We celebrated my birthday a day early with an amazing Hummingbird Cake (no bones)
and pizza and games.
Mommy
Festival of Trees –
It was our third year to head to the Hyatt downtown to help decorate for the Festival of Trees with AHG.
It was Johanna’s squad again, and it is more than double in size from last year.
Afterwards we did our annual visit to Kilwin’s Ice Cream. It costs more than Culvers… but it is special.
It was a wee bit chilly, but otherwise a gorgeous night.
I love living in a place where I am not afraid to be downtown at night.
CBS efforts
Not really sure what to name this post, to be honest.
I am part of the servant’s team this year at CBS. I am the teacher for the Baby Class, that means kids under 18 months old. I watch the babies while their moms are in their core groups and teaching time. I certainly dropped off my kids for hundreds and hundreds of hours at CBS from 2002 through 2021, and I am glad to be on the volunteer side of things in this way.
However.
That means I have to arrive at 8:30AM so that we leaders can have our core group and praying time. And by default, that means Johanna and Katriel have to also go at 8:30AM.
We leave our house by 8AM. They bring a LOT of school work to do from 8:30AM to 10:15AM. Then they go to their class. I pick them up around 12:15PM after all the babies have been picked up and my room is clean. And then we head home. And if we are really lucky, we start OUR school by 1:45PM, after we have eaten and unwound a smidge.
It is really hard.
We are tired.
We are behind in our lessons. Too many Thursdays we don’t have the wherewithal to start looking for split infinitives and quadradic equations at 2:45PM.
But if it was easy, it wouldn’t be an offering. It seems really hard to imagine doing this for another 20 weeks. So we just focus on one week at a time and trust that God will help us to sow good things.
Table Rock
Three plus months later what I want to remember is that I survived this hike…
It started with a group of co-op seniors making a plan to do a hike at a park in the upstate. I was asked to be a chaperone by the sweet student coordinating the hike. This seemed wholly reasonable, as I love doing the things my kids do, and I have a van large enough to move groups easily.
Early that morning, Tab headed out in her own vehicle to pick up her friend Daniel who was going to join the seniors (he graduated from the co-op last year). I went to multiple stops to pick up other students. We waited for the kids coming from the west side, and we started our hike around 8AM.
I had zero idea what I had agreed to. None whatsoever. I had no idea it would be like 5 miles up and 5 miles back down. It took 5+ hours and I don’t know HOW I finished it.
At this point I rested and checked in on Instagram only to see most of the kids were already at the top. Like an hour later I finally got there!
Tab made it up in the group before me.
One of the students was kind enough to hang back with me as we made our way down. As I grabbed on to every rock along the way down, he nimbly looked at his phone the whole time he descended the mountain.
Live and learn.
It was no joke.
BUT I DID IT! At 51 years old!
Axe Throwing Mama
I was invited to join the other moms in Johanna’s AHG squad to go axe throwing.
I can’t even describe how amazing it was.
I actually felt tension leave my body as the ax left my hands.
I threw that ax at Covid lockdowns.
I threw that ax at rumor starting teenagers.
I threw that ax at people who make my kids cry.
I threw it at the elite ruling class.
We had so much fun.
Then we went and got BBQ and I ate 1/4 of my food. Because I apparently don’t eat anymore.
School’s done lunch
After Johanna, Katriel, and I went to a library field trip, we picked up Marie and Tab and headed to a local Mexican restaurant Tab had been to with friends.
It was incredible.
My only regret is that I had forgotten how I lost my appetite a month or so ago and my brain rarely remembers.
May the 4th
The balloons are still up from Tab’s birthday party. So we made good use of them.
It was Marie’s last day of her freshman year.
And we are getting serious about Tabitha clocking in driving. We hope she has her license by the end of summer.
Carnival Elation
John and I have been married almost 26 years and we have never gone away.
With Nan coming in for a month, and us living so close to cruise ports, we decided we’d do something crazy and take a four night cruise…
I was medicated to the hilt, and I mostly slept and moved from sitting in X to sitting in Y, but we had a nice time being fed and looking at the sea. And I would have been about good for nothing at home with the steroids and antihistamines.
The port is small and easy to access. We went out of Jacksonville.
Parts of the ship are kind of dark and ugly, and other parts are updated and lovely. All of it was clean and the staff was outstanding.
We hung out waiting for our stateroom to be ready.
It was a great room for two people.
We had a beverage package that allowed us to frequent the coffee bar.
Guy’s Burgers are the best.
The adults only quiet area of the ship. It got very busy at times.
We also got slushies with our package.
And Blue Iguana tacos. I had a few fish tacos over the days.
We visited Freeport.
The beach was lovely, but the waves were rough.
We got back to the ship in time for dinner.
We went to Nassau the next day.
And returned to the ship for some quiet time by the family slides.
Sea Day we went to the Dr. Seuss breakfast.
And had more Guy’s Burgers and Blue Iguana for lunch.
Before you knew it, it was time to go home.
And I would feel like I was on the ship for over a week.
It was a mess…
51 years old, and I now have to answer, “Yes,” to the question, “Are you allergic to any medication?”
Backing up a bit, on Feb. 13, I went to the provider and she diagnosed and ear infection and I started on Augmentin. I was not improving and on Feb. 17th, I went back and she gave me a steroid injection and started me on another medication.
I think I ended up with a virus on top of the ear infection, around about Feb. 20th, just as Nan and Noelle were joining us. I sort of stumbled through that week and all the activities (note the blog!) and then on Monday, the 27th, I noticed I had two small hives on my left wrist. Noelle flew out. I took Tab to archery, and by dinner time, my face and neck were involved.
I called the office before they closed and they set me up for a nurse visit on Tuesday morning. I was told to take Zyrtec, and that Benadryl probably wouldn’t help?
When I woke up this morning, I was covered with hives from my scalp to my knees. I could not get to my 9AM appointment fast enough.
I waited at least 30 minutes, itching like a crazy person, until I was given another shot of steroid, and an NSAID. I was told to absolutely take Benadryl WITH the Zyrtec.
I was miserable, but at least I was getting better. Nan was helping a lot with food and kids and household, and I was just miserable.
And then she lived happily ever after, right?
NOPE.
I did feel better and better as Tuesday went on. I found some steroid cream in my medicine bag and used that where I could and I think that helped some.
I expected to continue to improve on Wednesday.
But
by lunch time I was getting worse again.
And telling myself that I would be on the ship soon enough (John and I had a cruise planned for Thursday) and even thought I could just see the ship’s medical staff for more steroids if I needed them.
But then my brain came back to doing its job, and as John came home from picking the girls up from church around 8PM, I announced we were going to the ED. There is a wonderful free standing ED just around the corner from our house. And 90 minutes later I had a steroid shot, a ten-day supply of Prednisone, and instructions to take 50mg of Benadryl around the clock til I was better. The ED staff was superb and we were home and back to packing by 11PM (we had to stop at the 24-hr pharmacy).
Dayspring Disciples 