La Vida

Good morning! Amena’s lunch is ready; I’m hoping she is getting that way.

Not much going on lately. That is, of course, relative. Someone posted an interesting thing on Facebook yesterday about stress and children. Stress and babies might be more accurate. With the first, there’s a long list of things that parents tend to stress over and with the second, that list is somewhat shorter. With the third there are only three or four things on the list. So I’m thinking by the time you have eight, you should have no stress left in your life. Right? It’s a nice theory but not very accurate. I spent a lot of time awake thinking about one of mine last night. Stress, baby, big time.

Yesterday I thought about the notes that I took from the Michel Odent books I read while I was without the computer and the blog posts that these notes were taken to generate. Perhaps I will get to that today sometime. It is possible that my thoughts might be of help to someone out there and at the very least should be food for thought. I still think about what I read. Probably will for the rest of my life. And then some.

I last wrote Friday. Not much out of the ordinary happened. Well, now that I think about it, maybe there was more than immediately came to mind. The day itself wasn’t too out of the ordinary. Seth and Joseph and I went to the library and they each checked out some books. I requested a book that I started some time ago but didn’t finish. If I have time now I would like to because the few pages I did read seemed rather promising (America: Imagine a World Without Her I think is the name of the book).

Cedric was going on the scout campout so he needed to be over at the Carrignans before 5:30 because that was the target departure time. Getting him there wasn’t much of a problem—he got home from school and got ready to go and when it was time we went. I was driving the Jetta in spite of the tires that aren’t that great and it had been snowing. There wasn’t much snow so I figured we’d be okay. And we were. We drove really slow, however, because the road over there is AWFUL. I mean, Pitcherville is in a terrible state of disrepair but parts of the road that direction is worse. That and the fact there was snow combined for slow driving. We got to wait for a train, too, which was unusual for here.

Anyway, Cedric and his gear were dropped off and I went home. When I got to the bottom of Morgan, I noticed there were three or four cars pulling over to the side of 68 and then I noticed a police car with flashing lights headed toward Gardner. That was a bit unusual because we don’t often see police cars driving by with flashing lights when we’re stopped  there. I actually didn’t then, either—I didn’t see anything approaching that would prevent me from crossing 68 so I did and that’s when I actually saw the police car and not just the lights.

I drove slow on Pitcherville, too, just because I’d been driving slow and I wasn’t in any big hurry or anything. Then I got to the end of the driveway I usually turn into and the car didn’t want to turn because it was very slippery but it did want to slide. Still, no harm done and the trip was only slightly more eventful than normal.

Amena went home from school with a friend because there was a dance Friday evening. She was going to see about getting a ride home with a friend but that didn’t happen. I didn’t really want to drive the green car because of the funny noise it makes when you use the gas and I didn’t really want to take the Jetta because I knew how slick at least some of the roads would be. So I asked Joanna if she’d be willing to get her and she was. She came over not long after I got home from taking Cedric to Carrignans and said that she had to wait on 68 for a while because someone in a car had managed to launch (there were no tracks to the car) the car up onto a snowbank on the side of the road and there was a tow truck and police cars and they were stopping traffic. At least I knew where the one I’d seen was going.

Joanna had some laundry to do so she just waited at the house until time to go get Amena. That was nice. I really like Joanna. I got Seth and Joseph off to bed and waited for Joanna and Amena. And Paul. Because Amena was gone and Cedric was gone, I told Paul I really didn’t want to go out to eat because when we do and we have boys with us, he acts like a really big boy and gets them riled up and that is exactly the kind of behavior I do not appreciate when I’m at a restaurant with my family from my family or others. So he didn’t hurry home and I didn’t have to wait to eat dinner.

When Joanna and Amena got home, Joanna said that for the most part, the roads were okay. However, they had a pretty intense few minutes when they were approaching the turn onto Pitcherville. It’s a bit of a hill going down to where Morgan and Pitcherville turn off before it flattens out toward Gardner and that was the troublesome area. Joanna said they slid sideways and ended up turning around and finally coming to a stop right by the stop sign on Morgan. They were able to cross 68 and get home fine but it was pretty exciting.

Not much happened Saturday out of the ordinary other than Cedric not being home. Amena had invited Nick, her ‘boy’friend over in the late afternoon so she spent most of the morning cleaning the front porch. I spent most of the morning cleaning the library, dining room and kitchen and making Seth and Joseph help. That was pretty exciting. Amena had been invited to a birthday party of sorts at the theater. Paul took her once she was ready and she was late for the start of the movie but she had fun and enjoyed it. After the movie they went to a frozen yogurt place and I was supposed to pick her up at 3:15.

At 3:15 I looked at the clock and realized I was late (I was ordering some books online) and left. I was ten minutes late and didn’t see Amena anywhere so I sat in the car waiting to see her. I finally did at about 3:45 and we went home.

Nick came over. I made spaghetti for dinner because I’d taken some meatballs out of the freezer (I’m working on getting rid of [did I say that? I meant using] things in the freezer—especially the older things) and they needed to be used. We also had some bread that I turned into garlic bread and a salad. Pretty exciting but it wasn’t bad. Seth and Joseph got their showers taken and then everything settled into a fairly normal Saturday evening routine with the exception of Nick leaving.

Sunday was not typical. I had a meeting before church which is not unusual. I went and was early and there weren’t as many people as there usually are due to some not feeling well and late Saturday nights, etc. Whatever. We’ve been really lucky, if you call it luck, that none of us have been really sick this winter. A couple of barely upset stomachs and Joseph vomited one night. That’s been it.

Anyway, Cedric needed to be picked up from the Carrignans Sunday  morning; usually that means 10 or 10:30. I thought, “Great! I can pick him up, we can stop at the house so he can shower and change while I get the corned pork ribs going, and we’ll be back sometime before noon.” Yeah. So didn’t happen that way. I actually had wi-fi most of the time Sunday morning and I kept waiting for something to be posted on Facebook and nothing was happening. 10:00 came and went 10:30 came and went. I sent a text wondering if I’d missed something due to spotty wi-fi. Not a minute later it was posted on Facebook that they’d be ready for pick up in 45 minutes. That put pick up time at 11:30 which worked well because I could leave right after Sacrament meeting and be right about on time. So I did. And I was. But they weren’t ready to be picked up. There was a line of parked cars snaking down the driveway and I wasn’t the last one to get there. Once the boys were ready to go, we had to wait for the two vehicles behind me to leave and then Cedric was helping put something else in the trailer. Then we got to leave. We had to back out of the driveway which isn’t short and was covered with ice and snow. Yeah. That wasn’t too hard, though, and we drove home. We got home after noon. At that point, I could just not do the ribs and go back to church for the very last part or I could do the ribs while Cedric showered and we could get there for nothing or I could do the ribs and we could just not go back to church. I chose the latter.

Until Dave Alexander and Rick Fernandez came over at 7:00 to visit, the rest of the day was pretty noneventful and Sunday afternoonish.

Yesterday was a pretty typical Monday. School. School. Fire. Dishes. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Joanna came over to do some laundry and asked if I had any plans. I did have something but it wasn’t something I couldn’t miss so I told her so and she asked if I wanted to go out to eat with her. Well, heck yes! Joanna and I almost never do anything just us so I thought it would be nice.

It was nice. We went to Arisu, the Korean restaurant, and the one woman who works there said, “Ladies night out?” They’re very nice and they know by now that Joanna and I like hot. On the way home Joanna told me something that I’d suspected but didn’t know for sure (just for those who are curious or nosy, no, she’s not pregnant). She told me something else as well. Nothing earth shattering but both provided food for thought that kept me awake for a while this morning.

Last night after Joanna and I got home, Paul opened a couple of packages that had come in the mail. One of them was a pair of cowboy boots for each Seth and Joseph. They love cowboy boots but all the ones that they’ve gotten in the past couple of years have been the really cheap ones that have the soles just glued on rather than sewn on. They look good for a week or two but then the soles begin to fall off and no matter what kind of glue I tried, they didn’t stay on. The boots Paul ordered are nice. They have sewn soles and are pretty. Cedric got a pair of shoes as well, but they are for gym. When he opened the box, you could tell he was pleased. He’d been trying to talk Joanna into getting him a pair of shoes Thursday when she takes him out shopping but the shoes he got far exceed what he wanted to get. Good purchases on Paul’s part.

And that brings us to today. So far Amena did not miss the bus and Cedric did not miss the bus and the goats are fed in spite of the fact that it is cold and I didn’t want to go outside. I think Seth and Joseph aren’t feeling well because they’re sitting at the table to draw rather than playing with Legos. Very unusual behavior from them, especially considering that it will be time to get school going in about 35 minutes.

Have a spectacular day!