Update June 12, 2020

Another great week out here! I got a bunch of things posted on craigslist and Facebook Marketplace in my attempts to downsize the two houses. This is so much better than trying to gather everything together for a garage sale. I can just put it up for sale when I come across it, wait for a month to see if anyone bites, then take it to Goodwill if no one is interested.

Saturday was a great day. Myra was missing all day, but just as I started to get truly worried and made a Facebook post in local areas, she showed up. Just strolling around the house casually as if she weren’t missing all day. She doesn’t look concerned about the worry she caused us at all.

J-16 and Aaron got lots of work done on the rocks at the side of the house, and dad babysat IL-18mo while I cleaned the house – which had been in chaos because of the headache I had all of last week. I pulled a muscle, but mostly better now. At the end of the day, Aaron and I finished up Season 9 of Supernatural, and started Season 10.

Sunday we played D&D with my friend Liz and the rest of the family. It’s been months since we were able to play because of the coronavirus, so I’d forgotten where we were and what we were doing, but the Dungeon Master (Aaron) was able to remind us. M-8 mostly slept through the game, only awakening to take a turn. Afterwards, Liz and I had some time to catch up. That was wonderful. At the end of the day, I finished going through my MIL’s pictures from 2014 for D-10 and M-8’s mom’s surprise scrapbook. Only 6 more years to go! (So more than half of M-8’s life). Favorite pictures from 2014:

I love that picture of D because you can tell her personality hasn’t changed a bit. Also, she still has that flower that used to be on top of the headband.

Monday was productive. I spent all my spare time clearing out my parents’ basement.  This project is a lot of work. But in the process I found some gems. One was this “diploma” my grandmother got at her 50th high school reunion.

The other was this picture of J with his father’s daughter, which I purchased as a Father’s Day gift for his dad back when he was still in a relationship with my sister.

Tuesday, I took IL-18mo to his well child visit. Found out I’ve been giving him too much milk, but otherwise he’s great. We also received M-8’s celiac disease results. He’s negative, thank God. The doctor suggested that we stop ALL commentary (including nonverbal cues) about food for 4-6 weeks and write down all the different types of food he eats when he serves himself. There was great debate with Aaron whether we should do that using our current rule structure (which is based around his eating habits) or to change the rules for 4-6 weeks and draw unneeded attention to the issue. Changing rules for 4-6 weeks would also be confusing to the kids. We decided to go with our normal rule structure.

Wednesday and Thursday were our days with D-10 and M-8, respectively (as the other child spends the night with their mom). On Thursday, we went to Buffalo Wild Wings with M-8, as we’d gone to El Loro with D-10 the week before.

Friday is relaxed. I canceled all my plans because I have a cough. I was supposed to hang out at my dad’s place, but since it’s impossible to know whether I’ve contracted something deadly, or just have an innocent (mild) cough. But I got a good nap in today. 🙂 I did spend a bit of time trying to figure out D-10’s girl scout issues. She hasn’t met with her group for quite a while because of coronavirus, and as far as I know, she never worked on merit badges. She’s really interested in earning them. I started looking into it originally because she wants to earn the Bronze Award, which is a good step towards winning the Gold Award. She has decided she wants to work on the “It’s Your Story, Tell It” journey, where she will learn to increase self confidence. Then she will start a self-help vlog with her girl scouting friends. Only, her troop isn’t interested in the Bronze Award at all! So I worked out with my cousin in California that her daughter (O-10) and D-10 will work together on the project. They’re also going to start working on merit badges together. This will be really fun for them!

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