Still crazy here
Still completely failing to find time to be online much. I just did skip=100 for LJ (which, thanks to some comms, didn't even get me as far as Easter Sunday) and went back 2 weeks on DW (which is all DW allows, much to my consternation). It's just a skim - I'm sorry for not commenting, as I'm usually much better about that.
Fence update: still not anywhere near done, despite working hard all during spring break and for several more days since then. Couldn't get anything done today, as Will came down with some random bug (mild fever and general malaise) yesterday evening and today it also rained when it wasn't supposed to. Sigh. I am just SO OVER the seeming futility of working on this, like it'll never be over - much less that we'll get to creating and planting a veggie garden.
Subbed at the middle school for the first time on Thurs, taking over a 6th-grade English class. They're working on a unit on the Black Death (of all things!) and doing some class presentations, so it was pretty easy to preside over. I had an informal "interview" with the vice principal so he could get some idea of where I did and did not want to sub. When he first saw me, he instantly recognized me as Two's mom (I guess new kid + rare Asian kid + rare trans kid = easy association) and told me, with some amusement, that he considered Two to be the king of 7th grade recess, which cracked me up. (The vice principal believes firmly that kids should still get recess in middle school. When we first toured the school in Jan '16, he said straight out that he did his best to make sure kids got out whenever remotely possible, even if just for 10 mins. This school even has a small playground, as well as a field to run around in.) Two is "king" because he's the one who is most dying to go outside, and loves to spin around and do stuff on the monkey bars.
Speaking of school, report cards came out on Fri. I already knew, from the portal, that his grades weren't as good as I might have liked. He got another C in his remedial reading class, which is just ... IDEK. He got an A first quarter. Told him I expected the C to improve in 4th quarter. He also got a C in ... Health. Seriously, HOW do you not get an A in Health? How difficult is it, honestly? Two said they had some pop quizzes, but to me, that means he's not paying enough attention. I did ask if the dyslexia was causing trouble during testing, which he denied, but then, even if it WAS a problem, I'm pretty sure Two would rather have beavers chew off his writing hand than ask for help reading the questions. :P The rest of his grades are all Bs, which is decent enough, I guess, although I would like to see an A or two make a reappearance SOMEWHERE. (Ok, he got an A in gym, but you know what I mean.)
MiniPlu doesn't get a mid-semester report card, but her portal states that she got straight As in 3rd quarter - scraping an A- (her first in quite awhile) in math by the skin of her teeth (thanks to the option of doing extra-credit online practice over Easter break).
Allergy season has finally hit MiniPlu. Regular readers here will remember that she cannot tolerate any allergy medication, nasal spray, etc. We should probably try seeing if neti pot will at least rinse some of the allergens out of her passages and reduce some of her symptoms. But otherwise, all we can do, every year, is wait for the worst of the blooming to be over. Poor kid. (Two, who refused allergy medications starting about 2 years ago, had a couple of spectacular, bathroom-looked-like-an-ax-murderer-had-been-there, nosebleeds last week; not sure if it's allergy related or not, but it might be.)
The trio from NC is here for a few days while they work - again - to get stuff out of their mouse-infested, squatter-ruined, junk-filled (this last part is their own fault) old house. With our continued houseguest from FL and the visit from my FIL last night (and tomorrow night), we have 11 people in the house. All five guests are downstairs, only one of whom is in a room with doors, which makes it hard to be quiet and not have the dog stick her wet nose into people's faces for the other four, but we're trying.
Finally nailed down the one remaining hotel and all the flights for Hawaii. We are going to have quiet the travel-filled summer this year!
Late June (first week after school gets out): Everyone (assuming we can pry my BIL out of the house, which is a big IF), plus one of MiniPlu's best friends is traveling to the Smoky Mtns of Tennessee for five days. The twins' mutual friend Stan and his wife suggested last year that we rent a cabin in TN as a fairly reasonable midpoint between us (Stan lives in TX) and enjoy a vacation together. Then, when we started actual planning, Stan and wife offered to pay the entire cabin rental, as a thank-you for all the times we hosted Stan at our house when he came to visit his mom - terribly kind of them. We still will have to pay for gas, food, activities, etc, but at least lodging will be free.
(Side note: figuring out the best way to arrange the flights was an UNBELIEVABLE headache. Getting from the east coast to Kona, then to Honolulu, then from Honolulu back to the east coast - there are only a few airlines that make those routes at all, and when you search for flights to HNL, you get totally different results than you would get searching for flights to KOA (Kona) EVEN IF IT INCLUDES A STOPOVER AT HNL. I was ready to scream, seriously, was doing about fifty different search possibilities, but finally got it ironed out in a reasonably passable manner.)
Mid July: Two goes to camp. The rest of us don't have any plans, but it still means two drives up to New England in a week's time, to transport the kid there and back. MiniPlu turns 15 while he's gone, not sure yet what sort of shindig she'll want.
Early-mid August: Hawaii! A few days on the Big Island (I want to see the volcanoes!) and a few days on Oahu. R&K are Disney Vacation Club (timeshare) members, and gave us some of their extra points so we could stay at Disney's Aulani resort on Oahu for free. So, at least that helps offset the costs a little bit.
Labor Day weekend (first wknd in Sept): Family camp. Long weekend trip back to New England for the four of us, so we, too, can experience the joy Two feels at camp. And Become One with the composting toilets. :P And then school starts immediately afterwards.
Currently reading the Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates sequel, and it is, as anticipated, fun and charming. I definitely need something kind of light and fluffy right now. I recently finished reading Theft of Swords, the first in a fantasy series and ... I'm not sure if I want to read more or not. There are some characters who annoy me and some of the writing is overly "tell not show" which bugs me (although probably hypocritically - I'm sure I have the same problem), but there are parts of the plot and character backstories which will clearly take the entire arc to reveal, and I confess I'm curious about them. I found the first book both irritating and enthralling by turns, and it's making me feel muddled about whether or not to read more.
One of these days I hope to be a better LJ/DW friend and find time to communicate with actual people again. I'm trying!
Fence update: still not anywhere near done, despite working hard all during spring break and for several more days since then. Couldn't get anything done today, as Will came down with some random bug (mild fever and general malaise) yesterday evening and today it also rained when it wasn't supposed to. Sigh. I am just SO OVER the seeming futility of working on this, like it'll never be over - much less that we'll get to creating and planting a veggie garden.
Subbed at the middle school for the first time on Thurs, taking over a 6th-grade English class. They're working on a unit on the Black Death (of all things!) and doing some class presentations, so it was pretty easy to preside over. I had an informal "interview" with the vice principal so he could get some idea of where I did and did not want to sub. When he first saw me, he instantly recognized me as Two's mom (I guess new kid + rare Asian kid + rare trans kid = easy association) and told me, with some amusement, that he considered Two to be the king of 7th grade recess, which cracked me up. (The vice principal believes firmly that kids should still get recess in middle school. When we first toured the school in Jan '16, he said straight out that he did his best to make sure kids got out whenever remotely possible, even if just for 10 mins. This school even has a small playground, as well as a field to run around in.) Two is "king" because he's the one who is most dying to go outside, and loves to spin around and do stuff on the monkey bars.
Speaking of school, report cards came out on Fri. I already knew, from the portal, that his grades weren't as good as I might have liked. He got another C in his remedial reading class, which is just ... IDEK. He got an A first quarter. Told him I expected the C to improve in 4th quarter. He also got a C in ... Health. Seriously, HOW do you not get an A in Health? How difficult is it, honestly? Two said they had some pop quizzes, but to me, that means he's not paying enough attention. I did ask if the dyslexia was causing trouble during testing, which he denied, but then, even if it WAS a problem, I'm pretty sure Two would rather have beavers chew off his writing hand than ask for help reading the questions. :P The rest of his grades are all Bs, which is decent enough, I guess, although I would like to see an A or two make a reappearance SOMEWHERE. (Ok, he got an A in gym, but you know what I mean.)
MiniPlu doesn't get a mid-semester report card, but her portal states that she got straight As in 3rd quarter - scraping an A- (her first in quite awhile) in math by the skin of her teeth (thanks to the option of doing extra-credit online practice over Easter break).
Allergy season has finally hit MiniPlu. Regular readers here will remember that she cannot tolerate any allergy medication, nasal spray, etc. We should probably try seeing if neti pot will at least rinse some of the allergens out of her passages and reduce some of her symptoms. But otherwise, all we can do, every year, is wait for the worst of the blooming to be over. Poor kid. (Two, who refused allergy medications starting about 2 years ago, had a couple of spectacular, bathroom-looked-like-an-ax-murderer-had-been-there, nosebleeds last week; not sure if it's allergy related or not, but it might be.)
The trio from NC is here for a few days while they work - again - to get stuff out of their mouse-infested, squatter-ruined, junk-filled (this last part is their own fault) old house. With our continued houseguest from FL and the visit from my FIL last night (and tomorrow night), we have 11 people in the house. All five guests are downstairs, only one of whom is in a room with doors, which makes it hard to be quiet and not have the dog stick her wet nose into people's faces for the other four, but we're trying.
Finally nailed down the one remaining hotel and all the flights for Hawaii. We are going to have quiet the travel-filled summer this year!
Late June (first week after school gets out): Everyone (assuming we can pry my BIL out of the house, which is a big IF), plus one of MiniPlu's best friends is traveling to the Smoky Mtns of Tennessee for five days. The twins' mutual friend Stan and his wife suggested last year that we rent a cabin in TN as a fairly reasonable midpoint between us (Stan lives in TX) and enjoy a vacation together. Then, when we started actual planning, Stan and wife offered to pay the entire cabin rental, as a thank-you for all the times we hosted Stan at our house when he came to visit his mom - terribly kind of them. We still will have to pay for gas, food, activities, etc, but at least lodging will be free.
(Side note: figuring out the best way to arrange the flights was an UNBELIEVABLE headache. Getting from the east coast to Kona, then to Honolulu, then from Honolulu back to the east coast - there are only a few airlines that make those routes at all, and when you search for flights to HNL, you get totally different results than you would get searching for flights to KOA (Kona) EVEN IF IT INCLUDES A STOPOVER AT HNL. I was ready to scream, seriously, was doing about fifty different search possibilities, but finally got it ironed out in a reasonably passable manner.)
Mid July: Two goes to camp. The rest of us don't have any plans, but it still means two drives up to New England in a week's time, to transport the kid there and back. MiniPlu turns 15 while he's gone, not sure yet what sort of shindig she'll want.
Early-mid August: Hawaii! A few days on the Big Island (I want to see the volcanoes!) and a few days on Oahu. R&K are Disney Vacation Club (timeshare) members, and gave us some of their extra points so we could stay at Disney's Aulani resort on Oahu for free. So, at least that helps offset the costs a little bit.
Labor Day weekend (first wknd in Sept): Family camp. Long weekend trip back to New England for the four of us, so we, too, can experience the joy Two feels at camp. And Become One with the composting toilets. :P And then school starts immediately afterwards.
Currently reading the Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates sequel, and it is, as anticipated, fun and charming. I definitely need something kind of light and fluffy right now. I recently finished reading Theft of Swords, the first in a fantasy series and ... I'm not sure if I want to read more or not. There are some characters who annoy me and some of the writing is overly "tell not show" which bugs me (although probably hypocritically - I'm sure I have the same problem), but there are parts of the plot and character backstories which will clearly take the entire arc to reveal, and I confess I'm curious about them. I found the first book both irritating and enthralling by turns, and it's making me feel muddled about whether or not to read more.
One of these days I hope to be a better LJ/DW friend and find time to communicate with actual people again. I'm trying!