Some days everything just seems to fall into place and you believe there is someone watching out for you. My big Classical Conversations childcare dilemma seems to have come to what looks like not just resolution, but something even better. If it works out, it could be a win-win for everyone. I would be able to relax and do the directing and tutoring I'd need to do, all of my kids would not just be supervised, but would have someone who could help them work their schoolwork and memory work. I get to do something professional that I'd like to do, they get another person's input in their life. I can scarcely believe it might be possible.

Then, and I feel funny talking about it, I hit a major find at Goodwill. There was a Trek 820, a much, much newer model than my old 820, with shocks, very, very little rust, and other than two flat tires, seemingly working parts. It's just the size for Ollie or for me. And I found the elusive desk. Kerry says that it is amazingly ugly, but I think it's just right for the job. It's big enough, but not too big. It has space for the CPU to keep it off the floor, a shelf for the printer (though I will admit, the placement of it may not be optimal for how often I have to photocopy), and it's really not that ugly--it's kind of a natural color, and yes, it's fake wood, but that's okay. It doesn't require a ton of real estate in my tight library/office/sitting area.

Then I bit the bullet and did something that I have been wanting to do since I changed the room in the first place--I moved all of the hate-to-be-moved bookshelves back along one wall. No, it doesn't optimize the furniture placement options for that room, but it just looks better than it did before, and my previous incarnation of that room blocked the french doors that go into the family room. As soon as even one bookcase was moved, I felt my heart all aflutter simply from seeing the blue glow of the TV in the family room peeking through. Not that's it's about the TV--it's really about having sunlight coming from the front windows and heading back into a room with no windows straight to the outside. But I feel a breath of fresh air. Okay, so the room is a total disaster now, and I don't know where I'm putting one small Ikea bookcase and a giant Ikea cube thingy with 16 cubicals, and there's the ugly hutch thing with no doors on the top where we keep our art supplies. But I can send at least one of those things up to Rutledge's room, which also needs an overhaul. That's a job for another blast of energy and another day.

This morning we put together our 4x8 planter box which will house my square foot garden. I had one of my raised beds collapse and kind of disappear (I think two sides are nailed to a tree as a ladder up the trunk...), but my other square foot garden is already planted and I'm excited about the season. I plan to finish putting in my "Mel's Mix" tomorrow morning, and then I can put in a few seeds I have and prepare for my spring/summer vegetables. I'm putting it in a new spot and hoping that I will perhaps get a little sunlight. Our back yard is so very full of trees and shade that it is hard to find more than two hours of sunlight anywhere. This is my last big attempt. My box is cedar, and it looks awesome, and I'm proud of us for having it done in 15 minutes.

Then we went to a friend's house to make mason bee houses, which are basically pieces of wood with 3-4" holes drilled into them to make a hospitable housing zone for these stingerless bees. I plan to put one near each of our raised beds, and hopefully the happy pollinators will show up and keep things reproducing. It was a very fun afternoon, and I hope to spend more time with these new friends because they seem very relaxed and fun. The kids enjoyed jumping on the trampoline, painting people's nails, and catching up with some friends we haven't seen much lately much more than they did making bee homes, but Ollie did a pretty nice job of handling the drill on his own and making his own home.

Unfortunately, I still managed to run myself silly today. Floor estimate made me late for preschool. Back for pickup, figure out a quick lunch, go to bee home making, then to Goodwill, then to ballet, then home for about an hour, then back to pick up Frances and take Rutledge to his dance class, then rush to swim lesson, then rush home for a Go-To-Meeting. At 9:15, the day finally felt like it was mine, and of course I was starving (missed 2 meals in this runaround!), needed to tidy up, needed to check regular email, and the kids wanted to be read to. I'm reading "Carry on, Mr. Bowditch" with the older ones. And I wonder if we'll ever finish "Misty of Chincoteague" with all three. I can't wait for spring break to slow things down!

My painting projects are still very unfinished, which is also making me crazy. The turquoise family room is pretty much a done deal, but I need to get up the outlet covers. And sand one area and repair the drywall, which I'd prefer to have someone professional do because I suck at drywall and this is a very, very prominent location that everyone sees and where imperfections are going to be obvious (of course anything is better than giant holes in the wall and silver corner bead sticking out with globs of plaster in other places. I still maintain that it looks a combination of awesome and weird. With maybe the weird winning out. The "divine white" zone is just plain not done. And it's undone in an ADD kind of way, too--streaks here and there, random rolled zones, some area with paint on every wall, but not a single one completed. So that is a weekend goal. I can't even afford the paint at this point, since I've spent so much on other projects. But again, anything is better than walls with huge greasy stains everywhere, and anything is better than drawings and scribbles.

The good news is, it's spring, it's Easter, and hopefully less will be asked of us in the coming week and we can concentrate on having fun and on getting things in order. That's what spring is all about, right?

Today was Tuesday...the preschool pickup, piano lesson, art class, Latin class, hip hop and modern dance, counseling session, swim lesson, dive practice day. But who's keeping track of the schedule, right? It really wasn't so bad.

My homework for this week is to take some time to think and make a list of all of the physical obligations I'd leave behind if I defected to Colorado. It's very exciting to think of. I think there mere thought of this homework makes my whole family angry. The truth is, I'd bag most everything I'm doing if I flew the coop. I don't really even feel bad about saying that.

I'm on this dog walking kick. It really needs to not be a kick but a lifestyle. Bilbo is fat. Fat like a beagle can be. The diet part is easy to change--just make it impossible for him to get his daily dose of cat food. But the exercise element is more challenging. I have been trying to take him out at least twice a day on a short walk, but I'd like to get to the three walk point. So far, it is helping some. He isn't peeing on the floor as much, and I haven't picked up poop in the house this past week, either (well, there was that nasty diarrhea behind Ollie's bed...how does a kid not only smell poop, but step in it in a nearly spotless bedroom and not know where the source of the poop is? Alas, I found it by sticking my hand right into it. Eww.). Tonight the kids and I went down to the reservoir and took a long walk around the big loop and played at Tom Sawyer Island. The fishing people were out in force, so there were lots of dead and live fish to poke at. Bilbo enjoys getting out and greeting his public. With any luck, he'll get healthier in the process, and perhaps housetrained as well.

Our carpet and hardwood estimate was staggering--more than double what I expected. It's time to search for Plan B. I just want it done yesterday. In preparation for this golden future time, I'm attempting to do a serious spring cleaning and repainting and to purge all the stuff we don't want to move for the flooring folks. I'm wondering if all of our furniture in the bedroom will fit in the master bath. I can dream, right? I'm really wanting this done in the next month. Even if it leaves us with no savings at all.

We're reading Misty of Chincoteague. It's not a book I've ever exactly loved, but since it is semi-local, I'm supposed to adore it. It's okay. And it goes rather quickly because it has pages full of pictures. Still, it's a good book to be familiar with (Ollie and I listened in the past and he remembered most of the details) and for Virginians to know. The older boys and I are reading _Carry On Mr. Bowditch_, another Newbery winner that I'm not sure about yet. It's hard for all of us to get into it, but we're only about 60 pages in, so it might get more exciting. Both this and Misty are hard to read out loud because of all of the dialect. I do it especially poorly and muddle words all up. Still, these are popular books and part of my literacy plan.

This morning I had Frances and Ollie take a cognitive skills test online so that I can figure out a relative baseline before I determine what kind of brain training I'm going to have them do. Ollie's had the Woodcock Johnson and the WISC and did highly variably on both--sky high and rock-bottom on various subtests, so much so that he doesn't have an IQ at all, which is fine with me. But still...do I help him work on his weaker areas. So they did the Gibson Test of Brain Skills, and I made a total muddle of Frances's test. She did so badly that even though it isn't an IQ test, if we treated it as one her IQ would be somewhere around 80, which I know isn't true. I had her do it on my mac and with the touch mousepad instead of a real mouse, and she kept accidentally minimizing and maximizing the screen, couldn't hear the instructions clearly, and had some kind of technical difficulty with one of the subtests, which kept shooting up an error message and starting over. I straightened it out and had her retake the test, and she did considerably better--not alarmingly great, but not alarmingly bad. Now I feel like I know more about where she needs to work so that learning is easier for her. She's a very strong reader, but like my others, she did very sketchily on one of the auditory processing tests. Ollie, on the other hand, took the test on the big computer with the huge monitor and decent speakers, and he was extremely strong--none of his typical weak cognitive areas, probably because he didn't have to use a pencil and manipulate anything but a mouse with his hands. His grapho-motor and fine motor difficulties really affect his performance on more traditional tests. Even his processing speed was up in the mid 90s of percentiles, whereas he has, in the past, been in the 10th. Then again, we have kind of worked up his processing, even with a pencil and paper, through the sporadic training I've done with him.

I also made a decision to push for Frances to get allergy testing. I suspect food allergies, possibly even celiac disease, but I'm wondering if anyone is going to humor me and let her get tested. That's coming up Friday--the begging appointment. I feel like some of her behavior/whininess and her puffy eyes and dark circles may be a result of an allergy to some food, and elimination diets are hard for me with our already limited diet, so I'd appreciate the help of an outsider, even if it is imperfect. I don't know if allergy testing is ever ordered for children who don't have anaphalactic reactions, but I'm going to find out. I change her dosage and configuration of regular allergy medicines; she is now taking Claritin and Nasonex. So far it has resulted in little more than a nosebleed. Hopefully it will relieve her running nose after a few days. I know I act crappy when I have a sore throat or a stuffy nose, so maybe resolving that will resolve some other things.

Tomorrow is supposed to be really nice, and I'm kicking it off with my first tennis match. I'm playing with my favorite partner, and we're playing at the #4 position, which sounds awesome to me. We don't really belong at the level where we are, so being at #4 gives us a ghost of a chance to win. And to be honest, I'm really only having fun with tennis when I'm winning. It's a character flaw of mine. Why play if you aren't going to improve your record? I've been on a roll lately, so I hope that my skill and luck hold out.

You know it's been a long time since a post when Blogger "forgets" you. Bummer.

There was this big irony yesterday. I was asked to lead the women's Sunday School class, and the topic was Boundaries. I'm still rolling on the floor laughing at that one. What on earth could I possibly say about boundaries, given that, well, I have absolutely none myself. In a friendship gone remarkably wrong a couple years ago, I was given a book on Boundaries, called, I think, just that. I had kind of read or skimmed through it at some earlier point in my life (yes, my boundaries have been pretty fuzzy since about day one), but I read it then and I read it again this week and boy oh boy, I hope there's no multiple choice quiz on the thing. I guess I just don't get it. Actually, I do get it, loud and clear, while I'm reading. Nancy: you suck! But the second the book closes, I can't remember for the life of me at all what it said, other than that the only way to get some boundaries if you aren't blessed to be born with them is to spend $100 an hour on therapy with someone who will not provide you unconditional love. And to have a support group. And that there are a gazillion kinds of boundaries that I wouldn't want to have to differentiate in a final exam type situation. And I probably have none of them. And I can't even entirely figure out where my boundaries went out of bounds.

So here were the nuggets of wisdom that I did find and share about boundaries, along with the props which are still in my purse. There are two verses about a gazillionth of an inch apart in the microscopic-printed Galations in my Bible that seem to contradict each other--one that says that we are to bear each other's burdens, and one which commands that we are to carry our own loads. Huh? So the way this book explained it, the Greek word for "burden" meant something like "enormous things that would crush us if we tried to carry them by ourselves." Like a boulder. And the Greek word translated here as "loads" means the daily stuff we carry around. Like our knapsack. Or my purse, which these days is big and full enough to be more than just a "knapsack" with daily items and, indeed, does currently contain a miniature boulder. Because, see, I have no boundaries and haven't managed to evacuate from my purse the pile of small plastic animals, Fisher-Price fences, miniature knapsacks, and four pound rocks that I put in it to try to get me through this discussion yesterday.

Anyway, the point is, I suppose we are not intended to carry the boulders in our life by ourselves--the things that would crush us. We need help with those, and if we fail to ask for help with them, we'll be crushed, and that would not be a good thing. But we should carry our knapsacks by ourselves. This means that we shouldn't, at 38, be begging our mother for money or coercing "friends" to pick up our children every single day because we are always late, and other things that I can imagine myself doing if I had a mother or had friends who would comply with that kind of thing. And boundary issues arise when we confuse our boulders with our knapsacks or our knapsacks with a boulder. I like the image, actually. Always thinking in metaphors and not afraid to mix them, I imagine that we could also see boundaries as a cell membrane. What they don't seem to be is a wall. A wall doesn't have openings (unless it's my wall, which has a lot of holes from various projects gone wrong, nails in and out, doggie gates ripped straight out of them, spots where I was going to recess bookshelsves, etc.). But a cell membrane is porous and permeable, and bad stuff can come out, and good stuff can go in.

In my weeklong stewing about what I could say on Sunday morning that wouldn't turn into outright whining, TMI, shameless begging, wallowing in self-pity, or dissolving in a puddle of tears, I did manage to do all of the above while plumbing the depths of my problem with saying no to things. And what a week it was to do it in, since I was the queen of resentment and overwhelmedness when I accidentally double booked some spots on my schedule not just once, but three times! Three separate days of heart-pounding, blood-pressure raising, what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do-now-because-they-don't-clone-humans-yet two-timing. It was pretty awful. And embarrassing. Tuesday night I told someone who had a legitimate issue that I would meet them at the pool to collect some papers for dive team *at the exact same moment as Frances was getting out of dance class 20 minutes away.* On Thursday I was supposed to be at a director's meeting and a Boy Scout new parent orientation meeting that is a requirement for signing up for summer camp. Sunday I had set up a lunch date downtown with someone at the same time that my daughter was singing in church, and by the time I realized it, I couldn't get in contact with the person. Yikes. I felt so awful. And there was all that blood-pressure raising, heart-pounding crap with it. It all worked out, but I was beyond a chicken with its head cut off!

So here I am with boundaries. As a result of last week, I did step out of my typical conflict-averseness and stand up for my own needs. It hasn't gotten anywhere yet, but I'm ready to pursue what I really need so that I can avoid a year's worth of stress and strife for my family. I'm trying to put some time parameters around my swim and dive board obligations. There are questions I can't answer, loops I'm not in, and I am eating myself up with guilt when I pass along wrong information, get sucked in the middle of confusing information, and don't keep up with every single email without a clear antecedent. I spent much of Saturday blaming myself for something that it turns out wasn't even something I had done. But I didn't know that and assumed I must have been the source of the screwup, since I didn't know for sure that I hadn't. I surely can't rely on my memory any more. I have the memory and attention span of an 85 year old with Alzheimer's these days.

It's all been a signal that I'm doing too much. There are many things that aren't really working in my life, things that I'm plodding through with one foot in front of the other while they still manage to take my time. I have a hard time saying no to things, and I'm trying to trace it back to something I can blame my parents for. I'm reading in all these books that this is what I'm supposed to do. Of course, knowing the root may not get me anywhere for tomorrow. But still, I could stand to pitch a little blame at someone other than myself these days!

So my analysis is that even though I had thought that I grew up in a perfectly "normal" and typical home, I really did heap upon myself some sense of responsibility for proving that my parents could have a "typical" family despite their disabilities. I think I may have felt a sense of obligation to use my various abilities (we're not talking extraordinary gifts--we're talking about basic ability to walk and talk without physical difficulty, to get around in the world, to get to where other people are) "to the fullest" because there are people who are not able to do these things and I should not take them for granted. So perhaps I started doing, well, everything. I was the person who went up to the stage something like 17 times during our junior and senior year awards ceremony because there was hardly a club, publication, society, or activity that I hadn't been a part of. And I also don't think I ever really stopped seeking my mother's approval, perhaps because she thought that I walked on water, and even though she didn't mean to, she may have conveyed to me that I must live up to her seeming belief about me. The thing is, she has been dead for seven years, and quite frankly, no one thinks I walk on water any more, and the wetness up to my neck that I'm feeling as I try to keep my head above water these days is ample proof that yeah, I neither walk nor float.

My solution these days is kind of a drastic one. Instead of actually getting some balls and making changes so that I become a more likeable person, a person that I would want to be for myself, and a person who has a shred of sanity, I've determined that the only viable way out is to move to Colorado. Alone.

To that end, I've decided that I should probably enlist the help of a counselor. This is partly because walking right out on your family is probably legally considered abandonment, and it would be best to have gone through the proper channels to CMA, just in case I did act on this urge. If I was in Colorado, I could conceivably reinvent my entire being, drop my own pretenses for myself, and start from scratch. And I've never actually been to Colorado, so it has to be perfect, right? It just sounds very far, far away. And I don't know a single soul in the entire state. That's a part of the appeal.

What I'm hoping is that a counselor will urge me to either leave part of my family right here where I am or will help me fix all that is wrong with me and make me a less "mean" person who is a better listener. Trouble is, this would be the 4th counselor I've seen, and I'm still pretty screwed up and haven't changed a whole lot. I've even been told that I'm becoming even more mean and cold and horrible at listening, actually, since those previous attempts happened. I'm starting to think that the mean girl thing might be something I should actively embrace, since it may be here to stay.

On the proactive front, I did make some decisions this week. I can't work without childcare. That stupid aquarium is depriving me of things that I really want and possibly need in life. The cleaning/new pump/dead fish of the past week cost more than an entire week of camp for a kid, camp that we supposedly "can't afford." A less-than-one-week-break-that-isn't-really-a-break-because-I'll-have-a-5-and-an-8-year-old-still-home when I don't get a vacation at all from my job, however chosen it is, lost out to a piscine extermination camp that leaked all over our floor and ruined it. And we're still throwing money at it. It went out on Craigslist on Friday, but so far it's still sitting in my living room. I also determined that while I may not exactly bring in any real, useable money, the least I could do was change how I was spending it. We didn't sign up for any classes other than a preschool class for Rutledge while I'm teaching writing and Frances's acting class, which I'm kind of regretting right now because I am going to be playing tennis on Wednesday and can't figure out how I'm going to be in two places at once. I think I'm saving somewhere between $275 and $350 by doing this. I also have been religiously avoiding Starbucks for about 3 weeks now. I've gone once, and it was on what I convinced myself was a special occasion, though now at past midnight a week and a half later, I'm having a hard time remembering exactly what was so special about it. I estimate we'll save about $100 a month just by denying myself that little ritual. If I really need coffee, which I don't, I can make it at home (though the coffee press just smashed to bits in our dishwasher and our drip coffeemaker is missing a pot). Or drink tea. Or drink water, which would be even better. What I'm trying not to do is substitute my Starbucks addiction with a fountain soda one. But at least they tend to cost about 1/3 of the price of even a smallish mocha frappacino. The last thing I did was determine that I must liberate myself from what the Flylady (who I really don't like) calls CHAOS--Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. Boy do I have it. My house is mortifying. It is so gross, and much of the gross in it can't be fixed. Like the people who leave the dirty, inside-out socks all over the place and the food wrappers and used tissues on the floor.... Oh wait, I meant the things that couldn't be changed are the things like the water and pee stains that have ruined our wood floors and the lack of sealing on them that makes them impossible to truly clean. And the carpets that are more than 20 years old and that have holes down to the backing in some places, a whole gallon of yellow paint spilled in one spot, and appalling stains. And the walls with the incidental child "artwork" on them and the greasy prints. So I went on a little campaign this weekened. I painted my family room turquoise, which is Pantone's 2010 Color of the Year. It's a little frightening, if I do say so myself. It's not especially "grown-up" looking. Probably more of an accent than an all-over wall color. But there it is. A tropical paradise right in the middle of suburbia. Merely the fact that it's not dirty is a plus for its column. Then I tackled the especially filthy and ball-point pen and pencil desecrated areas below our kitchen chair rail and up our staircase. This had been a brownish color called "Nomadic Desert," but I took it one tone lighter on the paint chip and made it "Divine White." Unfortunately, the red wall next to it seemed to make it 'pull' pink. So I threw myself at the mercy of the Sherwin Williams guy and asked him what the safest neutral for new homes is. What we determined is that instead of changing my wall color, I should change my trim color to a more pure white. I thought I had a very white-white, but after seeing it on a paint chip next to whiter whites, I discovered that it does have a bit of a yellow tone to it. So I bought a particularly over-expensive gallon of semi-gloss to redo my trim in the areas with the new Divine White, and I have to say, the sample spots I did with the new paint may just be able to redeem the pinkish feel and turn it to the "neutral" I've always dreamed of.

There were, in fact, a lot of things that happened this weekend, even though, by some of our ridiculous weekend standards, it was less eventful than some. Walter and Ollie are now officially Boy Scouts. They have their Scout badge and have their first camping trip with their new Troop in less than a month. Their crossover ceremony was on Friday night, and there was a life lesson moment there. They had not done their Arrow of Light, and quite frankly, neither had I. They don't even know where their Webelos books are. So they didn't get to go up with everyone else and receive an award. I told them that if this was important to them, they would have taken some initiative. They didn't. So you don't get the award. But Arrow or not, they are now real Boy Scouts. Saturday night we went to a progressive dinner. This just intensified my feeling that our house is really weird. These houses were so perfect, so tasteful, so...clean. Who knows--they may have someone who comes in to clean once or twice a week. Their kids may be scarred for life because they have to keep things perfect. They may have spent the past 25 hours before we arrived scouring every baseboard and hiding all of their inside-out socks under the beds upstairs so that their downstairs was immaculate. What I can say is that they had the right paint colors. And no one had a turquoise family room!

I play tennis tomorrow morning, and then the suburban season starts the next day. I am played tonight against a friend who is very evenly matched with me, and I won, which felt good. I needed that this week. I can't believe that spring is really here. Rainy. Wet. But here. And I am determined that this is my year to move up to 3.5. That is, if I don't move to a tennis-less hamlet in Colorado!

Greetings from the black hole.

I still have no pictures, but I do have a brand new camera that should have been here a few days ago...my birthday present after our previous camera was stolen. And I'm lazy and not very good at getting pictures off my other one, which is constantly in my car or somewhere not at hand when I have time to write.

Here are highlights of the past two weeks:

* Great run of Little Prince. Life changing. Most exciting thing in all her 8 years. A very proud mother.

* An E.R. visit for a possible gallbladder problem, but ultrasound still showed a gallstone, but no blockage, inflammation, thickening, or other indications of an acute issue. Could have been just a serious gluten reaction, though I'm not sure what I might have had. The last thing I had before 8 hours of a gripping, dull pain started was a drinkable yogurt, so that couldn't have been it. And prior to that, I had a salad, but the dressing seemed safe, and I don't usually react to gluten, even when I accidentally get it, this strongly. Whatever it was did end by the time I was at the E.R. I sincerely pray it doesn't return.

* All-nighter of abdominal pain and morning E.R. visit canceled my training for Classical Conversations. Sigh....

* Found a fabulous gf bread that is already made and that can sit on the counter a few days and is edible with sandwiches without being toasted. And it tastes mighty fine toasted, too! Yeah, it's expensive, but it tastes okay and it costs less than me making bread myself, though I suppose the package has less of it. And it takes a drive across town to buy. But yummy gf bread is a cause for celebration.

* Rutledge's birthday party at the pool. He's five! It was a super party. I had been worried since many kids his age don't swim, and it's winter and adults often don't want to wear a bathing suit and get in with a pile of kids. But it all worked out just fine, and he had the time of his life.

* Bad Mom alert...I am the total, carefree loser of the Most Healthy and Organic Lunch contest. Rutledge's weekly tradition is to bring a Lunchable to preschool lunch bunch. This week, he announced he no longer wants Lunchables. He wants a "sandwich that looks like a pie" like his friend Tim brings. I asked and found out it's an Uncrustable. I think they are frozen and come in multi-packs, which might be more convenient than a Lunchable, which I always end up running out for on Wednesday mornings. I'm so glad I don't live in Berkeley, Seattle, or anywhere else where there is competitive lunch-packing.

* New hamster has lived for two weeks! Two new fish from the other fish store have lived for 3 weeks! No problems that I can tell. Our anemone has flaky days, but nothing has died...knock on wood...in about a month. I don't know if it was better quarantined fish, introducing the two at once, or the fascinating relationship with the buddy-buddy yellow tang and the coral beauty. But it's working, and the four fish get along famously.

* Wretched runny nose cold I picked up from Ollie. Colloidal silver has not eradicated it yet.

* Awesome trip to Great Wolf Lodge. Very nice room, tons of fun, great rides, and something for everyone. Rutledge was in 7th heaven. We will definitely be going back, hopefully sooner, rather than later. I'd like to go to the Classical Conversations training and "camps" there this spring.

* Kerry's Grandmother died on Sunday. She was 98, but it was still unexpected. She appears to have had a stroke or other catastrophic blood pressure event, and it happened very quickly. She was the very best of our family and had the kind of constantly confident, loving attitude that I wish the rest of our family could spread. I feel terrible since I hadn't seen her in over a year, but I had not gone down to Norfolk on most of the furniture-getting trips, since we needed the van to be empty, and the last time we went we only saw Kerry's parents, who have moved into one of those inclusive retirement communities. I wish we could have spent more time with her, but I know that she is much happier now, since her hearing and eyesight were so poor that she couldn't read or watch TV and could barely listen to the radio, and she has been bedridden for 2.5 years. We will miss her so much.

* Dive meet where Ollie won 2nd place.

* Getting ready for VaHomeschoolers conference next weekend.

* Being sued for a big amount, but can't talk about it.

* Got hit by a truck in a parking lot, so have had to get several estimates for fixing it, which is not what I needed in these busy weeks.

* Ollie loses metal "grill" crown at Rutledge's birthday party, leaving a decaying stump of a tooth behind. Hopefully it will get pulled Monday.

* Still looking for the right, cheap desk for Ollie. Found an incredible wooden bookcase for Walter's Legos to be displayed on his room. $25.50--you can't argue with that!

* Just finished reading "Anne of Green Gables" to the older 3 kids. Read "The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle" with the boys. Am giving them a jump start on reading "Scat" for the library book club, whose date I have forgotten. About to start "A Little Princess" with the older three.

* Woefully unprepared for 10k, so am dropping out. I would like to run when the weather gets slightly nicer, but since I have other obligations that weekend anyway, I think I'll pass rather than walk.

* Next dance performance: "Mujeres," a celebration of the lives of nine influential and renowned Hispanic women.

* Mastered countries of South America, Europe, and most of Asia, as well as the Canadian provinces and the capitals of South America. I'm shamefully awful at identifying African countries, and there are so many of them! Ollie is currently beating me at those, and he has me crushed, hands down, on Asia. Walter has South America mastered and is working on Europe.

* Broke my Ticket to Ride addiction.

* Really want to do some serious spring cleaning.

What a crazy week. I can't believe it's almost over. I can't believe that I have so many things to do this weekend. I can't believe I haven't uploaded pictures lately. I can't believe much at all.

Frances was the Petit Prince, and it was amazing. It was an incredible experience for our whole family. We were worked to the bone last week, and the long hours are still taking their toll, but it was worth the pain we endured running back and forth downtown day after day, shutting down our entire lives for day after day, everyone missing all kinds of school, and just sucking our life into a black hole. Frances was not only thrilled to have a big role, but we had the kind of learning experience that many people only get through a field trip (if they're lucky).

Now the General Assembly is voting to determine whether funding for the Virginia Commission for the Arts is going to be cut by 50% in a year and within two years be eliminated completely. This would be devastating for small arts organizations and non-profits like the one where Frances and Rutledge dance. They rely on these grants to be able to put on their productions that reach out into the community, and without them, small businesses are, by necessity, going to be closing their doors or drastically reducing what they are able to do. This will leave primarily the for-profit businesses, and while there's nothing wrong with them, they simply often don't provide the same opportunities that a community production organization can. We have a nice dance studio down the street, and it would be so convenient, but the chances to perform alongside professional dancers in multiple shows a year is something that this place can't begin to offer. The view into the life of a professional dancer, the chance to learn from practicing people who have made this their living, the opportunity to work in a theater, to take direction, to cooperate as part of one large whole, to learn about all of the work and expertise that goes into the lighting, the sound, the preparation of the physical space--they are all educational moments that we couldn't duplicate elsewhere. Then I think about how much Spanish we have learned, how much we've learned about people from somewhere different from where our ancestors came from, how much we've learned about the traditions, the things that other cultures hold dear--again, unparalleled elsewhere. I realize that cuts have to be made across the board, and I certainly believe that people need to eat, have adequate healthcare and security forces and education, but the Arts Commission has already had 30% cuts in the past year and started at a lower per capita level than most other states fund their arts. And these arts organizations that would be affected by the proposed cuts often fill the gaps left by elimination or reduction of arts programs within the public schools. Even as homeschoolers, who may not always feel directly affected by educational budget cuts to public schools (though these, of course, have short and long term effects on us as well), we are concerned about what is beginning to feel like a broad-reaching huge reduction in support of the arts will leave as a legacy to future generations of artists...who are also workers, contributors to the economy, and carriers of our culture. If the arts continue to be cut in schools (and certainly they are among the target areas of educational budget cuts) and in the greater community, what will ultimately happen? Where will the arts survive? If only they were truly free.

So today, we went down to the General Assembly as part of a rally to support the continuation of arts support in Virginia. When we first arrived, we couldn't find anyone--just two lonely-looking men outside with signs (Frances asked if we would have pitchforks and flaming torches). We rode down with another family, and we sincerely hoped that this was not the entire showing of the arts community; if it was, perhaps they didn't need the state's support so much after all. But then we heard that the action was going on inside. When we got into the Capitol building and headed toward the House chambers, we discovered a line hundreds of people long, stretching back down the stairs and around the halls. We waited for about 45 minutes to get in to the House chamber to watch the budget debate. Frances had another chance to be on the news--she was filmed for a piece on Lynchburg's ABC channel 13. We were only about to listen to the speakers for about 15 minutes, and then I had to go and rescue my car from getting parking ticket, but the important thing was to make a showing and to be part of the presence of people who would be affected. What was unexpected is what an incredible field trip this all turned into (and it had to be good, since we missed dissection class yet again--it's been weeks since we've been in a groove with it, what with the snow and the illnesses). We are planning to go down to the General Assembly again in the coming weeks, hopefully at a time when we could sit for a bit longer and wouldn't have to wait so long to get in, leaving us restless. Today, people were asked to not stay for too long so that all of the people who wanted a chance to come in would have that opportunity.

Then tomorrow night is my baby's birthday party. Rutledge has never really had a birthday party before. He had a two family dinner last year, but this year he is having a real party at the pool. It's going to be small, but he is so excited. And Saturday I need to leave before 6 a.m. to go to a training meeting for Classical Conversations up in Northern Virginia. I'll be gone all day. And I have several mini-essays to write (in my copious free time tomorrow!) before that. Then I have a swim and dive meeting on Sunday night. We have a one day outing planned next week, so anything I don't get done now is going to end up pushed off to almost Wednesday. It feels terrible to be worrying about what I won't get done by next Wednesday when it's still barely Friday of this week.

I'm kind of flipping out because I don't know how I'm going to accomplish getting everyone where they need to go tomorrow. I'm wondering where my very real needs are going to fit into all of this. I'm still suffering from this headache that has been going on for at least 5 whole days now. It goes away. That's the good part. I've taken prescription medication (Maxalt) three times during this period, which is more than I feel comfortable taking in the course of a whole month, and it has worked each time. But it only removes the symptoms, as it says on the bottle. I get relief, my life goes on just fine, and I haven't even gotten too directly sick from it (normally it leaves me wanting to barf). The trouble is, the next day, the thing is back again. I started taking Excedrin Migraine, and that also helps a little, if it doesn't wig me out completely. And then I have taken some ibuprofen, usually only once a day. Yesterday I woke up with a weird pain on the right side of my abdomen, which is the scary side (appendix, gallbladder, liver, etc.) And today I was just in bad, bad shape. I can't tell what's the migraine (my head didn't hurt at all this morning) and what's the medicine and what's whatever is behind the whole thing (weather, food, hormones). At any rate, it has to stop. I can't deal with this every day. I spent today trying not to take anything else because everything I was taking was potentially causing me problems. But by 6:00, I couldn't take it any more, and I broke down and took Goody's Powder, an old standby that sometimes takes the edge off. It worked. I still feel a hint of pain, but nothing like what I had before. And I was finally able to eat. Of course, I might never sleep again from all that caffeine so late, but hey....

Tomorrow is scaring the living hell out of me. I had made an appointment for our wasting-away-dog late last week, and that's at 9:45, which is right after preschool dropoff. No problem. Then I added in a doctor's appointment for myself when I called at 4:30 today--11 a.m. A little bit of a problem, since if they're running behind I'm a little late for preschool pickup. But it's doable. I just might have a dog in my car for it. Then there is piano at 1:30, art at 2:30, art pickup at 3:30, and a double shot of can't-be-in-two-places-at-once at 4:00 with dance and Latin. I figured I'd drop off at dance early, then rush to Latin and sweat a lot.

Then, uh-oh, at 6:20, I get a call saying that Frances needs to be at a rehearsal downtown tomorrow from 11-3. I don't know if I can swing that! There's no way to get all the way down there and back for my 11 a.m. appointment. I think I'll have to cancel that, which I hate to do since I've been really miserable with this headache and would like something to make it go away. I could cancel on the dog, but I hate to do that because he looks like he is going to die. I could drop art, but I hate to do it to Walter, who wants to be there and already missed one of his classes for this session. And I probably will call to cancel Latin, since that's the one thing too many, though I suppose in some ways we'll be done by then.

What I see is a whole day of not just rushing and being in the car, but that kind of heart-stopping late to everywhere with everyone mad at you at every single turn. The vet runs late and I'm screwed for the rehearsal; the drop-off there takes more than 5 minutes and I'm late to the doctor. The doctor is late and I'm late to preschool. Any delay in picking up Frances, and the not-quite-enough-minutes I have while Walter is in art makes me late to pick him up. And it goes on and on! I want to just vanish and leave town before it can happen!

And then, when I thought that all I needed to do was take Frances to a TV interview on Wed. morning and another at noon, and she'd miss her acting class. But now it looks like I might have to hold Rutledge out of preschool on Wednesday and have the boys skip their math class so that I can be out at a rehearsal that I hadn't planned on because for the past four weeks we had been scheduled to rehearse all day Friday. Now I'm not sure what it all means. And it's book club day for Walter's selection, and I have no idea how he is going to be there. Sigh.... I knew that this week would be hard, but we had our schedule, it had been confirmed last week, and I had made plans for how to handle it. Now these late minute changes are really throwing me for a loop!

Of course, all of it comes on the heels of the snow week, where lots of things were canceled. Now we're missing things left and right again!

Today we were home almost all day, except for the part where Kerry was resentfully having to drive. I didn't teach this morning because I wasn't feeling well. Then Latin got rescheduled. But the boys had a birthday party to attend, and I was able to get them there, but then I had two hours to kill while I wasn't feeling great and had two kids in tow in the rain. I went to Ukrop's to get them a rotisserie chicken for lunch and to pick up some chips and cookies to take to Walter at the party (he can't eat pizza and cake). Brought him his food. Went to Costco to pick up a pork loin to make for dinner and to get some yogurt and other things we needed. Then was heading to the library when Kerry called and said he could go get them, but I had to meet him in the middle to pass off the flute and trumpet. He dropped them at flute and trumpet. I watched the writing video portion on writing critiques so I could teach the boys. Then I went to pick them both up. Came back and finished up dinner while Kerry picked up Frances from ballet. It is very important to me right now that we start to eat at the table like a normal family. It isn't going to happen every day of the week, but it should happen often enough that it feels like this is our typical dinner, not a special occasion. Afterwards, we had the Mardi Gras king cake with the sugar baby in it. And Walter and I had ice cream bars, since we can't eat it. Played a game of chess with Ollie, who quickly beat me. Played a few games of Ticket to Ride. Went through everyone's schoolwork with them, except for writing, which I wanted to do and couldn't fit in. We finished "The Secret Garden" and I will have them write about it at some point tomorrow (in our copious free time!). And we started "Om-Kas-Toe of the Blackfeet," which is going very quickly. The Secret Garden was such a total delight that anything is going to seem like less for a while. I was thinking that our next read should be Little Women, but now I'm thinking that Anne of Green Gables might be the better choice. Frances needs something she can really relate to, and this just might be it.

I have this nagging feeling that I should be watching more of the Olympics, and not just after 11 p.m. Actually, I have a nagging feeling that I shouldn't be up past 11 a.m., since maybe this is behind my headaches. But I do feel like I get enough sleep--it's just more in the 12:30-8:30 or 9:00 range most days, not in the 10-6, which is probably preferable but which I've never pulled off in all my life. I don't know whether it is possible or desirable to change what seems to be your lifelong pattern, or whether there really is something physically superior about early to bed and early to rise. I think a lot of Americans end up with the late to bed, early to rise, and at least I don't tend to do that. But I swear, I'd do anything to have fewer headaches these days!

I know it sounds boring, but I just want to have recorded, somewhere, that I actually do accomplish some housework, even if it appears as if I have never seen a clothes washer, done a dish, or mopped a floor.

In my copious free time today, and I guess it was copious, since I had no places I had to be, I...

1. Washed and folded and put away four extremely large loads of laundry.
2. swept and mopped the floors in my kitchen and eating area.
3. Vacuumed the junk up out of the entry, the library/art room, and the front music/tv room.
4. Cleaned the area around the computer.
5. Vacuumed upstairs hallway and two bedrooms.
6. Put up new shower curtain with new shower curtain hooks for the "Penguin Bathroom."
7. Coordinated disposal of the Hamster That Lived Three Days, after taking the body to Petco as evidence that we needed a new one.
8. Two loads of dishes.
9. Watched writing video before showing it to class tomorrow.
10. Made almost 200 photocopies for writing classes.
11. Graded 10 papers.
12. Cleared out offensive video games to put away.
13. Bought more printer paper.
14. Five games of Ticket to Ride with Ollie. He beat me at least once.
15. 70 pages of "The Secret Garden."
16. Made gf pancakes.
17. Temporarily got rid of headache that has been plaguing me for four days.

I guess this isn't too bad....