Update July 14, 2022

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

Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer

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.

Rose City Reader
Freda’s Voice

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.

Update July 7, 2022

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.

Coffee Addicted Writer

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

A: 0-1

Update March 13, 2022

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:

Bout of books 33

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

Erak’s Ransom, by John Flannagan

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!

New, Improved Classics Club List 2022 – 2027

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

Update Christmas, 2021

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.

Update 12/3/2021

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.

Update November 21, 2021

I finished The German Girl by Lily Graham. It is about a set of Jewish twins from WWII Germany. It was bittersweet, and a nice little story. According to Goodreads, it’s my 15th book this year. I’m going to try for 25 books this year since I am reading more now. Maybe unrealistic. But I’m trying!

The Book Blogger Hop prompt this week is: Do you use Goodreads as the main website to keep track of what you have read? If not, please share what you use. I use both Goodreads and LibraryThing to keep track of books. To be honest, I’ve found that LibraryThing has a social network preferable to GoodReads. I am in the 75 Book Challenge for 2021 group in LibraryThing, and the Radical Reading group in GoodReads.

Well, our tenant Becki was diagnosed with COVID on Tuesday, Aaron on Friday, and myself (again!?) on Saturday. I wasn’t feeling well on Friday, but have been feeling fine since. Aaron is starting to feel sick on Sunday. Becki was pretty sick from the beginning, but has avoided the hospital. M9 was exposed at school 2 times and once at gymnastics in the past month. D11’s school has 27 confirmed cases in one week. I can’t get them vaccinated until they are no longer closely exposed within 14 days…but how is that supposed to happen? Minnesota is a hotspot at the moment. I guess this is going to be a way of life from now on.

After a pause in logging steps for my virtual Ring Road trip, I started up again. Here is my second postcard.

It snowed and IL2 had a fun time throwing snowballs.

Update November 9, 2021

Hi all! I have been so very busy lately. I was sick on and off for a while, but haven’t been sick for weeks. I was working 65 hours a week for a while, but am down to 45. Maybe I should keep it that way. It gives me more time for things like this.

I finished one book since my last post: The Siege of Macindaw, by John Flannagan. It is a book in the middle school series The Ranger’s Apprentice. I highly recommend the series to people who enjoy middle school books. It’s kind of a middle ages type of setting.

Deirdre and her friend got their ears pierced. They were both really brave! It was hard on both because of their anxiety, which makes the fact that they did it a proud moment.

Afterwards, we went axe throwing.

We went apple and pumpkin picking afterwards.

We dyed Deirdre’s hair, and sprayed the boys’ with temporary spray.

We decorated pumpkins.

The kids dressed up for Halloween and trick-or-treated. Deirdre was Marie Antoinette, Malcolm Jason, and Loki a ninja.

And Loki got into my makeup.