LAAZZYY

I got a bad cold last week.  Friday night we went to stations of the cross at church, and my nose did not stop running.  Thankfully I had a couple of napkins in my pocket, but it was not a pretty picture.  By Saturday, I was down for the count.  We were a part of a big youth room re-do at church while our youth minister was on a retreat (Madi was there as a leader and gave a talk on prayer).  Anyway, I didn't make it to the cleaning and reorganizing of the room or to the theatre to house manage that night.  Sunday I did everything I was supposed to do including church, and picking up Madi etc, more church, and then the big reveal of the now clean and organized, no thanks to me, youth room.  By Monday I was out of commission again.  Now coughing.  Since Tuesday (my FORTY FIFTH birthday), I've been functionally better, but still super lazy tired.  This brings me to right now, Saturday night a week later where I am laying in my bed, under the covers with my laptop... it is only 8:03pm.  This cold, or more likely 45, has hit me like a ton of bricks.  I've read 3 books this week.  They were Escape from Mr Lemoncello's Libray, Leaving Time, and The Mistletoe Promise. I am now reading Left to Tell which I have been borrowing for almost a year and finally finally picked it up today.  (I think I've been a little afraid of reading it.)  I have taken three hot baths today and I'm still sucking down cough drops like they are candy.  I am a limp noodle.  I originally pulled out my laptop to attempt to watch Parenthood on Netflix, but the computer was being too slow.  I've never watched any of that show, but have heard enough good things about it that it has landed on my "someday I might watch" list.  I am thinking The Fosters might also be on that list and maybe Blue Bloods or Breaking Bad.  I am not a Netflix TV watcher generally.  I am more a dvr-ed reruns I've seen a million times watcher.  Jake has gotten me started on Once Upon a Time.  I am almost done with season 1, but I don't think we've watched any of it for two weeks, and considering this has been the laziest week of my life and I still didn't watch that, I'm guessing it'll be slow going.  One bit of good news for my tired old soul is that Jonathan is miraculously only working until 9:15 tonight as opposed to the oft ending times of 1, 2 or 3am.  This is definitely exciting for me.  Madi is also out right now, but another bit of good news, she is just babysitting about 7 houses away, so no late night driving for her.  These are happy times!  

So aside from laziness, what's new?  My father averted a heart attack two weeks ago.  He had a few episodes of chest pains that culminated in a major episode that involved him "white as a ghost" according to my mother, sweating and in intense pain.  They called 911, and both parents spent that night in the hospital.  The next morning I joined them.  My father had a heart cath and they inserted a stent.  The cardiologist said it was not a heart attack (because there was no permanent damage), but angina (which has two acceptable pronunciations).  My father went home the following day.  He is back to work and as good as new.  Speaking of as good as new, my brother is doing fantastic at the moment.  Please keep praying for him, but he's better than he has been in way over a year (even for a long time prior to his diagnosis).  Their family is planning a trip to Florida in April and we could not be happier.  They have not been here since 2006!  Jonathan is going to hook them up with some good Disney deals. 

Jonathan is graduating again this year.  He will get his Associate of Arts degree on May 1st.  His further plans are up in the air.  They will involve work at Disney and a Bachelor's degree from somewhere, but then whens, wheres and hows are not set in stone.  He has gotten quite involved in the theatre productions at Lake Sumter including programming and running lights for their latest show, auditioning for a future show, and even late night karaoke at Applebee's, where he didn't sing, but did witness a bar fight.  A girl who rode space mountain three times the other night gave him her phone number.  Upon hearing the story both Mike and I asked if he was going to call her, and all three kids rolled their eyes because "of course you would never call someone in that situation, but you might text them". 

Madi is perfect at everything except completing her Algebra 2 in a timely manner (well and maybe history and chemistry too), and keeping her room clean.  She is kicking butt in her college classes.  It is so much easier to stay on top of classes when you see the teacher weekly and they are not a virtual person inside the computer (or your mother).  She is such a leader in youth group, such a good babysitter, such a good singer, such a good actress, such a good friend.  A man on her retreat this weekend told me she is "a leader and an encourager".

Jake went on an all day field trip yesterday with the band for a ten minute steel drum performance where he didn't actually get to play the steel drum just some kind of maraca.  From there he went to the down town Georgefest carnival with friends.  Following in his siblings footsteps, he left the house at 8am and returned home at almost 11pm.  This morning he and I got up at 7 so he could have a good breakfast, get all dressed in his band uniform for his first experience as a marching band member only to find out when we got to the school that they were canceling due to potential rain.  The parade went on sans Jake and the marching mustang band.  Since Mike and I were on our cruise during the fall concert, I have yet to see him perform in the band.  Hopefully nothing interferes with the spring concert.  He is unsure about band next year.  In some ways he really loves it, but we are spoiled enough that we are not big fans of all the school rules that are a part of being in a school band.  For example we were told he could bring any kind of back pack on the field trip, but then he had a mini anxiety attack over getting out of the car in the drop off line with a back pack that wasn't see through.  He was afraid the car line security would make an example of him.  Thankfully he made it into the bandroom unscathed.  Also school things like 6th period sometimes being the 6th period of the day and sometimes being the 1st period of the day, with little to no warning, or getting yelled at by said car line security if he tried to get in the car and the car in front of me has just left so now I HAVE TO pull up asap as opposed to Jake just jumping in.  These kinds of things don't happen at drop off for theatre or youth group or whatever.  We like loose rules, not tight ones. 

Prior to Jake's birth and when he was really little, we used to travel a ton with Mike for work.  Part of why we homeschooled from the beginning was so the kids could take advantage of all those trips.  The summer I was pregnant with Jake we went on a six week business trip to the northeast, came home for two weeks, and then went on a two week trip to Texas.  Changes in Mike's job as well as bigger kid commitments like theatre meant that by about 2005 or so we were no longer traveling much.  Well now Mike has a different job and Jake is the one with slightly looser commitments so he will be able to take advantage of some travel coming up.  In a couple weeks Mike, Jake and I will hit the road back to New Orleans (Mike and I spent 4 nights there last month).  Thankfully we were able to convince the big two to lighten their schedules a little and fly out and join us for the second half of the week, I am excited about that.  This summer will be Jake's 13 year old trip to NYC.  Mike's father takes all the grandchildren to New York for their thirteenth birthday where they can more or less do whatever they want.  Jake will be seeing Aladdin on Broadway.  (Madi saw Wicked and Jonathan saw Phantom of the Opera.)  That trip will involve all of us in New England where we are planning on less Connecticut and more New Hampshire and Massachusetts.  Then the farther in the future trip that we are planning is an Alaskan cruise for the summer of 2016.  Yay!!

Well I haven't moved from my spot under the covers, but now at least I can feel like I more or less accomplished something today.  It's all about low expectations.

I'm still here...maybe

I know I'm a broken record (that only seems to play about once a month or less).  Sometimes I really think, yes...I am going to write.  Then I think... about what?  A lot of popular blogs have ongoing themes around cute things their kids say.  That theme doesn't always fly when your kids are 12, 16, and 19.  I read a fair amount of Catholic mom blogs, and am involved in a lot of real life Catholic living, but a lot of that also doesn't translate so well to the blog.  Went to confession on Saturday, Madi sang like an angel on Sunday...not really a page turner.  Some blogs have a lot of pictures of their kids' sports.  Jake's outside shooting hoops right now, but that's about it for that.  Theatre is our "sport", but most of the time I don't even get show pictures or videos up here anymore.  If facebook didn't kill the blog, instagram may have.  This blog started just before a major family illness (Mike, go back and see, I don't want to talk about it).  My father ended up in the hospital last week, and that played out a little on facebook to the tune of dozens and dozens of people praying for him, and only one person (on my fb and another one on my mother's) thinking it was all about them instead of about my father.  But I don't know that that is really big blog business.  I like to write.  I might have time to write, but what?  for whom?  Those are the questions.  I just realized that it is raining and Jake and the neighbor are still outside playing basketball (it's also pretty dark), maybe that would make a funny story, but I don't think I'm going to hash it out now.  Jonathan just texted that he is on his way home and it's Taco Tuesday...at least for 3/5 of our family.  I'm going to go make tacos and eat my weight in tacos and junk food cause it's also Fat Tuesday!!  Maybe I'll be around during Lent...we'll see...