats in numbers but in hearts so I think I’ll just follow him and worry less about numbers on a screen.
Now that we are out of school, I don’t know what we are doing.
Nope. I don’t know what we are doing next week at all.
The week after this upcoming week we will be going to meet with the kid’s homeschool evaluator and then the rest of that week there is an art class being held by the local 4-H. There will be a horse and pony club meeting that Friday night as well.
So that week will be fairly busy.
I’m a hermit in the summer sometimes because I don’t handle the hot temps well. Or my body doesn’t at least.
I lock myself up in air conditioning as much as possible to avoid, well, fainting. Ha.
I do hope we can get to a couple outside events this summer – including a pool or two and maybe an aquarium that Little Miss has been asking to go to.
How was your week last week?
Are the temps warm or cool where you are?
What are you drinking these days? Warm or cool drinks or a mix of both like me?
Zooma the Wonder Dog (my dog for those who may be new here) has this way of sitting and staring at me right at the moment I’ve finally had a chance to sit down and work on a blog post or read a book.
And what stinks is that I have no idea what she wants when she does that.
Sometimes she wants to be petted and other times she wants me to take her out. It is up to me to decipher what she wants and there are days I am just in no mood to try to figure it out.
Today as I work on this post is one of those days.
We just took her outside so I don’t think she has to go to the bathroom. What it looks like is that she wants attention. She wants to play and be petted. I guess I will have to pause and see what she needs.
Ah, yes. It was a pet and a play.
Now with that out of the way I can continue to chat with all of you, my bloggy friends.
I like my Saturday chat posts because I just ramble and then you ramble back at me. I like that we ramble about nothing and everything.
This week I have a little more to ramble about than some weeks, but not a lot more.
We didn’t do a ton but with the weather nicer we were outside more. The temps were pretty high at the beginning of the week but at the end of each night, it was cool enough for Little Miss to jump on the neighbor’s trampoline. They are so nice and put that trampoline up each year specifically for Little Miss since their kids are grown now. They do have their grandsons up to visit sometimes but they live eight hours away now so that visit doesn’t happen as often as they would all like.
The trampoline is on top of a hill behind their house and it’s a bit of a hike for this woman who is out of shape and overweight. The first night we hiked up my legs hurt and I had to stop four times. The second night the climb was way better and by the third I climbed it very easily. I was grateful I got used to that haul a bit faster than some years.
Little Miss asks me to pretend I am characters from the books we read and those characters rate her various jumps and flips. I don’t mind doing it when it is just her and me out there but a couple nights this week my neighbor’s husband was outside burning his trash and working in the garden and there I was doing my silly voices. He didn’t seem to mind, but I still explained to him what I was doing. He isn’t a super chatty guy but he smiled at me good-naturedly and either thought our little play-acting was amusing or that I’m insane. Maybe both. *wink*
On Thursday Little Miss and I visited my parents for some dinner. The Boy had worked with my dad all day after morning technical school and was tired so he crashed at home while we were gone.
We took Zooma the Wonder Dog with us to show off her crooked new hairdo. Grooming has gotten very expensive so we bought a cheap kit and decided to groom her ourselves. It didn’t come out too bad but she still needs to be trimmed on her right side. She didn’t enjoy the sound of the clippers so we used the scissors. At least the large mats behind her ears are gone.
And the fur around her legs and feet is a little shorter.
The view from my parents was absolutely beautiful on Thursday. I was dealing with some stress and depression that day and it seemed like Zooma knew I needed to see the view because she let me know she needed to use the bathroom and then led to me to the dirt road and field in front of the house where I admired the view for several moments.
My mood was greatly improved after the visit and when I went home, I read books instead of going on social media or watching anything. It helped my mood immensely.
Yesterday Little Miss, The Boy, The Husband, and I traveled to a theater 45 minutes away and watched the new Garfield movie. It wasn’t too bad. Better than I thought it would be. Afterward we picked up some lunch at a local supermarket (they have amazing fried chicken there) and then visited a park near there that was located next to the river.
There were white puffs all over the ground, which at first I thought were from dandelions but then realized that they looked like puffs of cotton. I looked up and they were floating all over in the air, falling from the trees. I knew there were trees that dropped pods or something that had white cotton-like material inside but wasn’t sure what they were so I had to search online on my phone while we were sitting there.
Of course, the cotton-like material was coming from cottonwood trees along the river. I don’t think I’ve seen that material fall from trees before so I thought cottonwood must not be as common in Pennsylvania. After I got home, I looked that up online, though, and cottonwood is fairly common but is found along rivers, lakes, streams, and marshland.
After we ate lunch, The Husband picked up some groceries for us while the kids and I stayed inside the AC car. I felt rude not helping but he moves very fast and we dawdle so he seems to do better if we aren’t with him. We sort of annoy him when we wander around the store instead of just getting what is on our list.
After the groceries were picked up we headed home and read some on the porch.
The rest of the weekend should be just hanging out and relaxing, probably at my parents on Sunday and Monday.
We have a local Memorial Day Ceremony Monday morning that we will try to attend and then we will probably have a cookout at my parents that afternoon.
I hope that you all are having a nice day Memorial Day weekend, if you are in the U.S., or just a nice weekend in general.
What was your week last week? Did you do anything exciting or interesting? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to know.
Welcome to my weekly chat. I can make you a cup of tea, pour you a glass of juice or milk, or hand you a water bottle. Which would you prefer?
Today I thought we’d chat about my week last week and then you can share about your week in the comments.
I’ll start with yesterday and work backward.
Yesterday was a somewhat long day so I am glad that it is raining today, giving me an excuse to stay home and read, write, and watch some comforting shows.
I really didn’t have to do that much but for some reason it felt like a lot. I dropped The Boy off at my parents to help Dad mow the lawn on their large property, picked up groceries and a prescription 20 minutes away, dropped off a few items my mom had asked for, came home and unloaded the car alone (something The Boy usually helps with but couldn’t because he was still at my parents), cooked dinner and relaxed for a bit, and then finished out the day by taking Little Miss to her first Horse and Pony Club 4-H meeting about five minutes from our house.
I don’t mention my chronic illnesses a lot, mainly because I have not been officially diagnosed with the one illness (Fibromyalgia), but it’s that one that leaves me so dragged out after driving a lot and after a busy day.
When I have a busy day one day, I find I need one or two days afterward to recover my energy and get my muscles to stop burning or aching. I am better off than a lot of people but if I do too much in one week, I actually end up with what is called “a flare” and that sometimes takes me out for a week.
A few weeks ago I had a good week where I felt like I could do a lot. I kept going and by Saturday of that week, I was having stomach issues, exhaustion, brain fog, aching, and all kinds of other odd symptoms. My mom, who has Fibromyalgia, said it sounded like a flare and she may have been right but a couple of weeks later (if there are men here, feel free to skip the lady talk coming up), I started my period, which I have not had in a few months. In other words, I’m not sure if it was a full-on flare of just hormones. Whatever it was, it was annoying and frustrating.
I push through the days even when I have flares, though, and I’ve had more good days than bad in the last several months so I’ll take it. I never have a day where I am completely pain-free or without having to rest through a period of exhaustion, but I do have days where the pain is better and the exhaustion is a little less intense.
In addition to possible fibro I take medicine for hypothyroidism and that is a mess – trying to balance out side effects from the medicine and also get my levels to where it will help the low thyroid issue. I’ve dealt with that for over ten years and it is not fun at all.
I don’t ask anyone to diagnose me with fibro because I’ve tried to mention it to two primary doctors who dismissed me – with one sort of laughing at me and telling me it’s not hereditary when I told her my mom and grandmother both had been diagnosed. Mom says that there isn’t much doctors will do for you anyhow, unless it gets bad enough for them to give you pain meds but the pain meds can also lead to some very debilitating side effects so she doesn’t use them often. If it gets to the point I can’t function at all because of the pain, I will push harder for a diagnosis.
Now, back to the horse and pony club I took Little Miss to yesterday. We’ve been looking for some activities for Little Miss to become involved with and in this area, 4-H is one of the main activities. We don’t live on a farm so we can’t raise a farm animal, but luckily the program offers several different types of clubs for young people to participate in. Little Miss doesn’t have a horse but she is hoping to learn more about them and be around them so we decided to try the horse club.
She is also interested in the Lego Club, a baking club, and maybe a knitting club. A couple of those only meet in the winter. We are waiting for more information on when their meetings will be.
I knew a couple of the parents who were at the meeting last night, but I don’t know them well enough to talk to them and they were all in their own little chat groups so I sat in my car and texted my “online friend” (she’s a real friend that I hope to meet in person soon) instead. While sitting there I noticed that every car around me was a jeep or SUV and all of them were either white or black. It was a bit weird actually.
It was also a reminder to me that a lot of people in my area who are in programs like this have a lot more money than me. Those were some expensive cars. I’m sure many of them have car payments but I still felt out of place with my beat-up 12-year-old Lincoln with the left front still mashed in from the deer we hit last year because we couldn’t afford to fix it.
I also have a headlight that isn’t working because the brackets have broken off the one we purchased that my dad was going to replace for us. That’s a long story but hopefully, we can get it replaced soon.
None of the people there made me feel like a redneck outsider, by the way. They were very polite and kind people who answered questions when I asked. I felt like a redneck outsider on my own because of the damaged front end of my car and the fact I was drinking rootbeer out of a brown glass bottle, making it look like I was kicking back a beer in my old beater car.
Honestly, I’d rather be in the old beater car because it’s not bad inside with heated and AC seats, Bluetooth capability and a built-in GPS.
It also provides me with a comfortable creaking sound that comes from the undercarriage as I take turns. That creaking keeps my life exciting and me on my toes because I’m never sure when the car might fall apart underneath me.
Because of the broken headlight, I needed to get out of there before dark and I thought the meeting was only about an hour but it was going on two and I was starting to panic.
Little Miss still hadn’t had a chance to lead the pony around and she really wanted to do that so I had to wait because she would have complained the whole way home how she had to sit through them talking about how to take care of a horse and when it came her time to actually lead a pony she didn’t get that chance.
Driving home in the dark on one headlight or listening to the 9-year-old whine about how she never gets to do anything. Hmmmm….I chose the one headlight which then resulted into my humming that 90s song by the Wallflowers. “We can drive it home with one headlight…”
I’m like that character in the British sitcom Miranda when certain words or phrases in everyday conversation make her think of certain songs and she just belts them out. Well, she isn’t just a character since the sitcom was based on the life of comedian and author Miranda Hart.
Anyhooooo…. Need an earworm? I can provide that for you:
The farm where this meeting was held was gorgeous, by the way. There was a small barn/stable and four or five horses in the field, beautiful views and the clouds were amazing last night.
There was also a random guinea fowl wandering around that I thought belonged to the people who owned the house but later learned had just wandered onto their property earlier in the week.
They had no idea who it belonged to. These birds are great in our area though because they eat deer ticks which can help to cut down on the population. We have a high number of Lyme disease causing ticks in our area so the less of them, the better.
Earlier in the week Little Miss and I visited a greenhouse near us that is open for about a month out of the year. They used to be open all summer and longer but the children of the original couple who opened it run it part time now since their father passed away a few years ago and their mother is older now and can’t easily help run it.
I was so excited to see her this week when we visited, though, because she is a beloved member of the little community where I grew up and she has one of the best smiles and the most cheerful spirits I have ever seen. Seeing that smile of hers was just heartwarming and I almost hugged her but since I don’t know her that well, I held back. My mom would have hugged her, though, so I at least told her Mom said ‘hello.’
It began to rain while we were there so we didn’t stay long and for one of the first times in the last few years we’ve visited, I didn’t take photographs during our visit.
I did take a couple of photographs as we drove over the hill to my parents, however. Well, Little Miss took this one.
And then I took one as Little Miss planted one of her flowers later that day in the rain, with her winter coat and gloves, even though it was not that cold out.
We’ve actually been having warmer temps this week. These are the temps I would love for us to have all summer because I do not do well at all in warmer temperatures.
Speaking of flowers, the lilacs in our backyard bloomed, but only on one smaller bush.
It appears that our big, very old lilac bush has actually died and will not be blooming this year. That was heartbreaking. I’m not sure if the early frost got to it or what happened, but for some reason the younger bush did bloom. We may have to eventually remove the older, gnarled tree that probably has seen a lot of history. I wonder if it as old as our large rose bush, which my neighbor told me is over 100 years old. Her grandparents or aunt and uncle, one or the other, used to live here and she lived with them for a while.
I am looking forward to when those roses start blooming in June, around the same time as the peonies. Our backyard is alive in the early summer and it’s exciting. I couldn’t believe how one day in early May the trees were naked and then suddenly they were green. It was really exciting to see this year.
Watching things bloom the next couple of weeks will be a nice respite from homeschool which is actually a little more stressful this time of year as we try to finish up units and testing before June 4 comes. June 4th will be our last day of school. The main thing I have to complete is a standardized test for Little Miss, which is required in third, fifth, and eighth grades in the state of Pennsylvania. We can use a standardized test from another state so we are using the California Assessment Test. It is an untimed test so we can take breaks from it, which we did a lot this past week because there were so many multiple choice questions to answer.
The grade on the test doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we do it and my homeschool evaluator sees it and says, “It was done and you met that requirement.” The local school district does not have access to the scores. Only I do. What the scores help me with is learning what areas of math and language arts we need to focus on next year. These tests only test those subjects. I have already learned, through the test we did Wednesday and Thursday, that I need to focus more on punctuation with Little Miss next year. She reads wonderfully but does not know much about punctuation.
Getting both of the kids to the end of the homeschool line has been like dragging a stubborn mule which has rolled itself on its side in the mud and closed its eyes. I can’t wait until the final day and will be glad for our summer break.
In closing, I thought I would mention that I have been trying to share videos of myself on social media to connect with my readers and I hate it. I hate how I look, sound, and talk. Still, I’m trying to push forward and connect in a different way with readers. I may chase some people away but some people might actually like placing a face with the account and following along on my writing/author journey. I have met new readers and writers and bloggers after posting new videos and that’s been nice so I guess I’ll keep doing this from time to time. I even set up a – gasp – YouTube Channel, but I don’t plan to be posting my face on there very often. I actually don’t know what I’ll be doing with that yet. Maybe nothing. Time will tell.
So, how was your week this past week?
Is the weather getting nicer where you are?
Have you been drinking any nice teas? Taking any hikes? Sniffing any flowers?
Hello, how was your week? Can I make you a cup of tea?
I need that warm cup of tea today, not only because the temps are a little on the chilly side this week, but because I feel slightly cold and numb inside these days.
I try to be fairly perky on my blog but right now I do not feel perky.
I feel pretty down about a lot of things.
In better news, this week we had some very nice weather and on one of those days with nice weather Little Miss and I visited the library for the first time in months. We have not been going to the library because we have so many books to read already. We are overwhelmed.
We mainly went to the library because Little Miss was very indignant when she found out her friends had gone to the library and immediately flocked to the computers to play the games they could play at home.
“They should be playing or picking out books at a library!” she declared. “Not playing video games!”
Little Miss does play some online video games with her friends so she’s not being judgmental of video game playing, but for her that day she was expressing how she feels the library is a place for reading and not for playing on the computer.
The next day, however, she was letting things slide a bit on that front, saying it would be okay if they picked out books first.
I, however, told her that she would not be playing video games on computers at our local library when we go. The library is for unplugging, for reading, for relaxing, for quieting the mind from all the online mess.
I simply will not allow her to play video games in a place I feel is sacred for readers. I know, I sound like a strict parent and I would be if I didn’t let her play any online games at all with her friends (games I keep an eye on) while they chat through a private message service. I don’t think it is strict to have rules about treating the library as a place to seek out peace instead of chaos.
The children’s librarian said her children play on the computer but only because they are there so much with her on certain days and I said that I would understand. I mean, how many books can they pick out while there waiting while Mom works? So, sure, they would spend some time on the computer.
Anyhow, Little Miss enjoyed playing with Lego’s and blocks while I picked some books out for her – okay, I picked up a couple of middle grade books for me as well and then sat and read the one book – Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes – for a while.
While there I did learn that if you like a book and want others to have access to that book you need to check it out once in a while, otherwise libraries remove it from the shelves after a certain amount of time. The librarian told me if no one checks out a book for whatever amount of time the library sets for it to be checked out (I think she said a few years, but I can’t remember), then it is removed from the shelf – classic or not.
After we arrived home, I made spaghetti and meatballs and we headed to my parents for dinner.
Later in the week, my mom had an exciting night when a bear showed up on my parents’ front porch. My mom suffers from fibromyalgia so lying in a bed has been hard for her for years. She now sleeps in a recliner at night and her recliner is next to the patio door. She was returning from the bathroom around 1:30 when she saw something move in the dark on the patio/deck. She figured it was an opossum or racoon or maybe a skunk since those create visit a lot. Then she saw the bear rise up on its hind legs to grab for the bags Dad had created to look like a hornets nest to try to trick the hornets into thinking there was another nest there.
She said the bear dropped down and sniffed a while and then went up on it’s hind legs again. When it dropped down and rose up a third time, putting its giant paws on the glass of the door to both look in and get to the bags, she called for my dad.
Dad came running from his room with his iPad so he could try to get a photo of the bear. *Facepalm* By that time, though, the bear was making his way off the porch so Dad only saw its backend as it was walking back into the darkness.
Later that day Dad learned that a bear had been hit by a car or truck sometime in the morning along the highway near their house, but we don’t know if this was the same bear or not. My husband said someone had cut the bear’s head off, maybe to take home as a trophy. He wasn’t sure but the State Game Commission is apparently investigating the incident.
Last weekend I wasn’t feeling well because of extreme sinus pressure so we didn’t do much. Today I am having a “lady issue” that I thought I was done having so I am again home and under the covers.
Tomorrow we will have lunch at my parents for Mother’s Day.
Hopefully, my attitude and depression will improve later this week.
As an aside, I heard there is an effort going around the internet to “out” people who support Israel in any way shape, or form – or Jewish writers in general. They are listing them as Zionists, which I don’t see as a bad term. I just think there are a lot of people who don’t like Jews who don’t tremble in fear and walk into the gas chambers for them anymore.
Since I think all of this smacks very heavily to what happened in the 30s and 40s in my opinion I am hoping to get a hold of that list and buy directly from the authors any of the books that interest me.
If anyone reading this doesn’t like that I want to buy books by Jewish authors, you are more than welcome to stop following my blog.
It won’t bother me one bit.
I don’t have a lot planned for the week but I’m sure I’ll be making plenty of cups of tea or cocoa and finishing some books I have started.
For once I can report that the weather was lovely this past week in our neck of the woods. There was sun, not too much heat, and only one day where it rained.
Today, however, the weather is going to get cold again, but not as cold as it was in early April, so I’ll take it. I don’t mind a few days of cuddling under a blanket with a good book and a cup of tea.
Last week I had one day where I could have tea but otherwise, it was cooler drinks like lemon in water, juices, and anything that would help keep us hydrated as the temperatures rose.
I mentioned last week that The Husband’s truck fell apart a bit and that it is in the shop, probably for quite a while, so we were without a car here at the house. That meant we found things to do in our yard instead of going to the playground. Little Miss was able to go to the playground at least one evening and also found a way to ride her bike down the grassy hill behind our house which was fun for her.
I spent more than one night on the back porch reading the cozy mystery I’ve been reading and that was very relaxing and nice. I plan to have the book finished today.
The Boy had a bit of a weird week. I forgot to mention in my post last week when I was talking about all the weird stuff happening in our family that The Boy was zapped with an electric current while working on installing a light at my parents. A switch accidentally got left on. He was fine but hadn’t been feeling well that week already and thought he was coming down with a cold.
On Saturday afternoon when The Husband called about his truck catching fire under the tire (we now know the ball bearing broke), I let The Boy know he’d need to watch his sister while I drove up to get a car to The Husband so he could continue on to his job. He said, “Oh, well, that’s a lot more serious than what I was going to tell you, which is that I can’t hear out of my right ear.”
We decided to wait it out a couple of days and see if the ear opened and drained on its own or if it was definitely an ear infection. I felt it probably was, but he wasn’t in a lot of pain. By Tuesday he was in more pain, so it was off to the doctor. The Husband took him, and it was about to become a full-blown ear infection so he was placed on an antibiotic.
The antibiotic isn’t making him feel very good at all – he’s extremely dragged out on it, so he hasn’t had the best week. His ear really hurt at the trade school he attends when they had a fire drill one day and he was standing near the fire alarm. In the end he missed a couple days of school and is just looking forward to when he’s done with the antibiotic.
I feel for the kid. In one week, he was electrocuted, developed an ear infection and then a side effect from the antibiotic. Despite all that he was fairly perky most of the week, so I was grateful he wasn’t completely knocked down.
School is almost over for the kids, and they are certainly looking forward to that.
We are taking it fairly easy for the last month by focusing on the arts – such as art and music and then some history and English.
We will have to finish up some math, but for the most we are done with science and math for the school year.
I am as excited about that as the kids.
We will be homeschooling next year as well, and I have to admit I’m already making plans for what we will study and hope to start some of it in July – easing our way into full-time school by mid-August. The Boy will be a senior next year. I haven’t yet wrapped my mind around that.
Today Little Miss is having some friends over to play. They’ve been looking forward to seeing each other in person after chatting with each other online most of the time since we live 45 minutes from them.
Tomorrow we will most likely have lunch with my parents like we do most Sundays. So far, I don’t have a ton on tap for next week. I’m hoping to work on my book, write a couple blog posts and book reviews, and hopefully have the sinus pressure I developed yesterday goes away and I’m not the next one on an antibiotic.
How was your week? Let me know in the comments or if you have a weekly catch up type post you can leave a link in the link up. You don’t have to share about your week the same way I do to link up, of course.
Did you ever feel like you are the outside looking in?
I’ve felt this a lot but specifically, I am talking about people who have read classic books like Little Women and I haven’t, or well hadn’t.
After reading Little Women this year I finally feel like I know what everyone is talking about when it comes to Jo and Laurie.
Finally!
I mean I have seen movies based on the book but only by reading the book did I really get why Jo and Laurie simply couldn’t be together at the end. They were too much alike. Both impulsive and passionate in ways that weren’t always good. Yes, as they grew they could have changed and mellowed but I can’t see that happening really. I think as they grew older they may have bounced off each other even more and ended up arguing all of the time, making for a miserable marriage.
They both needed partners to offset their personalities.
Jo needed someone more calming like The Professor and Laurie needed someone willing to be more genteel like Amy.
Part of me still doesn’t like that Amy and Laurie ended up together. My heart says it wasn’t right, but I can also see why Alcott didn’t make Jo and Laurie a couple. She needed to do something different – shake up the readers’ expectations and leave everyone talking for the next hundred or so years. If Laurie and Jo had ended up together then Little Women would have always been seen as a sweet book but maybe not the one ahead of its time that it is now.
What do you think? *looking at those who have read Little Women with a wide-eyed, somewhat crazed expression*
Relaxing breath.
Okay. With that off my chest, we can now move on to our regularly scheduled program of me reviewing my past week.
Today I am going to be sipping something warm – most likely tea – while writing blog posts, brainstorming more ideas for Gladwynn Shakes the Family Tree (book three in my cozy mystery series), and reading a cozy mystery. It’s a little chilly today after some very nice and warm days earlier in the week.
We had warm days and cold nights. Warm enough that our tulips came up and I thought one night they’d die in the frost we had forecasted, but they survived.
Next week I need to prepare myself to be at the playground a lot because it is supposed to be warm and sunny pretty much all week.
We spent time at the playground three days this week and a lot of time outside sitting on the porch and playing with the dog on other days.
In between all of that, we had school lessons as we marched toward the end of our school year. We will be finishing up around the first week of June.
I picked The Boy up from his trade school yesterday and we headed over to an additional location for a bakery near us that has become very, very popular before picking up our groceries.
The kids picked out some sweet treats – two Boston cream donuts for The Boy and three Oreo cupcakes for Little Miss (and an extra for dad) and three Hershey kiss cookies for me. The Boy also ordered an iced coffee but, sadly, said it had more ice than coffee. It was still good, though, he said and he will try again for one another time. He said he actually doesn’t like coffee that much but always feels like he should so he keeps ordering different kinds to see if the love for it will finally catch on.
There was a mix up at our pick up when the young man who brought out my groceries gave me two or three bags that were not mine.
I’m so glad I checked before I left because more than half my order was missing. He had grabbed the wrong stack of bags. I had to go into the store and track him down when I noticed the mistake. When he came out to the car to help correct, I let him know that I’m not in diapers yet so the one bag clearly wasn’t supposed to go me.
He was very polite and apologetic and the mistake was taken care of very quickly.
After we left there it was a quick snack from Wendy’s, which my son said was disgusting.
From there we headed home and the kids spent part of the afternoon watching Harry Potter and then a half hour at the playground.
Today The Husband has to work almost the entire day so it will be just me and the kids. We will probably watch a movie together later tonight – I’m trying to find something different that The Boy might like. He always suggests the weirdest movies so this time he’s going to watch something that I like.
Tomorrow we will visit my parents for Sunday lunch and to hang out. Little Miss likes to play games when we are there but I’m hoping that this time we can watch a fun or interesting movie instead.
This morning I spent some time crying over Tom Jones singing on The Voice. I never knew much about Tom Jones until I saw some clips on the UK version of The Voice and oh my. He is still amazing and he’s in his 80s! Just what?!
Here are a couple clips I just loved listening to while I procrastinated on cleaning the house and organizing my homeschooling supplies:
How was your week last week? Let me know in the comments and if you have a similar weekly catch-up post – no matter when you post it – link up with me.
Sipping tea and cocoa, reading books, and watching All Creatures Great and Small. That’s all I want to do today and hopefully, I will.
It wasn’t a rough week. It was a relaxing one, but it did have various bouts of sad news mixed in about a variety of people and situations. I just need a break from things.
The world is heavy, right? I’m not the only one who feels it, am I?
I mean – it’s a lot unless you lock yourself in a house and never engage with people or go on social media or participate in society whatsoever. That may be something I look into soon.
Again, though, could just be me, but I’m sort of over the craziness of the world right now.
Which is why I am piling up my cozy mysteries and popping in some old movies and eating a lot of chocolate this weekend.
Okay, maybe I won’t eat a lot of chocolate. I’ve actually been craving fruit more than anything else. I just want fruit all the time lately and I think that’s because my body wants healthier foods. I intend to give it those healthier foods it wants this week. Even if fruits and vegetables are some of the most expensive foods right now.
This past week, as I said, wasn’t really too stressful other than bad news.
The Husband had off work for the week so we had some family time, including a trip to a nearby reptile zoo yesterday.
Earlier in the week we hung out at home, went for some walks (well, I didn’t but the rest of them did), went to the playground, visited my parents and had some pizza with them, watched some Adventures of Sherlock and Perry Mason and read books or, for me, wrote blog posts.
The kids had school but we took it easy, especially on the nice days when we had sun and warmer temps. We seem to be in this routine in Pennsylvania of two nice days and five not-so-nice ones. I’ll take those two nice days and hope for more nice days in a row in May and the rest of the summer.
Wednesday night we had a pizza night at my parents’ house. We made homemade pizza – well, not really. It was store-bought dough but we added the sauce, cheese, and roasted peppers.
Yesterday it was off to Clyde Peelings Reptiland where Little Miss was able to see her favorite creatures – reptiles. She was able to pet a snake and was thrilled by that but I’m sure she would have been more thrilled to bring it home. She’s still trying to talk me into us buying her one. I just keep pushing her off and hope she will forget about it.
The Boy, The Husband, and Little Miss went inside the zoo and I stayed in the car reading books, partially to save money because the tickets are quite high, and partially because I had already seen the zoo and The Husband hadn’t.
He is not a fan of reptiles, especially snakes, but he did well.
Afterward, we decided not to go to a fast food restaurant to eat but instead stopped at a local supermarket called Weis. It’s like a smaller version of Wegman’s, for those familiar with that chain, or Trader Joes with less options.
Still, it provides more fresh fruit and natural products than other supermarkets in our area, which means my lunch was some pork chops I had brought from home and a package of raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries. Everyone else had things like General Tsaos chicken, dumplings, and fried chicken pieces. To me, it always seems a better deal to pick up lunch at a place that provides good quality food next to some healthier options, especially since our last restaurant experience was expensive and disappointing.
The sun has been out a little bit today and that’s been nice but it looks like it is clouding up again out there. We really need a stretch of several days of sun to perk us all up.
I plan to spend the rest of the day sipping tea, as I mentioned above, and finishing up a The Cat Who … book that I got wrapped up in the other day when I was looking for a comfort read to deal with all the overwhelming news of people I know with health issues.
There are some very funny lines in this book – The Cat Who Talked to Ghost by Lilian Jackson Braun – it’s actually become one of my favorites.
At one point, Polly, the main character’s girlfriend (they are an older couple in their 50s just for a visual) adopts a Siamese cat and, usually reserved, gushes over it and talks baby talk to it.
Main character, Jim Qwilleran, a slightly uptight newspaper columnist with two Siamese cats of his own, is aghast at her behavior.
“Qwilleran had to admit he was an appealing little creature, but he found Polly’s commentary cloying.
He occasionally called Yum Yum his little sweetheart, but that was different. It was a term of endearment, not maudlin gush.
“What’s his name?” he asked.
“Bootsie, and he’s going to grow up to be just like Koko.”
Fat chance, Qwilleran thought, with a name like that! Koko bore the dignified cognomen of Kao K’o Kung, a thirteenth-century Chinese artist.”
I don’t know why that section cracked me up, but it did! I guess I needed the laugh.
How was your week this past week?
Do anything fun?
Let me know in the comments.
Next week I plan to start a link-up for weekly wrap-up posts and then anyone who does similar posts (they don’t have to have the same name at all) can add their links and we can catch up on what everyone is doing. I’ll let you know more about that next week.
