17 March 2019

We had a fun first week of spring break!  Even though I had to work, we tried to do something fun each day.  On Monday we had our Family Home Evening lesson and then decided we wanted to do a fancy dinner out so we went into town and had Red Robin and even got appetizers, I let the girls order off of the adult menu and we had a great time.  The new kittens are all doing well and we got to start holding and playing with the first set of kittens; the mama cat tolerated that better than I had expected.  I told the kids I really wanted to socialize them so that they would be better pets, even though they will be mostly outside as rodent control.

Tuesday we did a movie in.  I let the kids pick their favorite junk food and we all shared and enjoyed watching Big Fish together.  The kids had built another, more intricate, fort during the day and they chose to sleep in their tent city.  I pulled out some quilt pieces that I had made last year (or maybe the year before) and cut new sashing and started piecing together the top.  It’s nice to make progress on something left half done.   

 The appearance of the quilt prompted Felicity to ask me to teach her to cross stitch, so we found an easy pattern she liked and I taught her the basics and turned her loose on it.  She had some frustrating mistakes at first, but got the hang of it pretty quickly and worked on it in her spare time this week.

Wednesday afternoon we went into town and had Eegees for dinner and then went to Skate Country.  We all skated for a couple of hours and had a blast.  It wasn’t too busy and I think everyone had a good time.  I love fun activities that help us get some exercise in too.

We had dentist appointments bright and early on Friday, so we did the frantic pre-dentist brush, floss, and rinse to hopefully avoid the "have you been flossing?" guilt trip before we left and then got there right on time.  Everyone had a great check up and nobody had any issues.  Arlo has gotten some new teeth since our last visit so we made an additional appointment to have them sealed.

Arlo had his follow up appointment with Dr. Shultz on Friday as well, and since I was home, he and I went to the movies together before he needed to be there.  We saw Wonder Park since it was the only kid movie we hadn’t seen already.  It was lame, I ended up taking a fairly expensive nap for at least thirty minutes of the movie.  He said he enjoyed it, so I guess it wasn’t a total waste.  We were seen fairly quickly after we got to our appointment and I told the pediatrician I had taken Arlo off of the Adderall because I (and his teacher) had noticed some unpleasant moods swings that including crying and raging.  She said it does happen from time to time and prescribed us a similar drug in a different drug family.  I’m hopeful we can get Arlo the help he needs without the side effects.

The kids and I did chores on Saturday morning and got the house cleaned.  When we were done we went to Get Air, a trampoline park near down town, and the kids jumped for a little more than an hour.  They had a great time and it was good exercise, a little on the pricey side (especially because we have a trampoline in the backyard), but they had a really good time.  When we were done we went to Chilis for dinner and devoured 2 ½ servings of chips and salsa, a family favorite.  I taught the kids how to play Yahtzee when we got back home and we had fun doing that for a while. 

Felicity had to be at a BYC meeting early on Sunday, 7:30, so I dropped her off at church and then headed back home to get everyone else ready.  We enjoyed Sacrament meeting and Primary was smooth, I only had two kids in my class, and so it was quiet.  After church the Bishopric had asked to meet with me at which time they asked me to accept an assignment to organize an upcoming Easter party for our ward.  I agreed to do it, although it’s not the best timing, spring is really busy for us. I have new bees coming and a hive to build, I’m still working on the new garden and we’re taking the pigs to slaughter in a couple of weeks.  Felicity is starting track when break is over and I need to be planting new trees and fertilizing our existing trees.  I’m also leaving on business travel for four days next week.   I will just have to trust that I will be able to get it all done.  The kids left on Sunday evening to visit their dad for a week for the second half of their spring break, I will miss them.  We had a lot of fun on our break even though we didn’t go on vacation, I think it was a success.

Arlo fell asleep like this after a fun and full day

10 March 2019

It was busy around our place this week!  We had a pretty normal Monday which included Family Home Evening.  We had a lesson from the Come Follow Me manual and then made popcorn in the air popper and enjoyed a movie together.  Felicity was home sick on Tuesday and I think she was glad to be home, because around mid-day, Midnight, the other pregnant stray we took in last week, had her kittens.  It was a little stressful because initially she climbed into the cubby with the other cat and her week-old kittens and started to have her own kittens.  This meant it was really crowded and it confused the other cat who then started to crowd out the new mother so that she could take care of the new kittens for her.  In the end I moved the other cat and her kittens into the laundry room with their own litter box and food and left the new mother in peace.  We actually got to witness a couple of the kittens born, to which Felicity declared it was “beautiful and disgusting”.  There were five new kittens, three all black, one Dalmatian-colored, and one all white kitten.  With that, we are now a household of 13 cats…yes 13. 

I took all three kids to the church on Tuesday evening as Helen had Activity Days and Felicity had mutual and I had been asked to do a germ demonstration for the scouts.  Arlo REALLY enjoyed being in scouts with me, especially since they were the boys right around his age.  I gave them a brief overview about bacteria and then had them each select an area of the church building that they felt would be especially dirty to swab and culture some bacteria.  Being seven and eight year old boys, several of them went straight to the toilet to swab…go figure!  When I was done collecting their petri dishes, Helen was done with her activity and I took her and Arlo out for an ice cream cone while we waited for Felicity to finish her weekday activity, a “drive in” movie.

The kids finished their homework early on Wednesday and decided to build a blanket fort in the living room.  They played a game and read in the fort until it was time to get ready for bed.  Once we had finished with baths and scriptures and such, they asked if they could sleep in the fort and I figured what the heck!  So they all slept in their fort.  Once they were in “bed” I pulled my cake decorating tools out of retirement and started work on a birthday cake that I had volunteered to make for a Relief Society activity.  I baked five 10” cakes and made three batches of buttercream, by the time I was done for the evening, I had all of the cake baked, leveled, stacked, and dirty-iced.  My kitchen was a mess!

I spent a couple of hours finishing up the icing on my cake Thursday morning before work and then completed the rest of it when I got home in the afternoon.  My ganache was more runny than I wanted (I tried a new recipe and know better than to experiment when I’m working on a deadline), but the cake turned out alright.  I did really like the “Happy Birthday” banner I made, it was pretty cute.  The hard part was not making and decorating a cake for 40 people in between working, it was transporting the finished cake down the 3 miles of washboard, pot-holed, dirt road!  I let Felicity hold it while I drove and it took us 20 minutes to get to the paved road, but we made it to the church with a unmarred cake with time to spare! 

Helen got to attend a field trip to the Tucson Convention Center on Friday with a few other students from her school that had been selected to have their science projects judged at the Southern Arizona Research, Science and Engineering Foundation (SARSEF) science fair.  She had a great time seeing all the other projects and we were notified in the morning that her project had won an award.  The kids went to visit their dad Friday evening and we made arrangements to meet at the TCC for the awards ceremony.

Saturday morning I went down to the convention center and met Helen and her dad and her dad’s mother-in-law for the awards.  They didn’t tell us ahead of time what Helen had won, so we attentively waited through all of the sponsored awards.  They didn’t have any sponsor awards that fit the category of the project Helen did, so she didn’t win any of those.  Once they had finished with all the sponsor awards (about an hour and a half in) we realized that Helen must have won a grand prize.  She ended up getting 2^nd place in the Cellular and Microbiological Sciences category for 5^th grade.  As proud as I am of our work, it wasn’t as prestigious as it sounds, a lot of kids won prizes.  There were two or three in each category and in each grade that won either 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd.  However, when I looked at it overall, there were 65,000 projects done by participating schools in the state.  Of those 65 thousand, 2,000 were chosen to compete at SARSEF and of those two thousand about 300 received awards.  So 0.4% of students completing projects won a state prize, that’s not too bad I guess.  By the time they finished the third place awards Helen leaned over and said “I hope I get second, because I’m ready to go home”.  We took some pictures of her and her project and then I headed home to get chores done and she went with her dad. 

Saturday afternoon I worked on my outside chores and then went into town to go to the movies.  I went to see Captain Marvel and really enjoyed it.  In the evening I picked Felicity up from her dad’s so that she could go to church in the morning.  She and I enjoyed our meetings on Sunday and then I dropped her back off at her dad’s when it was over.  I was back in town in the evening to get everyone home for the week.  We made dinner, and snuggled on the couch watching Ephraim’s Rescue until it was time to go to bed.

03 March 2019

 Last week we had snow, this week we had warm sunshine, go figure! We were so late getting home on Sunday night that I let Arlo go back to sleep when he protested getting up on Monday morning.  He and I ended up having a Mama-Arlo day instead of doing the responsible thing which would have been taking him into school a little late and heading to work myself.  What can I say, sometimes I like to play hooky.  We went to Denny's and had breakfast and then went to the movies to see the new How to Train Your Dragon movie.  We liked it alright, nothing to rave about, but I found it more entertaining than the Lego movie.  After the movie we went shopping and I bought myself a new pair of jeans and a couple of tops.

One of the reasons I wanted to keep Arlo home, was I wanted to have some time to get a good feeling for his behavior now that he's on the ADHD medication.  Last week his teacher emailed on Wednesday and said he had cried multiple times during the day and was struggling with his emotions.  When I asked him, he said he just didn't feel well.  I wasn't home on Thursday and his dad picked him up for the weekend shortly after I got home.  I asked them if he was ok for the three days he was away from home and Jeff's wife said he had a melt down or two, but she didn't feel it was out of the ordinary for him and he got over it pretty quickly.  On the way home on Sunday night he lost it in the car and cried and rocked and I felt like it was very uncharacteristic.  Sure enough, Monday afternoon, after the sisters got home, they were outside feeding animals and he felt Felicity hadn't helped him in the way he wanted help and he came in bawling uncontrollably and it took him a long time to calm down.  I called the pediatrician, which had been her instructions if there was a change in Arlo's emotional state (she specifically mentioned fits of rage or unusual crying) and very inconveniently she was on vacation.  I'm going to take him off of the meds (again, what she told me to do) until I can talk to her next week and get them changed.  Its frustrating after seeing a glimpse of how well they helped him in school last week, but she said we would probably need to tweak the type of medication and dosage to get the right fit.  So we'll be patient.

Both Helen and Arlo claimed to have debilitating soar throats on Tuesday morning, so I, against my better judgment, let them stay home.  I worked on catching up on laundry and some other chores that needed to be tackled.  Helen came into my office early afternoon to tell me that there was a weird stain on the carpet in the hallway.  When I went to investigate I found that the stray kitty we took in last week started to give birth...on my carpet.  Seriously, she's been living in the bathroom for a week and only ventured out long enough to stain my carpet and then creep back under the bathroom sink.  I forgave her because it meant we got to excitedly see her bring her kittens into the world.  We thought she was done at three, but when we got back from delivering eggs and picking up compost there were five!  They are so adorable.  I went from having one (useless) cat to seven cats in the space of a week.

Everyone was unceremoniously forced back to school on Wednesday.  Helen had Girls on the Run after school.  I wish they did that as a joint activity with the other elementary school like they do with choir and band so that she could ride the activity bus home, but they don't, so I dropped Felicity and Arlo off at home and then pretty much turned right around and drove to Copper Ridge to pick up Helen.  The road out to the house is a complete pot-holed, washboard, mess again, so multiple trips up and down in a day is a pain (but I love my place so I won't complain too much).  Once everyone was home we had our Family Home Evening lesson about the Sermon on the Mount and had a picnic pizza dinner in the living room and watched Ralph Wrecks the Internet.

I had the opportunity to volunteer to help clean the temple on Thursday evening.  After I got the kids squared away with dinner, I gave Felicity the bedtime instructions, and then I headed into town.  Since I was going to clean anyway, I thought I would go early and enjoy some time worshiping in the temple first.  It was quite busy for a Thursday night, but I enjoyed my time and then starting my cleaning assignment around 8:30.  We were done by 10:30 and I headed home. 

I dropped Arlo off at Nana's house on Friday after school and he got to go to Monster Jam at the convention center.  The girls and I went to Target to wander, at their request, and then we went out to dinner.  When we got home they wanted to watch a movie, so we started Titanic.  Arlo got home a little after ten, and I got to hear all about the monster trucks, he had such a good time.

Saturday morning I got a call from my dad that he had trapped another of his stray cats who was pregnant, so I drove over there to pick her up.  She seemed a lot less grateful to be relocated to the Two Jack Ranch Cat Maternity Center, but I'm sure its better than having her litter elsewhere.  I took the drawers out of the other side of the vanity so I have one expectant mother on one side and one mother and kittens on the other.  Its a bit crazy!  The kids and I did some outside chores, but most of my Saturday was spent cleaning house and working on laundry.  In the evening we made hamburgers on the grill, played Mario Kart, and watched a movie together before calling it a night.

We enjoyed our church meetings on Sunday and then spent the rest of the morning playing games after doing our family scripture study lesson.  We went to my parent's house in the late afternoon and had steaks and visited and the kids watched fancy cooking shows on Nana and Papa's cable.  We have a busy week coming up, I can't believe spring break is just around the corner, and the kids only have 12 more weeks of school.  Time sure does fly when you're having fun!

24 February 2019

Winter certainly has kept a tight hold on the desert this year.  I had some tulips and daffodils come up a couple of weeks ago and the apple trees were blossoming and this week was frigid and icy.  It’s been a strange year for weather! Arlo was excited to come home and tell me he "clipped up" to purple at school on Monday (was recognized for good behavior).  He was so proud that he had such a good day.  In the afternoon he whined a little bit when it came time for homework, what I would consider a normal amount of seven-year-old whining, but once he sat down to do it, he amazed even himself by completing three pages in right around ten minutes.  Monday evening we did family home evening, our lesson was based on Matthew 5:14-16, we talked about what it meant to let your light shine.  We experimented with different light sources in a dark room, and how differently the light carried depending on how it was held or hidden.  We baked cookies and watched The Mask as our activity.  We used to be really good about doing more diverse activities after our lesson, but since we don't have screen time during the week the kids unanimously pick a movie and I like going with the flow! 

On Tuesday morning my dad called me to tell me he had a cat for me.  He's been feeding strays on his back porch for several months and one of the kitties looked to be pregnant.  I said I would take her since we haven't had a good mouser since we lost Henry.  He was able to coax her inside and then get her in a carrier.  He calls her Little Bit.  I brought her home before taking the kids to school and put her up in her own little pregnant kitty suite (and had the silly song "The Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps" stuck in my head all day).  After getting the cat squared away, I took the kids to school and met with Arlo's teacher to tell her about Arlo's new medication and to give her some things to look for in case things don't go as well as we hope.  We'll be doing a three week re-evaluation to determine how the medicine is working, so I wanted to give her the heads up about that.  She mentioned that she had already noticed a marked difference in Arlo's behavior just yesterday and was impressed with how quickly the medication was helping.

Helen informed me on Wednesday morning that the cat had escaped, even though all of the doors in the bathroom were still closed.  Of course on closer inspection it was determined that she had simply pulled out one of the drawers in the cabinet and climbed behind it, making a little nest for herself.  I figured it was a good hiding place and I put a blanket in there for her.  She's not friendly, I think she's probably been a stray her whole life, so she barely tolerates us sticking our hands in to pet her, for the most part she hisses.  We'll just have to be patient, and at the very least handle the new kittens when they arrive so they will like people!  Mid day I got an email from Arlo's teacher, it was a picture of him holding his DMS (Daily Math Skills) page.  Each day they do a timed math sheet and they score it based on how many problems they can complete correctly in the allotted amount of time.  He was so proud of himself that he asked her to take a picture and send it to me.  For the first time ever he completed all of the problems on the sheet and they were all correct.  It made my heart happy and made me feel a little more secure in my choice to have him start ADHD medication. 

The kids had no school on Thursday and Friday for rodeo break.  I love rodeo break!  I had hoped to take them to the parade on Thursday and some of the rodeo events; however, it was too cold and I had to be at work for a meeting in the morning.  The kids enjoyed a quiet morning at home.  They slept in, did some chores, and enjoyed reading and having some screen time. I had a meeting with my supervisor in the morning that went very well.  This time of year we have our official performance review from the previous year and I was grateful that mine went so well.  My supervisor did a great job advocating for me with leadership and I received a generous merit-based bonus and was promoted to a new job title and pay grade.  It equated in total to a nearly 14% raise.  I was elated, it will definitely be a great support to our family.  The beginning of this year marked 9 years that I've been at Raytheon and I'm grateful that my contributions this past year were appreciated.  I do lament that I didn't pursue a career more in line with my passions (and education for that matter), but working in engineering has been a enormous blessing for my family, and I am grateful for that.

The kids went to their dad's a day early so that they could go to the Renaissance Fair with him, he picked them up on Thursday afternoon.  It rained at the ranch pretty much all night and it was very windy. When I got up to go to work in the morning it was snowing and quite a bit of it had already started to pile up.  I built a fire in the fireplace and decided it was the perfect "work from home day".  It was so strange.  We get snow that sticks maybe one time a year every five years or so, never in my life have we had three days of measurable snow in one year, and it certainly has never snowed all day.  I really can't get over how strange it was.  It snowed steadily all day.  Around mid day it started to melt as quickly as it was falling so no more than three or four inches accumulated, but I believe we got nearly six inches at our place.  It was incredible.  Because I didn't have kids to play with, I pretty much stayed in and enjoyed it from the window with my warm fire blazing. I did venture out to feed animals; the chickens seemed unconcerned with the snow, they were out pecking about as normal.  The pigs were huddled in their hutch although they happily came out to greet me when I showed up with their corn.  They obviously had been out in it earlier rooting around as they had snow on their snouts.  Maggie thought it was great and played most of the day until she was absolutely soaked.  Zeus wanted nothing to do with it, only going out when I tossed him out to go potty and I did check on the bees who were nestled safely in their hives. I didn't leave the house all day, not wanting to brave the roads.

I got up early on Saturday morning and cleaned the house and then when I went to leave to do my shopping and grocery shopping the car wouldn't start.  My stupid little hybrid thing has no key to turn, only a power button.  When I pushed it on the instrument panel was dim and the engine never actually came on.  So I called AAA and my dad met the tow truck driver out at my place to give it a jump.  We got it started and he suggested I take it to Toyota to get a new battery, evidently you can't buy a Prius battery anywhere but at the dealership (strike two for the day car!).  I sat down at Toyota for an hour and a half to have them tell me the battery was fine I probably just left a light on.  They did however do a software update which took care of the check engine light that has been on for an undisclosed number of months.  When I was done I got my groceries and did my running around.  In the evening I went into town to watch a movie.  I saw "Isn't it Romantic".  While I was in line to pick up my snacks the guy behind the counter asked what I was seeing and I answered politely, but only after "I'm a middle-aged, overweight woman, buying an extra large popcorn and pop, here by myself in sweat pants, what do you think I'm here to see?!" flashed through my mind.  Sometimes I have my life under control and sometimes I'm a mess!  I'm in a mess slump currently.

Arlo doing Nana's shredding while I work on taxes

Sunday morning I attended Sacrament meeting and then taught my four year old primary class.  I wonder every Sunday what they were thinking when they gave me near toddler-age children to teach, but nobody cried and our lesson went well and I am doing my best.  After church I went with Mom to visit Grandma.  I picked the kids up in the evening and we went back to my parents house for dinner and visiting and so that I could do my grandparent's taxes.  When I compared last year's taxes to this year's they were consistent and then when I compared them to the professional preparation from the year before I found that I got them more than twice as much back for 40% less.   I say that's a tax win!  Speaking of taxes I got my state and federal return back this week and even though I'm saving for a new truck I used the money to pay down some debt, it felt like the right thing to do especially since I want to have my credit in tip top shape for buying a truck and refinancing the house this year...and I'm well on my way, its so nice to have good credit!  Anyway, we didn't get home until late, so we did an abbreviated version of our Sunday scripture study and then scooted off to bed in preparation for another busy week at Two Jack Ranch.