17 February 2019

This week did not feel as productive as it should have, that is probably because I didn't get a weekend to get much needed spring-prep chores done.  Regardless, we chugged along! The first part of the week was relatively mundane.  We were studying in John chapters 2-4 this week in our family scripture study, and for Family Home Evening we made chocolate chip cookies and watched "Hairspray".  Other than after school band, no body had activities on Tuesday which was nice.  Felicity instead had a combined stake mutual activity on Wednesday in Tucson.  She didn't get home till nearly nine o'clock, but said she had a great time.

The kids were excited to take their valentines to school on Thursday, they came home with a lot of goodies too.  We didn't do anything special for the holiday, it was pretty much business as usual around our place!  I will say that I enjoyed seeing everyone's cute posts on Facebook about how they celebrated the holiday, its wonderful to see all the love there is in the world and to have a special day to celebrate it.

The kids had a 1/2 day on Friday and luckily it was my day off.  I spent the morning getting my cleaning and laundry done and then in the afternoon I took Arlo into town to visit the pediatrician.  After last weeks' parent teacher conferences, I did a lot of thinking about Arlo and the common conversation I have had with all of his teachers since preschool.  Those conversations tied with behavior I struggle with at home prompted me to make an appointment with Dr. Shultz to have him evaluated for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).  I gathered assessments from his current teacher, his kindergarten teacher and his dad along with one of my own and we headed to our appointment.  She said that Arlo quite clearly qualified for an inattentive ADHD diagnosis and since it was affecting his grades at school she wanted to start him on medication.  To be honest, I was surprised, she's very conservative when it comes to medication and that's something I appreciate about her, I didn't expect her to approach the problem with pharmaceuticals.  I defended my reasons for bringing him in: that he's not over-stimulated at home, he gets screen time rarely, we don't have tablets and electronics available during the week, that I waited until it was affecting his grades at school.  I talked to her about my reservations and we discussed the stigma associated with brain health and medication to correct imbalances.  If Arlo had an infection, I would get him an antibiotic, if he had high blood pressure, I would put him on medication, this is no different.  I told her I feared people would believe that I wanted a medical solution to my child's behavior problem instead of just being a better parent.  A lot of my worries and concerns were, quite frankly, self-centered and insecure.  She pointed out that the behavior was consistent whether he was at home, in school, with me or with other adults and that he had no high scores in areas of defiance or lack of proper socialization, it was very clear cut that his brain simply doesn't have the ability to redirect attention appropriately. 
Arlo described it to her as "my brain is always so full of imagination, sometimes it feels fuzzy because it changes so quickly."  She said that he would most likely grow out of it, but for the time being needed the extra help to be successful, and that medication would make him feel better.  We are at a point where Arlo is constantly "getting in trouble" for not holding still, not completing assignments, constantly losing track of things and its starting to affect his self-image as well as his grades and his confidence in his own intellectual abilities.  I reprimand him daily for things like not completing chores on his own or being able to attend to one task for more than 5 minutes at a time.  I want him to be successful and feel successful and if medication to stimulate the right receptors in his brain are what are necessary to help him to be able to shut down distractions and focus on everyday tasks, then I want him to have it.  We are starting him on 10 mg of Adderall and will adjust it as necessary to find the right dose.  And I'm not going to feel like a failure or be ashamed (or at least I'm going to try). 

When we were done with the doctor's appointment, we picked up an Eegee as a treat and went to visit Grandma Lo at her new apartment. She was doing really well and talked about how much she liked the food and how everybody was so friendly.  She even went and played BINGO this week.  Arlo went off the back porch and was visiting with some of the other residents.  When it was time to go he asked "can we come back tomorrow?" 

We were up pretty early on Saturday morning and I took the kids out the Pima County Fair grounds for Vail Pride Day.  It was cold and windy and actually pretty miserable, but we stuck it out.  The girls had warm ups starting at 9:30, so Arlo and I walked around Thurber hall and admired the art exhibits from the different schools.  He really seemed to enjoy that a lot.  The girls did a combined middle school/elementary school band performance which was really nice.  When they were done we went over to the boy scout booth where they had a climbing wall.  Arlo and Helen gave it a try and both got about half way up before getting stuck. 

After that we went over to the grassy area where they had some bouncey-house-thingys set up and Arlo and Helen bounced and had kettle corn while we waited for Felicity's jazz band performance at the pavilion.  When she was done, we went into the other exhibit hall and found the kids' academic contributions and bought some movies from the book sale.  We perused the different booths and Arlo very intently built the tallest cup structure he could manage, with some help since we wasn't actually tall enough.  We had lunch and then headed back to the other other hall for the district awards ceremony.  Helen was awarded a Science Showcase Award for her science fair project.

 When we were done with that Arlo was desperate to try the climbing wall again, so he and Felicity tried it.  Arlo got all the way to the top and was very pleased with himself.  We stopped to watch Helen in the parade with her friend Morgan as they were representing Copper Ridge's Girls on the Run organization.  Helen went home to hang out with Morgan and the rest of us got home around 5:30, it was a long day and I didn't get anything else done!

Felicity had to be at church at 7:30AM on Sunday morning for a Bishop's Youth Council (BYC) meeting.  I dropped her off and came home to get the rest of the kids ready for church.  Our meetings went well and we came home and played with Legos and watched Sunday movies when it was over.  We went to Nana and Papa's in the afternoon and visited and watched cooking shows on cable and enjoyed a good visit.  My dad has been feeding some stray cats on the porch for awhile now, going as far as naming them; he has one he thinks is pregnant, so we tried to coax it inside so I could take it home with me, but we were unsuccessful, maybe he'll catch it later this week and we'll be cat-rich again.  It's a short week next week with Rodeo Break on Thursday and Friday.  I think I'm going to take the kids to the parade if its not too cold and maybe a rodeo even or two on Thursday, we'll just have to see. 

10 February 2019

February is turning out to be a really busy month!  On Monday we put together our valentine’s for our classmates.  I ended up making valentines for the kids to hand out again this year and for Family Home Evening the kids put them together and addressed them.  Every year I always end up buying boxes of pre-made valentines after the holiday because they have them 75% off or more and I can’t pass them up for like a quarter a box…although I should!  So I opened up the several boxes that I had stashed away and the kids and I glued them all over shoe boxes with a hold cut in the top for Helen and Arlo to collect valentines in.  We coated it in mod podge to seal it; they turned out really cute.  Arlo is taking owl valentines with pencils and Helen wanted hipster sloths…so I created a cutting file for a hipster sloth candy-hugging valentine. 

On Tuesday I took some time off of work in the morning and took Grandma into Green Valley to get her hair cut.  When we were done we had lunch at Manuel’s and then stopped by to see my mom before heading home.  I’m grateful I have opportunities to spend time with Grandma.  We delivered eggs and picked up compost in the afternoon before picking up Helen from band practice.  In the evening I volunteered to help out at Helen’s Activity Days event.  I didn’t do much helping, mostly just provided a second adult for supervision.  When her activity was over, Felicity had mutual so the other kids and I waited around for that to be over before we headed home.  Tuesdays always seem so long!

Felicity had an appointment with the orthodontist on Wednesday morning and her visit went well.  She’s on her last wire and they are estimating that she’ll be done in the next 8-12 weeks or so.  The only thing I didn’t like the sound of was that she has two back molars that haven’t come in yet, so they are planning to take her braces off anyway and just keep an eye on things when the new teeth come in.  I guess that means that if the new teeth push things back out of alignment she may have to go back into the braces.  Maybe we should have waited a little longer before starting her treatment.  Maybe I’ll wait to start Helen’s as I was planning to get Helen’s started once Felicity’s finished.  Either way, I see orthodontic payments in my future for at least another four to six years!  In the evening I went to test drive a truck that a friend has for sale.  I probably won’t buy anything until I get my tax return, my 2018 profit sharing, and confirmation on what kind of a raise/promotion I (hopefully) got this year.  It’ll be nice to have a truck again when the time does come!

The kids had a ½ day on Thursday, so I had to work from home so that I could get them off the bus around noon.  We came home and finished up homework and played and then we went to the movies.  We saw the new Lego movie and I think the kids enjoyed it, I quite honestly fell asleep during the last half hour…pretty much after the popcorn and Diet Coke ran out!  I’m becoming such a lame old lady!  Speaking of which, I found my first gray hair this week, or more accurately, Felicity did.  I also fell on Saturday after stepping off of the concrete slab the mailbox sits on.  I stepped wrong and down I went, mail going everywhere, pride and palms bruised.

Friday morning while I was at work I got an email from Helen’s teacher that she had won the Principal’s Award for her science fair project, it’s the best overall prize and she sent me a cute picture of Helen and her principal with her project.  I was so proud!  I went into the school in the afternoon for parent-teacher conferences and got lots of “congratulations” for Helen’s award.  I love the kids’ school.  I love that Helen’s teacher tells me how much she likes Arlo and Arlo’s teacher asks me about Helen.  I love that when I walk into the office the staff knows who I am and which kids belong to me.  We never had that in Sahuarita, I don’t think I ever talked to any of the principals.  The same is true at Corona, the Principal and Assistant Principal know my child by name and are really accessible and personable.  Anyway, conferences went well, Helen is doing beautifully and her efforts to increase her spelling test grades has paid off and she had straight A’s this quarter.  Arlo is doing well, although he had a poor grade in one area and when it came up his teacher said the grade was based solely on one assessment that Arlo just didn’t focus on long enough to complete.  Much of our conversation went the way many teacher conversations about Arlo turn out: he’s very smart, but struggles to focus and work without being reminded multiple times to get on task.  It’s worrisome for sure. 

Friday evening the kids went to their dad’s for the weekend and I went to a Bunco game which was fun.  I worked on getting the house clean on Saturday and did my grocery shopping and laundry.  In the afternoon I did my animal chores and finished putting the trampoline up, finally!   I picked Felicity up from her dad’s Saturday night and she and I picked up dinner on our way home and then enjoyed a movie together. 

Sunday morning Felicity was the youth speaker during Sacrament meeting.  She spoke on the topic of having a broken heart and a contrite spirit in front of the whole congregation.  She was nervous, but did wonderfully.  I was really proud of her.  

After church she and I picked up Arlo and Helen early from their dad’s since we were attending a celebration of life for Grandpa Gene at 3pm.  We made it to celebration in Tucson and Felicity spoke again, this time reading a couple of scriptures and some thoughts she had about death and our eternal destiny.  It was a really nice little memorial and there were quite a few people there.  My aunt and uncle and a couple of my cousins, some of Grandpa’s Lodge buddies, and several people that worked with him at the Tucson Police Department.  It was neat to hear other people’s stories about Grandpa and I loved to hear that he was the same person on the job as he was with his friends as he was at home with his family.  I spoke for several minutes about how we can honor those we love by trying to adopt some of their best qualities.  I talked about his ability to do anything he set his mind to, his love for learning, and his integrity among many other great qualities.  I told several stories and probably rambled a bit too long, but when I was done I felt like everyone in the room knew that he was loved and important to me and helped greatly in shaping me into the person I am today.  After the celebration was over and we cleaned up, Grandma, Liz, Robert and his family, Mom and Dad and the kids and I went out for dinner.  We had a nice time and I appreciated being with my family.  

03 February 2019

It was a busy week for us at Two Jack Ranch.  On Monday we used our Family Home Evening time to work together on Helen’s science fair project.  I won’t lie, I’m a horrible procrastinator, but it actually works for me.  I honestly do my best work in the 11^th hour.  Ok, it didn’t work for studying for exams in college, but for projects, papers, talks, yeah, I’m all about the night before (or morning of).  Its not that I don’t think about it prior, but when it comes down to actually producing something its going to come down to the wire.  The unfortunate aspect is that it leaks over onto my kids.  We’ve known about Helen’s science fair deadline for months, and we’ve had a great idea for just as long if not longer, but when it came right down to it, I waited until the week it was due to actually get the bulk of the work done, you know the actual data collecting, experimenting part!  Anyway, we went to several different retail stores to swab the interior of their bathroom stalls for bacteria.  I've long wondered when standing in front of a bank of bathroom stalls which one is statistically going to be cleaner.  I knew that trends in human behavior would mean that some get used more than others.

With petri dishes in hand we started at the Walmart in Sahuarita and only had the bathroom to ourselves for a couple of minutes before it was filled with people many of whom had questions and then a couple of employees joined us, just as curious.  By the time we made it to the back bathroom to do our swabs a very unpleasant employee informed us that she was getting the manager.  I chatted with the manager and assured her that not only was it a school project  but that the published results would not list the stores' name.  Needless to say, we made sure to talk to each store manager prior to conducting the rest of our swabs in each of the bathrooms.  Everyone else was really nice about it.  We stopped and had dinner at Red Robin before finishing up and heading home.  We started the dishes incubating, hoping for some good coliforms to mature in a few days.

Tuesday was busy with our usual line-up.  Helen had band practice after school and Felicity had mutual in the evening and really enjoyed herself as usual.  I'm so glad that she has such good friends and enjoys going to activities as much as she does.  In the evening after the kids went to bed I worked on my taxes and got those filed.  It's always nice to get that out of the way, and I'm pleased that I'll be getting a really nice return again this year.

 Helen  had Girls on the Run on Wednesday afternoon and had such a fun time.  After school the kids worked on homework and Helen and I started on the design and cut outs for her science fair board.   We worked on as much as we could without having the actual data and results in.  We went to Denny's for dinner as I just wasn't feeling like cooking!  The only downside is my usually cheap dinner solution wasn't so cheap as 2 out of the 3 of the kids didn't order off the kids' menu.  It amazes me sometimes what skinny little Felicity can put away!

Thursday night Helen and I pulled out all of her petri dishes and started counting the bacteria colonies.  We cultured more than forty stalls, so it took us quite a while to get them all organized and counted and then I showed her how to put them into the spreadsheets I created and turn the data into graphs and charts.  It was fun to teach her how to read them and to appreciate how read-able and interpret-able data becomes in graph form.  Once we were done with that, we finalized all of the written portions of her projects and printed everything out and started the task of getting it all put together on the board.  I found a fun amoeba-looking font to create the labels which we cut in different colored vinyl.  I also created  a lot of different microbes that I cut from vinyl to decorate with.  We weren't done until around 10:30, but it was a thing of beauty once we finished.  I love science fair projects.  They combine so many of my favorite things: creativity, science, teaching my kids, learning, art, and design.  I'll be glad to have it behind us though!

For those curious about our results, here is Helen's conclusion.  Basically, avoid the handicapped stall, its the dirtiest.  The third stall is statistically the cleanest, but not much cleaner than the second.  Aim for the middle, stay away from the first and the last.  The toilet paper dispenser was grosser than the flushing mechanism, so don't put your purse or phone on top of it!   What isn't included in the official results is that Target was actually, on average, dirtier than Walmart.  We did one Target swab right after they "cleaned it" and the door handle bacteria were out of control!  I think maybe its because the Targets only have one bathroom where Walmart has two?  I don't know, but I was surprised.  The exception was the Walmart on Valencia and Midvale Park, the front bathroom pretty much filled the entire dish with bacteria...so avoid that one!

On Friday morning, I safely saw the science fair project to school and then I went to the temple.  When I got home I got my grocery shopping done and cleaned house, basically pretended to be a housewife for the afternoon.  It was nice!  The kids and I enjoyed our evening together and watched a movie or two and stayed up late.  Early Saturday morning I dropped Felicity off at the church for a youth leadership planning meeting.  When she got home, the kids and I worked on our outside chores and emptied the barn and cleaned it out and put the table saw back in it and reorganized it.  I will have to put out some traps since I saw more than one mouse while we were in there.  In the afternoon, Arlo went to a birthday party at the park for one of his friends.  The girls and I started putting the trampoline together and continued working on that until it was time to pick Arlo up.  

Saturday evening I picked up dinner and met my girlfriends for a girl's night.  We had a nice time visiting and I worked on laundry when I got home late.  Our Sunday meetings went well, I'm getting used to junior primary.  It doesn't make me any more sweet and gentle, but they're not crying either so I guess we have found our happy medium.  We went to my parent's house in the afternoon and had dinner and watched the lame football game.  It was a full week of lots of good things and we're excited for more good things to come.

27 January 2019

It was another great week at Two Jack Ranch.  I was recently perusing some old blog posts and was shocked to find that I’ve written nearly 450 entries.  Its really rather remarkable.  It is also wonderful to look back and see just how blessed we’ve been over the years, through the good times and hard times.  I have a beautiful life and I’m grateful for it.  Part of the reason I was looking through old posts was to assess how I want to try and format and start publishing my blog into physical volumes for the kids to take with them when they grow up.  I have also neglected to keep up on printing physical copies of my favorite pictures to go in actual photo albums, so I’ve spent time in the evening combing through hundreds of pictures and pulling out the best ones to be edited and printed.  Since the last time I had photographs printed was October of 2014, I have quite a bit of work to do.

The kids were at their dad’s on Monday since they were out of school for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and I went to pick them up when I got done with work.  Before I had left in the morning I put a couple pounds of the venison I had been marinating in the crockpot with some taco seasoning.  By the time we got home, it smelled amazing and shredded up beautifully.  I made tacos and taco salad with it and the kids and I loved it, it was really tasty.  I always love to cook with something I’ve grown or harvested myself; its really a beautiful thing.

We had a laid back Family Home Evening this week.  We enjoyed a Popsicle and watched Disney shorts as our activity.  One of the other projects that I tackled this week was to take my copy of Grandma’s hand-written cornbread recipe and mount it to a wooden canvas with craft paper.  I just think its so pretty, and there’s nothing that reminds me more of being in the kitchen with Grandma than cornbread, she made it with pretty much everything.  When it finished drying I embellished it and hung it in the kitchen.  Felicity said, “Its pretty, but I can’t read any of it”.  That may have to be something we rectify!  It’s going to make genealogy pretty difficult for her generation if they lose the ability to read and write in cursive.

Tuesday was busy as usual.  Felicity and Arlo helped me deliver eggs and pick up compost in the afternoon and then we picked Helen up from band practice.  We came home and had dinner and then I ran Felicity back to church for mutual.  On Wednesday Helen started Girls on the Run after school.  She really enjoyed the program last year and wanted to do it again this year; I'm grateful for the looming 5K that I will need to run with her as it makes me put in more miles than I might otherwise.  I made the kids dinner when we got home and then I went out with my friend Sadie to celebrate her birthday.  We got mani/pedis and then went to Red Robin for dinner.  We had such a fun time, I really appreciate the friendship I have with Sadie.  Our home teachers came over on Thursday and we enjoyed their visit.

 One of the other projects that I started over the winter break and finished up with week was refinishing a step-chair that I got at an estate sale a few years ago.  I'm really pleased with how it.  I repainted it red and added some vinyl embellishment.  Now it matches the rest of my kitchen again.  The kids went to visit their dad on Friday night and I did my grocery shopping, cleaning, and laundry.  On Saturday morning I was out in the yard early with a list of things to accomplish.  After getting the animal pens cleaned up I started pouring the concrete footing for my raised garden beds.  I'm really  hoping I can get in several beds before the spring, I honestly miss my garden a lot.  I have quite a large space fenced off for my garden area, so it's been fun designing how I want it to lay out.  Unfortunately the motor in my cement mixer wasn't working well, so I had to mix the concrete in the wheelbarrow. 

 In the evening I picked Felicity up from the church.  There was a youth fireside with Elder Ballard in Tucson and her dad had dropped her off the the young women's leaders from our ward brought her back to the church building in Corona.  She and I had popcorn and enjoyed a movie together. 

We went to Church on Sunday morning and when we were done we met up with my mom.  Felicity decided that she wanted to go into Tucson with Nana and I instead of going back to her dad's.  We had a nice afternoon with Mom and then picked the other two kids up around 5PM.  We had dinner with my parents.   After the kids went to bed on Sunday evening I set about making the LB Agar to fill the petri dishes for Helen's science fair project.  I saved quite a bit of money by making and pouring my own agar, but it really stunk up my kitchen...think boiling dog saliva.  The school tries to do a good job of setting up many mini goals for the kids to meet so that they don't put the experiment off until the last minute, but I just couldn't get it fit in before now, so we'll go do our data collection for Family Home Evening tomorrow.