School

You know how I know we are really back in school?  Bear woke up with a runny nose and scratchy throat and it feels like he has shared with me.  Oh goody.  This is the part I don't like about school.  We are better off than a lot of the kids too because we already went through the daycare years of building up our immunities.   Some good Cold Care tea, lots of garlic, lemon, honey, and ginger will help knock in the hind end.

Otherwise we seem to be getting this schedule figured out.  We all pile in the vehicle about 7:30 in the morning and head for school.  Mia and I come home and get to work.  She gets to watch her show without interference from Bear.  She's pretty funny about it.

I'm trying to convince myself to spin today and it just hasn't happened.  I don't feel great and I know this evening I'm getting a pile of food from our CSA so I know I'll be working at food processing.

I'd better get a little girl down for her nap before she completely melts down.  Or I do. :)

Settling in

We got the bus figured out.  There isn't one.  That simple.  We are the only people with kids out this way and it just doesn't make sense for the district to send a bus.  At least they reimburse for the gas.  They pay mileage.  Better than nothing but it still means I'm up every day and driving Bear to school.  Ugh.  And it means we pick him up too.  7.5 miles one way means 30 miles a day for school.  So be it.  I just would have preferred to have been on a bus route.

Otherwise though school is going alright.  Poor Bear is wiped out by the time he is done.  It is all day Kindergarten so he is there from 8a.m. to 3:30 p.m.  Poor kid.  He still likes naps so this is hard to get used to.  I can see his sister adjusting to this a lot better than he has.  He seems to like his teacher and seems to be making friends quickly.  I had no doubts there.  I like that he has computer classes, p.e. classes, and music classes.  I'll be interested to see what stuff he brings home as the year goes on.

We are all starting to get the hang of our new schedules.  Tom is in school, Bear is in school, and Mia and I are busy with canning.  Well, canning and my wool business.  Also, I'm starting a club of sorts for a bunch of us gals around here that are farm-ish types and need some friends to get together with.   In talking to others it can be tough when you live way out of town and have critters that depend on you.  There isn't a whole lot of time to meet up with friends or even to make friends.  So we're going to give it a go with what will hopefully become monthly meetings.

I love being this crazy busy.  It doesn't help my house get clean because what goes when I have other stuff I want to do?  My house cleaning.  In a heart beat.  I don't care for it and so it is the first thing to get pushed aside.  That and deciding what to cook.  The actual act of cooking is fine.  It is the planning and picking out what to cook that stinks.  Maybe I don't have enough focus or something.

I'm trying to nod off so I'd better get back up and check my canning.  I can't nap until that is done and I still have tomato sauce to put in the canner.  I should get some wool carded too so I can spin this evening.  Oh whoops.  We're going to a college volleyball game so I won't be spinning.  Maybe I'll wind wooly balls while I'm there.

So it begins.

And we are off!  We had Kindergarten orientation today.  I came home with an insane amount of paperwork.  And I can't get information about the bus from anyone!  Argh!  I talked to the school, another school, the district, and the bus guy.  No one has any information and everyone says to talk to the other.  I'm about to start jumping down throats and teetering on wishbones.  Grrrrrr. 

So there is my little vent.  It will get sorted.  I have another call into the district to someone who will hopefully be able to help.  It is just frustrating because all the routes here are in town routes.  This makes no sense to me.  I always had rural routes and the kids in town didn't have buses.  Now apparently if you're more than 4 miles out they don't really run a route.  What?!  How does this make sense?  Do the rural kids not go to school?  Actually I know a lot of them don't and are home schooled but still.  What about those that do?

So stinking frustrating.  I just have to have faith that it will all work out in the end.  The first week is always rough.  New job, new school, or whatever.  Once we get their system figured out we'll be a lot happier.

On a positive note.  Bear's teacher seems great and he has a cute old school.  The lunch kitchen is a total flashback to my own.  I walked in and all of a sudden I was somewhere between 1st and 5th grade.  Holy cow!  Pretty much the only major difference was that you needed to change which side of the gym the kitchen is on.  These guys eat in the gym instead of the stage.  We used the stage. 

Anyone notice that schools don't seem to have the wood floors in the gyms anymore?  The new building Bear was in last year had a weird composite floor of some kind and this school has linoleum.  Are the wood floors too expensive to maintain or something?  They don't even feel like a gym to me.  They don't smell right without the fumes from the polyurethane coats that have just been re-done for the start of the school year. 

Yes, I'm having weird existential crisis with Bear starting Kindergarten.  I'm excited for him but frustrated that all the things I thought I had figured out about school during my 12-13 years there don't apply here.  Why doesn't it make sense?  Like I said though.  It will even out after a couple of weeks into it I'm sure.  Mainly I think it is just weird to be on the parent end of things instead of the kid side.

Oh, and I discovered there are monthly snacks to be provided, parties to help with, other random supplies to bring in, and all sorts of stuff.  I am not sure how I feel about all the candy.  As a kid, which part of me still is, this sounds great.  As a parent that tries to feed healthy food I'm not thrilled.  I understand that kids need rewards.  What about stickers?  What about a seed kit?  Markers?  Crayons? Healthy snacks?  Whole wheat crackers instead of cheesy crackers?  What about apples instead of candy?  Carrot sticks?  Broccoli?  I know cost is certainly a factor but they are still asking us as parents to bring some of this stuff too so I know that they are on restricted budgets no matter what they are bringing in.

Also, don't misunderstand me in that I'm against the teacher.  I'm not.  By a long shot.  I know they are doing their best with the resources they have and those are very seldom even close to enough.  I know lots of times the teachers are footing a lot of the bills on their own.  Still.  Another idea for reward stuff: Cool pencils.  Fun erasers.  No candy!  Or only once in awhile.  I know.  School hasn't even started and I'm ranting.  I just may have to take some of this on.  People wonder why we have health issues.  Uh, gee I don't know.  Too much everything.

So I'm seeing I have my virtue being taxed already.  I will have to choose my battles carefully.  Little things can be done to help.  And I do mean to help.  I'll have to see what is in my gumption to do about any of this.  Apparently I feel a lot stronger about this stuff than I thought.  I will wait and see what needs addressed and address those issues at the time.  For now, I need to figure out the bus or lack thereof situation.

Procrastination

Ahhhh!! School starts tomorrow.  Well, the initial go see the school, the get pictures for the i.d., and pick up paperwork is tomorrow.  Then Wednesday is the real start.  Holy crap!  I'm putting off making tomatillo salsa today.  Mostly because my canning situation isn't great.  Stupid flat top stove.  I miss my stove from St. Iggy.  Someday I'll get money saved up and I'll replace this range with one that is good for canning.  In the mean time I will be testing the propane grill later today.  I tried a hot plate.  Stupid safety switches kept turning the thing off.  It wouldn't even boil the water.  Grrrrr.

Okay.  I gotta get a move on.

School

Who would think that this day would come so quickly?  I looked at my calendar and four days from now my son starts Kindergarten!  Kindergarten?!  How is that?  I really did just bring him home.  I know we didn't potty train that long ago.  Did we?  They tell you it goes fast.  The funny part of it is that everyone tells you to enjoy it.  Well, that is possible to a certain extent but when you are buried in diapers and the kid won't sleep, again, then it can be tough to enjoy it.  You just want to make it out alive.  The time to enjoy is afterwards.  Enjoy the memories.  The memory fog settles in and makes you forget just how damned tired you were.  Then all you remember are the snuggles, that smell of new baby, those coos, and those adorable little fingers and toes.

All those memories help on the tough days.  They do exist.  No matter what we tell ourselves or the social media world.  Lives are not perfect and orderly.  Life with little kids and pets and jobs is utter chaos.  It might be controlled chaos a lot of the time but there are days it is just chaos.  Who am I kidding?  Life is chaos.  With or without kids.  They just add to the crazy-mixed-up-ness of it all.

I'm excited for Bear to be starting Kindergarten is what it all boils down to.  I miss him being a little baby boy but I love the beginnings of new things.  The new school year has always been one of my favorite things in the world.  That smell of new crayons.  Nothing beats it.  The new beginnings.  One of the little joys in life is a box of new crayons, a new pencil box, and a new pink eraser.  I kind of wish I were the one starting school.  Ah, I'll let him enjoy it.

I'd better get his back pack fixed now that I think about it.  He requested I just repair his so I think I'll do that.

Must be Monday

It just is one of those days where you have ump-teen zillion things to do and you don't want to do a single one.  Doesn't matter though they have to get done.  I'm procrastinating.  I'm good at that.  I'm certainly one that the saying, "If it weren't for the last minute I'd never get anything done," holds true for.

For some reason this year I'm not really looking forward to my canning and preserving.  I want the stuff but I'm not too excited about hauling the supplies around or anything.  I'd better get over that though because I have a box of peaches due here in 3 days.  I have carrots, onions, and potatoes that need taken care of.  The collards have aphids and the tomatillos need made into salsa.  Tomatoes have grasshoppers and my spinning/wool business is hitting the ground running.  All these are good things I just need to figure out my timing.

I hear my laundry just quit and since I have a pile of stuff to get done I'd better get that folded and then see if I can convince myself to can/freeze some green beans.

Running frustration

Of course now that I have a race coming up at the end of the month I went and rolled my ankle the other day.  So frustrating!  Bodies are supposed to do what we tell them to, not bail out on us.  So I am in the middle of letting it heal, icing it, and trying to make myself not do too much.  Of course with two little kids, the chickens, and the garden that doesn't really work.  Also, now I'm doing the farmer's market with my yarn.  That keeps me busy for sure.  Here's an article that came out in today's paper about it.  I'm hoping the result will be lots of sales at the following markets.

http://www.starherald.com/news/local_news/mitchell-woman-turns-yarn-spinning-hobby-into-business/article_3fb4b384-009e-11e3-9eac-0019bb2963f4.html

You remember how I said Bear was at it again the other day?  Growing that is.  Eating me out of house and home and sleeping for hours.  Well, we had him stand up and measure where he is at.  In one month he has grown almost a full inch.  No wonder he's been so hungry and sleepy.  He's been putting it all toward stretching out. 

Mia is trying to keep up too.  I think she has been going through her own growth spurt but we didn't measure her.  She had shoes on so we decided to wait.

School starts in about a week and a half.  I guess I'd better pull that sewing machine out and repair the backpack that I promised I would.  That and some gym shoes and we'll be ready to go.  I think. :)  I think I'm probably more nervous than Bear.  He is more than ready to go back.  Such a social kid and he loves to learn things.  I'm also not looking forward to Mia's reaction about Bear being gone.  I've got some school stuff for her to do while he's at school.  Seems only fair that she gets to play school.  Especially since she loves to color and paint and draw.  The nice part is that I have several friends around here who home school and they provide links to free school materials on a regular basis.

I don't have the patience to home school myself but I see no reason not to supplement the public system.  Being a public school kid myself I see a lot of value in public school.  There are a lot of lessons about dealing with unpleasant people and situations that are well learned in public school.

Since market is tomorrow I'd better get rolling and make sure things are done around here.  My mornings are nice and early on market day.

Summer coming to a close.

I can't believe it is already August.  In just a couple of weeks Bear starts Kindergarten.  Tom starts school this week.  Well, not really school just yet but he is working at any rate.  The garden is starting to really put out some good produce.  We've gotten a couple of tomatoes out and the carrots have gone nuts.  Actually most of the vegetables have gone nuts in there.  Bear's kale patch is growing nicely despite the fact that almost every day he goes out and plops down for a snack.

Since it is the end of summer we have some cleaning projects to do.  Actually that is what I'm procrastinating at the moment.  I'm not looking forward to my floor scrubbing.  Somehow we have neglected them to the point they are driving us crazy.  It is time to dig out a big ol' scrub bucket and brush and go to work.  I do wish we had a lottery win or something so we could replace carpets.  The new puppy and Mia have completely trashed our carpets.  Ugh.

The carpet replacement won't come for awhile so I'll just have to deal with that.  We are putting in a wood stove this fall though.  That is exciting news.  It means that if the power goes out we'll still have heat and a way to make food and coffee.  This is the one place that being out of town is a bit of a disadvantage.  When we lose power we lose water (the well pump is electric), heat, and because of the water loss we always lose the use of our bathrooms as well. :(  None of this is really fun to have happen.  Because of this we keep a stock of water in the basement and the wood stove is going in.  So far we haven't had a power loss for long enough to really worry about needing water to flush the toilets with. 

To that end at the moment we have water in a rain barrel that can be scooped for flushing toilets.  One of these days I'll fill the stock tank we have too.  Otherwise we do have the advantage of no neighbors so we can just go outside to pee.  I think we'll have to consider an outhouse of some sort as well.  Not right away but at some point.

Now, off the subject of bathrooms.  I have floors to scrub and laundry to do.  Well, and wool to wash.  My yarn/spinning venture is picking up so I'm busy trying to keep up.  I also need to e-mail our market manager and work out a deal for the rest of the market season.  Since it is already August I suppose I should get some Christmas present kits together too.  After all, Christmas is fast approaching.