Chickens and Unschooling

So the boy has dived into the club scene. Well, the community college club scene. He's joined Coding, Chess, and ASL. The only thing keeping him out of D&D is a scheduling conflict with work. If he can convince them to add an additional event on Tuesday afternoons he'll be all in.

As of this week, he's back up to 3 work shifts a week (he'd had to cut back from 5 to 2, because of an overtaxed knee). He's taking Math at one campus (the one with all the club opportunities), and Welding at another.

In addition to all of that, he is assistant coach of his old Youth Boffer team (having aged out by turning 18), has joined his sister's D&D game, and runs his own D&D campaign with some homeschooling friends.

If his knee keeps improving, in spite of his increasingly busy schedule, he'll likely add back in the Boffer involving bows and spells (so more like a LARP) on at least the occasional Saturday.

Boy is going to dance.

Hubby is letting boy drive him to dance, because boy really needs to get good enough to pass his driver's test so he can drive his own self to dances, boffers, class, etc.

Daughter is at class.

Other daughter doesn't live here, but is at work.

I am alone. At least till hubby gets back and we go out to dinner like grownups.

Yesterday I made a double batch of chicken rice casserole, so we'd have leftovers today. I also made a not too horrible batch of snickerdoodles. Plus, I washed about a bazillion dishes and dealt with college stuff for the kids.

Today, neither C nor M had to work, and S had a nightshift, so I made breakfast: waffles, bacon, and potatoes, coincidentally, cooked in bacon grease.

I also did laundry, more dishes, nearly filled the garbage can with horse poop, dewormed the horses, and dealt with the farrier.

All in all a productive weekend.

Well, I suppose I should start by apologizing to my one loyal reader for skipping the entirety of March.

Sorry 'bout that.

I will endeavor to do better. At worst this counts as a post for April, so all I have to do going forward, to improve on my track record, is to post once a month.

Now for some news.

..... ummm.

This feels like one of those awkward conversations with my parents, "So, what's new?" "Uhh....everything's basically the same."

The girls are still working and in school.

The boy got a job as a dishwasher at a local restaurant. He got a nice haircut, wore nice clothes (even a tie), walked in to ask for an application, got an interview on the spot, and walked out with a trial shift.

He likes being a dishwasher. He says cleaning stuff makes sense to him. He also gets free sodas and a meal each shift.

So that's new, and good.

Welp, see you next month.

You know what's exhausting? Being angry and sad all the time while trying to act like you're not angry and sad. All the time. Oh, and being worried...about EVERYTHING.

So many things out of my control right now.

My need to control freak about something has led me to control freaking about my daughter's online class, that she doesn't even know how to log into yet, which starts on Wednesday. The vaguely menacing email she received about not being a digital no-show pointed her to canvas for the answers, but her class is not published on canvas yet, so no info forthcoming from that direction. Plus, control freaking from a distance, while trying not to overly control freak, isn't very effective.

AAAAAAAHHHHHH!

Does the screaming in my head bother you?

Either 80 million people voted for a man, obviously suffering from Dementia, who is pushing an openly socialist agenda or there was enough fraud to overturn the election and no one with any power to do anything about it will or probably even wants to. Either scenario does not bode well for our Republic.

Oh, and scared. Scared is exhausting, too. Last night the power went out and I panicked because we don't have a backup generator. The power came back on in about 20 minutes, but what if someday that isn't something we can reliably count on? Adopting national Green New Deal madness will turn us into California with rolling blackouts or worse; some areas were, with no notice, without power for weeks during the fires. Thanks to stupidity, ignorance, or evil, both legislative branches and the Presidency are controlled by the same political party. A party with members that actively encouraged rioting, act like they hate this country, and talk about re-education camps and stomping out contradictory opinions while claiming they are on the side of freedom.

1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.

Plus, does a blog post like this put me on a list? Was I already on one because of the folks I follow on Twitter? Because I voted for Trump (admitting to that will likely get me cancelled in some social circles if those folks still ready my livejournal, sorry kids). Because I subscribed to TheBlaze? Is it too late to keep my head down and stay out of the line of fire if things spiral as far out of control as some think they will?

My best hope is that politicians lie, and usually don't follow through with their campaign promises. How sad is that? I like my life. I was really hoping to continue plodding along, having M retire in a decade or so, and see where my Grand-kids were living by then and move closer if need be.

Saturday.

H came over and we tried to figure out why her new tablet would neither work properly with her computer nor with photoshop.

The general conclusion, after getting everything working with M's laptop, is H needs a laptop upgrade. In the meantime we sent her home with M's.

Inktober day 10: hope.



It took me a long time to come up with anything I could draw to represent hope. The heart went over remarkably well on Instagram.

The girls have their ASL final this week, then they are done with school for the summer.

Yesterday C asked me what day it was, because without outside activities it's a little hard to keep track.

Today was a mixed bag. I got up early and got the sale price on some split chicken breasts. I like to use those for soup and I had run out. The store was still out of toilet paper and loads of other stuff, though, so I just got the chicken.

I went to the feed store and they had everything I needed in stock. That makes us good on the animals for at least two weeks, probably 3 or 4 if I have to stretch it. It helps that our grass has started growing back with the onset of warmer weather.

I took H paint shopping, since she missed out on the incredibly narrow window of time to pick up her stuff from the classroom now that in person classes have been bumped for another 2 weeks. Somehow watercolor and ASL are going to have to be online starting Monday.

Our Saturday D&D has been canceled, due to the hosting family's desire to honor this whole social distancing thing. Along those lines, kitty adoptions are cancelled for the foreseeable future, so C will miss out on his volunteering. This development did not come as a shock to me. Neither did the cancellation of a local Convention we were planning on attending over Easter weekend.

Sometimes I am reminded of the bumper sticker Do the voices on my head bother you?. Only, for me, it's more Does the screaming in my head bother you?. I took out some of my frustration on the lantana.



It really needed a good trimming, I swear.

Thank goodness for small favors, H and her roommate work at a restaurant that specializes in pickup and delivery. So, knock on wood, they should remain employed for the duration.

Normalish Tuesday today.

S and H had ASL. I resisted texting H this morning to make sure she got up*.

C and I met up with the girls at Gaming day. I was informed that S lost her gas cap after Red yelled at her on the way to school about needing gas. I had her go back and check at the gas station, but no luck.

After Gaming, H met us at home. She practiced ASL with S, watched an episode of Hot in Cleveland with S and me, and gathered up a load of stuff to take back to her apartment.

C and I had karate.

S had a violin lesson.

H took her roommate shopping for entertainment centers at Goodwill.

I realized I had a logistics problem with M's upcoming B-Day, so we decided to celebrate it tomorrow.



*Of course she did.

I went with H to campus today to give blood. I couldn't make the normal one closer to me a few weeks ago because it was scheduled on a Tuesday. Doing karate in the evening a few hours after being drained would be in direct conflict with their care protocols.

We each scored a free pass to the local Ren Faire. That's a good fifty dollar savings to an event we already planned on going to this year. Maybe next year we can drag S along with us and trade blood for three tickets.

H has class, so after hanging around campus with her for a while recovering, I went home.

Time for a nap.