Day

Good morning! Yesterday was Joanna’s 20^th birthday! How incredible! It would be another two and a half years until I have another child reach that milestone but since Daniel isn’t with us physically, it will be five years, three months and two days. And, if you want to be more technical, seventeen and a half hours. If you want to be even more technical, which Amena often is, it is nineteen and a half hours because she was born in the Mountain time zone. Anyway, it will be a few years and at that point more than half of my children will be twenty or older. One of them will actually be over thirty. Crazy thought.

This is from when Laura was here when the boys were dressed up like Hobbits. Not sure Hobbits would have a trampoline but they would have a nice goat.

Yesterday was otherwise a good day which was fitting since Joanna was always a happy baby and most often a happy child. In the morning Seth had Art. Because we went to school for that, our schedule was messed up and having our schedule messed up really makes for a cranky Joseph; he thrives on a set schedule.

Someone was flying a kite at the soccer game in Hubbardston on the 13th. It was pretty windy but a nice day nonetheless. 

After we had school work done and Amena was home, I went to pick Elizabeth up. She’d asked me the day before if I could take her to the hospital for a doctor’s appointment and I’m happy to do that when my schedule allows. Because it was a 3:30 appointment, it worked out perfectly. She had already arranged for another ride home so I didn’t even get to get any knitting done while I waited for her.

Joseph was having a blast.

Because it was Joanna’s birthday, I wanted to make her a cake and ice-cream so I went to work on that when I got home. Joanna came over to put the soft top on her Jeep. It’s been getting cool enough that riding without it must be a chilling experience. The boys had soccer practice. Cedric went with Ryan because he’d ridden his bike over. I took Seth and dropped him off.

Hubbardston was playing Barre. I like these pictures of the boys in action, so to speak.

Joanna was here still so she went to pick him up and then we ate some of the leftover chicken from Sunday. I cut up about half of the chicken we had and warmed it up with some of the sauce and the noodles and then warmed up the green beans as well. Joanna took all the rest home so that Cedric and Zack could have some. Ryan’s dad brought Cedric home with his bike. I think in the future, Cedric needs to be home before practice or he can just not go to Ryan’s on practice days. It isn’t like they are every day and it isn’t like they’re going to last forever.

Kind of a blurry one of Cedric but I still like it. Maybe tomorrow I'll have one or two from last week.

Once we’d eaten, Joanna took the boys to her apartment. Amena fell asleep and didn’t eat until she woke up not long after Joanna left with the boys. I need to call the doctor about Amena. Her asthma is not well enough controlled by using the albuterol inhaler. I would love to try more natural remedies such as essential oils and such but I can’t currently afford them and it needs to be gotten under control now. Between not breathing as well as she ought and staying up too late every night, she hasn’t been sleeping well enough so it wasn’t much surprise that she fell asleep before dinner. At least she didn’t have much homework.

The tops of the Fred & George socks. Pretty cool, eh?

Joanna brought the boys home about 8:30 and Joseph and Seth both wanted to know if they could sleep with me. I guess they’d started watching a scary movie that Cedric had wanted to watch. Joseph I guess said he wanted to as well but it is obvious from their reaction that Joseph didn’t really want to and that none of them probably should have. Anyway, the boys went to bed and by the time I did, they were asleep.

Joanna’s cake got done yesterday but the ice-cream wasn’t frozen so she and Zak are going to come over this afternoon after 4:00 when they’re both done with classes. That will be nice. We all like Zak. Not as much as Joanna does, but that’s okay.

Just after Joanna left with the boys, Jamie Pitney called and asked if Seth was going to make it to scouts. I just said, “Ahhhhhhhh.” I’d completely forgotten about scouts and by the time I could have gone to get him from Joanna’s and to scouts, it would have been nearly 8:00 and I didn’t really think that would be worth it. I can’t believe I did that although I can.

Because the boys were gone and it was quiet and I’d gotten an email from Grandma, I called her not long before 8:00 (here—there it was almost 5:00). We had a good visit; we always do. I don’t know why I don’t call people more often. I can’t even use only having a cell phone because I’ve never been good about calling people. Anyway, it’s always nice to talk to Grandma even though every time I do I wish I was physically closer so that I could visit in person every now and then.

Today Seth has PE at 9:15 at school. That makes for another fun day today, I’m sure. Other than that, Cedric has scouts.

Saturday the boys played Hardwick in Hardwick and had an awesome game! Hardwick scored first but that was their only goal. Hubbardston made six goals and one of them was by Cedric. It was his second goal of the season and it was completely and totally awesome! He and Seth both played really well. I did not take my camera but did get a couple of pictures on my phone.

The rest of Saturday I didn’t do much. I kind of didn’t feel that great and didn’t feel like doing much. It was pretty unexciting. Friday night Paul had gotten Chinese take-out because I didn’t feel like going anywhere. We had Seth and Joseph home without any older siblings to watch them anyway. I requested hot food to burn the snot out so that’s what I got. I had it for dinner Friday and for brunch and dinner Saturday. Saturday night Paul got me some hot Korean take-out and that’s what I ate Sunday for lunch and dinner. It was somewhat awesome.

Paul went to a junkyard to look at something in the morning Saturday. When he got back, he took Amena to the Trivett’s and picked up Hans. He and Hans worked on the barn. Cedric helped some but not as much as he could/should have. Because I didn’t feel like doing anything, I watched King Arthur. That was interesting. It explained Arthur by saying he was one of the Sarmatrian horse riders who served Rome for a period of fifteen years because they’d been subdued by Rome many years previously. He and his knights spent their fifteen years in Britian and when they returned from what was supposed to have been their last assignment, they were given another one. While they are securing the safe passage of a Roman nobleman and his son, they are surrounded but not killed by Woads, of which Merlin is one, and pursued by the Saxons. They end up rescuing a couple of Woads who had been tortured by the Roman nobleman’s priests and of them turns out to be Guinevere. At one point, Arthur and Merlin meet and Merlin tells him that he thinks Arthur might be the one man who can unite the Briton’s. Once this last mission is accomplished, Arthur decides that he is not going to return to Rome but stay and fight the Saxons with the Woads. All of his knights end up staying and of course Arthur ends up marrying Guinevere and King Arthur of Britian.

While I like the movie, I don’t think it’s completely historically accurate although there are aspects of it that I find to be at least as believable as others I’ve seen or read.

Sunday I stayed home from church. I was going to watch a movie and kind of take life easy but that was not to be. I ended up eating Korean food, knitting, and making chicken alfredo for lunch. The chicken required defrosting and while I don’t normally like to use the microwave for that duty, I didn’t have time to do it the slow way. Each package of chicken required three ten minute sessions on defrost so that took forever. I made lots because Paul had mentioned bringing a couple of people home. They didn’t come so we have lots of leftovers. That’s why we had it yesterday and are going to again today.

Danny Ainge was speaking in Worcester at 7:00. Quite a few people from church wanted to go so Paul took a vanful down. I think it would have been interesting but since I only remember him playing baseball and he was going to mostly be talking basketball and I did not, like Julia and Amy, have a crush on him at any point, I wasn’t too disappointed to stay home. Besides, I got to knit more and watch Catching Fire (not the greatest Sunday movie maybe, but I wanted to watch it Saturday and Amena took it with her to Trivett’s) and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader which I had never seen all the way through. I had, in fact, only seen two very short parts of it very near the beginning.

And such is life. The bus just stopped to pick Cedric up and I need to get on with things.

Have a fantabulous day!