Petey in the Sun Room

It is a cool day so not too hot in the sun room, and Petey is wandering around. He likes it. We have covered precious things with newspaper as he is, of course, defecating.

He is such a nice bird.

 

August

 My parents visited this last weekend!  We had great fun!

The kids were all here for two dinners. It was lovely having everyone together, including my folks.

Yesterday we went to a garden and a farmer's market with the three youngest kids. Life is definitely different with the older five living outside the house, and Angela working full time. There is a huge difference between 5 and 11 people, obviously. And this weekend, we had 13 people some of the time. It was fabulous.

Petey continues to be a hit. Kevin keep trying to give him fruit and tasty leaves and he says, no thanks. He is a picky eater. He only eats bird seed. He only eats SOME of the bird seed. His food is a mix, and he deliberately tosses it on the floor of his cage and then hunts and pecks for his particular favorite bird seed(s).

He is very cute though.

 

I took the three younger kids to a local water park. They had a great time. The water was very cold. There are these buckets in the middle of the park which fill with water and then dump on the kids. Daniel, in particular, thought that was great.

Isaac and Miriam dressed up for church.

This week, Kevin's mother, sister, and niece are coming to visit, so that is fun.

I am writing away vigorously, as usual. I am reading up on French Christmas customs, which is fascinating.

Petey the Pigeon

 Last week, Miriam found a tame pigeon hopping around near her work at the Air Force Base.

Kevin told her to bring it home.

With the help of some coworkers, she did so.

Meet Petey the Pigeon.

Isn't he a handsome boy? I have a friend who is a Bird Expert, and she has a friend who is a Pigeon Expert, and the friend says she thinks that Petey is a racing pigeon.

We also think he is young. He doesn't have bright orange around his eyes.

Do we know what we are doing? Not really. But we are trying to be good pigeon owners.

Also, Joseph and Miriam moved out. That is obviously way bigger than acquiring a pigeon. It is weird. We only have four kids in the house right now. Wow.

They are less than 15 minutes away so I am hoping we will see them often.

It is good for them to move out. It is kind of sad, too.

But it is good.

I am also excited about having less stuff in our house!

Nearing the End of July

 So first things first, Joseph and Miriam did NOT move out today. There was a problem with the apartment they were supposed to move into, and now they are SUPPOSED to move next weekend. We will see! It is not biggies since they don't have to leave here any particular time, but it is annoying when apartment complexes do this kind of thing. When Lydia and Naomi last moved, they ended up squatting here for more than a week because the apartment they wanted got delayed.

Pool is still lovely. Rose is the one in purple. I was looking at the picture and it took me a little bit to be certain that it WAS Rose. She looks so long and leggy! She is almost as tall as Miriam now.

Daniel figured out that Jet, one of our black cats, had a weird swelling under his chin. I took him to the vet yesterday and it was an abcess. They took care of it and gave him meds, and now he is sadly in our sun room. He does not like it, but the spot needs to heal.

I continue to enjoy putting puzzles together. I "finished" this one today, though there was a bite out of the left side of the puzzle. This was one of the puzzles I got from our local library -- they have a trade in kind of thing -- bring in a puzzle and take another one. This was one was missing at least 8 pieces! And all but one is along the left side. I still had fun, but it looks like a shark took a bite out of it.

New book doing well. 

Mid July

 

A new book launches tomorrow. That is always exciting.

Miriam and Joseph are moving out, which is even more exciting! Joseph has been planning to move out for a while but his finances are a bit dubious, so it wasn't happening. Miriam decided a few weeks ago that she would like to move out as well, which is reasonable. They talked and worked together and found a two bedroom apartment about 15 minutes from us. It looks like a nice place and easily affordable.

They will move out by the end of the month (probably) which will leave ONLY 4 kids here! Which is a little crazy!

Lydia started a new job which pays better. She likes it pretty well though the schedule is very different than her last job. She starts at 10 a.m. and is done at 6:30 p.m. most days.

Poor Lydia was also the victim of a catalytic converter theft more than a week ago! Some thieves hit her apartment complex. It sucks.

She has a friend whose husband is a mechanic and he is going to fix it for her, hopefully this Saturday.

It is very hot again.

Kevin's back is hurting a lot. It has been a problem for a month, sometimes better sometimes worse. It seems like a muscle or tendon issue, not a back issue proper. Mostly lower right side.

Lots of Pictures

 A week ago, Lydia hosted her own birthday party at our house.

She likes parties. I find parties overwhelming. So I provided a little support, but she organized almost all of it. All of our kids were here, plus 6 or 7 of her friends. We had a great time.

Present from Naomi, I think. Minecraft cat

The weather winkies were threatening rain but it held off so the second part of the party was in the pool.

It is rare for all of our kids to be in the same place at the same time so this picture is precious to me.

Early this week, it got HOT.

The pool got ridiculously warm. Yesterday it was 90 degrees. It is almost not refreshing but it is still wonderful. We have been swimming a lot.

Rose made this pool with blankets in it.

And of course, when we aren't swimming, we relish the coolth inside. I am so grateful for air conditioning.

Kevin sent me this picture, which makes me laugh. The Babylon Bee is a Christian satire site. I am famous for loathing the sequel trilogy of Star Wars. I sometimes wander around ranting about the Last Jedi and its many plot and character problems. I actually never watched the Rise of Skywalker because I knew it would just annoy me.

This coming week it will be a LITTLE cooler; upper 80s instead of 90s. 

4th of July!

 It is our nation's 250th birthday today!

Our nation has problems, for sure, but in many ways, the USA is an amazing place to live. I am thankful for our freedoms. 

A lot is going on here at the Kendig house. All of this is in no particular order of importance.

I finished my edits for a book yesterday. This book took longer than usual to finish because Kevin has been dealing with back and ear problems and wasn't editing as fast as he typically does. Anyway, I am done with almost everything I have to do.

I am 20,000 plus words into another book already. Part of this new book involves a court case so I am reading up on courts and law in the Regency period in England. Fascinating stuff.

Miriam and Joseph have decided to move out together. They are looking for an apartment. Joseph wanted to move out but was having a hard time finding one given his income. He is currently working as a janitor and it doesn't pay particularly well. Miriam is in IT and together they can find a good 2 bedroom apartment. I am glad Miriam will have a big brother in the same apartment. I like having sibs rooming together because they can keep track of each other.

Miriam is only 20 but she is ready to be on her own and running her own life. That is reasonable. She and the older kids will all be close enough to us that we can give advice and help out with things like car issues and so on.

I will miss M and J, but it will also be nice having a quieter house. I think a lot about how I am 56 and it is weird we have 6 kids still under our roof :-).

Of course, having six kids at all is weird, and nine is truly insane :-).

Anyway, they are looking for an apartment and I suspect will be out of our house by the end of the summer.

Lydia has a new job which she will start later this coming week. She has been working as a concierge at a retirement community for 2 years and she likes the job, but it doesn't pay well enough to live on, really. Her new job has a 20% higher pay.

Lydia's work place lost a couple of concierges in the last couple of months (and now, of course, they are losing Lydia) and so the poor kid has been working really intense hours. That means overtime and more money, which is helpful for her, but she is working 64 hours this week including today and she is tired. New job will not require overtime as far as I know.

Angela, who has been working as a server/dishwasher at the same retirement community, is going to take Lydia's job, which comes with a pay bump and steadier hours. Angela is still looking for an IT job but so far hasn't had any luck.

Part of being a mother is really wanting the kids to be happy and earn enough money, and sometimes life happens and I have to step back and pray and support. 

I have mentioned a few times that I wanted to lose weight. Well, I did so. I dropped my lexapro dosage, because that was the initial spur to my weight gain. I lost some weight, but then realized that I needed my full lexapro dosage and went back up again. Surprisingly I kept losing weight. So I was 180 lbs, and now I am about 167. I am trying to be really careful about eating which, not surprisingly, helps with losing weight. Some evenings I am hungry and there just isn't anything appropriate that is quick, so I go to bed instead of eating.

I am going to end this blog post and start a new one for pictures.