Wow!  What a ride the past few weeks have been, as you like likely tell from the fact that it has been a long time since I last journaled.  I don’t know how women home school more than one kid on an ongoing basis and have any kind of life left for themselves.  I guess it makes a difference if you draw up your own lesson plans and incorporate a lot of independent study by way of computer and experiential learning.  For me and Nathan, it’s old fashioned workbooks, textbooks and handouts.  I am very lucky to have an incredibly organized and flexible coordinator.  The past two weeks have been insane because we were trying to get him caught up to the rest of his class in time for STAR testing this week.  Long story short, we did, he is and it’s done.  It typically takes us 8-9 hours a day to get everything day and that’s not just telling him, “OK, go in the next room and do these 25 math problems.”  It’s about going through, problem by problem, question by question, keeping him focused and on task, teaching him things he no longer remembers or the things his class had not yet covered. 

My concern has been, of course, that the next step is middle school in August and having him get used to the one-on-one instruction could really be debilitating for him because middle school is about being more independent, not less.  Now that he is caught up and feeling confident about testing, it will be easier to have him work independently and get used to being more on his own.  After seeing how he is performing now, I feel much more at ease about all of this than I did two weeks ago or even last week.  We have six weeks of school left if I counted correctly.  The past couple of days, keeping him on task has been like trying to herd cats.  He has been very frustrated and complaining a good bit and all over the emotion chart.  Most of the time, all I have to do is get him to stop, take a few deep breaths and get back into focus again and he’s fine.  The next step up is to threaten him with Rescue Remedy if he doesn’t chill out.  It’s a Bach Flower remedy that we used to use on women and their families after a particularly tough or emotionally stressful birth.  It doesn’t taste terrible, but it does have an aftertaste that is similar to Valerian, which is not particularly pleasant.  He only gets a half dropper, but he still doesn’t care for it.  He’ll submit to it if he can feel that he’s having a particularly ping-y day, but most times, he’d prefer to just get his act together.  He just rode the bus home from a couple of hours of testing and I love seeing the spring in his step and some self-assurance in the way he carries himself.  That makes it all worth it because he was so down and defeated when we started this process.

On Monday, Delena woke up saying she had slept almost not at all the night before due to tooth pain.  She is getting in wisdom teeth and said the pressure was extremely painful.  I remembered those days well, so I put her to bed for the day with a heating pad, some Motrin 800′s and a really soft pillow.  I took Nathan to testing at noon, hurried to town to meet Eric for a quick, hour of lunch, drove back to the school and picked up Nathan again and got a glowing report from his teacher on his focus and pacing.  I brought Nathan home and Dylan was close behind.  They have short days this week due to conferences.  I went out for a long walk.  I had a protein only day that day trying to get rid of some carb cravings that had been bothering me for a while.  If cravings get bad, I’ll go a day or so and have heavy lean protein with only very complex carbs (and few of those) and that will reset my system and kick the cravings right out.  What I forgot to remember was that it also leaves you a little low energy for those days.  I walked a mile out and was whipped and then had to walk the mile back.  Normally, I can kick out 2 miles walking the hill with very little trouble until I hit our last hill.  Since we live on the top of a good-sized hill, no matter which direction I go, getting home is a bitch.  I made it, but it took longer than usual and I was very tired after.  While I was recovering with my head on my desk and my resolve to lose the rest of the weight I need to lose firmly in my mind, Delena came in and said that the tooth pain was getting unbearable and she’d been unable to sleep since the previous morning (as in Sunday morning and this was Monday late afternoon).  I had her try Excedrin, which would take another pain-killing avenue than the Motrin.  An hour later, she was still walking the floor and crying.  I decided to take her to the ER to get a higher level of pain management going and try to get a dentist appointment for that week for emergency care.

I phoned her dentist (I used to be the dentist’s mail carrier) and was told they could see her if I could get her there in 30 minutes.  It’s a 35 minute drive and I knew Eric was on his way up the mountain to get home, so I left the boys alone for the first time (they are 10 and 12, but I trust them) and got her there with 2 minutes to spare.  As it turned out, after a considerable wait (hey, we were walk-ins and I was just glad to get her seen), her wisdom teeth where not the problem.  Unknown to us, the molar in front of her wisdom tooth had been cracked by her previous dentist during an extrication of the molar in front of it.  The cracked tooth had died and there was a nasty abscess under it.  The dentist did the beginning of a root canal, got a good bit cleaned out and put in a temporary filling.  By the time we were finished around 9pm, she felt better, but was still in some pain from the abscess and now from the dental work soreness as well.  Last night, she woke up with the abscess absolutely huge and tremendous pain around midnight.  Fortunately, she had an appointment at 8:00am today for a cleaning with the dentist, so we just had to get her through to morning.  It was touch and go, but she did, around 3am, manage to sterilize a needle and lance it herself, which relieved the pressure and let her (and me) sleep for a couple of hours. 

We were on a tight schedule today, so we left out as Dylan got on the bus at 7:20 and got her to the dentist and out with different antibiotics and pain killers than she was prescribed on Monday (the Demerol made her sick and the penicillin didn’t work).  Then we hurried out to the college so she could pick up her placement test scores and class eligibilities.  Next I breezed through the two thrift stores in town to see if either had a net playpen for me to keep the baby chickens in (they are outgrowing their cage quickly), but neither did.  Since no one had eaten, I got them breakfast at Denny’s, then went on to Walmart to pick up a few things and had Nathan at the school for testing by noon.  Feeling tremendously accomplished that I’d gotten everything done and excited for a couple of free hours (ahhh) before Nathan took the bus home from school with Dylan, I got in the car, turned the key and nothing happened.  Talk about pride and excited expectation going before a fall!  Agh.  It didn’t make the chg chig chig or click click click sound it makes if the battery is having issues.  It didn’t make the churning sound it makes when it tries to turn over.  It just didn’t do anything, sort of like if you put the key into a stick of butter and turned it.  I pecked on things.  I put it in drive and back into park and tried to start it.  I put it in neutral and tried to start it.  After about 20 minutes, I phoned Eric, who has a heavy class day and work today, and told him what was going on.  He shouted explicatives about his lot in life and said he’d be right there.  I knew it would take him around 30 minutes to get there, so Delena and I settled in.  After around 20 minutes more of waiting, I tried it and it started up like it was its job or something.  Since Eric has no cell signal for most of his trip to the school, I waited around for him and he followed me up the mountain and then went on to his next class in town.

We’ve been home for several hours now and the car still isn’t starting.  I really lucked out that it started again at the school and I was able to get home and get it home without towing it.  Eric felt things under the hood and said he thought the thermostat was out.  The temperature gauge never went even to 200, but he said things were cold that should be hot and things were too hot that should just be hot.  Meanwhile, we’re safely at home and Nathan has work to get done before he goes to more STAR testing tomorrow and we have our appointment to trade off completed assignments for new ones.  Eric does not have school tomorrow, so I am going to figure that one way or another, we’ll get to and from his school appointment.  He would normally have been done with testing tomorrow, but when we were all set to go to testing on Tuesday, we were having a terrible blizzard (around 5-6″ of snow fell in 3 hours) and after trying to get there and sliding three times in less than a half mile covered, we decided to come back and use the make up day our coordinator had thoughtfully scheduled for Tuesday (I told you she is organized). 

Most of the snow is gone now and what’s funny is that by 1pm that same day, the roads were clear that very day even though our yards were still covered.  It has been in the 40′s today and there is a misty rain and low hanging fog.  We are supposed to have temperatures into the low 70′s by Sunday, but then have more snow on Tuesday and Wednesday.  This will likely go on for another 2-3 weeks at least.  Our weather does not stabilize until the last week of May or so.

I have been on a real pity party because I am being forced by circumstances to do things I really don’t want to do and I can’t really get out of it and that frustrates the sheer hell out of me.  I don’t insist on controlling all parts of my life, but I do get irritated when it feels as though no parts of my life are going in the direction I’d really like for them to go.  That’s how the past few months have felt to me.  A week ago today, I just got so sick of myself that I decided that even if things are not going the way I want them to, I refuse to be miserable about it.  Yes, I miss my alone time and no, there does not appear to be much or any of that on the horizon for many, many months.  Yes, I would love to have more money to do fun things and feel secure.  Yes, I would love to have animals that weren’t challenging to care for and testing my patience at every moment.  Yes, I would love to spend more time with the friends and family I love so dearly in Kentucky.  Yes, I would love to see Joe and Sandra more than I do.  The list could go on and on.  I am gracious about not having everything I want.  I am pissy when it feels as though I have very little that I want.

I am finished being pissy.  My kids deserve to have a mother who is plugged in and happy to be in the world instead of being tired, depressed, resentful and withdrawn.  I have spent a good bit of the past 4 months feeling just that way.  I got in a rut and couldn’t get out.  I gained 11 pounds just from comfort eating.  I started to feel sick and sad all of the time.  My heart always hurt.  I always longed for something or many somethings that were missing.  I hated my life.  I was miserable and I am sure I was miserable to be around too.  I trudged through my days with each minute a chore to endure.  When I was not working with Nathan, I was cleaning house or working on my 2 jobs or taking care of kids, husband or animals.  Honestly, it was very, very rare that I ever did anything I wanted to do.

Last Thursday, I pretty much hit the bottom, so I lit my candles and started praying about it.  I ask that my pain be lifted and that I be given the tools to find myself again and get my bearings.  Within an hour, I started to feel more like myself.  It was like waking up from a particularly deep and clutching dream.  From then since, I have tried to stay positive and plugged into my life rather than escaping from it.  On Saturday, I went to town and picked up a few things from the thrift shops that appealed to me, then came back and renovated the motor home.  It was given to us over a year ago by a family that no longer wanted it.  Since we don’t travel much, it has mostly been our guest room and served as storage for items from my (failed) business and Eric’s (failed) business.  When I was purchasing items, the color gold kept coming up.  It’s not one of my first choices, that’s for sure.  I enjoy silver, purple, dark blue, dark green… those types.  Yellows, oranges and golds are not my standards.  First, I found several very soft, nice throw pillows with gold and brown color schemes for $2 each.  They did not match, but they went together beautifully.  Next, I found a lovely chenille gold blanket for $4 and it matched up nicely with the pillows.  Next came a gorgeous gold cloth with gold shimmers through it for an altar cloth.  Several candle holders with gold highlights were next including a lovely gold taper holder that looks like a standing tree branch.  I found a few fairy items and I do so love fairies.  Their energy lightens my mood in such a joyful way.  When I got home, I pulled a few favorite treasures from the meditation area and went to the motor home and got busy.  My plan was that since Eric has the balcony off of the bedroom as his man-cave, duly claimed and pissed around from the moment we moved here, complete with leather king’s chair, a collection of beer bottles a frat house would envy, a stack of favorite books, his laptop and an assortment of smoking accessories, this would be my retreat. 

The pillows went onto the very comfortable full sized bed, along with the gold blanket.  The altar cloth was large enough to cover the stove, counter and sink area (the sink has a cover that turns it in to more counter area) and go all the way to the floor to hide the cupboard space.  I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned, throwing out a lot of things, condensing down the storage and fitting it into the bathroom and shower areas I would not be using anyway.  The second bed went back up into two bench seats and a table.  Some of the pillows went onto the couch.  Flower arrangements and some of the figurines went onto the “dining” table and the living area table.  The altar area was set up with a variety of candles, earth, air, fire and water representations and some things that are of spiritual significance to me.  I took out some of my favorite incense and stored a lighter and pair of reading glasses out there.  It took around two hours and by the time I was finished, it was absolutely lovely and a previously ignored space was now my sanctuary.  I have not yet used it, but I know it’s there and I most certainly will use it soon.

If nothing else, it will be a wonderful place to hide during the summer months when my house is swarming with kids and animals.  It has electricity, so I can take my laptop out there to work.  It also has heat and air conditioning.  Eric can have his balcony.  I get my own apartment in the driveway.  Of course, I will still be involved with the kids and the family, but everyone needs quiet time and that will be mine.

When Eric saw it, he thanked me for creating such a nice meditation area.  I’ll deal with that later.  After a day or so, he was clearly still thinking about it.  He went out to the motor home to close the windows (I’d opened them to air it out) and he came back in and said, “You know, you turned that place into Inara’s shuttle.  For those of you who don’t speak “Firefly,” Inara is a character with a very opulent shuttle attached to the Firefly spaceship.  It looks like this:

So, “Awwww.”  Very nice thing to say.

At the moment, I have Nathan angrily and begrudgingly cranking away at his last few math problems.  I have Eric tucked away at school coming home later tonight.  I have Delena sleeping the sleep of the just after not having a good night’s sleep since Sunday.  She’s ready to go to school tomorrow morning and placed well in her college course selections.  I have Dylan being his usual, carefree Dylan self.  I have a night of trying to catch up on sleep and a day of no school tomorrow while Eric tries to fix the jeep and handles the trade off of assignments with the coordinator since I do not have transportation right now.

Saturday, I will go to town and pick up provisions.  Sunday, David is coming to visit and is going to fix the boys’ PC into which Eric and I installed a new motherboard and have been unable to rectify a few fatal flaws in the installation process.  

When I look back on the things that have gone on in the past month, both those mentioned and those unmentioned, it all feels very overwhelming and honestly, I don’t know how I made it through in the state of mind I’ve been in.  Most of the time, I felt about 2 seconds away from screaming as loudly as I could and jumping out of my skin.  This past week, I have taken things one at a time as they come up rather than getting choked by thinking of everything at once. 

Like so many other times, I can do more than I thought I could do, but I have to stop now and then and regroup, take time for myself and focus on what is important.  I have had the wagons circled for a long time trying to work out so many things in my life.  I am quite sure that once I get it all together, I will forget where I left it.

Ahhhh.  He’s done with the test on integers and number lines and with that, at 8:40pm, we are winding up the week of home school.  We’ll hit it again on Monday.  After getting maybe 3 hours of sleep last night and whacking all of the moles that jumped up out of the board today, I am ready to put the dogs in their “go to sleep room,” try the car one last time to see if it starts, give the house a cursory cleaning and curl up with today’s recorded “Sober House” and watch people who are far worse off than I am make bigger asses of themselves than I hope I ever will.

Onward and upward, right???