...and longest time between blog posts goes to...

Yeah,  haven't been around lately,  heck in fact I'm poking at my phone in bed hoping ibuprofen kicks in soon cause my back is screaming.

Summer is going well so far.  Busy but no disasters so I can't complain too much.

I've joined the local community band playing percussion at the urging of a fellow middle school band mom. I'm pretty sure I skewed the average age of the band down by ten years.  It's challenging mainly because I haven't played in 25 years, mostly I'm on bass drum and cymbals because my snare skills have all but rotted away.  We have concerts on Friday night through the end of the month with special appearances in a 4th of July parade and a retirement home.

I also got a bed at the community garden,  both hubby and I have been wanting to grow a few tomatoes but had nowhere to do so due to shade.  The boys were so excited they wanted a bed so we got one for them to halve and now have random vegetables growing there.  Honestly I wish there was more room available because I'd like to fill the freezer but it's small and we will probably end up just eating it as fast as it ripens.

Sonny Boy has had a rash of losing and ruining.   First it was retainers in a hotel on a brief trip, then his glasses which I can't even fathom how.  He has also ruined an expensive shirt painting in it and some general assery while with cousins.   I needn't tell you he's grounded but he also is doing way more chores than is typical for him.  Despite being a 13 year old boy,  he's made me proud by volunteering at the garden for work in the very large garden that the produce is donated to the local food pantry.  The little ladies that are in charge give glowing reports on him.  Wish he worked that hard for me.

Igor is busy, he enjoys the garden and gets as excited as I do discovering new shoots, tomatoes and the like.  He is also busy with his friend and a wild neighborhood child that half lives here when he's not shipped to his grandparents for several weeks at a time.  

Hubby is busy with work mostly,  it's been a bit wild of late coupled with an online class he is taking.   Hubby decided to go for his bachelor in management.  There's a learning curve for him and me both since the last time either of us were in school we barely had an email address. (I didn't have one until Sr. Year of college and only then because a teacher required it, I thought it useless)

I suppose that's life.  I'll try to do more writing  instead of the Christmas letter format soon.  More for self than the two people who read this occasionally.

Long Time no See

No, I haven't dropped dead or anything, just living a busy life.  Blogger has been giving me issues lately as well and won't let me log in from the Ipad or my phone so actually getting up and getting the lap top... yada yada.  Especially a pain when I go to comment on a blog.  Therefore I just haven't done it.

If there is an "e" missing anywhere in this post be advised the "e" is having issues on my keyboard requiring a really hard mash to work.  Probably has food stuck under it because the kids use the laptop way more than me.

Wrestling ended badly this season.  Two practices before regional state qualifiers Sonny Boy broke his wrist at practice.  I got a call from practice to come get him and I showed up he was sitting on a stack of mats with his arm flat and was ashen.  A trip to the ER later and he was home with a scrip for pain pills, a splint and orders to follow up with orthopedics.  No surgery required thankfully and as far as breaks go it wasn't too bad.  It was season ending however.  Particularly painful as we started seeing who made it to state and he had beaten several kids that did qualify.  Of course that doesn't mean he would have qualified but does make one wonder.

Igor is busy with scouts and an afterschool minecraft club.  The other day I went to pick him up from school and he never came to the truck.  Sonny Boy and I went home thinking he walked past us as we've been vehicle swapping a lot lately.  No Igor at home.  I left Sonny Boy home and he promptly started calling his neighborhood buddies to watch for Igor and I in a half panic rushed back to the school to find Igor putzing away in the computer lab.  Club was on Tuesday that week instead of the usual Wed.  Other than that Igor has been quite dull, and honestly that's pretty good.

Hubby has been busy with work and has taken on another old boat that had belonged to his father for a project.  Just what we needed.  Now in our yard are two fishing boats taking up most of my back driveway.  Hubby says that one boat is either going to his brother-in-law or he's selling it but right now we look like a marina.  Couple that with the canoe by the garage and the kayak that is stuffed in the camper we are prepared for high water.

I've been hibernating - or at least that is what my neighbor accused me of yesterday when I finally went out.  In truth I've been down with a rash of migraine induced misery.  My body is in a miserable state of flux.  I have had an appointment with an endocrinologist and she ordered a battery of blood work but I've been unable to go in and get it drawn as it has list of "no's" and with the migraine rash I haven't been able to avoid the meds.  I've been better this weekend and hope to get in tomorrow morning to have the blood drawn.  I also have an appointment this week for more botox injections so that will hopefully calm down the mess.

Life, I suppose.  Nothing dramatic, nothing huge.  All the normal stresses.  Can't complain too much.

a Little Slice of Life

I sent myself to my room tonight,  too much chest thumping from Sonny Boy in his macho parents know nothing attitude so I went to bed.   Since I'm not exactly enthralled with my book I wandered here to peck out a few lines on my phone.

Remember the slow talking cartoon dog that never lost his cool, wasn't he called droopy dog?  This is my imitation of him.  If a medical person would have come along likely would have been dragged to the ER.  Combine drooping eye brows (I normally do not have a crease in my eye lid) and a face full of novacaine from a cavity being a filled and I start looking like a Picasso painting.

This visitor to my yard came last week.   I wasted quite a bit of my day watching him stalk a squirrel in the same tree.  After hanging around a couple of hours he finally swatted at the squirrel and then flew off.  The squirrel was a  bit rattled looking but no worse for wear.  I was hoping he'd get a good lunch.  I did get the swat on video which was cool, however I'd sadly have to watch Sonny Boy shake his head as operates my electronics for me.  I have no patience with these things and he doesn't even flinch. 

Sonny Boy got a little bloody ay a match a couple of weeks ago.   His coach snapped a much better picture.   This was minor, just a busted lip the week before he had a bloody nose that was a huge mess.  Lots of Rocky references happen,  good thing he finally got around to watch the 1st Rocky  the last couple of months or so.

Igor and Hubby have been fast fishing partners the last few weeks.   Today there was a little local ice fishing derby they fished in.  No winning on fish caught but the guys running it were so impressed with Igor 's ability to fish and Stay

at it all day (the guys were just drinking beer and bull shitting,  Igor was there to fish.  They made him up a special award of most dedicated and he won $30.  He's pretty proud of himself.  It's the perfect award for him because I can't imagine too many nine year old boys that can be that content ice fishing for so long

  I wouldn't be

Where's the Line?

We are currently in the thick of Sonny Boy's wrestling season.  Each week is dominated by discussions of which tournament to attend, which bracket, what time to leave, etc.  At least one weekend day is spent at a tournament sitting around in a LOUD gym waiting on the total of maybe 12  minutes he actually wrestles.  Sonny Boy is blooming both as a wrestler and an kid, it's good.

In a flurry of feeding the fire I ordered a wrestling documentary from Amazon called "Pinned".   Pinned follows the high school season of two elite wrestlers from a suburb of Cleveland.  One boy is the child of a single mom attending public school.  The other boy attends a wrestling powerhouse private boy's school.  The boy at the private school has a father that is more than obsessed with turning his children (he has a younger son too) into champion wrestlers, the lengths he goes to are pretty extreme even in the world of crazy sports parents.

The crazy father got me to thinking; where is the line?  Where is the line between pushing your child to be his best and offering all the advantages you can?  I know currently Sonny Boy is teetering on the brink of becoming a dominate wrestler, most matches are battles (sometimes even a little bloody) with close scores, and mixed results.  It doesn't take someone experienced in wrestling to see he just needs a push, and he sees that as well.

Hubby is very "whatever" about the whole thing.  He of course roots on SB, and has a hand in discussions but there is little push thinking it all has to come from him.  I'm a little more pushy though.  I lead SB through some push ups, sit ups and some light weights.  I don't feel as if I'm forcing, just more of a reminder that the only wrestling goal one meets in front of the tv is waiting on it to air.  To be fair, I hold back, because I can see how parents go down the trap of the sports parent quickly and I don't want to go there.

Not a Natural

Last night the phone rang for Sonny Boy.  This is really kind of a rare phenomenon, he doesn't get too many calls.  On the other end was a boy he knows from both wrestling and scouts inviting him to a sleepover tonight.  I discussed details with his dad and gave permission and handed the phone back to Sonny Boy.  Hubby hearing the other end of the conversation said it was nothing but monosyllables and very brief.  No wonder he doesn't get phone calls.

I wonder though, Hubby and I are not really phone people, I don't chat on the phone with friends or family much at all.  Hubby does occasionally with his mother,and would spend hours on the phone with his chatty father when he was alive, but in reality we are not social phone people.

Is this because of the rise in email /text.  I know often now things that would have required a phone call 15 years ago I'll send a text/email for, particularly when making plans for things such as outings or volunteer business.  I'm wondering if not modeling phone behavior we have stunted him?  It just seems like something a bright 12 year old would do naturally.  I expressed this theory to Hubby who quickly pointed out that Igor gets it, and he does.  Igor has a friend who he talks to every few days on the phone and it's a conversation-albeit a 9 year old boy conversation of goofiness- but a real conversation.

I suppose it's just something that doesn't happen with him naturally, I guess he won't be a salesman when he grows up.  I do think a little more direction in the etiquette department though is necessary.

No BIG Complaints

Still pretty calm around here minus the small daily disasters that everyone has.  I stay busy to but have very little to show for it seeming to go round in circles doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, and child shuttling.

Middle school wrestling season ended well with the team winning conference.  Sonny Boy has made vast improvement this year and is a little obsessed with wrestling now.  Currently we are in club season which is more of an individual thing.  This last weekend we went to a tournament on both Saturday and Sunday.  The tournament on Saturday went very well with Sonny Boy placing second with a frustrating tie breaker blip that knocked him out of first (would have been first if the kid had not pinned in the last 15 seconds of his match).  The tournament on Sunday wasn't so good, all of Sonny Boy's opponents were state qualifiers or placed last year.  I must say he held his own against the other boys and avoided getting pinned except at the end of the match.  The second match we called blood match as there were several stoppages for blood both Sonny Boy's and the other kid.  The coaches were full of Rocky references.  Sonny Boy was bummed naturally but bounced and is already scheming on how to talk us into going to two tournaments again next weekend.  (Not sure I'm up to that)

Unfortunately though we are dealing with a lot of 12 year old crazy.  I tell you the kid is either an angel or the devil, sometimes in a 10 minute time frame.  Hormones are bizarre when kicking on, and that plus general boy behavior and beginning of teen stuff.... Drinking heavily becomes more enticing each day.

Igor on the other hand is in a good place (thankfully I can't handle more than one child nuts at a time) He's a lot like an old man just doing his thing.  Currently the school is testing him closely for his vision needs.  As he's moved up in grade the print becomes smaller giving him more difficulty reading and the like.  Accommodations are made and a vision specialist is brought in to make advantageous suggestions to help him out.  The specialist comes in a couple of days a week and works with Igor showing him tricks with computers and equipment to help him function better.  We tend to forget he is visually impaired for the most part, he compensates very well but the school and I want to head off any problems before they become an academic and life issue.

I had another round of Botox a couple of weeks ago.  It helps a fair amount, however it makes my eyebrows droop.  I have epicanthal folds now and look very sleepy-maybe that's what's wrong with Ben Carson?  I'm not amused by how I look -my forehead is really smooth though- but it's glorious not having a constant spasm in my neck.  The Botox doesn't rid me of headaches completely but certainly reduces them.

I suppose I've procrastinated enough on doing anything.  A calm life in motion hopes to stay in motion.

No Drama Momma

I haven't blogged much lately, I guess that's good because I usually turn to writing here when I need a metaphorical screaming session.  I wouldn't say I'm less stressed than normal, just the ups and downs of a daily grind aren't generally entertaining to anyone, including me.

A couple of months ago at Mom's doctor appointment it was time for a colonoscopy.  Both her doctor and I agreed that it should be avoided because frankly she's quite medically fragile.  They did however send her an at home test that checks for blood in the stool (and abnormal DNA I found out later) and of course that came back positive.  Today we go in for a consult to see what the next step is, I assume it will be a colonoscopy but Dr. Google tells me there may be other options but my logical mind thinks might as well do a colonoscopy the first time as if there are any polyps they can rooted out of there right then as opposed to adding another step.  Not sure how Mom will handle anesthesia is my biggest concern as she seems to have a difficult time with stuff like that.  I guess I'll know in a couple of hours.

Thanksgiving turned into Hacksgiving this year.  The weekend before both Hubby and I fell victim to a horrible chest cold.  By Monday a person could hear Hubby's breathing from across the room so he went in to the clinic and was diagnosed with pneumonia.  Nice.  The same day I was simply walking down the hall and I got a pain in my foot.  I thought it was simply a bad toe cramp so I rubbed at it a bit and limped around the rest of the day complaining.  That night when I took off my shoe there was a good sized bruise and swelling on the top of my foot and it still hurt quite moderately even when I had it up.  I went into the clinic and drew the same nurse practitioner that had seen Hubby the day before who X-rayed it and said its not broken, just a bruise.  She was as surprised as I by the X-ray results because it really did look broken.  While I was there she got to experience a nice cough up a lung fit by me and knowing she had treated Hubby the day before gave me antibiotics too.  My foot still hurt of course but at least I knew wasn't doing more damage by hobbling around.  That might the bruise darkened and look like too red/purple lines had been drawn across the base of two toes.  The next day the foot was about half as sore, a day after totally fine with the exception of the bruise which is still there but fading.    I still have no idea what happened to it other than some freak blood vessel rupture as a theory.

With Hubby feeling like death and our coughing rattling through the house every five minutes we postponed Thanksgiving by a day because by then I was starting to get a tad better, Hubby not so much so he went back to the doctor and was told not pneumonia but a really bad case of bronchitis and given another round of drugs.  This finally seems to be doing the trick but both us still have a nasty cough that sounds like we have smoked for 40 years.

Sonny Boy has been busy with wrestling since the beginning of the month.  Just yesterday he managed to make the middle school travel wrestling team.  He's worked hard for it as he had to lose a couple of pounds to make the weight class.  We laid down the law with "cutting weight" though, either was done in a healthy way or he wouldn't wrestle.  So far so good, we've had lots of impromptu nutritional counseling sessions and studied the back of a lot of labels lately and he's learning that he can't constantly eat and maintain his weight.  To be honest he's probably eating way healthier than before because he is aware of what is going into his mouth now.

Igor is plugging away.  He's made a fast friend at school which is great.  He was invited over to play the other day so I drove him out and the family is quite wealthy.  Igor says they live in a mansion and he's not exaggerating by much.  The kid and his mom seem nice though and I'm pretty sure the boy is adopted because he's a rather brown person, his parents are not and the parents are on the older side to have a 9 year old. I think it's a good thing though, nothing like having a bestie who understands exactly where you are coming from.

Well I guess that's my blog post.  Like I said no huge drama for entertainment.  I promise this lull in our lives will end, it always unfortunately does.

Times, they are a changing

Sonny Boy reported the other day that he came out to his friends.  Let me back up and say in no way do I think he's gay, nor does he think he's gay, but evidently a good chunk of his school buds are believing it.

Seems Sonny Boy is catching some flak for being in wrestling as it is a "gay" sport.  Sonny Boy agrees dressing is a singlet and rolling around with another boy is suspect but doesn't really care.  Sonny Boy grinned and let the teasing pass.  Well it seems a girl that likes him has gotten bolder and is writing him "love notes" and this has become general knowledge and is causing gossip.  Sonny Boy in his pragmatic way shrugs and says he doesn't really care because he tells them he's gay to dispel the gossip.  His friends are cool with it.  This in 6 th grade.

Hubby's reaction to this story "if I'd have done that I would have been beaten up."

The maybe post

This morning the alarm clock went off at 7:00.  I have no idea why, I must have set it out of habit when I went to bed last night.  Five minutes later I got a text from Hubby with a picture of Sonny Boy in a ground blind with a pink sunrise behind him.  I was awake.  I debated getting up, coffee sounded fantastic but I had stayed up reading last night and knew that the siren song of a nap would call me, so I forced myself back to sleep to wake up at 11:00 with nice headache going.  I hate that.  Now I'm drinking coffee and hoping the ibuprofen is up to the task because if I take my migraine meds I'm pretty much done being productive today.

Another week of near daily medical appointments has passed.  Monday I took Igor into the orthotics maker guy to be casted for new shoe inserts.  Hopefully insurance will cooperated as the doctor said insurance doesn't like to pay for his specific kind of orthotic anymore.  A work around exist in the form of prescribing a bigger (and probably way more expensive) brace and then cutting it down to only the nest the needs.  I hate when insurance plays doctor,  I think my child's doctor ( who happens to be head or orthopedic surgery at the #3 ranked children's hospital in the country) is capable of determining what he needs.  I digress.   Tuesday I went to the doctor who sent me to a gynecologist on Friday with hopes of managing my night sweats.   Gynecologist played with some meds however they aren't in at the pharmacy so I have to wait till Monday to start them.  Mom had an appointment with a kidney doctor as well.  Doctor appointments are a part time job for me.

I finally ram rodded mom into hiring a cleaning lady.  I brought in three candidates for her meet and for them to give estimates on the mess.  The last service wouldn't do things like a load or two of laundry or dishes so they were ruled out.  I think the place scared them actually.  Hopefully the girl hired will work out.  I have a semi-guilt complex about forcing mom to pay somebody because in actuality I really could do the work, and I probably would if it was just the heavy cleaning but she doesn't even make attempts at cleaning up behind herself, heck my kids at least throw their garbage and recycle away (most of the time).   I also spent a good amount of time digging through a massive paperwork pile that was her dining room table finding items she swore she never got and a mess of bills that make no sense to anyone.  I still have loads of papers to dig through and organize.  I have decided I'm just going to handle all of her bills and such forward and told her that.  Honestly, I think she's so stressed by dealing with daily life it paralyzes her into inaction.  I've really started to see a decline in her cognitive skills in the last few months.  Until recently I think she could mostly pull the wool over a strangers eyes regarding her abilities but more often lately I can see people's expressions of "she's not all there is she?"

The weather has been beyond beautiful the last week.  I managed to get out and mow, and  spent a massive amount of time with the weed eater.  Hopefully today I can get out and prep my flower beds for winter so hopefully they are not too straggly.  For now though I'm going to drink some more coffee, and take an excedrin (probably give myself some caffeine shakes) and hope this damn headache slacks off.


I wrote this like two weeks ago and never posted because I thought it needed more editing that I felt up to at the time.  Now I'm just posting it warts and all because I no longer care.

Neverending list

It seems I'll never catch up with my to do list lately.  I don't really think it's because it's so lengthy (though it grows daily) I just have immense sense of inertia I need to overcome to even start it.  Therefore I decided to write a blog post, procrastination at it's best.

Mom called me yesterday and asked me to come over and sort some of her meds.  She was convinced she suddenly had a new med she had never taken before.  She didn't of course, but she had several duplicate bottles of the same med, and a sorting mess.  I sorted stuff out, and laid all her pills out for the next seven days in the pill sorter she has.  I then took her Rx list, insurance cards and debit card and brought them over and set her up for a new thing I found on line.  It's called Pill Pack.  When I showed it to Hubby he was excited enough to start finding out if he could sink our savings into investing in it.  Basically it takes your prescriptions and sets them up in little baggies for the day on a roll.  In Mom's case she'd have three baggies a day with all the meds she needs to take at each time sorted all ready.  It will be fantastic, the bad part is it will take a bit for everything to pan out and end up in the packs due to prescriptions being refilled at different times etc so  I'm doomed to an even more confusing set up for the next month or so but after that it should be way simpler. 

Hubby came home from his business trip to France on Saturday and promptly packed Sonny Boy, Callie (dog) and himself up and left today to go duck hunting.  I'm not overly amused and have made a severe point that I don't think his planned deer hunting trip should occur due to finances.  I made it clear I find it silly that I worry about scrimping and saving on groceries and household stuff so we can live within our means while he schedules hunting trips.  I think he got the message.

Well I guess I should go do something, it's not like finding something is hard.