Happy Feet and Birthdays and Christmas

 First, feet!!

I have been having problems with my left foot for about a month now. I had quite a bit of pain on the top. My nurse practicioner suggested that I see a podiatrist, and I did last Thursday. They did some x-rays to rule out any obvious skeletal problems and then did a test to make sure I didn't have neuropathy.  And I passed that with flying colors. No signs of neuropathy!

I have been diabetic for 20 years so I am very thankful for that. I assure you that it did not just happen. I have been eating carefully for decades now. It is nice that saying no to excessive carbs has actually resulted in something good.

The podiatrist messed with my left foot and then gave me a pad thing to put in a certain place on my foot (it fits around my foot) and basically the pain has gone away. I am grateful!

We have started Birthday Season for kids. We have three within a week of Christmas. We are mostly ready with presents. Mostly.

This morning, Kevin and I led singing at church. We did four Christmas songs. Kevin had to learn them all in less than two days so yeah Kevin!

I have five chapters to go on my current book. I will probably have it done by the New Year. We have a lot going on with celebrations so I likely won't make as much progress as usual with writing this week and next.

We will be having a wet and warm Christmas. It is supposed to rain and be in the 50's. We have already had a lot of snow for Ohio in December so I am not too sad about a warmer Christmas. It will make driving easier.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Mid December

 

We had quite a snow on Saturday, and then the temps dropped. Right now it is Monday morning and seven degrees, up from close to 0 last night. BRRRRR!

We had two kids working on Saturday and both had to drive home through a snowstorm. One was Angela, who is a very new driver. She made it just fine, and I am so thankful!

Big news! Isaac has accepted an offer for an engineering job!  We are very excited and happy for him. The job is about an hour away from us, so he will need to find an apartment. The start date is late January so he has about a month to get organized and moved.

Joseph is also apartment hunting but his job is close to us so he needs an apartment nearby. The boys were considering living together but with Isaac's new job, that won't be happening, which is totally fine. Both boys will be making enough that they can comfortably live alone.

Neither big boy has any debts. We were able to pay for Isaac's college without needing debt either for him or us. I have opinions about college loan debt. First, yes, it is necessary sometimes. Second, universities have been jacking up tuition prices crazily for decades and I think the ready influx of money through student loans is part of the problem. Universities haven't had any reason to be careful with money when loans are so readily available. And then the poor students, who were young and financially stupid in their late teens and early twenties, find themselves having to pay back huge loans, which is really hard on them.

There has been this big fuss about nursing degrees being shifted away from "professional" to something else... nurses have been screaming about how the Trump admin is evil for saying nursing isn't a profession.

Of course nursing is a profession. Everyone knows that. Everyone I know admires nursing as a profession. Very hard job! The question is weather a nurse should be able to borrow over 100K to get a nursing degree. Nurses often make good money but wow, 150K is so much!

Social work is also admirable and doesn't pay well, and young people with social work degrees should REALLY think about loans and how they will affect them in the future.

It will be very odd having the big boys out of our house, but it is also a good step in their journey toward full adulthood. There are so many things we are taking care of that they don't have to think about -- soon they will have to determine what to cook and when to grocery shop and all that stuff.

A few comments on health problems of my own: my plantar fasciitis has popped up again and I am wearing my boot at night. My foot is better than it was a week ago, so that is good. Still hurts some.

Mostly I am in fine shape for a 56 year old, but there is a little of this and a little of that bugging me. I am grateful for padded boots and doctors.

Cold and Snowy Winter so far

 

This was from a few days ago. Not a LOT of snow, but nonetheless snow. It is actually quite rare for us to get snow in December here. We have had a couple of storms with 4 or 5 inches, and supposedly we will get another few inches tomorrow.

We have young drivers out on the roads a lot so I need to keep praying for their safety. Angela is supposed to work tomorrow and she is our youngest driver so I hope and pray she will be Ok. We will see if it actually snows like they say it will. Sometimes the weather winkies are wrong.

There is a lot going on in the house with Christmas coming, plus three kid birthdays. Kevin kindly purchases most of the gifts for the kids which is a HUGE blessing.

I am 45,000 words into another book. It will not be super long -- I am guessing like 60,000 when all is said and done.

Did you see how I used a dash in the previous sentence (-)? Apparently, people have decided that dashes are signs of Artificial Intelligence (AI) use in writing, so now I  am avoiding dashes. It is stupid because normal writers do use dashes, but I also don't want people writing reviews claiming I am using AI in my writing.

Our big boys have been looking around at apartments and considering what they want to do. At the moment, they are seriously contemplating living together in an apartment because it will be much cheaper. They initially wanted to live in their own places, but not surprisingly, it is way more expensive.

Kevin and I have been purchasing and organizing stuff for the boys so they will have dishes and pots and pans when they move out. We have a storage room in the basement and I am happily looking for stuff to give away.

Sometimes I am truly overwhelmed by how much stuff we have in the house. Given that we have nine people living here, I don't suppose it is really that bad but I don't like clutter.

This is our sons' bedroom. It is a big room (like 14 by 17) and fits three beds and three dressers nicely, but still it is crowded. When the big boys leave, there will be so much more space for stuff. I don't know what we will do with it, but we will figure out something. Maybe some of the toys that Daniel really likes?

Speaking of Daniel, he will miss them. He has shared a room with his brothers for as long as he can remember.

Our older boys, who both have to work early, will probably relish having their own room so they can hit the sack without being distracted by siblings. Joseph has a particularly brutal shift -- it starts at 6:30 a.m.!

So yeah, lots going on! It is good for young people to grow up and move out. It will be hard having them gone, but also kind of nice with a little less busyness and stuff in our house.

December!

 

We are past Thanksgiving. On Thursday (Thanksgiving) we didn't have our normal banquet because Angela was working.

So instead we had it on Saturday evening. ALSO, we had a party for Kevin's mother in the early afternoon on Saturday. She turned 80.

She lives in Texas with Kevin's sister and family, but they kindly brought her up so there could be a party for her. It was fun. 

Kevin's sister gave us hats so that evening, some of us wore hats.

It was nice being all together.

We didn't get snow, unlike Michigan, where they got a bunch. We are supposed to get snow tonight. We will see!

When the big girls visited for Thanksgiving dinner, we had six cars in our driveway. Fortunately, we have a big driveway. We look like a used car lot :-).

A new book launched on Friday. Amazon continues to behave in a wonky fashion which is annoying. It is, however, entirely beyond our control so Kevin and I are working on being patient.

The big thing that is annoying is that Amazon isn't, apparently, sending out messages to our Amazon "followers." These are people who have said they WANT to know when a book launches, but we don't think Amazon is doing it.

There was some big computer glitch more than a month ago and maybe it is still getting sorted out? Maybe.

Anyway. It is beyond our control. I am being calm.

My left foot has been bothering me quite a bit. I think I strained some tendons on the top of the foot or something.

I am so grateful for strong kids who can carry things up and down stairs for me as needed.

Kevin was on a decluttering spree last week which was nice. He threw away a bunch of stuff. Our big boys are moving out in the next couple of months and will take away more stuff.

I like having open space. Clutter stresses me out. Also, I live in a house with 8 other people and need to be patient with other people's clutter.

December is upon us and Christmas is coming. In the midst of all the holiday hustle and bustle, I am going to try to keep my thoughts fixed on the Lord Jesus, who came as a baby, grew to an adult, preached, taught, and then died for my sins, and rose again from the grave.

Thank you, Lord Jesus.

Still November

 

A long, long time ago...

28 + years ago...

Kevin and I married! Which was and is awesome.

I was very slim back then and my finger was correspondingly thin. Time passed and I gained weight, and my fingers got fatter.

So, for a number of years now, I have not been able to wear my wedding ring. I wore instead a sapphire ring I inherited from my maternal grandmother as it was bigger.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally made time to go to a local jewelry shop and paid for them to resize my ring, and also fix the metal prongs that hold in my diamond, because they had rounded down through the years and there was a danger that my diamond would pop out.

So now I can wear my ring again! Hooray!

In other news, Sarah turns 15 this week. How did she get to be so big?? She really is very big in the height sense. 5 ft 10 inches. She also takes after many of her siblings in that she is very thin. She is only 110 lbs.  I assure you that we feed her early and often.

This week has been interesting because Joseph started his new job. This means that during the day, most days, we have only the younger three at home. It is definitely quiet.  So far he likes his new job.

Isaac is still hunting for an engineering job but he does have a temp job that pays reasonably well.

Both big boys are apartment looking and plan to move out in the next few months, though not together. They want to live alone.

So lots of big changes. BIG changes!  It will be weird with only five kids at home. But we also are confident the boys will thrive and mature by being on their own.

Mid November

 

We had a little snowstorm! It was a record for November 10th in some local places. I think we got at least 3 inches.

Rose and Daniel were super excited. They spent a lot of happy time playing in the snow.

Do you see the pale sun shining through the clouds in the picture above? Cool!

Yesterday was Kevin's birthday. He and I only barely stepped outside yesterday. It was a great day to be inside, enjoying the warmth. Lydia came over for dinner so we had 8 kids celebrating.

Lydia and Naomi have several cats, and one of them has been losing weight. Turns out he is diabetic! So now they are having to give him insulin shots twice a day. He is already feeling much better.

Let's see... OH! Joseph got an IT job!  It starts next Monday. So that is a huge answer to prayer.

Isaac is still working a temp job but he does have an engineering interview today. So we will see.

We launched a book a week ago and so far it has been kind of a dud. I don't think it is the fault of the book. Amazon got messed up which affected the launch.

Two things happened. First, we have a big group of people who like my books, and they are supposed to be told when one of our books is on pre order, and when one of our books has launched. By Amazon, I mean. As far as we know, neither email got sent out.

Also, the reviews got totally stuck. A week from launch, we have only three reviews. Other books are having the same problem. Amazon is HUGE and sometimes things go wrong. By this time, I expect there have been at least 100 reviews to the book, most of them so called "star" reviews, where at the end of the book, people have the option of just telling how many stars there are. The written reviews are always far rarer.  But by now there should be quite a few and at the moment we have three and the first one showed up only yesterday.

All of this is annoying but reality. We work with Amazon, which is gigantic, and there are algorithms and computer stuff and when it goes wrong, the author "suffers".

But we also are blessed by Amazon, because, hey, most of our money comes from Kindle Unlimited page reads! So I am working to just take the good with the bad and be calm.

I haven't written anything in several days (creatively, I mean -- a book, I mean) and my brain has been bouncing all over thinking about stuff.

I am going through a Chernobyl phase. There was a huge nuclear accident in 1986 and I am watching a documentary series and reading about it again because it is fascinating.

I FINALLY figured out one scientific detail which has been confusing me for ages. So that is nice.

I have also been making parallels in my head between our situation with Amazon and SNAP recipient with the governement. The shut down caused a lot of fear and anguish and we decided to donate a decent sum to a local food pantry to help out.

I assume SNAP will get sorted out now, which is a relief for those who are struggling with food insecurity and hunger.

There are so many families struggling who need SNAP. There are also a bunch of people being kind of stupid about the whole thing.

I have seen online videos, which seem to be authentic, where people with SNAP are buying tons of expensive stuff -- expensive meats, and lots of pricy frozen meals. Here's the thing ... if you are on SNAP, and cannot pay for your own groceries, you SHOULD use SNAP very very very carefully. If I were in that position, I would buy a bunch of long lasting things (like rice or canned items) so IF the government had a problem and SNAP stopped, I would have food stored in the pantry.

Now some people literally don't have stoves, I get that. So their situation is different from those who do have kitchens and stoves and still decide to buy pricy pops and expensive name brand chips and that kind of thing.

My mentality is very different, maybe especially because I have kids. If I was so poor I couldn't pay for my own food, I would be trying to stockpile and lots of people don't.

Lots of people probably do stockpile, too.

Maybe there are a just a few people with terrible habits, but I would guess that isn't true.

When the government comes through faithfully every month, it is easy to take it for granted. And then, when we have a 40+ days shutdown and SNAP is delayed, a lot of people freak. Some people are literally on the cliff of poverty so I do understand that it is really hard. But some people are definitely being stupid about how they have been using their "free money" for groceries.

We are used to having Amazon be helpful, and this time it has been causing problems with not doing what it should be doing. BUT, we have savings so we can weather having lower income than expected.

November

 It seems like a lot is going on.

Kevin and the kids closed the pool a few days ago.  It has been really chilly so definitely time!

A new book launched today. I hope it does well.

I finished a Christmas book a few days ago -- well, the first draft anyway. I have been writing a lot and my brain is a little fried so I am taking a break from writing in favor of tidying and decluttering the house.

That actually is very satisfyingg. Yesterday I went through a pile of old glasses we had. Seven of our nine children have glasses, and we purchase a new pair every year. I save the old ones, of course, in case the current pair has an issue and we need a back up.

That has happened so many times, by the way, that we needed a backup.

However, when I pulled my whole store out, and checked them out with the kids, I discovered less than half were of any use at all. The kids were too big, or their eyes had changed so much that the glasses were no longer useful. So I put all the spares in a bag and will drop them off at the library, where they have a box for old frames for people who need them. It is through the Lions Club I think.

So that was nice.

I also am going through spare shoes and once again finding a bunch that are too small for the kids, or no one wants them.

I love getting rid of things. I love it... so much.

So yeah, good week. Busy.