The good news is I'm using my bum finger. For instance, I tied my shoes with it for the first time in months the other day. The bad news is it's a work-in-progress. It's still partly numb, which gives me a weird I'm-using-someone-else's-body-part feeling, and I have somewhat limited movement and not a lot of strength. I was thinking about it this morning and came up with a good description. It's like I lost my finger in an accident...like maybe I was doing some woodworking and cut it off with a saw...but then I had it sewn back on with mixed results.
Pictures from lately:
Baylee and Winston
Now that Drew works at a second-hand store he's become a real thrifter. Last night he came home wearing this beautiful London Fog coat, which he bought for about $10. The sweater, jeans, and hat are thrift store buys, too. Shoot, the kid looks snazzier than all of us now, and he barely spends any money on it.
Drew petting the cat under the tree this morning
And here's one I took last night. I wanted to get a picture of the tree in the evening, when suddenly Gibbs ran over to it and stood like he was posing. He probably just wanted food or something, but it was cute nevertheless.
The clock on our dining room wall stopped working several weeks ago, and neither Mike nor I did anything about it. It still hung there, totally dead, until eventually I put a little note on it that said "NOT THE RIGHT TIME," because I kept looking at it and thinking it was 1:20. Finally a few days ago we got a new clock. Actually it was given to us by Danny, and it's been in Mike's family since Mike was a kid. (Danny didn't want it anymore, because he got a grandfather clock.) Our new clock is a Regulator, and it's really nice. It looks like this...
You have to wind it, and then the pendulum goes back and forth and makes a ticking sound, and the clock chimes. Here's the thing, though: Everything about the clock is really loud. The chiming is loud, and it's hourly. Think about that. It noisily chimes the hour all through the day and night. Even the ticking is loud. No matter where I am in the house I can hear the thing counting down the seconds of my life. Mike says I'll get used to it.
I got the house decorated for Christmas. I was nervous to do it and even considered not putting up a tree this year, because I was afraid the cat would climb it and knock the whole thing over, but ultimately I bit the bullet. Surprisingly, Winston hasn't bothered the tree at all! He just lies under it looking cute.
I downloaded an interesting app on my phone yesterday. It's called Forest, and it's simple. You hit start and grow a tree in a forest. It takes a certain amount of time to grow (I have mine set for a half hour), and you have to keep your phone on that app the whole time in order to make it work. In other words, you can't do anything else with your phone for that 30 minutes (except answer a call). The point of it is to help you get off social media and stop texting or calling for that time period, and just be present in real life. If you fail there's a dead tree in your forest.
Anyway, I did this all day yesterday and learned something about myself: My issue isn't really that I'm wasting time online, because I still get all my work for the day done. My issue is that my attention is often divided. I'm cleaning/cooking/doing school/grocery shopping/having a conversation with a family member/watching TV, but I'm also aware of my phone, if not on it. Forest helps me settle into whatever I'm doing in the moment. I like it! I grew a ton of trees yesterday, too.
Yesterday Danny and Patty came over, and we all went out for Thanksgiving dinner at a nice restaurant. It's funny, because only one of the seven of us got a traditional turkey dinner. Everyone else got creative. I had almond-crusted scallops with mashed potatoes and asparagus. Then afterward we went back to our house for snacks and dessert, conversation, and a game of Aggravation. It was a fun holiday!
(Patty cut Danny's dog's bangs, too.)
PS: My parents just got a computer, and my mom wrote her very first email ever yesterday. It was to us, and it included this picture of the MI grandkids on Thanksgiving.
Happy almost Thanksgiving! We're doing it a little differently this year, in that we're going out to eat and then coming back here for movies, games, snacks, and pie. It should be fun...and for sure it's been a lot less work.
We've been on Thanksgiving break all week, but Baylee and I decided to continue working on Algebra 2. I'm proud of us. By the end of this week we'll have done another chapter of that, plus Baylee's done a chapter in health and several days worth of civics. (That was her own idea. Her new thing is busing to a coffee shop with schoolwork and getting a ton done.) Anyway, it's been a productive "break."
This morning I woke up, looked at Mike, and said, "Did we get into a fight last night?"
"No," he answered. "Why?"
"Because I feel like I should be mad at you about something, but I can't remember what."
He laughed and told me I must've dreamed it.
Also this morning Mike (who's on vacation this week, btw) and I had a conversation about car doors opening and kids almost falling out. Turns out we both have a story from our childhood about it. Mine is that when my brother was a toddler he was sitting on my mom's lap in the passenger seat of an old car. I was in the back seat and my mom's friend, Rowena, was driving. Suddenly the passenger door flew open on its own and my brother came thiiiiis close to falling out. My mom caught him just in time.
Mike response to that was, "Everything about that story is funny, because it's exactly the way life was back in the 70's. The kid is in the front seat on someone's lap with no seat belt on, and the car door doesn't work." lol He's not wrong!
And here are some pics from the last few days.
Baylee took this next one. She and Mira were at Golden Gardens Park.
Baylee bought herself a used bass guitar for a great deal, and she's really excited to learn how to play it. This isn't a new thing, by the way. She's been wanting to learn for ages, but hasn't had the money or time until now.
Today she asked Drew how to get started, and I thought his advice to her was interesting. He told her to pick songs she liked and to figure out how to play them by ear. If necessary, he said she could look up guitar tabs for them online, but otherwise not to worry about reading music yet. He ended with, "You need to learn how to speak the language of music first. You can always learn how to read it later, and it'll be easy." Here they are having that conversation.
And I snapped this one of him messing around, just because I liked the way the light was hitting that lime green instrument.
The other day at my WW meeting one of the other members, a woman about my age or maybe a bit older, was talking about how we stop caring as much what people think of us when we get into our 40's. I've been mulling that over on and off since then, and I've come to a conclusion, at least about myself: It's not really that I don't care what people think, because I still do. I would rather have people think well of me than not. It's that I'm willing to do what I want, even if it means I'm making them unhappy.
Today something else occurred to me. I think the reason why so many of us come to this place in our 40's is because that's when our kids are in their late teens/early adulthood. They force the issue just by being themselves, and we have to develop a thick skin in order to stay sane through it.
Anyway, those are just some random thoughts. Nothing bad is going on or anything. Well, today Drew did try to guilt me into taking him to work when he missed the city bus, but I said no, and he ended up taking an Uber instead. A couple years ago...probably even last year...I would've caved, but now? I'm at the point where I can honestly say NMP and just let him be mad at me (and late for work).
Here's a funny series of pictures of Baylee and the cat, Satan. I mean Winston.
He's not exactly happy about it, but he's putting up with being held.
Two seconds have passed and he's over it.
Baylee didn't immediately grant his wish to be put down, so he swiped at her with his claws, narrowly missing. This picture was taken right after that. PS: He's got a "Cash me outside" look on his face, doesn't he? (Go here if you don't understand that reference and want to.)
I was given that tube quite awhile back, and at that time I couldn't begin to wrap my finger around it. All it did was frustrate me and make me feel like physical therapy was useless. But now look! Yay!
I have to admit that PT has been good. I'd say the best thing about it for me is that it's made me comfortable with being uncomfortable. Before PT, when I was just hoping things would get better on their own, I wasn't doing anything that would cause the finger any pain. Now I know that pain is not only okay but necessary to fixing this.
Zach designed this TV stand for class.
He's doing all kinds of stuff like that, and he's also drawing on paper quite a
bit. A week or so ago he showed me a sketch that he drew of a hallway
with doors on each side. It had perspective, like it actually seemed like you were looking down the hall, which was cool. He's doing well, and I'm proud of him and happy
for him. He's seems to have found a niche.
Baylee took these sunset pictures the other evening.
Finally, here's a screenshot of part of my music playlist. I've got Morrow's album and TMA's album on there. It's weird and fun to be listening to my kids. PS: TMA was pretty excited last night, because one of their new songs, "Full Lizard," was played on KEXP, a radio station here in Seattle.
This morning I went to my second WW meeting (I switched from Monday nights to Thursday mornings, because it works better for my schedule.), and it was another good one. I was the youngest in there by maybe a decade, and the majority of the people were at least 2 decades older than me (Just as a frame of reference, there was a woman in there named Dorcas.), but it was fine. And I lost 3 pounds!
I gave myself another Lloyd Christmas haircut last night.
I've been cutting my own bangs since high school, and it seems like 95% of the time I accidentally go too short. Then I tell myself that I'd better leave it up to the professionals, but the next time my hair is in my eyes I do the same thing all over again. Oh well. It'll look good in about 3 or 4 weeks.
Yesterday at the end of a practice drive Baylee and I had this conversation...
Her [stepping out of the car]: That was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed that! Me: That's great, but would you mind actually turning the car off and taking the key out of the ignition?
Sigh.
Mike and I went out for a pho date the other day, because pho is gluten-free.
I'm absolutely loving the website I found online for learning French grammar. It's called kwiziq, and it takes what you know and builds on it. The way it does that is it gives you a placement test, then starts you in the level that's best for you personally, anywhere from A0 (total beginner) to C1 (almost fluent). I'm embarrassed to say that I tested into A1, but that's because, even though I have a prettty high level of French reading comprehension, my grammar is atrocious. After you're placed you're given 10-question quizzes. The things you get wrong are explained to you, and then you're quizzed on them over and over in different ways, until you know them backwards and forwards. Then you're given new things to learn. It even has a picture called a "brain map," where it shows you what you know well in green, what you're still learning in yellow, and what you've completely screwed up in red. The A1 section of my map is almost all green now! (The A0 area is yellow, but that's just because I placed past it and haven't messed with it yet.)
The other thing I've been doing lately is going through that program I already mentioned, Learn French with Victor. I enjoy it, because it's all in French, but it's slow and pretty easy to understand. It's also interesting because it was made in the 1980's, so it has some weird little idiosyncrasies. For instance, they use francs instead of euros, and everybody smokes cigarettes 24-7.
I took this today of Baylee and the school mascot. lol
Mike and I had a long car ride to Tacoma the other day, since it was Friday and that means extra traffic. It ended up taking us way more than an hour to get there, so we had lots of time to talk. One of the things we discussed was the blog post I wrote about a week or so ago, the one about the mission that took funds from me without asking and without allowing me the opportunity to give on my own. Long story short, it got me thinking about how this idea of forced generosity vs. voluntary giving extends to other things. I can think of two examples:
1. As a homeschooler I've run across people over the years who have told me that it's my Christian duty to put my children in the local public school. Their reasoning is that my kids are supposed to be a light in a dark world. It doesn't matter that the reverse is what's more likely to happen (that is, the school will have a negative influence on my children, rather than my children having a positive influence on the school), and it doesn't even matter that the school might not offer my kids what they need educationally. In those people's minds it's only important that we're there, acting as missionaries and working to make the system better.
2. I sat in church one time, maybe three or four years ago, listening to a guest preacher. His sermon was on how, even if a church is sick and/or dying, it's our duty as a congregation to stay in it and actively work to fix it. In other words, we shouldn't give up on it and go to another church.
I can see that in both situations those people are well-meaning. They want what they think is good and right. Here's the thing, though: Should we really pressure (guilt) people into enrolling in schools or staying in churches, even though that's not what they'd choose on their own? Isn't that like trying to force their generosity, instead of allowing them to voluntarily give of themselves based on their own convictions? Finally, are those people, who now feel obligated to be there, really going to be working to make those places healthy?
*shrug* Just a thought.
Total change of subject: This morning I took Drew to school for the first time in ages...months and months actually..and I saw that they're building dorms on that campus...and it's a community college! Isn't that wild? Drew said that the school is probably going to become a 4-year college at some point, though, so it makes sense. I'm glad, because it's a great place. It deserves to be more.
The other night when Mike and I were having dinner with Danny and Patty we all started talking about the way kids were raised back in the '70s and '80s, especially concerning food. We all laughed about it, because both Mike and I have humorous stories about being skinny kids who didn't need or want to eat a lot, but being made to clean our plates anyway.
I remember one time my brother and I were at my aunt Karen and uncle Dan's house. (To further set the scene, I was probably around 6 or 7, and it was common for Eric and me to be over there. We spent tons of time with their family [They had two kids themselves, my cousins Cara and Aaron], so they were very comfortable taking care of us and even disciplining us if needed.) Anyway, that night Aunt Karen made white rice with butter and brown sugar on it for dinner, and I wouldn't eat it, because I didn't like it. Everybody else gobbled it up and was excused to go watch TV in the living room...probably Little House on the Prairie or something good like that...but I had to sit there until I was finished with the meal. I mean, they literally turned off the kitchen light on me and left! Finally I realized there was no way out but through, so I choked it down.
Later in life...like when I was around 10 or so...I got more adept at handling the "clean your plate" rule (because, of course, it was in effect at my house, too) by becoming devious. I would hold an open napkin just below the edge of the table, and when nobody was looking I'd dump food into it. Then I'd pocket it and throw it away later when the opportunity arose.
All that to say, I think it's best not to make kids eat what they don't want or when they're not hungry. It creates a bit of an unhealthy attitude toward food.
We've had a busy weekend! Early Friday morning Bri texted me to say that TMA's new EP, Blunt, is now available for purchase. I immediately bought it online, then laid in bed with headphones listening to it. I'm so proud of that band, and especially Baylee (since she's my kid). It's weird to think they went to Idaho for a week this summer and made this! Here's my favorite song. Baylee's on drums, of course, but she's also doing the back-up vocals in this one.
Then on Friday night Mike and I drove to Tacoma, where we got together with Danny and Patty for dinner, and then the four of us met up with Mike's cousin James at the EP release show. It was at a beautiful venue, a place called Alma Mater, and TMA put on a phenomenal performance! I have a couple videos, but they don't do the sound justice at all. Oh well. At least you'll get an idea, and you'll see what a cool stage it was.
Here are some pics. The girls took this one the night before, I think.
Baylee took this one of her and Jonny beforehand as well. This show was Jonny's last with TMA, which is sad, but he was never meant to be permanent. He's got his own band (Cashing in Karma), and he wants to focus his energy on that now. We'll miss him! He's a super nice guy with a lot of talent.
TMA has officially opened up their auditions to male guitarists now, because they just haven't found anyone yet. For a long time they were only auditioning female guitarists, but all the women who tried out haven't been a good fit for whatever reason. (One of the main reasons is that several of them weren't truly guitar players in the sense that it was their main talent. Instead they were singer/songwriters who could play the guitar, but mostly just to accompany themselves.) Anyway, hopefully they'll find someone now.
Mike and I with Bri at the show.
Drew was there, too. He went with friends, though, not his parents. lol
Baylee's friend Mira came.
There were actually a lot of people there, and the audience was really into it. That's always fun.
The album cover.
In totally other news, Mike went to the doctor because of an ongoing (and by ongoing I mean, like, more than a decade) problem with a skin rash on his face, especially around his eyes.* The doctor asked a lot of questions, found out about several other issues Mike has/has had pretty much his whole life, and then she ran blood tests. Long story short, Mike has celiac disease. He started changing his diet a few days ago, and already he's noticed a major difference. For one thing, his rash is almost gone! Anyway, relearning how to eat is going to hard for him, but worth it.
*A long time ago he went to another doctor about this, but that one just prescribed some cream and called it good. The cream didn't really work that well, and now we know why. It didn't deal with the underlying cause.
Have you ever woken up in a completely fine mood, or so you thought, only to find that pretty much every interaction with your family makes you want to punch them in the face annoyed? #MeToday
I never got back to you guys about my WW meeting. It was great! I really like the leader, a woman named Jodi, and the vibe of the group is dynamic. I'm gonna enjoy going every Monday.
Also, I had a good physical therapy appointment this week. I happened to have a different therapist, because my usual one was booked, and I liked him so much better. He gave me realistic exercises and took the time to explain what's going on and what I can expect in terms of recovery.
He also gave me this thing, which I have to wear for about an hour a day. It's supposed to make it so I can straighten my finger again. (Because not only does it not bend, but it also doesn't straighten.)
That's as straight as it gets.
Bet you never thought you'd see this many pictures of somebody's pointer finger over the course of several weeks. You're welcome.
TMA is releasing their new EP tomorrow! I've heard the songs (because the producer sent them out to the band members as he completed them, and Baylee let me hear them) and they're great. It's interesting to me that I've gone through this twice now, once with Drew in Morrow and now with Baylee in TMA, and both times I was equally excited, even though the two genres of music are so different.
Speaking of Drew, he's been working his butt off this quarter between school and his job, and lately he's been getting a little discouraged about the lack of time he's had to dedicate to music. The other night he told Mike, "This practicing only two hours a day thing isn't cutting it!" He was dead serious. lol
I'm into two new French resources right now. One is this weird show called Learn French with Victor, which I'm using to improve my listening skills, and the other is a website called kwiziq, which is helping me with grammar.
Here's some Learn French With Victor. It's got people doing different things while they talk in slow, clear French to each other, and I like that, but it also has strange cartoon sections where a character named Victor talks to...God, I guess?...in French. Cue it up to 3:03 and you'll see what I mean.
