thoughts from the deep recesses

Asia's in Seattle this week. He's been home so consistantly lately I'm finding it hard to find my groove. I'll get there. He's scheduled to be gone three out of four weeks in October. I'm up to leading four Weight Watcher's meetings. This week and next I'm working six and seven meetings with sub jobs. I really love it. The beauty of it is I prepare once and then just repeat the same material at every meeting. So different from teaching scrapbooking, which required LOTS of prep time for every class. Gearing up for a big Craft/Antique/Junk Sale I'll be selling stuff at next weekend (Sept. 25 & 26.) My studio is all awhirl with activity as I create and organize for it. Fun stuff. I'll post pictures of a few of my items in the next couple of days. If you're local, it will be at the Moran Prairie Grange. I had an amazing day at garage sales last weekend... only had an hour to go because we had to get to Kyler's cross country meet, but I ma...

Kyler ran his first cross country race for his high school today. He's officially a Lewis and Clark Tiger. See the tiger stripes on their uniforms? Even his shoes are orange and black... Kyler is in the back of this pack... the tiger right in front of him is Davis, who he ran with the past two years in junior high. He could never catch Davis. Today, he kept pace with Davis the entire race. He came in 14th out of 24 guys on his team that ran today. That includes all the freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors. He was neck and neck with the 11th, 12th and 13th runners. He was one sweaty, tired boy. But he didn't throw up. That's progress. We've had three post-run-throw-up experiences in his racing career. This is his coach. He was accusing Kyler of holding out on him at practice. Essentially, Kyler totally exceeded his expectations today. Good job, Kyler. I love watching you run.

So today after church, Asia decided to take the fam down to Riverfront Park to partake in a Spokane tradition - the annual Labor Day extravaganza - Pig Out in the Park . Now, I have to tell you, we haven't been to Pig Out for many, many years. Mainly because the last time we went, the entire family got sick. Barfing sick. Not only did we get sick, but our houseguests, who were staying with us because they were dropping their daughter off at Whitworth college and she was going to live with us for the school year, well, they also got sick. It was a regular barf-o-rama. Nine people in one house, with all of us getting up all night long and barfing. I'll never forget that their son, who was about 12 years old at the time, was the loudest barfer in the world. When he was in the bathroom, barfing, the whole house could hear him. Never mind that everyone was trying to sleep. He wretched as though his toes were being forced out of his mouth. It.was.not.pretty. Now, the other thing you...

It's been good to have the kids back in school. There's room in my brain now for some quiet introspection. I've needed that. I wrote about the challenge of this past summer - how I struggled as a mom to know quite how to meet the needs of my growing kids. How they don't really need me - but need me more than ever. How confusing is that? Believe me, it's a weird place to be. And then, since the store closed in May, I've felt a little lost - wondering how to spend my time - working through the difference in income I've been forced into - learning to manage our budget differently without the cushion of the money I used to make teaching. I had to work through Kyler's first girlfriend - a challenge I wasn't completely ready for - and one that knocked me out for a few days as I pondered the reality of wanting to support him and validate his feelings while knowing it would only lead to heartache. How do you do that? I didn't particularly do any of this ...

We had a flood in our basement. Such a bummer. It got into our storage room, where it ruined lots of childhood memorabilia and forced a lot of sorting and added a huge pile to the garbage can. It also got into the playroom/Kyler's room, soaking the carpet and pad. Not a happy thing. And as so often happens, one thing leads to another and the flood led to a very clean basement, a couch removed, new mattresses for Kyler, and a much needed trip to the dump. But in the summer of so many unexpected expenses, we really did NOT want to spend all the money we had to spend in order to fix everything. Fortunately, I've recently been assigned to two additional Weight Watcher's meetings, which I'll start leading in a couple of weeks. This will double my income. Yay! The kids are settling into school - Savannah in particular got a GREAT schedule, with friends in all of her classes. She even has friends near her locker assignment. Kyler wasn't so lucky in his first semester of 7t...