Credit: IL3

News

Friday, Aaron drove M10 and D12 to Wisconsin for their grandmother’s funeral. I had a little extra time to read and get some stuff done that I’d been putting off. IL3 had speech therapy, and his assignment is to use verbs ending in “-ing” and to say “I want _.” I had physical therapy through the bariatric clinic, and my assignment was to find a time to workout every day, getting my pulse up to 106 for a full hour (can be split into 30 minute intervals).

Saturday, Aaron and I did some yardwork for my client. We dug out the plastic lining and cleaned the leaves and needles out from under a shrub. We relined the area with landscaping cloth and placed new edgers (but were unable to dig them into the ground due to time).

Sometimes the pictures IL3 takes on the “green phone” amuse me the most. I found these gems while purging random shots of the TV and feet.

Sunday Aaron, Loki, and I went on a 2.1 mile hike. We managed to carry Loki almost halfway between the two of us. My pulse was about 130 during most of the hike – so well above my 106 goal. Loki was exhausted walking, but found energy when he saw a playground at the end of the hike.

Monday I took Myra (my cat) to the vet because she’s losing weight and peeing in strange places. They found that she has stage 2 chronic kidney disease. That doesn’t explain the weight loss, but may explain the peeing.

Tuesday we had great news. M10 has reached his weight goal! As long as it doesn’t drop back down, we’re done with the eating disorder clinic for now. We are so proud! Just one more week of appointments!

Also on Tuesday, I reached my 40% mark on my Ring Road virtual walk challenge through Conqueror. They will plant a tree for me!

This week I wrote letters to pen pals in Pennsylvania, Florida, and England.

Books in progress

I have a group of friends that is starting a post-by-post campaign from this book, which contains a total of 7 campaigns. I read Chapters 1 and 2. That is enough to start roaming the environs of Saltmarsh.

Listened to 3 hours of Cemetery Boys.

Listened to 20 minutes of The Time Machine.

Movies / shows watched

D12, M10, Aaron, dad, and I watched second episode of Psych Season 6. This one was pretty funny.

Games played

D12, M10, and I played Ticket to ride because I’m limiting their TV time. 😅 I won.

Aaron, M10, D12 and I played pandemic and almost one. Too many outbreaks!

News

On Thursday IL3 had an occupational therapy assessment through the school district. He qualified for assistance, a bit to my surprise. They suggested that he also have “outside” OT because the school district focuses on school-related activities. I have already got a referral, but the waitlist is about 4 months long.

IL3 had his “outside” speech therapy intake Thursday, after many months’ wait. He did better than I expected given his results a couple weeks ago through the district. I was really proud of his recent progress.

Also on Thursday, I made it to mile 828 on my virtual Ring Road journey, and got this postcard:

On Friday, D12 and I went on a shopping spree. We bought her a couple of books and new kicks for her, me, and M10.

On Saturday, D12 and M10 completed the Tough Mudder. They had so much fun, and M10 went around twice. 😁 Later in the day was stressful, though. Sadly, their maternal grandma passed (the mother of my husband’s ex). It wasn’t totally unexpected, but still was very sad. They did get an opportunity to say goodbye to her last week, though, so that’s good.

On Monday, I took our 4 year old car in to the shop because for the second time it burnt up its oil way too fast. Their conclusion was that it burns oil too fast. Lol But apparently that’s covered by warranty. They just need to document the oil usage by seeing it every 1000 miles. Delightful! But at least it’s covered by warranty.

Tuesday was a tough day. I had an unbearable stress headache, but had to just go through with my day regardless. Part of the stress is M10’s eating disorder clinic. He keeps gaining half a pound per week, and they keep making that sound insufficient, and adding more and more pressure on both him and me to get him to increase calories. It’s relentless, and I’m so overwhelmed and burnt out. But I really want to utilize this window of opportunity to get him to eat more variety (he’s willing to try), so I don’t want to quit the clinic. Next week, I will point out that if they require adults and teens to gain a pound a week, is it medically advised to increase a 10yo by the same rate?!

On Wednesday, M10 passed level 3 of swim lessons.

Movies / shows watched

Dad, M10, D12 and I watched this gem. All but dad had seen it before, but it’s so priceless.

Aaron, D12, M10 and I watched the first episode of Psych Season 6. The kids are loving it. I kinda feel like the joke is getting old.

Games played

Aaron, D12, M10, and I played. IL3 was my die roller and piece placer.

M10, D12, IL3, and I played charades. IL3 successfully acted out a dinosaur, and was thrilled when we guessed it. Priceless. I have no idea what the card he looked at said. 🤣😂

D12 & I teamed up against M10 and Aaron for Cranium. The boys totally annihilated us, and we had to take out several cards that the kids wouldn’t know, but it was a lot of fun. We were more evenly matched playing kids against adults on Sunday. Playing was a reward to M10 for being kind to D12 for 2 days.

Week’s Photos

Q: Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, do you prefer listening rather than reading?

A: Yes, I do the bulk of my reading by audiobook. That way I can “read” while I multitask. However, I try to set aside a little time every day to read with my eyes. I absorb the information better when I read with my eyes.

Book Beginning: “Death is a part of life,” Orka whispered into her son’s ear.

Excerpt from pp 56: It had been a long, hard climb from the fishing village. Through the break in the trees Elvar could see the village far below her, the Wave-Jarl moored in the bay, all of it blurred by the snow. A fence-line stood in a half-circle between village and trees. Wooden stakes, rune-marked to protect against vaesen.

On the Reading front

Korede is a young nurse in Lagos, Nigeria who is hiding a secret – her sister is a serial killer. Braithwaite’s stunning novela “My Sister the Serial Killer” follows Korede as her need to protect her younger sister from harm struggles with her own desire to get something she desperately wants. I was left wondering who was the biggest monster. Definitely a book whose memories will last.

Will, Halt, and Horace are off on another adventure in the kingdom of Clonmel. This time, they battle mob mentality and the wiles of a cult leader. A good continuation of the Ranger’s Apprentice series.

Photos

News

Over the 4th of July weekend, M10 and D12 spent the weekend with their mom and grandparents in WI. They wanted to surprise their grandparents with new hair color. IL2, Aaron and I were supposed to go camping at Lake Itasca – headwaters to the Mississippi – but Aaron had been sick for several days leading up to it, and still had a fever the day before we were slated to go, so I released the reservation. It was very disappointing. I had a readathon instead, though. Finished 2 books.

The rest of the week was uneventful. Lots of appointments, as usual. M10 is slowly gaining the weight the doctor wanted, he’s up 0.5lbs this week.

A group of people and I are starting out an accountability group (for productivity) where we play D&D and the hit roll is determined by how productive our day was. Aaron is DMing, but he still has a fever and is unable to start the campaign.

Today (Thursday), IL3 has his medical speech therapy intake and an occupational therapy assessment by the school district. He already qualifies for cognitive and speech assistance through the district, though I suspect his cognitive portion is simply his refusal to do what is asked on demand rather than a cognitive issue. The district probably won’t start assistance until the school year. He is also to be assessed for autism in November.

Q: How many books do you buy in a month?

A: 0-1

Phew! I haven’t updated you since my Christmas post! So much has happened.

Aaron: Got a new job!

D12: She’s in the school play! She’s a tree in Into the Woods, Jr.

M9: He’s getting his braces off on Thursday!

IL3: He can count to (and backwards from) 10.

Dad: He moved in with us!

I am struggling with long COVID, as well as a very busy schedule. With all the tests they’ve run on me after I had COVID in August and again in December, I discovered that my kidney function is running at about 50%! I am hoping I’m misinterpreting the results, but my doctor has been brushing me off. I decided to get a second opinion, since the person I’m seeing has literally ignored my questions on the topic.

With the fear of dialysis-in-the-future in my mind, I’m going to double-down on losing weight and becoming healthy. I always say I’m working on it, but I fail over and over again…I think because I never had the right incentive.

I have planned out a regular monthly menu to reduce my habit of eating out when I can’t figure out what to cook. I will get a fitness center membership and will start swimming and stationary biking. I hope to be able to do triathlons again by August 2023.

A few pictures over the past few months:

The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 3rd and runs through Sunday, January 9th in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are reading sprints, Twitter chats, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For all Bout of Books 33 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

My goal is:

• Finish The Gene, by Siddhartha Mukherjee
• Finish Red Clocks, by Leni Zumas
• Finish introduction to Mahabharata, translated by Bibek Debroy

Book 1: 2022

Erak’s Ransom is the Seventh novel in the Ranger’s Apprentice series, by John Flannagan. This series is set in a fantasy world much like medieval Earth. In this installment, Will must save his friend Erak, who has been taken hostage by a people based loosely upon the Arabs. Erak’s Ransom is set out of place chronologically from the previous book, which is a decision I don’t understand. Otherwise, I found it quite enjoyable. 4 stars!

My Classics Club list got kind of old when I got married and had a kid and couldn’t read as much. Here’s a shiny new one.

1. Mahabharata, by Anonymous
2. Darkness Visible, by William Styron
3. In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust
4. Sorrows of Young Werther, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
5. The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy
6. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
7. The Souls of Black Folk, by W E B Du Bois
8. Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut
9. A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
10. Master and Commander (series), by Patrick O’Brien
11. The Divine Comedy, by Dante
12. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
13. Far From the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy
14. The Witches of Eastwick, by John Updike
15. The Complete Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle
16. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
17. Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
18. Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
19. Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane
20. The Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
21. The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
22. Native Son, by Richard Wright
23. Seize the Day, by Saul Bellow
24. The Apocrypha, by Anonymous
25. The Bible, by Anonymous
26. The Merry Adventures of Robinhood, by Howard Pyle
27. Bleak House, by Charles Dickons
28. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
29. The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins
30. Middlemarch, by George Elliot
31. Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
32. Complete works of Edgar Allan Poe
33. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
34. Faust, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
35. Catcher in the Rye, J D Salinger
36. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
37. Their Eyes were watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
38. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
39. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
40. Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner
41. The Deptford Trilogy, by Robertson Davies
42. Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie
43. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
44. A bend in the River, by V S Naipaul
45. War with the Newts, Karel Kapek
46. Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
47. Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Johnson
48. The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov
49. The Glass Bead Game, by Hermann Hesse
50. Doctor Faustus, by Thomas Mann

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! The whole family caught COVID over Thanksgiving, and I’m just getting back on my feet! Here’s to hoping for a better 2022!

There was a big snowstorm – 12 inches. D12 helped shovel and M9 wiped snow off the cars. We also went sledding.

We decorated the Christmas tree.

My friend and IL3’s Godmother came over to visit while the older kids were with their mom.

D12 loves her new bellbottoms.

I finished listening to Last Girl Ghosted, by Lisa Unger. It was my 17th book of 2021. It’s a thriller about a woman that meets a mysterious man online. When she’s ghosted, she goes on a search to find out more about him.

I also finished Moby Dick, by Herman Melville! Despite it being a bit of a slog at times, I really enjoyed it.

Hi all! It’s been a while again! Everyone in the house has COVID, and I have pneumonia on top. It’s been a mess, but everyone is getting better.

The ER was packed on one of my attempts to go there. About 30 people sitting in the waiting room, some sleeping on the floor. Yikes! I turned around and went back home.

Since last writing, I finished a book that needs no introduction: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

IL2 got to throw some snowballs.

IL2 took a great picture of his dad.

IL2 went to Urgent Care with a fever of 103.3, and got an X-ray for a cough that has been hanging in for its fifth week now.

And D12 had her birthday. She got a 5 pound cookie.