One Day at a Time

First off a Happy Birthday to our Benny boy who turned 12 yesterday. We celebrated with a soccer ball cake and homemade lasagna, one meat, and one veggie for the girl child who is now officially moved back in. Woot! Ben is most excited to use his b-day loot to purchase a Kindle Fire which we will pick up tomorrow after school. Yes this is the year of technological upgrades for the Parton children. Alex is loving her laptop she got for Christmas and Fox is enjoying his new 'puter, now Ben is jumping on the band wagon to have tons of books, movies, and games at his fingertips. Hope he'll let me borrow it sometime..... :)

Since I am actively taking measures to shift into regular full-time employment I've been stepping up the boys' domestic training and have taught them all to do their own laundry, from washer to dryer to folding and putting away. It's been several weeks now and they've all done pretty well with it. I just remind them when it's their day. My original intent was they do their loads after school when they get home but Benny was so determined to keep up with his that he started his last load at 5:20am when he got up in the morning. The laundry room is on the other side of the wall from my bedroom and my alarm doesn't go off until 6am .... thanks for the abrupt wake up, dude. He'll now be returning to the afternoon schedule.

Due to an icy morning last Thursday we had school called off because of the road conditions which gave them a 5-day weekend. Friday, after a rather harrowing morning (I'll get to that in a minute) we headed down for a visit to the Detroit Zoo and everyone agreed it was the best trip we've had in some time. The day was gorgeous and sunny, cool but not freezing and many of the animals were out and active. We finally saw the Arctic Fox in The Arctic Circle exhibit, and the polars bears were up and moving around which was really neat to watch. Fox and Ben had a blast trying to make their hand prints in the ice wall. Can you see Ethan inside the bubble? And I got a sneaky shot of Fox actually smiling with his braces! He's had them long enough now he doesn't really think about them so much.
We also caught a keeper at the Snow Monkey area talking about the species and their ranking system which was very interesting. She explained that when they take a monkey out for medical attention or what not they make sure not to have them out for more than two hours or else they will lose their rank. I also found it intriguing that because the species is well maintained they have their females on birth control, the deprovera shot, hmmm.

Checked in on the 'baby' giraffe that is now three years old. We all enjoyed watching them inside and up close as they ate and played with their mobile toys hanging from the ceiling. One of the three kept going to the open door and staring outside like it really wanted to go out but thought it just a bit to chilly.

Inside the kangaroo area there are two that have joeys in their pouches. If you look closely at the photo you can see a leg and an ear starting to peek out. The docent explained that they don't even know if they are boys or girls yet since they don't come out of the pouch until about 6 months old so they must be close to that now since they are just starting to appear. The tiger was a delight, laying there growling at everyone as if trying to have a conversation, too cool. And in the prairie dog exhibit a couple of rouge peacocks got in and were having a riot tormenting the little rodents. Ethan was bummed because the tubes were closed but we still had a laugh watching the antics.

After the zoo we used a gift card from Christmas and had dinner at the Macaroni Grill, my eggplant parmesan was delish! From there we went to visit Aunt Julie at Troy Lanes and do a little bowling!

Saturday night was a fun night of rollicking with the book club ladies. This month's read was Henry James' "Turn of the Screw" which brought about many opinions about what in the world he was really getting at in his text. As one of the club founders commented "even though many said they didn't really like it, it was a success nonetheless because of the discussion is created." Definately true. The movie actually stayed true to the book and was very well done. We also watched "The Tempest" with Chris Cooper, Helen Mirrin, Russell Brand, Alan Cummings and many more talented actors. It was a first for me. Bizarre to say the least, but I liked it. Next month...."The Hunger Games."

Today was the second week working with both my choir groups together, we did everything acapella and the songs are all coming together nicely. We're also getting time to work on the stage with risers and choreograph our entrances and exits which is a luxury I haven't had in past years. I've started going to a weekly women's bible study, something that has been out of my routine for a long time. We're studying Phillipians and it has been engaging and informative, I've also just finished Nehemiah again on my own. This week I will begin a series of counseling sessions as well, while I feel like I have gotten over the hump of grief there are some things that I would like to have better spiritual artillery to deal with.

Oh, I almost forgot about our harrowing Saturday morning. My precious little puppy took off on us. I usually put her and Jake out for a few minutes to frolick before they have to be cooped up during the day if we're out. Told the boys "don't let me forget the dogs are out" and went to check some emails. Well, we all forgot and when I looked back outside neither dog was around. We spent hours yelling and searching, I drove around in the van, to no avail. Alex went by the house after work and Jake had returned and was waiting on the porch to be let back in but no Sunny. It was a snowy night, still no sign of her in the morning. She did have a collar on with her name and our phone number and I just kept praying she would show up at someone's house and they'd call. When I got home from book club late Saturday night Rob said "you've got a friend waiting for you." My Sunny girl! Someone called from a half a mile up the road and said she had been hanging around there all day. I was sooooo glad to have my sweet girl back and she won't be out of my sight for a good long time at least not without a leash or chain. Never took her for a runner but now I know better.

Click HERE to see what will be coming up in my next post. Hope all is well in your world.

Cheers

Took the boys out shopping last week to spend some gift cards and return a couple Christmas items (from the late January family gathering). Mr. Tightwad, my oldest son Fox, actually pulled some cash to invest in his own new computer. I was shocked but excited for him. He bought a tower and is still using his old monitor, now all his computer games work much faster and we see him even less than before (wink). For his birthday I'll hook him up with a new streamlined monitor.

Ethan and Ben made the choice to return their "fully-automatic" Nerf machine guns they got from their uncle after realizing they both took 6 C-batteries and 2 AAs to operate, plus it took ANOTHER type of bullets than we already had a supply of and these were so small that 18 were lost on the first time they tried the gun. Seriously, we have yet to find them, maybe the dog ate them? Thankfully they had only opened one to test it. I think they made great trades, ending up with a Draw to Life DS game, Plants vs Zombies DS game, 2 Star Wars Lego kits, 1 Pirates of the Caribbean Lego kit, a free Anakin Skywalker Pod, and a Lego Police set. Puppy training is going well, at least when I'm in charge of her, she hasn't been having any accidents in the house. However when I'm not here and the boys are in charge it's a totally different story..... She even went for her first "big girl" walk with Jake and I to the back of the property and LOVED IT. Couldn't even keep her on the leash because she wanted to run with her big brother so I let her go but she stayed by us the whole time and had a blast romping around in the snow. I must be getting soft in my old age because I've been letting her sleep in my room at night, she stays quiet instead of whining all night long in the crate, and makes it until my alarm goes off in the morning to go outside and take care of business. During the day she is crated most of the time with designated outside and play breaks.
Know what these are? Now I do. Had my first ever "well-woman" mammogram, I'm sure they're going to be the best lookin' slides they've ever seen! All blood work came back excellent. I've also lost 10lbs since my doctor visit....woot! well, according to my scale that is. Rob, the calibration expert, tells me don't trust the doctor's office scales anyway because more times than not they aren't calibrated correctly....not sure how to take that. Fox got his braces on, but I haven't even attempted to grab a snap of him yet with them. You can see from the above picture that he wasn't to keen on me sneaking into his room to surprise him for a picture....teenagers!

It has been a meeting-filled couple of weeks for me. I have been very blessed to be in talks with superintendents from three school districts in the area to discuss offering virtual and elective classes to homeschoolers. Although my kids are full-time enrolled at public school I have always hoped for a way to merge the two styles of education and with the state now allowing more flexibility many schools are moving toward opening their student base. One district I was in talks with has always been open to working with homeschoolers in various capacities, which is thankfully my home district and is, without much pomp and circumstance, letting people know they are still willing to do so. When Benjamin was little we took advantage of the speech therapy program even though we homeschooled and had no problems from the powers that be. When I went to register Alexandra for high school they were very accommodating and non-judgemental, however that has not been the case with alternative students in many other districts in the area. Another Super is working diligently to put together a complete and comprehensive partnership program which will prove to be a very exciting option when it all comes together. The last one was from a pretty small district comparatively and in my opinion the least informed on the ideals and philosophy of homeschoolers and how to capture them into their district. Since we continue to yearly assess the kids' education I'm glad to keep in the loop about options especially since Ethan has continually brought up returning to homeschooling. He does fine academically but there are social issues that tend to bring him down a bit. We're going to take a tour at the Chatfield School hopefully next week to investigate that avenue more fully. Also met with the high school counselor about Fox's schedule and was able to get him out of the Critical Reading class (the kid is in AP English and reads 'Society of Mind' for fun) with the blessing of the English department head and instead he'll take Intro Macrobiology which is usually a 10th grade class. In addition to all that I had a sit-down with our Superintendent about putting together some afterschool enrichment classes. He was very interested and although I had a target start for next Fall he encouraged me to see what I could offer during the summer. Made a few initial calls and emails, updates to follow. Last night was a fun night out with my "choir buddies", several of whom are those I am looking forward to working with on the enrichment classes idea. We went to the Redwood Lodge for dinner, I had the fantastic Salmon Oscar, then over to the Flint Institute of Music for an incredible free faculty concert featuring jazz pianist Roger Jones, drummer extraordinaire Nate Winn, and talented bassist Nick Calandro. Truly a good time with good people.

One of the ladies recently attended a seminar about green burial and gave us an update during dinner. When I announced gleefully to Robert this afternoon that I found out when he kicks the bucket I can bury him in the backyard he was a little surprised. lol But seriously I'm going to look into claiming an acre as a family cemetery, from what she explained it's very simple to do.

Happy early Valentine's Day people, hope it's filled with sweetness inside and out!

All in the Family

Well, winter finally decided to kick in her for awhile after some great warm weather days, got cold, got snow, now it melted and our driveway is a big muddy mess! Lots of fun.

I am moving ahead with my house projects although not at a very fast pace, still some painting to do in the kitchen and then I'll post a picture. Finally got the manufactured "buttoned up" and put in some track lighting with the help of my dad (thanks!). Robert has also been working on his own projects around the property and house. Three truck/trailers were on the property when we bought the place but after a few hard working weekends for Rob and a couple cousins....

we now have two and some extra cash. Woot!

Fox and I have been doing some research on biomedical engineering programs, which is what he is interested in pursuing, even found some awsome summer programs. There's a month long one at the University of Pennsylvania that sounds fantastic but it is extremely pricey, basically like paying for college classes, go figure. Found one through UofM Ann Arbor that is a little more reasonable but applications were due today so I think we missed the boat on that one. This summer he will be doing drivers training anyway so maybe we'll shoot for next year. He's also been meeting with the high school guidance counsel0r about testing out of some classes and taking a few online to get ahead on his required classes so he can have more advanced classes in before he graduates. I'm starting to become more knowledgable about alternative options in the public school and I'm hoping Fox will be the one to take advantage of it. He already watches classes online in his spare time, why not get credit for them. Next week he gets his braces on.

Benjamin had a great time at 6th grade camp, his group had nice warm weather so they didn't do the winter fun they normally do like sledding and stuff but they still had plenty to keep them busy. He is also enjoying archery and doing lots of reading....usually has three books going at once. Favorites include anything by Rick Riordan, the Nate books, the Artemis Fowl series and he's on the third Hunger Games book.

Ethan has been having some difficulties lately setting his priorities which sadly is being reflected in his grades. He is such a social and active person that getting things done in a busy classroom is challenging for him. Plus, when he is home after school and I'm not around to keep him on task that darn gaming system and television always draw his attention. One good thing with him though is he loves to get outside and shoot the BB gun or sled.

Piglets are on reserve and the boys are doing extra work to help pay for their half of the costs. Pick up date is April 15, Yeehaw!

Alexandra just started assistant manager training at the BK Lounge and is back in the swing for Winter classes but has some issues to deal with concerning Mott's highly inefficient accounting/financial aid system. After a series of unfortunate events it looks like she may be moving back in at the end of the month, no fault of her own. I told her she's welcome to and it probably is for the best so she can start saving some money before transfering schools in the fall. I applaude her efforts to be independent and have supported her but sometimes we have to revamp our plans.

Rob is doing the best he can at the new job but he really hates it. Later this month he'll be going to Germany but I will not go with him as originally planned, just not the right timing. In order to open up more employment opportunities he is actively investigating going back to college, has his transcripts, and knows where he wants to go, just need to get the ok from his bosses to leave early a day or two so he can get to class. He's put in the request but so far they haven't given him an answer. This is something I've hoped he'd do for years....everything happens for a reason, perhaps it now time for him to complete his higher education.

Finally, Rob and I have health insurance so I have been an appointment making fool, did the dentist, eye doctor (made the jump to bifocals but after three days with them I'm still not sure if I like them), regular doctor (all good so far but waiting on some blood work results), and next week I get to go have my first mamogram, a "well woman exam"....Amen! Starting this weekend I will be teaching a drama class in Lapeer at the Pix Theater which should be fun and I just booked train tickets and hotel for my trip to Chicago with Ethan. We talked about a lot of other possible trips, Boston, Mesa Verde, DC, but he really wanted to check out the Windy City.

So that's what's up at the Parton house hope all is well with you and yours.