Real Life

Well, this week was as you can imagine it’s like being cramped in a hotel room with 5 people and 3 cats. But we had a good time on Saturday.

First, I bought a leash for IL-2. He took a while to get used to it. He splatted several times trying to run off that first time at the mall, but now he loves it.

On Saturday, D11, IL2, my friend Todd, and I went to the Mall of America to shop. D11 spent all her money on two adorable outfits, and an overpriced mascara and blush compact. She’s thrilled with her purchases.

The next morning (Mother’s Day) was a mess. IL2 and M8 both awakened after being kept up all night with congestion and a cough. IL2 had a fever. I whisked them to Urgent Care, knowing that D11 wouldn’t be allowed back in school until IL2’s COVID test had come back negative. (IL2’s did. They wouldn’t test M8 since he had COVID last month.) IL2 was diagnosed with an ear infection. M8 with a neck ache and red throat.

After that, IL2, D11, Aaron, and I went to The World’s Largest Candy Store. It was large.

IL2 enjoyed himself, but spent the rest of the day lethargically lying in bed. M8 also slept a lot. At about 5pm, M8 awakened in a whimpering incoherent state. I looked up the symptoms of that inflammatory disease kids get after having COVID (MIS-C). Red throat and neck pain (due to swollen lymph node) were two of them. We rushed him off the the ER. (He doesn’t remember any of this.)

At the ER, he was diagnosed with a swollen lymph node, but normal inflammatory signals in his blood, so MIS-C wasn’t ruled out, but was thought unlikely. They gave him some Tylenol and he eventually perked up enough to take him home. We were given antibiotics.

He still had a fever the next morning, but his temperature was normal by the next day. He seems to be better now.

Hobbies

I wrote pen pal letters to people in Belgium and Massachusetts.

Hi all! Guess what? We successfully moved out! We had too few Uboxes, so a bunch of stuff is stuck in my dad’s spare bedroom, where I intended on having my work station for the Amazon business. So I have a very limited space.

We (5people, three cats) are safely ensconced in a tiny hotel room. I whisk the kids away during the days so Aaron can work. We eat dinner at dad’s house most of the time. It’s hectic, which led to me absent-mindedly leaving my phone on top of my car and losing it. 😑

When I told a doctor yesterday that we were currently homeless and all the kids and I were in a car, she wanted to help. By all means! We need help.

IL2 is having huge problems adjusting to little night-time routine. I was trying to get him to fall asleep until midnight last night. I’m slowly losing my mind due to sleep deprivation.

D11 had a sore throat and the sniffles yesterday (she was sick of school), and the school made us test her for COVID and keep M8 home. He was so angry he gave me the silent treatment when he had to go to school the next day.

Exercise

With all the moving, I made it to my next milestone on my walk to Mordor.

Hobbies

I wrote letters to Pen Pals in England, Germany, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Alabama.

Hi all! It’s been a crazy week. We packed and packed and purged and purged, and it still feels like most of the house is left to pack.

We spent a good amount of Saturday packing, but on Sunday we ran into a snag. Remember how we put in a new dishwasher? Well, turns out it was implied in the contract that it should be “as like,” which apparently means stainless steel. We were nice enough to let the buyer into our house to make some measurements, but she apparently put up a stink about the dishwasher. Our realtor let us know. I told her “implied” wasn’t clear to us, and that we’d asked if the buyer wanted to pick one out herself, and she’d refused. Finally, after I put up a bit of a stink, the realtor offered to recoup the price of the wasted dishwasher.

On top of the dishwasher fiasco, more of Sunday was spent trying to figure out how to replace the door J17 stole from dad’s spare bedroom. Turns out one week’s notice is too little for getting a new door. I even asked a friend who was a contractor, but he was quarantined because his wife had COVID for the second time! So no packing on Sunday. Luckily, my mother-in-law is visiting for a week on this coming Sunday, and that will free me up to pack. And as for the cats, we will have to keep them in the hotel with us, instead of dad’s spare bedroom.

Wednesday was dad’s 80th birthday! We celebrated on Thursday with a nice dinner, because we were pretty busy with appointments and swim team on Wednesday. Which reminds me… D11’s back in school and swim team! That was a really long quarantine.

Exercise

I give up on waiting. I will start some short walks tomorrow. I really want to get this ball rolling while I have motivation. And I think the exercise will help motivate me to pack as well.

Hobbies

I wrote letters to pen pals in Louisiana, Scotland, Massachusetts, Poland, India, Maine, Sri Lanka, England, and Canada. I even got some cross-stitch done! Is the house clean or packed, though? Well…..

Hi all! Hope you had a good week! Ours was very busy. But First:

Reading life

Aaron, Deirdre, and I finished Sword of Summer, by Rick Riordan. It’s the first in his Magnus Chase series about a teen who discovers he’s the son of Norse god Frey. It’s in some ways just a retelling of Percy Jackson – Riordan has a bit of a formula it seems, but it works. We enjoyed it.

Personal life

Well, we decided to get that house after all. Our realtor pointed out that all the problems were indicated as “minor.” She also pointed out that we could get a maintenance plan which would cover appliance problems (after, presumably, a certain amount of time has passed since initiation of the plan). Our closing date for our current house is May 3rd, and for the new house is May 19th. So we’ll have a period of time in an extended stay hotel.

We were going to house the cats at my dad’s house, but my nephew J17 stole the door to the room we were going to put the cats into, and sawed a chunk off. Getting a new door and putting it on is another to-do this week!

D11 is doing a fantastic job of purging her room. She’s even excited about it! M8 is less excited, but worked hard on it with Deirdre’s help. I’ve been busy making calls, reservations, etc. I’m very much concerned we aren’t going to be packed on time, but luckily Aaron’s mom is coming to visit, and she’ll be able to watch Loki during the day so I can pack during the week.

Even with all that going on, I wrote letters to pen pals in Ontario, Western Australia, Pennsylvania, and Washington State. And I still have 3 more to write!

Aaron talked me out of starting my exercise routine until we are done packing. I am a little heart-broken about that. I really wanted to start. And it feels like there’s always a reason not to start. Regardless, I lost 6.2 pounds this week just from dieting. My goal is 1 pound per week, but the first week of a diet always makes me drop a good 5 pounds in water weight.

Well, this post isn’t too far from the last post, but I thought I’d get back on my Friday post schedule.

We had big news: our offer was accepted on a house! It was in the same school district as our current house, so the kids would have been able to visit their friends. We really lucked out. But, alas, we had to fail it on the inspection. It had a furnace that didn’t quite work, multiple plumbing leaks, a small gas leak, and the water softener and water heater were mysteriously turned off for the inspection, despite the house being occupied. If they found that much wrong, what didn’t they find?

I already started packing, and I’ll continue for the sake of decluttering for house viewings, as we will be unable to accept the house-flipper’s offer (it expires in 6 days).

On Wednesday, I bought a new dishwasher, since our dishwasher broke right after we signed the agreement with the house-flipper. Aaron tried installing it, and after a close call with electrocution (thank goodness for rubber handles on wire cutters) and a minor flood, we had a dishwasher that worked as long as we were running the garbage disposal at the same time.

I wrote 1 pen pal letter, to a friend in Belgium. And I got my hair in a pony tail for the first time since shaving my head!

As for exercising, I made a 27 week daily plan on training first for my 5 k with Zombies, Run! and then for a walking marathon. The first several weeks looks like this:

The Zombies, Run! 5k training is 8 weeks long, 3 workouts a week. WK1, etc., is the week and WO1, etc., is the workout number. 5/16 is the official start date of my walking marathon training. The plan is really ambitious, so I’m not entirely certain I have made the right plan, especially since there is no plan for my upper body and abdomen. But I’ll figure out what I’m capable of with time.

As for walking to Mordor, I made it to Tookland since my last post.

Hi all! I know it’s been a long time since I’ve posted. Things have been busy. But first of all, I finished a book!

Reading Life

1984, by George Orwell – Aaron and I enjoyed this, and are moving on to Dune, by Frank Herbert.

Personal Life

Well, Aaron has been out of town for almost a month, and things fell apart. The dishwasher broke, and so did the diaper pail. Aaron came back just in time to be quarantined for COVID exposure, as M8 caught it at school. M8 was asymptomatic, and was cleared to go back to school on the 5th, but everyone but me has been quarantined for 14 days after Easter.

Despite catching COVID, M8 had a good month. He won 6th place at the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby.

D8 cooked Easter dinner. The whole thing. She worked all day, and it came out really well.

Aaron and I accepted an offer from a house-flipper a few weeks ago. It was less money then we would have received selling to a family, but we were fond of the idea of not having to fix up the house. It expires if we don’t find a house by April 15th, and move out by May 1st. Last week, we made 2 offers for houses. Neither was accepted. We’re making another today.

I finally gave up on my dietician’s plan for me – she wanted me to not care about my weight, and just eat healthy. I gained 10 pounds. So back to dieting. My goal is to lose 1 pound per week. For a total of 4-5 pounds each month. I will also get back into walking/running, since I had to give it up for the winter. I will be using Zombies, Run! to train. And I will be walking to Mordor by logging daily steps. I will follow Frodo and Sam’s path (red, then green).

Hi all!

I’ve been ok. Nothing really new to report. Aaron has been feeling a bit depressed lately, but his med seems to maybe be kicking in. But he had his 46th birthday. D11 and M8 decorated a Cthulu cake.

This is pretty much how I felt all week:

D11 went to an Escape Room with the Scouts BSA and came back high anxiety. They got out with 50 seconds to spare. She loved it, despite the anxiety. She also went shoe shopping and office chair shopping with her own money (and money from Aunt Eleanor’s Christmas gift). She got all dressed up and we went to Nordstrom’s clearance. And she went snowboarding with Scouts BSA.

M8 has a Pine Wood Derby race on Saturday,  and worked hard on his car.

IL2 began potty training again. This time, I will try not to get burnt out putting him on the pot every 2 hours. And the pediatrician told me to give him prune juice to encourage him to poop comfortably. He’s pooped in the potty twice and peed once already!

Dad is doing well. He finally got his annuity back! He feels rich now. J16 got his phone stolen for the second time. The first was a couple months ago – some guy jumped out of a car, punched him in the face, and grabbed the phone. This time, the same guy pulled up with a gun, and demanded his phone. This time was at gunpoint. J16 says he THINKS he knows the guy from elementary school, but isn’t quite sure it’s the same guy. Clearly, he’s being targeted. I also suspect he isn’t telling the complete truth about what’s going on. His story keeps changing.

And that’s about it. Happy trails!

IL2 was busy this week. He started Saturday by spreading flour all over the baby safe area. He pulled it down off a counter, probably with the tippy-tips of his fingers.

It fell to 21 degrees Fahrenheit below zero over the weekend. But I took IL2 out to mall walk dad, anyway.

On Thursday, he went pee-pee in the potty! I didn’t realize kids that young could actually potty train. I’ll have to do a better job of letting him sit on the potty every two hours. But that sounds like a LOT of work.

On Friday, I called AIG about dad’s annuity. No news from “processing.” On Tuesday, no news from processing. Dad yelled. I asked for processing’s phone number. No, they can’t give that. Then processing’s email? Nope. Dad yelled some more. We got through to a supervisor later in the day. She “expedited” the process. (What does that mean? 3 more months instead of 5? Probably.) I hired a lawyer. Dad filed a fraud complaint with the State of MN.

In case you’re wondering what happened to my cross-stitch, apparently I got knock-off floss. It just dissolves and breaks if I separate it, and is too thick if I don’t. 😐 I have the real stuff now, and it works great!

D11 had a difficult week. It was supposed to be a 6 day weekend, but we found out on Tuesday that D11 hadn’t completed a whole bunch of homework problems over the first half of the semester. We started working on them, only to find out on Thursday that she also hadn’t turned in a major project that had apparently been assigned weeks ago. She had hardly started it at all. I am struggling between feeling like we should drop it because it’s plague year, or make her do it because she needs accountability. But she learns by strict rules of “action/consequence” so she’ll learn so she’d definitely learn the wrong lesson if we dropped it.

Hi all!

When my mom died in September, AIG, the company that manages dad’s annuity,  canceled the payments because mom (who was the beneficiary if dad died) had passed. They didn’t pay him, and sent out a snail mail that took 3 weeks to arrive saying why they didn’t pay him. They said they needed the death certificate and forms to be filled out. He mailed those back. 4 weeks later, he still hadn’t received his money, and dad had didn’t have the patience to keep calling them without cussing them out, so I took over. They told me that he had filled out the paperwork incorrectly, that he needed to put the Jr after his name. They insisted they’d sent out a snail mail a week prior to my call. Dad filled out the forms again the “right” way, and sent them in. Two weeks later, I called. They claimed they hadn’t received the new forms. We sent them again via certified mail. I waited till they were delivered.  Called. I was told that the documents weren’t in the system. Perhaps they hadn’t been scanned in yet? Anyway, to shorten the story, we STILL don’t have the money. And the person who I talked to several times simply doesn’t care. He says this is just how the system works. If you have any choice, don’t use AIG.

Dad got his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Tuesday. I had to check into his medical portal every 30 minutes for an entire day, but I snatched one up! He was so tired after the first dose that he missed two meals.  I, too, got my first dose (Moderna) on Thursday. Now we just need to get Aaron and J16  vaccinated.

D11 rode horses with the Girl Scouts on Saturday. She loved it, even though all they did was ride around inside a barn. She worked on her Cyber Chip over a BSA Zoom meeting on Tuesday – it taught her how to be safe and kind on the internet – and worked on her Citizenship in the Nation merit badge in a BSA Zoom meeting on Wednesday. Her homework is to read the news 5 days in a row and do two virtual tours of historical sites. The virtual tours weren’t very informative, so I’ll go though them with her myself.

M8 went to Cub Scout Polar Camp on Saturday with his mom. He enjoyed tuning and spare time with his mom.

Our business is doing well. We’ve been selling books, and have made $9 one week after shipping the books (after all the fees). This makes me more confident that this is going to work.

The kids started in-person school on Thursday. D11 and M8 said their favorite part of the first day was school ending. 🤣😂 I imagine in-person school is hard after being able to do it at home. I’m having difficulty adjusting, too. I forgot on Wednesday evening to pack M8’s bag, and on Friday I slept in because I forgot there was school. Luckily, it wasn’t too late to get them out. M8 just wanted to get up an hour early to pack his lunch (apparently he thought it was a monumental task).

Hi all! This week was stressful as it had a lot of events that just piled together.

Monday, I had an 8am doctor appointment,  and needed to pick up some medicine (as well as milk and juice, which we were out of). I didn’t have enough time to pick it up till after my work ended at 11pm, though. So I had to make a midnight run to the pharmacy. Normally,  I would have just slept in the next day, but the Minnesota Department of Health had a 1-day lottery for a vaccine for 65+ residents, so I got up at 5am to sign dad up for it (only a 1 hour wait in queue).

Wednesday was dad’s dementia assessment. I didn’t realize how much I was dreading it until it happened. Sitting there in front of him telling the doctor why I was worried about dad’s worsening behaviors since his TIA four years ago was hard. Dad does not agree with my assessment of his behavior.  But he was diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment in the end, so it could have been worse. We’re hoping this is a single drop from the TIA and not a continuous decline.

Aaron was very understanding of my difficulties this week, and got some important work for the book-selling business completed without me, which was kind of him.

Thursday, one of the major healthcare systems in Minnesota opened COVID vaccination appointments for people over 75, so I’m checking about once an hour to see if any are open. Something tells me it’s futile to keep checking, but I would really like dad to get a vaccination.

This week, D11 started Scouts BSA (they went to Base Camp for wall climbing and archery) and swim team. She had so much fun getting out of the house!

M8 is doing a fantastic job of taking his liquid medicine! We are so proud of him. This has been such a struggle for him.