Thursday, November 13, 2003

Today is my birthday. I have been reflecting on what makes this birthday different than previous birthdays. This is the first "even" numbered birthday that I have celebrated since I was 21 years old that I haven't been pregnant. This is the first birthday in 13 years that I haven't been nursing a baby (thanks to my wonderful 16 months old refusing to nurse). Perhaps this birthday is the mark of me moving from the "having babies" phase of my life to the "raising chilren" phase. My oldest is now a teenage, just 5 days into his teenage journey, but I know it is going to be an exciting one.

The basement is still leaking, I am so sick of water. I am trying to not be depressed about "things" that are ruined by the water, but it is hard. We have foundation people coming out next Monday, hopefully they will be able to shed some light on this dismal situation.

Friday, November 07, 2003

There are days when I just don't understand why things can't go right. Wednesday afternoon the septic guys said that is wasn't a septic problem and the plumbers said it wasn't a plumbling problem so why the heck do I still have standing water in the basement? We were so excited Wednesday night when we got the water all pumped off, thinking we had everything fixed, but NO...we wake up at 5 AM Thursday to more water. This is just so FRUSTRATING! Enough of my water wows for today. Here is a glimpse at what went on here yesterday.

I love the Hamilton County parks and take advantage of the fact that they are willing to set up programs for anyone who asks. I set up a program with our favorite naturalist, Trina, where she explained to the kids about animals in winter. It was great fun, we got to see live animals, feel animal pelts, see animal bones, my favorite being the skull of a deer. I had no idea that a herbivore would have such SHARP teeth! The program ran from 10 AM to 11 AM. We hung out for a few minutes after the program but let by 11:15 AM so that we could grab lunch on the way to our next stops.

Lunch was a great bargin. $5.14 for everyone thanks to Frisch's wonderful Halloween coupons. 3 cheeseburger kid's meals, 3 chicken finger kid's meals, and a chili spaghetti kid's meal, 7 kids drinks, plus a cheeseburger, fries and cherry coke for me. We quickly enhaled lunch and then headed out for the next leg of our journey.

We dropped Hannah off at her "job". She helps a family with their 6 month old twins 2 days a week. She is having great fun and the mom is wonderful. She is teaching Hannah to knit during their down time when the babies nap.

From there we headed up the road to Brett's first basketball game with the homeschool team for this season. It was great, we were playing another homeschooled team so we actually got to play in the middle of the day. The majority of boys on our team come from large catholic families, so there were probably 25 "younger" siblings running around. Brett put on a stellar proformance, scoring 16 points and handling the ball well, pretty amzing to watch considering he had brain surgery less than 6 weeks ago.

We left the game, came home for a bit, threw some chili on for dinner and then I headed back out to the dance studio. Emily had leaps and turns and tap team. Hannah met us at the studio so she could go and assist. It works out well, the family Hannah is helping with drops her at the studio when she is finished. I sat through a team meeting (this is where you find out exactly what is going on with the competition teams) and then ran to the grocery store. Once the girls were finished with dance we came home, actually got here before 8 PM?

So another "not so typical" typical day. The animal program scored big "academic" points but in what subject? science, biology, guess I need to figure that one out. Hannah gets an "A" in lifeskills for the day, shall we count the basketball game and dance as "phys ed"? I think we go some of that all important "socalization" in too, better make sure that I check that off of our list. We did some basic math, comparing stats from the basketball game. I guess all in all not too bad of a day. The world as our classroom, imagine that!

Wednesday, November 05, 2003

So you have found our little spot on the web. Check back often, as I will be updating our blog as often as I can.

So what is going on here? Thanks to the erratic workings of our septic system, the kids are learning the fine art of water conservation. They are also learning the art of haggling with repairmen. You know it isn't a good thing when the repair guy says "I been doin' this for 20 years and ain't never seen nothin' like this". Maybe we sould do a unit study on the venacular of repairmen? My oldest has come to the conclusion, the more double negatives in their statements, the higher the price of the repair will be. Maybe he is onto something here! So we sit here waiting on yet another repairman, hopefully the problem will be fixed this afternoon.