Week of October 23

 This week kinda sucks.  All Regina and I have been doing lately is fight.  She answers back and challenges everything that I say, and COMPLAINS ABOUT EVERYTHING.  Nothing ever seems to be good enough.  Even the fall foliage this year is too orange for her taste.  She's doing that thing that most of my adolescent children  have done:  She's only happy when she's getting something she wants.  The rest of the time she's complaining.  

It wearies me so much that my patience is about worn out, but my reaction to her upset Noelle enough that she didn't speak to me for two days.  Theresa missed the deadline to register to vote, but when I asked her about it I touched a nerve, and we had a fight.  I barely see her.  I've been walking around choking back tears with a lump in my throat all week.  

Last week I didn't make an entry, but I wanted to note that Monday, October 17 was the day that Scott & Emily closed on their first house.  Tuesday morning Andy, Noelle, Natalie, Regina, Philip, and I went over with the truck and trailer and helped him move just about everything and clean up a bit at the rental house.  It's a beautiful old Victorian with high ceilings, tons of windows, and solid hardwood everywhere.  More info and pictures later.

Tuesday was the Halloween parade.  Sarah came up with Layla, and Kirsten met us there with the kids.

Wednesday was a full day:  After ninja class in Sunbury at 4:00, we headed to the high school to sign up Regina (and Philip) for swimming this year.  She's excited, he's dreading it.  Then we came home to wolf down a spaghetti supper that Andy prepared before running up to the VoTech for Open House.  We got to meet her teacher and tour the whole place.  We'll find out tomorrow if anybody won something in the prize drawings.  Regina has been talking about going there for Early Education, and she really enjoyed meeting the instructors and touring the classroom.  I also found out how much the beauty services are at Cosmetology, and I'll be calling there for a hair appointment first thing in the morning!

Oh!  Andy started working for the water company this week.  He even has a company truck.

Crunchy (Connor) ended the relationship with Clare on Wednesday, citing the difficulties of a long-distance relationship.

Guess I should have started off with our trip to the corn maze at Ard's in Lewisburg.  Natalie, Philip, Regina, Scott, Scarlett, & Emily came along.  It was a mild day and a lot of fun.

Getting back to my troubles with Regina, she frustrates me so frequently that I guess I don't respond to her very charitably.  I know she likes to feel included and we really don't do many things with just the two of us.  So on Thursday night after dinner, everybody who was home planned to watch a movie together.  I don't know where everybody else was, but I asked Regina if she wanted to go on a stealth snack run with me.  We sneaked out the front door and drove away with the headlights off so nobody would see us.  She and I had a blast filling up a cart with crunchies and dip.  

Friday we visited a local campground to investigate the possibility of keeping the RV there next summer.  It's not even technically running right now, even though Andy found someone to rebuild the transmission and help him install it this summer.  There's something wrong with the speedometer and how it shifts from gear to gear.  Anyway, we're planning to get chickens in the spring, so I'm thinking we probably won't do the campground thing.  The RV is pretty small with not much privacy, and the logistics of it are kind of complicated.  

I also took Regina to the VoTech salon to get her hair trimmed.  She had an amazing experience.  

It was also the Coal Bucket game, so Andy and Natalie went up to see Shamokin get their heads handed to them.  

Week of October 10

Thursday evening, our cat brought a live bat into the house.  The dining room door was open, and she came sashaying through the living room doorway with her prize, which she promptly released so she could play with it.  Fortunately for us, it didn't get far - only about two feet away where, against my most visceral instincts, I was able to trap it between the couch and a lap desk until reinforcements could arrive.  The reinforcements consisted of our intrepid husband/father and a pair of leather work gloves.  The bat, who was uninjured in the incident, was released after a short video interview. It didn't have much to say about the ordeal other than a few clicks.  

A brief investigation disclosed that the bat was in fact a Red Bat, which I didn't even know existed.  All I really know is that our generous cat is probably the way the mouse/vole, spotted in the living room last week, also gained access to our home.

I have spent many hours during the past four weeks working on a Top Secret Project which I am SuPeR ExCiTeD about and which will be disclosed in a future installment.  Too many of these hours have been post-midnight.  It's been rough.

Saturday, October 8 was the date for Mam Mam's Super Secret 80th Birthday Surprise Dinner at BJ's.  There were ~36 people in attendance, and almost as many for the brunch on Sunday morning.  Although Mam knew that her 4 boys and almost all of her grandchildren (94.1%) would be present, she had absolutely no inkling that her sister from Delaware and her brother from Georgia were coming.  Her astonishment was priceless!

Finally, Friday night was a big night!  After weeks and weeks, maybe months, Andy finally pulled out Philip's snaggletooth!  Andy's been giving Philip the countdown all week...by 9 pm on Friday night, the tooth would be gone, one way or another.  Andy had him working at the tooth for days, but it just didn't want to budge.  There was a bit of bleeding, but the deed is now done.

Also, today Andy finished the organization he wanted to accomplish in the garage andthe patio, as well as finally getting on the phone with Verizon to switch internet plans.  Since our income will be a bit more constrained for the time being, we have to ditch Service Electric.  The service is pretty darn expensive and it isn't even that great to boot.  If we're playing Jackbox, everybody has to turn off the wifi on their phones or else the laptop chugs.

Saturday of this week is a rosary rally at the Knights, followed by Regina's friend Ava's birthday at Knoebel's.  Regina spent Friday night crafting stickers to give her as a gift.

Week of October 3

 This week's big news was Tess's 19th birthday.

Tess and Jamison made the birthday cake - tiramisu.  It turned out so amazing that A) I actually ate a piece, and B) they made another one immediately afterward so they could share it with Sarah & Clare, who could not be with us.  Also to have more of it to eat!  They couldn't find any ladyfingers anywhere, so the first wan was made with shortcake shells, the second with Sara Lee pound cake.

We used one of those trick candles that opens up.  It would have been fine if it hadn't interfered with the happy birthday candles surrounding it.  Flames were dropping.  It could have been bad.  

Tess received a silver chain from Mam, because she was having a skin reaction to the chain she'd been wearing.  We gave her a PS4 controller.  Regina gave her a pile of handmade personalized stickers that we learned how to make this month.

Philip got sick again this week, but felt well enough by Wednesday to go to Ninja class.

Thursday we celebrated Mam's actual birthday with one of her favorites:  Andy's pulled pork.  

Week of Sept 25

 I signed Regina up for Miacademy, an online homeschooling service, to see if she will accomplish more if she has the ability to work independently.  Day 1, today, went passably well.  She groaned and grumbled through the assignments, and the assessments are a lot of "choose the best answer" questions that can get pretty repetitive.  The most fun she had was with the Touch Typing lesson.  She's just competitive enough to try again and again to finish the drill quickly with 100% accuracy.  I predict she'll be touch typing in 3 weeks.

I cut Andy's and Philip's hair on the weekend.

Maverick and Vivienne spent the afternoon here on Sunday, and they had a chance to play with Layla for a while, since she stayed at our house all weekend.  After I left to take Layla home, the kids and Andy sat on the porch and watched an impressive lightning storm.

Natalie, Noelle, Theresa, Emily, and Jamison went to a heavy metal concert in Philly on Sunday night, and didn't get home until 3:30 a.m.   It will not come as a huge surprise that a few certain someones didn't make it to school Monday morning.  That same night I drove to Sarah's to return the Layla, who stayed at our house all weekend.

We spent the bulk of Monday afternoon cleaning in the living room.  It's just getting cool enough to burn the wood stove soon, so I cleaned that whole area, and Natalie organized the toys on the ledge and swept the carpet.  Then she started to feel lousy - sluggish and feverish, with a headache.  We hadn't planned on lighting the wood stove that day, but she was so chilled that we made a small fire and she spent the rest of the evening bundled up in front of it.  We played Jackbox in the later evening (Nat, Noelle, Gina, Phil, and me) while Andy was at RCIA.

Clare flew back from her visit with Connor in Portland on Tuesday, and Sarah, Tess, and Layla drove to Baltimore to meet her flight after a visit to the Baltimore aquarium.

Scott got word that they'll be closing on the new house in two weeks.

The Fitbit I gave to Gina has been a game changer.  Last week she was awake and alert before 9:00 every day.  The USA Ninja Challenge class has also helped quite a bit.  She now has something specific to look forward to every week.

I've been wanting to get rid of the kitchen table for some time now.  It takes up a lot of space and all it does is collect piles of junk.  My hope was to buy some sort of cabinet or dry sink to store our large countertop appliances, thereby freeing up space in the kitchen AND on the counter.  However, I couldn't find they type of cabinet I was imagining - not without shelling out over $1000.  So instead I rotated the kitchen table 90 degrees, moved the microwave cart, put all the big appliances away, and have started a dedicated campaign to avoid piling stuff on the table.  Now there is space in the kitchen to eat breakfast or play a game or do schoolwork, and the counters are empty and gleaming.  It's been really nice.  

I'd like to update the backspashes eventually and maybe the counters, but the floor needs to be replaced first.  The linoleum is torn, and we still have that butt-ugly mat covering the hole Andy had to cut when the sink pipe was leaking and destroyed the floor.  The mat has been there for almost 3 years and the finish has worn away.  Most of the time we don't even see it because we're so used to it, but it looks really trashy.

Did I mention that a few weeks ago Andy finally busted through the kitchen wall and installed the stove hood?  It's a real game changer!  The kitchen isn't overheating anymore when we cook, and we haven't smoked out the house even once since he finished.

Ninja class is Wednesday, and we have to deliver meals for the soup kitchen on Thursday because one of the drivers had a death in the family.

A few pictures from this week:

He's going through a camo phase.

He also learned to tie his work boots and split kindling this week.

Waiting to be picked up after school.

They are longing for the day they can drive themselves.

Dinner menu this week:

Pot roast with potatoes and carrots (Monday)

Tacos, burritos, or crunchwrap supremes with rice & refried beans (Tuesday)

It's Been So Long.

    I haven't made a blog entry since November of last year. It's mid-September already. On one hand, I feel terrible about it. On the other, I really don't know what I would have blogged about. It feels like there is so little to say.

   I blame my smartphone. When the Bilge Rat enlisted in the Navy and moved across the country, I told myself I had to have one so I could FaceTime with him. But I've always been obsessed with technology and computer games, and the World of Apps was just too enticing for me. Thus I embarked on an eight-year saga of one app after another. I'm ashamed to admit it. At first, I was just crushing candy. Then I was breeding moths. Or merging dragons. Or battling zombies and evolving plants. Or aiming balls and smashing bricks. Or dressing up a doll and having styling contests. Sometimes it was as mundane as playing pinochle or shooting online pool. But it's been one thing or another for going on nine years now - longer if you count the kindle tablet we had prior to the smartphone.

  

    In my heart, I feel that I was born for the smartphone era. I ate up every new technology that was presented to me. I was in grade school when the Atari 2600 came onto the market. Back in 1982, new game cartridges were sold for up to an unbelievable $25. My mom was a single parent with a minimum wage income. I didn't always have the latest games, but I certainly had more than we could afford.  

  

    My high school boyfriend's dad was also interested in the growing home computer trend. They used to copy lines and lines of computer code from computer magazines in order to run simple programs that would make a ball bounce, or change colors. This was during the era of 5 1/4" floppies, and every chance I got, I played Space Taxi or some RPG where you ran about the forest, searching for pan and roast lapan. We still can't remember what that one was all about.

  

    Around the same time, my uncle had an early generation home PC from Apple at his house. I don't recall having permission to use it, but I remember staying up late and sneaking down to try it out. The file structure and commands were completely unfamiliar to me, but I was able to figure it out enough to run an early greeting card-making program (printed on a dot-matrix printer), excel at Minesweeper, and play some convoluted 2-D game in which you could explore land and sea. Many sleepless nights were spent there.

  

    My first college had a personal computer (PC) lab. I don't remember ever doing any actual work there, but I did discover computer solitaire. I played until the images were etched behind my eyelids, and I could play complete games just by closing my eyes. Later in my college career, there was a full-blown computer lab where we'd hang out all night. I learned all about DOS and ASCII and Paint (and skipped a lot of classes), and gleaned many useful tricks and skills that still enable me to get deeper into the idiot-proof plug-and-play computers they make today. I actually did write a paper or two in that place, in between King's Quest and Leisure Suit Larry and Rogue and the OG Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

  

    Ever since college, we've had a PC (or three) in the house. I learned how to play pinochle on a computer. I simulated appendectomies and abdominal aneurysm surgery using a series of 3 1/2" floppies called Life or Death. In the early nineties, we got our first dial-up home internet. I spent $90 one month in 1995 on a dial-a-hint phone service, getting hints to solve puzzles in Sierra's Conquests of Camelot at ninety cents a minute. When my oldest daughter was ten years old, she spent $40 on a simulation game based in ancient Egypt, and I spent countless hours trying to become a pharaoh of the ages. I'm not proud.

  

    After we started homeschooling in 1999, the focus was more on educational games for the kids, but that didn't stop me from trying to beat them too. The Cluefinders Series and the Logical Journey of the Zoombinis are still personal and family favorites, but the original CDs no longer work on any of the newer computers, even the ones that still have a CD drive.

  

    Which brings us to the present day... My smartphone is always at my side, in my pocket, or in my hand. I whip it out to look up more information on everything that crosses my mind. I can get information on any topic we're studying, frequently in the form of a slickly-produced Ted-ed video. I'm cross-referencing every actor's filmography while watching them in a movie. And I've never felt dumber.

  

    From the time I learned to read at the age of two (yes, TWO), I was a voracious reader. As an only child, I had lots of time for reading. My mom always had me subscribed to monthly kids' magazines and book clubs, but every new edition or shipment wouldn't last the week if that long. Midway through high school, I discovered David Eddings, and later Dean Koontz and Stephen King, whose books consumed many a sleepless night - if not by actually reading them, then by keeping me awake in sheer terror. I was exhausted through my high school years, and an absolute joy to be around.

  

    I read my way through college and the first two decades of marriage and motherhood. I always had a stack of fat books to work through. But since owning a smartphone, a graph of my time spent reading would look like a stock market graph of the Wall Street Crash of 1929.  

   Not only that, but my desire to read and my interest in books has dwindled to near nothing. I have to force myself to start reading a book. Sometimes I pick up a book I used to like, just to see if I can still read it. (Yes, I can.) I have no interest in reading anything new, and I don't retain the information I've read. I mainly watch videos on topics I'm interested in, or listen to podcasts. In fact, I have to force myself to do anything, everything, other than saturating my brain with information from YouTube or podcasts. This includes prayer, household chores, and even engaging with my family. I was born to own a smartphone, but it's turning me into a drone.

  

    I know I am not alone. I've been hearing (on podcasts) that this is a real phenomenon, and that scientists are starting to study it. How ironic that we are living in an age of instant digital information, and losing the ability to learn?

  

    This brings me back to my blog. I started writing in 2007, peaked in 2012, and have been diminishing ever since. Some years I barely publish a dozen posts - that's less than one a month - and those aren't even spaced out evenly. I'll get a surge of inspiration for a month or two, then nothing for the rest of the year. I have absolutely no excuse. I've got a high-quality camera at my fingertips 24/7, and it's easier than ever to post pictures remotely. That was my original rationalization for starting a blog - to share pictures and happenings with far-away friends and family. It's easier than ever, but I do it less frequently than ever. It makes absolutely no sense.

      

    My life is mundane. Wonderful, but mundane, if that makes sense. The everyday happenings don't seem worthy of a blog post, and then they slip into history. There's too much and not enough all at the same time.  

   

    For instance, this week Gina found a Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar, which has just begun its chrysalis. I rearranged the kitchen on Saturday. We had a bonfire on Saturday night with our friends from Ashland. I somehow got a thorn in my foot on Saturday but didn't notice it until Sunday evening, then Sarah removed it. Andy, Natalie, and I played scrabble tonight. I gave Tess's Fitbit to Gina since Tess doesn't use it and Gina needs help getting up in the morning. Our twin daughters went to school for the first time at the VoTech last month. The days are growing shorter and the nights are getting cooler. We finally got some fruits on our Hubbard squash plants in late August, but I don't have much hope that they'll get big enough to use. We had a pretty dry summer, but it's been raining quite a bit lately and that's helped the fruits. My husband has been out of work since the end of June. It's been a blessing to have him around, but now the freezer is getting empty. I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic in May. Bilge is in Korea.

  

    I've decided to make a fresh attempt. Just to write a simple run-down of what's been going on, accompanied with a few pictures. Obviously, the well-orchestrated, themed blog posts are outside of my purview at present. This is my first offering. I hope it is well-received.

Tonight's dinner:  Dad cooked.  Skillet kielbasa & potatoes, braised carrots, applesauce.