Finally feel like posting, yay!

I’m going to start with last Friday and work on stuff from there til now. 

Friday morning I went to the gym & had an orientation with one of the trainers.  By some luck, I got the one that is certified for special needs people (which apparently I am in this case).  He had me walk on the treadmill for a long while, longer than he’d expected in any case, whereupon he said "Wow, you just keep going and going.  That’s a good thing."  He took me through a bunch of machines, was appalled at my lack of strength and endurance, and finally had me try some free weights because the machine I’d have used in that exercise would have started out too heavy.  He talked pretty much constantly about how his goal was to bring out the person I was inside into a body that fit who I was.  (I nearly laughed hysterically at that point).  He was really very nice, and he does a lot of research into nutrition and neurology and stuff, but he only will sign on for once a week as the least often you can see him.  At $45 a session, that’s not going to happen.  So I went home, disappointed, because I hadn’t learned much that I didn’t already know.

Friday afternoon we spent packing up the van for our camping trip.  Yes: I said camping trip.  We picked up kids and then we were off to Lake Hawkins for camping with the church.  The weather was just about perfect.  Everyone was really friendly.  The kids enjoyed wandering around in packs with their friends.  Greg and Ben followed this one girl everywhere she went (she’s 12 and sweet and awkward and adventurous and just the perfect kind of girl you’d want your little boys to follow around).  I was initially quite aggravated (Nick had to go get the firewood really soon after we arrived, so it was me, alone, with three kids and a tent to put up), but that subsided once I wasn’t being pulled in 6 directions at once.  One family there brought 1) a huge pavilion, 2) all 25 or so of the picnic tables that went under it, 3) this really cool trailer that included a griddle, grill, smoker, sink, and storage, and made quite a lot of food.  They were awesome.  We did a lot of potluck meals, but the first night we were on  our own and guess what?  We discovered that we’d left half our food at home.  So I had to drive to the nearest grocery store (15 minutes away, fortunately) and buy stuff.  Came back and we had dinner & went over to the main area to roast marshmallows & stuff.  When it was time to go to bed (so very late) we discovered that our toiletries bag was back at home, too.  I managed to borrow some contact solution from someone and we went to bed.  David & Ben had a tent together and then Nick, Greg, and I  shared one with a queen sized air mattress inside.   Only one kid wanted to go potty during the night, which was great.  Walking in the dark without corrective lenses was an adventure. 

First thing the next morning I watched the sun rise with my little family, then drove back to our house for our missing stuff.  I stayed just long enough to change clothes and then headed back.  Nick was off chaperoning a group of boys, so I took charge of the gaggle of girls that wanted to go flower picking near the dam.  Eventually I was in charge of all the small kids at the beach and chaos ensued.  Kids that were told yes, they could dip their toes ended up wet up to their knees and kids that had been told no were pretty wet as well (all that splashing).  It was only about 50 degrees at that point, too.  Anyway, I made everyone walk back barefoot, as there was too much sand to get off of everyone at once.  By then breakfast was getting close to ready.  Breakfast was huge, with people coming out from their homes with casseroles in addition to the pancakes & breakfast meats & eggs & fruit.  Yummm.  Afterward we cleaned up and then it was time for church, which was held pretty much in the same place as breakfast.  Church outside is awesome.  I think I’d like to do it all spring long. 

After church we were on our own until dinner.  We wandered here and there with the kids playing frisbee and football and chase and going into and out of all the different tents and another trip down to the beach.  The kids went all the way into the water that time.  It was a beautiful afternoon.  Poor Greg cut open his toe again, though, so we had to leave a little early to go patch him up.  Dinner came soon enough and we had an enormous amount of food & lots of fellowship time again.  David really enjoyed walking around after dark with his friends & flashlights.  Greg wanted to go to bed early, so I took him in for snuggles and ended up falling asleep there, myself.  I woke up a little while later and there were guys with guitars outside my tent, so I just laid there and listened to that until real bedtime.  That night was warmer, plus we had more blankets, but the kids got up more for bathroom visits.  Oh well.  Ben got up at dawn again, so I got to watch the sunrise again. Ben and I took a walk around the lake while it was still foggy all around and we took lots of pictures of things.  We eventually got coffee & there was another big breakfast made up of leftovers from all the other meals.  It was really yummy.  Greg and I took a walk after that to explore the other half of the camping area, where we discovered a permanent pavilion and a playground.  After that it was time to go on back home.

I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed the weekend.  It was nice to get outside and to be away from all those pesky electrically supplied interruptions (our phones didn’t even work out there and there was no internet at all).  I didn’t really miss having a shower, although there was one available (we didn’t bring towels or shampoo or anything).  It was all pretty calming.

I spent the rest of Sunday and all of Monday cleaning up from the trip.  All those clothes & sleeping bags needed washing and refolding, ya know.  Monday night was scouts.  Tuesday I had an amazing day of writing.  Yesterday was the last steering meeting of the current year for my MOPS group.  A friend came over in the afternoon with her kids for a while.  I started applying patches to Nick’s leader uniform & Davi’d uniform for scouts, as uniform inspection is tonight. 

This morning my sinus infection came back (I think due to the RA med shot I gave myself yesterday).  I bought a nifty new-to-me glider rocker bench and table at a garage sale for $15 this morning.  As I was walking to my van to move it closer, I heard a lady offer to pay double what I did for the set, so that made me oddly happy, but the garage sale lady stood firm, as she already had my money in hand.    (The other lady paid even more than that for a little set of table & chairs that were undeniably in better shape than what I got, but my set can be sanded & repainted for much less than what she paid for that little set)  Then Greg and I made a puffy apple pancake for breakfast (note: instructions say prep time is 10 minutes, but with a 3 year old helping that turns into 30).  I’m about to start cleaning up the mess we made there because we have someone coming this afternoon to visit and I’m really excited.  I decided to skip the gym today due to the sinus infection and wanting to make sure I have enough energy for my friend (College Station Wendy!). 

Tomorrow afternoon I’m going to the gym with a friend who just joined and I’m going to show her what all I learned from the trainer so she doesn’t have to go through that indignity herself.  Saturday is our big MOPS Leadership Summit, which I’m both volunteering at (door greeter) and attending.  Then I’ll go from there to meet Nick & the kids at church, where I will eat snacks & take the kids home with me while Nick stays on for Men’s Leadership Club.  Sunday will hopefully be a quiet day.  Or maybe spent sanding & repainting my new lawn furniture.  That would be nice.  Next week is birthday week, with my niece’s on Monday, David’s on Tuesday, and mine on Wednesday.  Should be a fun-filled week, or at least I hope it will be. 

“We started right here, in the ovary”

I hate giving subject lines for these posts, especially when I’m just updating about everything.  Maybe I should go back and retitle this "More of everything" Hmm.

David has been doing a lot of scouts stuff from his book, which means that all of us have been doing a lot of scouts stuff because you can’t have just one kid doing all the "fun" stuff.  The kids liked making family trees again (this time with phone calls to relatives to ascertain actual dates & real names) and finding the page in the phone book that has all the emergency info and calling different city officials to ask questions about how the city works and doing more of the recycling on their own (including picking out everything from their Happy Meals that could be recycled & taking that home to put in our bin rather than leaving it there with all the other trash "They waste SO MUCH, Mommy!  Why do they do that?")

Ben is steadily growing stronger reading skills.  It’s been really hard getting him to read aloud to us at home.  He’s the second best reader in his class (behind Amy, whose mom is an elementary school teacher), but reading at home has just not been something he’s willing to do.  So now we just have him read a few pages out of each book we do at bedtime story time (in addition to whatever they send home as reading homework.)  Knowing that he only has a few pages and that we’ll fill in all the hard words seems to make it easier on him.  Ben has also taken to my old Cabbage Patch Kids lately.  He has a few that he especially likes and will dress up for certain occasions.  It’s pretty funny.

Greg is still climbing everything in sight.   He has ropes that he carries around with him nearly at all times and will tie to things.  He gets his brothers to help him tie them up higher than he can reach.  During the day when they’re not home to assist him he’ll do general kid stuff, but as soon as they get home, he’s back to finding new & better places to climb.  Oh, and when he paints stuff, he mixes all the colors & makes all his painting black.  He paints weird stuff, too.  like Oklahoma. 

Nick continues to spend loads of time in Beaumont, but that will end on February 12th.  I can’t wait for him to be home for real, but you know what?  It’s going to be an adjustment.  I’ve gotten used to my weeknight schedule & I don’t know if I’ll transition back to Couple Time all-the-time very well. Currently I’ve been doing Monday nights as project nights, Tuesday nights as other-people-time, & Wednesday nights as TV time.  We’ll see if Nick likes that plan. 

I’ve been writing, cleaning, etc.  When I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing.  (Writing updates continue to be at my dreamwidth journal)
Or fixing people’s computer woes.  Apparently word has spread that I have a way with computers, so I’ve gotten a few phone calls the past month or so requesting assistance.  Mostly over the phone "how do I?" stuff, but this weekend I went to someone’s house & set stuff up, then fielded calls/texts about it all across Saturday afternoon & Sunday morning.

Speaking of calls/texts, we’ve noticed an upswing in our phone usage in the last 6 months, not because Nick’s been gone (we actually talk less during the day, so the extra call at night just blends into the regular usage), but just, ya know, being friendlier or something.  I don’t know.  So we started running our usage stats, first through Sprint (who actually said our current plan suited us, despite our being $20-$50 over every month), then on our own.  We added in our wishlists of how we’d like to use our phones that we aren’t currently doing, looked up plan comparisons, phone reviews, etc, and found out that we’re better off staying with our current carrier (Sprint, which works well here all the way to CS) and getting smartphones with the unlimited family plan.  So once our refunds from last years medical expenses come in, we’ll be doing that.  We’re looking at the HTC Hero phone and the Samsung Moment (we haven’t actually played with them in store yet, but I’ll be doing that tomorrow if the sick kid goes back to school by then).

In other randomness, I’ve been drinking tons of tea lately, trying all different kinds from various places.  My favorite is the supergood ginger kind that my friends sister gave her from Teavana (more details once I’ve seen the canister again).  Republic of Tea’s Cinnamon Plum loose leaf tea is also very nice (but Blackberry Sage remains my favorite from them).  Lipton has a flavored green tea that’s orange, passionfruit, and jasmine that I like for afternoons.  I also have a new favorite otc bagel: Sara Lee’s Blueberry.  There’s something different about them now: they’re more lemon flavored than they used to be.  Mmm. 

I have some news that I’m sitting on currently that I’m really excited about, but am awaiting more information before I can announce it.  Eeee.  I love having exciting news & I hate waiting to share it, but that’s the way it goes.

That’s it for this week’s update.  More later. 
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Now playing: Michael Mucklow – Pipe’s Canyon Sunset
via FoxyTunes