Monday

Today's a picture dump day. Plus I've got some news.

Baylee's been doing crazy stuff in Algebra 2 lately. It's getting complicated, and we're talking about things I've literally never heard of before, like latus rectums and asymptotes, but she's grasping it.

The other evening Mike and Zach went out for pizza together, talked the whole time, and then talked some more when they got home. Mostly it was about politics. They're both into that.

Zach came home from school last week pretty excited, because he found out that when he completes what he's doing at Lake Washington Institute of Technology, he'll have everything he needs to enter Washington State University as a junior in the architecture program, if that's the direction he wants to go.

And, of course, here are more snapshots of Winston. (I have no idea why I take so many pictures of this cat.) Look how gigantic he looks in Stephanie's arms! He's a bruiser.

B's becoming a pretty darn good driver. She's completed everything now but the official DMV written and driving tests to get her license.

Oh, I have a funny story about Baylee. She was taking the city bus home from her drum lesson in Ballard (which is kind of a hip part of town) recently, but things went comically wrong. First, she walked out of the building only to see that her bus was pulling up to the curb right at that moment. She ran to catch it, but her drumsticks fell out of her bag, so she had to double back to pick them up. She did manage to get on that bus, but then as she was walking down the aisle to find a seat she slipped and fell right in front of a couple other high school girls. They both said, "Are you okay?!" and Baylee got up, brushed herself off, and said she was fine. Then she sat next to them, and by the end of the ride they were all new friends. Baylee has plans to go clothes shopping with them next weekend.

Okay, now for my news:  On Saturday night I rejoined Weight Watchers. I got really inspired, because I was on FB, and I happened to see a picture of a woman from church. She looked amazing, and it was obvious she lost a lot of weight. It turns out that she's down over 100 pounds using the new WW Freestyle program. After I found that out I signed up on the spot.

The way it works is you're allowed about 200 free foods. (That is, foods that are worth 0 points.) They include vegetables, fruits, chicken breast, fish and seafood, eggs, beans, and tofu. That's a lot to work with. You can also eat other things, but for everything else you have to count points, and they're kind of expensive, points-wise. The purpose of the whole thing is to force you to eat a more natural, unprocessed diet. Long story short, to me this is a workable solution, because I hate counting every little thing, but I also need structure.

To give you an idea of how much food you can eat, here are a couple of my meals. (I'm not great at food shots, but whatever.) In the first one the eggs, salsa, and apple slices are free, so I only had to count the toast, making it a 2-point meal. In the second all the veggies and fruit are free, as is the chicken, so I only had to count the dressing. It was a 3-point meal. I get 24 points in a day, and 42 extras to use how I want during the week.

Anyway, I just started, but so far it's going well. I'll keep you all updated on my weight loss and stuff. Oh, and in my mind I'm starting over and thinking of Sunday, yesterday, as day 1. 

PS: Almost forgot to say that I signed up for the online + meetings option, so I'll keep track of everything online and also go to meetings once a week. Oh, and by the way, it's not actually called a "meeting" anymore. Now it's called a "studio." Fancy! lol

Friday

Lately I've been thinking about Facebook, and how some people use it to tilt at windmills. In other words, they build up an enemy in their mind, and then they use their FB posts to attack it over and over.

For instance, I know someone who decided years ago to walk away, not only from organized religion, but from any belief in God whatsoever.  Granted, it was a huge life change for her, as she grew up completely saturated in the Christian lifestyle, but here's the thing:  As far as I can tell, at least on Facebook itself, nobody is fighting with her about her choice. In fact, people go out of their way to support her. Even her Christian friends respond in either kindness or silence. Also, as far as I can tell, she has surrounded herself with like-minded people in her day-to-day life. So where does the perpetual rage come from, and who exactly is she attacking? And she's just one person who does that. I've got other FB friends with their own windmills.

Look, I like Facebook a lot, but this is part of a larger issue, and that's that some people try to make more of the place than it can be. In my opinion it's good for two thing:  engaging in superficial conversation and sharing important information (like a birth or a surgery) quickly. What it's terrible for is:

• Browbeating others with your political view
• Discussing religion
• Sharing your thoughts on questions of morality
• Trying to get people to come around to your point of view on ANY important issue

I'll tell you why. It's because people will almost never change their minds based on something they read on Facebook. They agree with you or they don't, and they're not budging, so you're either wasting your breath or preaching to the choir. Best to stick to cat memes and save the deeper conversations for when you're face to face.

PS:  Mike and I don't see completely eye to eye on this, and that's okay. lol

(I wrote the above on Thursday night. This next part I wrote this afternoon.)

Today Drew and I got into a little disagreement about the fact that he came into my bedroom and plugged his phone into my charger base without asking. His point was that my base has a spot for two phones to charge, and his use of one spot wasn't affecting me at all. That was actually true. My point, though, was that I wanted to be asked, regardless. I told him this story as an illustration:

The summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college I went to Australia on a mission trip. For several months before I left, though, I put a ton of time and energy into raising the funds. I wrote letters and did a bunch of talks in front of different groups. In fact, by the time we left I had raised way more money than I needed. The way that mission worked was that any extra money earned was put toward our college bill (because it was a Christian college).

Later I learned that a lot of that extra money was given to another member of the team who didn't put in the legwork to earn her own. I was annoyed, not because they used it on her, but because they never asked me. I would've said yes and thought of it as a gift, but I wasn't given that chance.

So, which one of us is right, me or Drew? Should using something without asking be okay, as long as it doesn't affect the person who owns the thing you're using, or should you always ask?

PS:  I know my example isn't perfect, because that money did affect me. Still, it describes the feeling I want to get across.

Thursday

Baylee takes the city bus pretty often now, and she's great at navigating routes and bus changes and stuff. I don't worry about her too much, but I do make her text me when she gets on a bus and then when she gets to her destination.

Yesterday she was taking the bus to the library, where she planned to enjoy the quiet and get ahead with some schoolwork, but a little too much time passed without me hearing from her, so I called her. We had this conversation...

Me:  Aren't you there yet?

Her:  Well, funny story. Normally I'm really good at keeping track of when my stop is coming up, but this time I spaced out and passed it, so I ended up getting off the bus late. I walked about ten blocks back, and that's when I realized I hadn't passed my stop after all. I hadn't actually reached it yet! Now I'm walking twenty blocks in direction I was going in the first place.

Me:  ...

Her:  But I'm almost there!

Sigh.

Wednesday

Baylee and I have fallen into a really good routine with school this year. We both get up early and work solidly for a few hours, and we end up getting all of school done by lunch or just a bit after. Then she has the rest of the day to practice drums, work at Taco Bell, and/or have some time to herself.

Lately, though, she's been getting up early by herself and letting me sleep off the Benadryl that I have to take to control my cough at night. She does as much as she can before she wakes me, at which point I quickly wash my face and brush my teeth, make some toast and coffee, and sit down at the table with her. I correct everything she's done and we talk about any mistakes she made, then I teach whatever she couldn't understand on her own, which is sometimes British Lit and always Algebra 2. She's a slave driver, too. All I want to do is shower and get actual clothes on (rather than pajamas), but she makes us sit there until we're totally done. lol

She has her last session at driver's ed today! She actually finished the classes and tests (both the written and driving tests) a couple weeks ago, and she did well, but she has one drive left and a "ride along." By law every driver's ed student in WA has to ride along with another student at least one time. I have no idea why.

That reminds me. Before every test she took there she was always nervous, but then she would always pass. This is a text conversation we had after one of those times.

I forgot to add this picture to the ones I put in yesterday's post.

Yesterday I was at a major intersection, and I started to take my free right while cars in the left-turn lane (on the cross street) were turning left. 99% of the time that's fine, but this particular time an old lady wasn't turning left, she was doing a U-turn into the lane I was going into. It was no big deal. I stopped in plenty of time...didn't even get close to her...and let her go through. She wasn't happy, though, and she made a special point of wagging her finger at me as she went by. I know she meant for me to feel bad about it, but she looked like such a stereotypical friendly grandma, the kind that bakes cookies and resembles Mrs. Claus, that it was hard to take her stern expression and wagging finger (see exhibit below) very seriously.

(PS: I don't think anyone has ever actually wagged their finger at me before. That was a first.) After she finished and went on her way I looked at Baylee, who was in the passenger seat, and we both smiled. "I know I was in the wrong," I said. "I accept blame. But she was adorable!" 

Tuesday

Not much has been going on, because both Baylee and I have been sick. We're limping by with school, struggling to keep up. (We have a plan to catch up by the end of this week, though.) I do have some pictures on my phone, so I'll show you those.

 B loves her new kitty, but to be honest he's kinda mean. He'll be purring and happy one second and gouging your face the next. He's pretty, though, isn't he?

L'automne as seen from the kitchen window.

Zach's in a brand new architecture program at Lake Washington Institute of Technology (by that I mean that he and the group of people he's with are the first to go through it), and so far he's created some really cool designs on the computer. Here he is doing some homework this past weekend.

Living with musicians means drumsticks on the kitchen counter and guitar picks in the lint trap. (On a related note, yesterday I made a nice dinner and a loaf of pumpkin spice bread, and you'd think I'd done something amazing. lol Everyone in my family thanked me and told me how good it all was. I guess that's what happens when you stop cooking regular meals and adopt a "fend for yourself" attitude. Everyone is very grateful when you do put forth an effort!)

Friday

Yesterday Baylee and I were in the car, sitting at a red light, when out of the blue she said, "Mom, when you and Dad were dating did you tell him that there was something weird about your body that made it so you never fart?"

"Err...maybe." We both started giggling. "How did you find out about that?"

"Dad told me. So you were just like, 'Mike, I have a medical condition and I never fart?'"

"Yeah." We chuckled even more.

"And you expected him to believe you??"

"Well...yes!"

"Why???"

At this point we were both laughing so much...which for me sounded like wheezing, because I have this cold and my voice is shot...that eventually I was wiping away tears. "I don't even know," I finally answered. "I don't have a good reason."

Then the light turned green and we went on with our day.

Thursday

Several years ago my credit card number (along with many other people's numbers) was stolen. Turns out it was taken by a woman here in Washington and being used to buy things to send to Russia. The police even said that the Russian mafia was involved. It was crazy. The way we found out, though, was sort of funny. One day Mike looked at our bank account and saw a charge that didn't make sense, so he came up to me and said, "Did you order cigars???"

Fast forward to last night:  I got a package in the mail from an online company called Wish. They sell discounted items, so I bought a pair of shoes and some cordless earbuds from them. The catch, though, is that the stuff  takes forever to get to you, because it's sent from other countries. Anyway, like I said, one of those packages came last night, and Mike handed it to me, saying, "You got something from Estonia."

Without missing a beat I excitedly replied, "My cigars!"

Get it? Little bit of geography humor there, you see, because Estonia used to belong to Russia. *grin*  I'm hilarious.

Wednesday

This has been a frustrating day. For one thing I'm coughing constantly. It's to the point where it's kinda painful, but mostly it's just really annoying. Plus I didn't take Nyquil last night, so I woke myself up coughing. Then I couldn't stop, so I got out of bed and watched TV for quite awhile. Now I'm exhausted, but at least I'm caught up on Survivor.

Then this morning there was a tiny window of time between taking off the splint and putting on those stupid buddy straps (I'm way over the buddy straps), and in that space of time I accidentally bent my finger trying to get something out of our school bookcase. The pain was so bad I cried. Ugh. To be honest it seems like physical therapy isn't working. Nothing seems to be changing, except that my finger looks weirder than ever.

Oh yeah, and Baylee took a difficult Algebra 2 test, which she was super grouchy about. I found myself saying, "You need to change your attitude, because I cannot with that today. I don't have the reserves."

She finished it and got a good grade, so there's that.

Tuesday

When the kids were younger we didn't really fit into the "homeschoolers wear whatever they want" stereotype.  Sometimes people would even ask my kids, "Do you get to do school in your pajamas?!" and they would never know what the person was talking about. Now that it's just Baylee and me, though (literally, because everyone else is out of the house at that time of day) anything goes. This is on my mind, because this morning I found myself discussing poetry from the Tudor period while wearing no pants. Hey, man, my jeans weren't done in the dryer yet.

My cold has gone from a leaky head thing to a chest thing, and now I'm coughing nonstop. I had to take Nyquil to sleep last night, which I hate doing, because I'm so sensitive to it. Nyquil is like a horse tranquilizer for me. Yes, it helps me sleep, but it's like getting rest because you're in a coma. I still feel a little out of it, matter of fact.

Drew said that one of the songs from Morrow's album, a song called "Elysium II," was used at a funeral recently. I think that's kinda cool. Here's the song. It's one of the more low-key ones they wrote, as it's an instrumental.

PS: Is the fact that I didn't wear pants something I should've kept to myself? It feels like it might be. Blame the Nyquil.

Monday

It's been awhile. Sorry about that. I came down with a gross head cold a couple days ago, and I've been leaking out of every orifice  my head holes  my nose and eyes nonstop since. Blah. I'm feeling a little better now, though, so I'll blog. This is gonna be a long one, I think.

Have you ever thought about the difference between the words "clean" and "cleanse"? They mean the same thing, but they give you a different feeling. To get homeschooly about it, it's a denotation vs. connotation thing. Cleaning can be anything: vacuuming, making a bed, dusting, whatever. Cleansing seems like it should involve water, am I right?

The other day I took this picture of Mike and Gibbs having an embarrassing moment. Winston is judging them.

Man, I haven't told you guys about TMA's experience on TV and our experience in the studio audience. It was so much fun! I have so many random thoughts on it that I'll do bullet points.

• First of all, TMA did an amazing job. It was one of those times when I was so proud of my kid...and all the band members...that I got choked up. They killed it!
• The studio taped two episodes that night, one right after the other, and we stayed for both. First they did TMA, then they did a band called Beverly Crusher.
• Being in the audience was interesting. Before everything started a guy talked to us about how we had to act a certain way, since we would be on TV, too. 1) We needed to get up close to the stage. 2) We needed to be really enthusiastic. 3) We needed to dance. I had no problem with 1 and 2, but I can't dance at all, so 3 was out of the question. Let's just hope the cameras stayed away from me.
• There were cameras everywhere! There were two big ones on, like, crane-type things that swooped around overhead, then there were people with handheld cameras getting in close. There were probably more than that, but those were the ones I saw.
• Now that they've finished the live music part of it, the band members have to be interviewed. Then it will all be put together and made into a half hour show, which will be aired on TV and on Alaska Airlines.
• At the end of the evening the band had to do what's called promos. I'll show you part of that in a video at the end.
•  Baylee got a lot of nice compliments. One person in the audience, the lead singer of another band called Actionesse, went up to her afterward and told her that she's his favorite drummer in the scene right now, because she's so precise. 

TMA did a ton of brand new music. Here's a part of a new song called "Little White Monster."

And here they are doing promos.

Before we went to this thing Mike and I went into Seattle and had dinner at a French restaurant. (Okay, it was Cajun French, but still.) When it was time for the bill a little part of me wanted to say, "L'addition, s'il vous plait!" but I didn't, because there's no good way to go about that. #French #TheLanguageYouCanNeverUse #WithoutLookingLikeAGiantDoucheCanoe

Then we walked around the Seattle waterfront for awhile and I took these sunset pics.

Finally, here are a couple pictures that Victory Studios posted on social media.

Wednesday

I was thinking about how popular words and phrases change over time, and how my kids are always saying things that I don't understand at first. Here's a good example: Last year Drew started saying "Whose mans?" Basically it means "What dummy did that?" Like one time we passed a roundabout in our neighborhood, only to find that someone had hit the traffic sign in the middle of it and knocked it to the ground. It was a strange thing to see on a road where the speed limit is 25, so Drew expressed surprise with, "Whose mans knocked that sign over??"

Anyway, as I was thinking about this I had a memory of something that happened when I was in college.  One day a bunch of us were sitting in someone's dorm room, talking together, when my friend Stacey said, "Hello!" to me. Remember how people used to say that? It meant, "Duh!" but back when Stacey said it it wasn't popular yet. In fact, I'd never heard it like that before and had no idea what she meant.  I looked at her for a minute, then I mimed having a phone up to my ear and replied, "Hello?  Hello?? Who is this?!"

Couple music-related things:

Drew bought a nylon-string guitar and has been playing classical music with it.  Here's something he's been learning.

In case you're interested, here's a professional classical guitarist telling the story of that song and playing it.

And tomorrow Baylee gets to do a TV show called Band in Seattle! I'm so nervous for her! It's on a big channel, NBC, but it'll only be aired locally and pretty late at night. Still, though!

PS:  When we first heard about it Mike and I had this conversation:

Me:  Is this going to be a Wayne and Garth situation?  You know, like channel 317 at 2am?
Mike:  [laughs] You mean public access TV? I don't think so.

And it isn't. It's a step up from that. We're excited!

Tuesday

This has been a medical-ish day. I got up really early in order to have Drew at the oral surgeon's office at the crack of dawn. He had three wisdom teeth removed (It was supposed to be two, but then they decided to do three.) while I sat in the waiting room for two hours. Blah. Afterward I took him home, and since then he's been kind of a terrible patient. The main problem is that they told him to take it easy today, but instead he's been up and about. He even said, "Alright, well, I'm going to school to practice in a rehearsal room." I had to stop him at the door and tell him to get his butt back on the couch.

And this afternoon I had my first physical therapy appointment for my finger. The therapist did a lot of measuring and testing for strength and stuff, and then she gave me these "buddy straps" to connect my bad finger to the finger next to it. It's supposed to force me to use the bad finger more, while still keeping it stable. (Don't look at my cuticles. They're horrible.)

To be honest, my first inclination now is to not use either of those fingers, which means I'm down to three unless I really focus on it. (As I left the PT office, for instance, I found myself pressing the button in the elevator with my ring finger. Doh.) I guess my homework this week is to stop babying the bad finger and slowly get used to using it again with the help of the one next to it.

Also, she made this splint for me to wear at night.

It'll keep it safe and help it heal faster. She said that part of the reason it's not doing well is that it hasn't been splinted almost at all in the two months since it happened.

Anyway, I'm going back next week, so hopefully there will be improvement!

PS: I had to take off the buddy thing to type this post, but I'm putting it right back on now.

Monday

Yesterday Drew excitedly came up to me, saying that he and I should only talk in French to each other. (He's in French 1 this quarter.) I was like, "Okay, but I'm going to be able to say a lot more than you, at least for awhile."

"That's fine!" he responded, so we decided to do it.

Later we had this conversation...

Me:  Hey, Drew, don't forget that...

Drew:  Say it in French!

Me:  But this is important.

Drew:  French!

Me:  Demain vous ne pouvez pas manger après le dîner.

Drew:  ...

Me:  ...

Drew:  Yeah, I didn't get any of that.

LOL  Doh. Something tells me this isn't going to work.

(I told him, "Tomorrow you can't eat after dinner," because he's got oral surgery the next morning. He's having a couple wisdom teeth out.)

Sunday

Drew just told me that the outfit I'm wearing right now makes me look like a soccer mom. I'm not sure why he said that or, more importantly, why it vaguely offended me, but there you are. I showed him, though, when I replied, "Tsk! I've never been to a soccer game in my life...as a mom!" (I had suddenly remembered the handful of boring games I sat through in college, so I had to qualify it.)

Honestly, so many parents have their kids involved in soccer, but I've always been glad we were never part of that. Soccer season is endless and the weather can be terrible.  There was a soccer field behind the pool building when Baylee was in swimming, and I used to see those poor parents huddled on the sidelines under umbrellas. Ugh.

I have so many pictures of the cat, but I haven't been showing them, because I don't want to seem like a crazy cat lady. Still, it's time to purge my phone, so...

 

His expression is saying, "Help me." lol

I'm almost positive I've told this story here before, but I'll tell it again, because 1) if I have told it, it's been awhile and 2) something on FB reminded me of it today.

One time in college I was in someone else's dorm room, sitting cross-legged on the end of her bed. She was wandering around cleaning her room, I think, and we were talking about this and that in a quiet way. The thing is, though, without me realizing it she had turned on her stereo, and the cassette tape that was in it, the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack, was exactly cued to that point where someone yells "Bonjour!" It was so loud and so startling that I toppled off the bed and onto the floor. Then we laughed until we cried.

Friday

I've been thinking lately that I'm happy, and it feels good. See, I wasn't all that happy for a long time...maybe a year or more...and it was painful for everyone in my family, sometimes in a back burner way and sometimes front and center. For most of the time I was going though it I thought it was happening because of menopause. I was sure of it, in fact. But now, looking at it from the other side, I realize it wasn't that. (Besides, my mom assures me I'm not in menopause yet. lol)  It was actually caused by the pain that came from having to relearn how to relate to my adult kids. In other words, I had to figure out how to let go, and that hurt.

I'm not going to go into detail, except to say that I wasn't a quick learner, so I made the transition way harder than it had to be. I think that's because I've always been a homeschool mom, very hands-on and involved, and I couldn't dial that down. I  came off as overbearing, which, of course, they didn't like, and that led to lots of arguments and ugly moments. At the same time I felt unappreciated and misunderstood, because really my motivation was love. Little by little, though, with tears (mostly from me) and conversations, Zach, Drew, Baylee, and I got to where we are now, which is, I think, a place of mutual respect. It's a good place. Like I said, I'm happy.

PS: I didn't talk about Mike in this whole equation, but he was the glue that kept things together. He's always been an even-keeled soul, so he's been the one to listen to us all, and then bring kind, quiet, rational thought into it. Thank God for him.

Tuesday

Okay, so I've resigned myself for the most part to having a weird finger that's bulge-y and doesn't bend. There's really only one thing about it now that makes me feel dorky, and that's when I'm doing any sort of gesture that requires curled fingers. (Tsk. Not that gesture. I mean like a thumbs up or a fist pump.) They make me look absolutely ridiculous, yet I can't seem to remember not to do them with that hand. (Try doing a fist pump, but leave your pointer finger sticking out. See what I mean?)

Something people say as a criticism of the type of curriculum we use* is that it doesn't require enough critical thinking. Luckily, by the time I heard that I had already used it long enough to know it's not true. People who say that don't understand the big picture. They probably only looked at the very youngest grades, where the teaching is gentle and the emphasis is on building a solid base, and not on the higher grades like high school.

Anyway, that's on my mind, because I've been so impressed already this year by how much critical thinking Baylee has had to do across the board. I'll give you an example. Last week in Baylee's Civics course she had to answer this essay question as one part of a daily assignment:

What influence did John Locke have on the republican form of the government of the United States?

She wrote:

John Locke's influence on the republican form of the government was a true God send. Locke believed that the government's job and sole reason for existence is to protect and benefit the people which it "rules" over. He said that man had rights by nature, including liberty, life, and ownership of private property. Locke preached that once government wasn't quite doing its job anymore, the people have the right to overthrow whoever caused the issue and install whomever they find fit. 

John Locke had many different essays, such as "Two Treatises of the Government," where he talked about his political stance, "Some Thoughts Concerning Education," which had influence on the founding fathers, "The Reasonableness of Christianity," and his biggest one, "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding."

John Locke was a very intelligent, wise, well-rounded individual. His thoughts and beliefs were a big part of what the republican government is today. As a matter of fact, John Locke had quite a bit of influence over none other than Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who kept his ideas in mind when writing the Declaration of Independence. 

One of the cool things about living in WA is the unexpected glimpses of beauty you sometimes get. That's Mt. Rainier in the background.

*It's called ACE, which stands for Accelerated Christian Education. The high school all my kids have gone through is an ACE school. That means that it's a Christian school that uses the ACE method and materials. That is, it's set up so that each student works through the curriculum as individually as possible. There are teachers and a principal, and there are things that everyone does in groups, but for the most part each student works at his own pace. This allows the ones who need extra time to get it, and the ones who could go faster to do so.

In case you're wondering, all my kids have gone through it at an average pace. In other words, they complete one year's worth of material in a year. This is partly because there's a ton to get through, especially at the high school level, and partly because I've never seen a need to push. My philosophy is to let my kids fill their free time with their own interests (like music), rather than drive them forward with more schoolwork.

Monday

Here's a post from a weight loss group I'm a member of, exactly as it was written by the poster:

"Hi I have found if I eat alot I get Dioreea does anyone else have the same"

There's a lot going on with it, I know, but I'm especially struck by how much the spelling of the word "diarrhea," plus the fact that the poster capitalized it, makes it look like a girl's name. And now I can't help but try to think of a good middle name to go with it. I'm thinking Dioreea Urene.