I'm Back!

Good morning! I am back!

What a past few weeks we’ve had! Wow! We’ve had lots of everything covering the entire spectrum from really wonderful to really heart/gut wrenching. I am so glad that our family grew by Lincoln and that Joanna found such a wonderful man to spend her life with. I am profoundly sad that our family will not get to meet, at least not in this life, the tiny soul that departed this life before birth. Still, if an unborn babe of just nine weeks gestation does indeed have a soul and is therefore a person, and I believe this to be the case, then our family in heaven is growing and Uncle Daniel is there to lend a hand and provide whatever is needed until the rest of us join them in a few minutes (I’m talking eternal timeline here).

This is a good place to take a picture, yes? Not that I really care what anyone else thinks, anyway. We will continue visiting cemeteries and taking pictures like this one.

When I took Laura and Blaine to the Manchester airport on the 11^th, which was a Sunday, everything went well even though I was very tired and even stopped in the parking lot where I will stop and wait for arrivals. I was thinking I might take a quick nap but after parking and stretching and getting a good drink, I felt pretty okay so I took off and made it home okay.

This has to be one of the most original headstones I've seen. I love it! As you can see, Seth and Joseph liked it as well.

When I took my mom to the Manchester airport yesterday morning, we left half an hour after when I left with Laura and Blaine but otherwise the trip was similar with the exception of my not being so tired. I don’t think the half an hour made a lot of difference, I think it was all about the lack of sleep I’d been getting before the first trip as opposed to that for the week before the second. Which was good because when I got home yesterday, Cedric was sitting at the table eating cereal and he and Amena should have been on the bus ten minutes prior to that. Amena was upstairs. I’d woken them both up at 4:00 and they each had the opportunity to set an alarm but fell asleep before they could do so. Amena woke up at 6:37 and woke Cedric up then. I ended up taking them to school so that was a lot of fun.

I love the flag and what it represents (the freedom part, you know). I love cemeteries. A flag in a cemetery is a beautiful thing.

Other than that, the day was semi-usual. Seth and Joseph did school. I looked at AtlasQuest at some point while they were doing their work and discovered that a new letterbox had been planted in Barre the day before and hadn’t been found yet. That was pretty exciting because we’ve never been the first finder before and potentially could for this box. Since we needed to go watch Cedric run for a cross country meet, I thought we could stop and find the box on the way and thus kill two birds with one stone. And so we did.

This is the start of the race. Cedric is in the dark grey sweatshirt behind the boy with the light grey t-shirt. To me, it looks like he's in a triple tie for 4th here but he insisted that he's in 6th.

Our weather has turned cold and my hands are reflecting this fact. I’ve got quite a few little cut-like owies and patches of red on the backs of my hands and fingers. Lotion helps if it is the right kind so that means I’d better get with the program and make some of the right kind because living with this stuff is not fun.

Coming up on the finish. He was 7th overall which is not bad but not the 4th that was his goal.

My poor mother had to live through a week of cold. Today is supposed to get up to 60 which means the house will be lucky to maintain around 55 so I’m thinking that a fire is in the future for today. Yesterday would have been quite nice out if not for the wind. All the trees are losing their leaves rather quickly because of it and today the leaves are already blowing in it.

The boys and I almost have two new letterboxes to go. They are for Laura and Alisha and are Almost Halloween (guess what her stamp is) and “...to Have a Child. Alisha’s stamp is a banner with “Numero Uno” written on it and a “#1” between the Numero and the Uno. You still have to guess what Laura’s is. At least until I take pictures and therefore take the guess work out of the equation. As long as Paul gives me my tape, we can get at least one of them ready to go today and maybe the second as well; it depends on if we use a container that we already have or if I feel the need to go get one. The box we found yesterday was actually a Talenti gelato container which we have quite a few of. They covered the actual container with black duct tape. Pretty clever. If we do something like that, I’ve got some very colorful duct tape we could use but I’m not sure that would really be the best option because if not hidden well it could potentially stick out like a sore thumb.

Seth had soccer practice as usual for a Monday and although he was about fifteen minutes late, I actually got to write over 600 words on my story. That was very nice. Especially considering that I won’t get to work on it tonight while waiting for the boys at scouts.

And, what is up for today? Well, school, of course, for the boys. I need to get to work on some school stuff as well. I did get materials and plans for the boys done for this week and the next two. Three weeks at a time is not bad. Six was a bit much. I think I should maybe aim for four next time because that’s almost an entire month. For November and December, it’s almost an entire two months. Actually, now that I think about it, I’ll probably work to get everything done up to the end of the year when I do it next time.

Other than that, Joseph has scouts this afternoon. Cedric will need to be picked up from practice. There will be no scouts for Cedric and Seth tonight because for some reason it has been changed to tomorrow night. Probably someone’s work schedule didn’t work. That’s fine other than the fact I will have to find a ride for them to and from because I really need to be at church before 6:30 and won’t be done until after 8:00.

A cool thing that happened this past week was on Saturday. Saturday was an extremely busy day. I wanted to have Joanna and Lincoln over for dinner while my mom was here and we picked Saturday. Then Lincoln’s work schedule changed so he had to work during dinner-time. So Joanna said, “What about lunch?” Lunch? Joseph and I needed to man the popcorn selling at the Post Office from 11:00 until noon and then I was supposed to hurry to church for a Super Saturday activity that actually started at 10:00. “What about breakfast?” Well, that would have to be no later than 8:00 because Seth had a game at 9:00 in Holden. I was ready to say nevermind to popcorn and Super Saturday when Joanna said that would work even though Lincoln didn’t want to get up that early. (I don’t blame him—if I didn’t have to get up early anyway and didn’t have a problem staying in bed, I wouldn’t mind sleeping in until at least 8:00 on a Saturday morning—it just never works for me.)

Friday afternoon my mom and I were going to go to Webs and drop Seth and Joseph off with Joanna but I was just tired of the constant going, going, going and so we didn’t go. Joanna came up with the idea of having them sleep over since she and Lincoln would be coming over for breakfast anyway, so I took my mom and Cedric with me when I took Seth and Joseph over. We all went to Walmart because my mom needed some nuts to snack on and Joanna needed to get some things for dinner. So I ended up driving anyway but not as much as I would have had we gone to Webs. And it was fun visiting Joanna.

Saturday morning I got up at six and got some things going before milking at 7:00 (which I need to do now so this will be ending shortly) and we ended up having breakfast sausage, applesauce, red velvet pancakes (from a box because Paul got them), sour dough pancakes, and chocolate chip pancakes. Seth was late for his game but only by about five minutes (I figure it took us an additional five to get down to the field). They were playing a team they’d lost to before so it was important to all of the boys that they win and they did! It was a good game and the final score was, I believe, 5 to 3.

We went home, Joseph and I changed into scout uniforms, Joanna and Lincoln took off and Joseph and I went to the Post Office. While we were there, an accident happened by the rec field but it was all cleared out by the time we left. When we got home, I got ready to go to church and my mother and I left for there. That was fun and then we went home. We got home by 4:00 and at that point, there was nothing left to do other than stay home and get things done.

And now I must get out and get the milking done. Have a fantastic day!