Pink Eye and Plushies

Sarah got pink eye and then it showed up in 7 more people. Yes, 8 Kendigs have pink eye.  My days are filled with eye drops in infected eyes.

Thankful for meds!

Yesterday I decided to do a massive cleaning bedding just in case pink eye germs were lurking.  I'm thankful for a big washing machine and dryer!

This was the laundry pile in our laundry room.  The pic doesn't do it justice. There were truly a LOT of blankets and sheets.

Then I decided that I should run all the plushies and stuffed animals through the dryer to kill any germs.

We have enough plush toys to fill a small country. Wow.

I mean, it is CRAZY.

So after tons of drying, I took all the plush toys downstairs and told the kids they could "only" have 10 plushies in their rooms. Each.

So Lydia, Miriam, and Angela have 30 plush toys which is way down from what they had before.  It is crazy.

The older boys are not plushie addicts, though Daniel is.

I'm still in awe at how many plushies were stuck behind beds and under beds and in beds and mixed in blankets. Wow.

In addition to pink eye, we've had a continuing irritating cold with rasping, icky coughs for Sarah and Daniel. I took Sarah in last week (when we identified pink eye) and her lungs are clear, it is just throat irritation.

A few minutes ago, Daniel drove his pedal car to the end of the driveway with me to fetch the mail. By the time we were back at the house, he was hacking away uncontrollably.  So they still can't be active because it sparks a bad coughing fit.

The little ones are SO impressed with my insistence that they avoid running around!

Oh well, this too shall pass.

We have too many plushies.

Happy 50th Birthday to Me!

Colder weather, cleaning, decluttering, and life

The kids really enjoy playing with magnets!

Lydia made this costume. She is a remarkable seamstress.  She did NOT get that from me.

Butterfly on Kevin's finger

It got cold enough to legitimately close the pool. Kevin gathered the troops and got to work. It is closed now for the season. We had such a great year of swimming but I am thankful to have a break from working on it.  It takes many chemicals and a fair amount of tender, loving care to keep it pristine. Or even close to pristine.

Our sun room often degenerates into a total disaster.  The kids do art in there and often leave it super messy. I cleaned it this week. It still looks pretty good, 3 days later.

I'm also in the midst of a moderately subdued decluttering frenzy.  I've been going through clothing and working on getting rid of stuff we don't need.  It is always exhausting work and I'm not someone who gets attached to things very easily.   And of course some people in this family are mightily attached to some things.  Not that that is bad -- everyone is different.  There is a place of balance where we enjoy what we have but we don't cling to everything.

I felt peaceful at the cabin last week when we just had a couple of small suitcases.  It was simple not having piles of stuff. So part of me wants to throw away half our belongings but hello, I'm only 1 of 11 people so I can't just toss things wholesale :-).

But I can comb through clothes that Daniel and Rose have outgrown, and give them away. I can go through the pantry and organize it so that we know what we have and don't buy more of what we don't need.  I can look at my books and get rid of some of them.

Really, I do get rid of books sometimes :-).

Brief Getaway

Kevin and I snuck away for a short trip earlier this week. We left Sunday, October 6th and got back the 8th.

We drove all of an hour away to a nearby Ohio State Park, where we rented a cabin for 2 nights.  It was a simple cabin but very comfy.  It had a kitchen, including a coffee maker that only sort of worked.  We spent 20 minutes the second day struggling and finally succeeding in making coffee with it, though we had to boil the water on the stove and pour it into the makeshift filter.

We were really roughing it.

We didn't do anything particular during these 2 days. We went for walks. We slept a lot. We played with the VR headset. Kevin cooked.  I washed dishes by hand.

It was really good for us to get away.  My brain was so relaxed in an environment where there was little I had to do. At home, there are always 50 things I COULD be doing.  Ok, maybe that is an exaggeration. But then again, maybe it isn't.

The rest of the week was insanely busy.  I was running kids to and from orthodontist and eye doctor appointments and various things of that ilk.  Oh, I got my new compliant driver's license. That was a major accomplishment.

Next week life is settling back into more normalcy.  I hope.