Lisa Holcomb

Weeeeeeekend!

I guess I should catch up with the rest of the week first. All righty then!

Wednesday I went to the doctor for my physical. We talked about many things, like my meds (they’ve changed), my blood pressure (it’s happy), my anxiety (lessened by meds, yay!), weight loss (uh, yeah), and my heart condition, which was the surprise topic. Apparently I have one? Or might? In any case it led to more blood tests on Thursday. We’ll see what they say. As I was leaving there the nurse from the school called and said Greg’s shoes had exploded and could I bring new ones? I could not, so he borrowed some from her. My mom took him and Ben out and got them more shoes that afternoon while David was at meetings at school.

Thursday was a sick-kid-at-home day, but my mom watched him while I was out.

Pathetic Greg. This was in the morning while he was still feverish.

By mid afternoon he was doing all right and we watch Sofia the First on the Disney channel, which he loved, while snuggling. 🙂 That evening we went over to my parents house for dinner and a game of Cargo Noir, which went on for hours and hours. I don’t even remember who won. It went on so long that Ben and Greg both fell asleep, so Nick and I had to carry them home while David carried all our stuff. I’m sure we made quite a sight on the street.

Friday I had a sick Ben at home…or rather, at Grandma’s house in the morning so I wouldn’t have to miss my coffee date with the neighbor yet again (we’ve been back and forth and back and forth with changing dates due to sick kids. We live 4 houses away from each other and have not managed to see each other since Thanksgiving). It was a lovely morning with muffins made by a different neighbor. 🙂 Friday afternoon I brought Ben back home and he was much recovered.

We learned to play Bakugan, which he got as a post-Christmas present. :) — We learned to play Bakugan, which he got as a post-Christmas present. 🙂

Friday afternoon we had the Scouts over from our Pack and taught them Fire Safety in our side yard. It had rained enough this week (all week long) that everything was nice and wet and safe, but we still made them clear the ground cover before starting the fire.

Ben and S. work while M. reads the newspaper. How is this fair?!

Then they and their siblings all jumped on the trampoline until it was too dark to see anymore and the other mom dragged them all off. 🙂

See the children. See the children jump and play. Jump, children, jump!

Then that evening we had my parents over for dinner, as it was our last evening together before they had to go back home and my dad had to start teaching again.

Yummy yummy cheese platter. I'm getting good at throwing those suckers together. — Yummy yummy cheese platter. I’m getting good at throwing those suckers together.

Saturday morning we hung out with my parents again and made them play Creationary with us. We’ve discovered that it is supremely hard, even using just the basic cards. David’s the only one that’s any good at it. Our church had Teen Day that afternoon, with all the kids in the Teen Group serving in places that adults normally serve, like being Greeters, Ushers, Song Leader, Prayer Leader, and Pianist. It was pretty cool seeing all our kids do that stuff.

David is counting all the people in his section as part of his duties as Usher.

After services were over was our church’s Mexican Potluck and Variety Show. (I still need to offload videos, but some of them are pretty shaky.) Our congregation has been hit pretty hard with the flu, so two of our major performers/accompanists were out sick, which left us with some holes in our program.

The Pre-teen Group sang Old MacDonald. We had zero rehearsal time; this was just for fun! They’re even wearing flower pots on their heads as hats. One of the animals on our farm was a hippopotamus The snorting was SOOO cute!

Davidplaystrumpet — David played an excerpt from the William Tell Overture on his trumpet right after doing a skit with all the other kids. I don’t have a picture from that one, but it was a hilarious scout skit and the high point was David running off stage with a roll of toilet paper in his hand.

The Teen Group sang God Bless America as a finale. Photo Credit: Joanne Gonzalez — The Teen Group sang God Bless America as a finale. David waves the flag from our house that we put up at holidays. Photo Credit: Joanne Gonzalez

Right after the Variety Show, we headed straight out so David could make it to his friends birthday party/sleepover. He was sooo excited! 🙂 They stayed up all night and played the Wii and DS’s and had Nerf gun wars. He came home and pretty much went right to bed. 🙂

The rest of us have spent our day cleaning house and getting ready for the next week. And that is that. Hope y’all are having a great weekend!

Around the House, Computers and Internet, Exercise, health, My Own Personal Weirdness

Quantifiable things

1. I have exercised this week. I’m stretching each morning and trying not to fall on my face. I’m following the Workout Trainer App on my Android and while I’m not in love with it, it’s better than nothing for a free exercise course to get me started. Also, my friend Monaca and I agreed that we’re not getting any skinnier meeting for sweet rolls and floofy drinks, so we’re going to try walking in the future around Rose Rudman trails instead.

This is not Rose Rudman, but a walking trail close to home that I can use in the evenings. And these are the sweet kids playing there.

2. I have figured out a better daily schedule, but it includes me getting up at 5am. Umm. I’m not getting ahead on that plan, so I re-revised it and now I’m getting up at 5:30 and doing the aforementioned exercising in the comfort of my own room. Whee! I’m also writing a bit more, not fiction yet, but daily stuff and a little poetry that’s rattling around in my brain lately. Also taking care of the kids and trying to make life more sane.

3. I’m doing a Bible study off the YouVersion app and answering its questions. Not as good as going to one with other people, but way better for scheduling. For real people, I’m going to a weekly book study on Raising Resilient Children (that’s the authors website). It’s a really good book and has challenged me to respond better to my children.

4. Today I’m booking our trip to the UK for June. Thursday night Nick and I are discussing our hotel options and more detailed itinerary. Whee! (Two goals for the price of one?)

5. I downloaded the My Fitness Pal app for the iPhone, since the SparkPeople app cost a ridiculous amount of money for the update (it used to be free). So now I have two fitness pals (one a very skinny lady indeed and one person who I don’t remember at the moment) and I can track my food weirdnesses. Whee!

See, we're eating healthier already! :) — See, we’re eating healthier already! 🙂

6. There is never going to be a #6.

7. Scaling back on the internet, I figured out how to add people to my acquaintances list on Facebook, so they practically never show up. It even suggested people. Some of them I didn’t acquantintize. Yeah, not a word. Whatever. Also, set all my newsreader subscriptions to Mark All Read so I’m not tempted to try to catch up and so am just starting over. I may dump some, we shall see. I also set my FB notifications to archive immediately so I’m not having to see them all the time.

Computers and Internet, My Own Personal Weirdness, Organizing, Writing

Greetings world!

I’m working on the blog over the next day or so. I got some really icky comments from some really icky seeming people this week and I’m rethinking the blog format and how to keep my little family safe and secure while still sharing with y’all some of the fun and crafty and book reading that goes on here. So for now, my posts are mostly private. Come on back in a week or so and I’ll have a big unveiling. 🙂

-L

Around the House, health, My Own Personal Weirdness, Parenting, Writing

Another day in vacation

We decided yesterday that it was going to be our play-in-pajamas-stay-indoors kind of day because we needed one and hadn’t really had a chance to have a day alone, so we spent the morning inside doing practically nothing productive (like watching movies and playing video games and reading magazines), but halfway through that we got a text from a friend begging us to meet her and her kids at the playground, as they’d been sick all break and could use a day outside in the fresh air (what’s that?). So we spent the afternoon at the school playground, playing football and soccer and keep-away and climbing things. It was great fun! 🙂

Then that night I got to go out with several of my favorite “local” people. I put that in quotes because one lives a few blocks from me and another a few miles, and then one lives 20 miles outside of town and the last one 45 miles away. I think it’s funny that they all are “local” even in our small town. We last got together on my birthday last year, what with one thing and another. It was a weird meeting even then. I thought I was mixing up my friend groups and that only a couple people knew each other (there were 6 of us then), but everyone turned out to know everyone else and it was fabulous. So one of the gals mentioned meeting up again and we made it happen and it was, indeed fabulous again! 🙂 We’re already planning another night out together. 🙂 I’m very pleased because these are some of my oldest friends in town. 🙂 Others have requested an “in” with the group…we shall see, we shall see. 🙂 I think our real common core is our ability to laugh at ourselves. 🙂

Today we got up, late, as is the course of things this week. Today it caused a bit of panic. I needed to have gotten up early to tidy for the babysitter, who was coming in unreasonably early to watch the boys while I got my RA infusion. I went out to pick up donuts while 2/3rds of the kids were asleep, but I couldn’t find my debit card once I got there, so I came home empty handed and dreading identity theft and called around to make sure that wasn’t the case and made a quick casserole, which no one really ate. Had my infusion, which was awkward due to several issues, and came home and “rested” which means got-crawled-on-by-boys-while-playing-on-facebook-and-reading-to-boys-and-feeding-them-occasionally. Whee!

Nick eventually came home and we got things ready for church tomorrow and ate dinner. Now everyone is asleep except for me and Greg. He says he’s having nightmares. Ha. He hasn’t slept a full night in his own bed (it’s like musical beds around here) since Halloween, not that I blame him. I haven’t slept or had a crying-free day since his friend’s mom (my friend Jelena) was murdered and her brother kidnapped either. We should probably seek therapy or something. I just keep telling myself that it could be worse and that really I should get over it. It’s not that easy, though. I’ve been writing sad poetry again. That seems to help. I guess 6-year-olds don’t really do sad poetry. They sleep with their mamas. Ah well.

I’ve run out of things to say today. Good night, people!

My Own Personal Weirdness, Parenting

NY Resolutions and 2013 Family Motto

Yesterday my little family took a tour of the house and looked around. I mean REALLY looked at things: the socks on the floors, the fingerprints on the walls, the dishes on the coffee table, the unmade beds, etc, etc.

Then we had a little refresher talk about kindness. We’d talked at church about ways to be kind to others at church (holding doors, handing out hymnals, bringing water to the disabled during fellowship time) and out in public (again holding doors, giving someone with less stuff the first turn in line at the grocery, etc). We needed to think about how to be kind to each other at home. We talked about things like putting away items (clothes, dishes, toys, towels) when we are done with them so other people don’t have to, cleaning up our messes as we make them so they don’t get stuck on so someone has to scrub (rather than wipe) later, and wearing headphones when we’re with our personal electronics so we’re not disturbing the people around us. Then we talked about our 2013 Family Motto. We’ve never really had one before, but as I was reading FlyLady and trying to get back on my cleaning schedule, I’d really liked hers and thought we’d co-opt something like it. “Be as Kind as can be in 2013”

My resolution this year is simply to take a bit better care of myself. To choose ME this year instead of others more often. Because I haven’t done that in a long time and when I look at myself and pay attention, I see that I am another year older, another 20 pounds heavier, and stressed out beyond belief. So I’m going to just be good to myself this year and see where that takes me. 🙂 My best friend mentioned that I need to break that down into a list of Things To Do, so I can check things off at years-end, which is not something I’m very good at remembering to do. In fact, looking back, I fulfilled NONE of mine this year and didn’t appear to make any resolutions at all the several years before that (at least on the computer. I might’ve on paper, now that I’m thinking about it).

Resolutions as Things To Do:

1. Exercise a couple or three times a week. This can include, but is not limited to: walking, swimming, yoga, some kind of Wii sports, whatever gets my heart rate up, actually.

2. Drop a couple of my less-than-enjoyable obligations. I already have two in mind, but I’m not sharing those here yet. 🙂

3. Investigate the idea of going back to school to be a media specialist for schools. I’ve been asked about doing that a lot lately and while I don’t know if I am interested enough yet to go through with going back to school, I’d at least like to look into it.

4. Plan our trip to the UK. Go there. Enjoy ourselves as a couple, rather than as parents.

5. Date my husband more this year. By more, I mean at least once a month go somewhere not chore related on our own and smile at each other. Whee!

6. There is no #6.

7. Figure out a better daily schedule, so each day doesn’t feel like a crisis situation.

8. Pay attention to what I’m eating and drinking so I don’t eat a billion pieces of chocolate or all the french onion dip in just two sittings. I don’t know how to make this one quantifiable yet, as the last two programs I tried that kept track of that stressed me out more than helped me.

9. Scale back on my internet time somehow. I think this will involve dropping some of my newsreader subscriptions and the facebook friends I am not terribly close to will go to unchecked for updates. I’m also turning off a bunch of notifications, as I spend half my time these days seeing double updates, as facebook sends them to my inbox and the phone posts them twice. So that will be done, too.

So that’s quite a lot for now. Some steps have more than one step. So exciting. I’ll set myself a phone reminder to check the list midyear and see how I’m doing. 🙂

health, I Am Traveling

End of December, NY Resolutions, and all that jazz

I’m having trouble with the fact that it’s 2013 already for some reason. Most years I am quite happy to let the new year come, but this year just felt like it went by so slowly and quickly and unsatisfactorily that I can’t believe that it is over. So let’s catch up first on the end of 2012, ok? Great!

The last week of school before the break David came down with the flu, which of course quickly spread to me and I got bronchitis, too.

We had all kinds of obligations that week including D’s first band concert, which he missed, and the annual Christmas music recital, which we all missed, and class parties, which David missed and I was asked to leave when it came out that I was so sick (“But I’m the coordinator!” “Mrs. H, you are sick. Go home to bed. We’ll be all right!”), and we also missed a birthday party for Greg’s friend Asher which was End of the World themed for the Mayan Apocalypse (we have awesome friends, right?!), and our beloved Owen’s first birthday party was missed as well. I did manage to catch Greg’s Christmas program, though, which was super cute!

Our van also broke down the next-to-last day of school before the break. I was at Brookshire’s in my less-than-appropriate-for-the-weather pants when it happened. Fortunately my friend BR came and picked me up and took me and my supplies up to D’s school for his class party and then dropped me back at the van to await the tow truck. Then Nick rescued me and brought me back home to my sick David. (And then my van was gone until New Years Eve, due to one thing and another needing to be ordered. It was a ridiculously expensive experience.)

So Nick ended up driving us down to CS for Christmas. I slept through most of it. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was dozing in front of the television or feeding people. Seriously, I have no real memory of what went on other than A) gifts were given and received, B) I watched more bits of more random things than ever before in my life except when I had pneumonia, and C) I wore a Typhoid Mary name tag to Christmas Eve service at church. Cause my mom said I had to go and I’m wacky like that. Looking back at pictures, I see we played some games, made a gingerbread house, grew some crystal snowmen & trees, the kids scootered with the neighbor kids, my sister took them out to play basketball at the school, and my dad got them a giant remote controlled car to play with.

We eventually came home and found out that it had snowed while we were gone! There really was very little left, but the kids went outside and had a blast!

The kids spent the night with their Nana & Pa. Then we had dinner with our friends L & M, making pizzas and exchanging books. It was delightful.

Then next day Nick, David, and Greg left for Dallas for their Teen & Pre-teen Winter Weekend (a church event). Ben stayed with Nana & Pa, as he was still sick, and I had two whole days to myself. It was lovely. I spent one whole day reading than watching movies based on books I read. The next day I tried a whole bunch of things from Pinterest and posted them all just in time for the Pinterest Party some of my group of friends from church is having.

The next day was New Years Eve. We got the van back and I bought a few party supplies and the kids and I made a few decorations and we had a party at my parents house here in town. We stayed up late playing silly games (Apples 2 Apples is my current favorite) and tried to do fireworks in the rain and ate a whole bunch of junk food.

We did a countdown at 10pm for the younger kids, then had a toast and took everyone home. The younger kids went to bed, then we counted down the new year again with David watching the East Coast new years eve show. Then he went to bed and Nick fell asleep while I watched Sherlock and waited for it to be 2013 properly (I couldn’t stand any more of those stupid new year’s eve shows). It was a good night! In the morning we got up and went back over to my parents house for coffee and more games (we got my dad addicted to Settlers of Catan this year and even my mom will play it). Eventually they left to go back home to their other house. We spent the rest of the day trying to clean up and put away stuff from all the places we’d been and all the stuff we’d gotten.

Today feels like the first kind of real day of the new year. Although not exactly, as the kids are still out of school until Tuesday. Still, we’re working on our resolutions and playing with our new stuff. Tomorrow I’ll post about our resolutions and our family motto for the year. 🙂

Books

Last of the books 2012

Digging through the pile beside my bedside table, I’ve found five last books for the list:
49. Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card
50. Serving as Senders by Neal Predo
51. Hugo by Brian Selznick
52. The Tether End by Marjery Allingham
53. The Harp of the Grey Rose by Charles de Lint

So there you go. 🙂

Books

Maybe I’ve read a little…

…but only just a little this year…

29. The Magic Thief by Sarah Prineas

30. Petty Treason by Madeleine E. Robins

31. The Sleeping Partner by Madeleine E. Robins

32. Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi

33. Redshirts by John Scalzi

34. Caring for your Parents by Delehanty & Ginzler

35. The Magician and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett

36. A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch

37. Whispers Underground by Ben Aaronovitch

38. Tuesdays at the Castle by George

39. Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan

40. The Dead Witness: A Conniosseurs Collection of Victorian Mysteries

41. To Marry an English Lord: Or How Anglomania Really Got Started by Gail MacColl

42. Substitute Teaching from A to Z by Barbara Pressman

43. Stress Management for Dummies by Allen Elkin

44. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

45. Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold

46. Primary Inversion by Catherine Asaro

47. A book so bad that I threw it away. I’ve never done that before, but it was of the shockingly bad literary tradition that involves a girl who was raped before the book began who must save herself by having sex with a stranger by the end of the book. It made me literally nauseated.

48-49. I sent a stack of books home with Steph one day, forgetting to write them down long enough that the only part I remember now is that I only read two of the pile. Whee! (Maybe Steph knows…update: one was The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston)

And that is it. Nearly half of what I read last year. Have I mentioned that I’ve been super-duper busy this year? *sigh*

My Own Personal Weirdness

AIE

So…I would like a day where I am at home. SAHM implies homeyness, right? It’s four weeks into school and I’ve had just two days where I haven’t had a billion outside-the-home meetings. I know I spent one of those days doing PTA stuff all day at home. The other day I ran school related errands and joined the gym. Who knew that having all your kids in school would be this busy?! Overwhelmed and tired. BLEH.

Books

I promise I do other things than read!

No really, I do. And I will update about them tomorrow, once I’ve offloaded photos and videos and put away the dishes and laundry from the weekend.

24. Embers by Laura Bickle was one that I liked pretty well. It was interesting to hear about the character’s past and the way her magic works. I would read more of this series.

25. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson was given to me by my friend EH for World Book Night. She loves this book, as do I, now. It’s fiction; one of those slow, lyrical, wandering books where it feels like nothing happens, but a lot of things do. Kind of the story of how one family falls apart, all from the point of view of the latest girl to fall apart. I really loved it.

26. Messie No More by Sandra Felton is slowly changing the way I do things at home, which is amazing. I am learning the how’s and why’s behind my housekeeping style and it’s been fascinating. She explains several different ways/personalities/mental blocks that people get stuck in. It has questions for you to answer at the end of each chapter. I highly, highly suggest this book to anyone stuck in a rut.

27. Dark Mondays by Kage Baker is another of her short story books. I keep expecting them to be from one of her book series, but mostly they’re not. Until they are. Yeah. I’ve tried to slow myself down with these because there’s not a whole lot of Kage Baker left for me. 😦

28. The Survivors Club by Ben Sherwood is non-fiction and tells stories about how people survived amazing catastrophes, accidents, and injuries and then how to apply that to events that might happen to you. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s been eye-opening.

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