New Year's Eve!

This picture was taken on Christmas Day. It is a little warped because of the lens but Kevin messed with it so it is pretty good.

I remember when I was very young, when I was going to Michigan Tech. as an undergraduate student, that I would come home for Christmas break and just want to sleep all the time.  I worked very hard during the semester and was just worn out when I got back.

I feel a little like that this 'break' from school.  I have been extra tired.  I have been taking naps almost every day.  Of course, we had three birthdays and Christmas in the last 2 weeks so I haven't had a ton of downtime. But definitely, not teaching is relaxing.

It has been a good break so far, but I am annoyed at how tired I am!

However...

We have much to be thankful for.  Happy New Year's Eve!

 

Christmas Week

  Last week was very busy and quite difficult for a variety of reasons.  Partly it is my famous personality. I don't like being away from home much.

Partly it was we had a lot going on.  I had so many medical appointments and the like.  Ugh.  I even ADDED a quick trip to the eye doctor as my glasses weren't working as well as they should. Turns out that in 6 months, my vision has deteriorated in both eyes. Not a lot (0.25 in some random eye unit) but still, I will be happier with new glasses, which are covered under warranty. So that's cool.

Optometrist asked about my blood sugars because high bg's can cause problems with vision, but A1c of 5.9 should not tie into diabetes related issues with vision.

This week is blissful in that I don't have to go anywhere particular until Sunday church.

I did go to Sam's Club early this morning.  It was vaguely heroic because I had to roust myself out of bed, swallow down tea and breakfast, and rush off. BUT it was great because I am a "plus" member and the store was largely empty.  ALSO, and this is a BIG deal, my cart was fantastic.  Sam's seems to have a real gift for providing creaky, cranky carts with wheels that are wobbly.  This one rolled so smoothly that it was noticeable. I kept thinking, wow, this is a great cart!

We have three birthdays and Christmas in the next 2 weeks. Whee!  Kevin informed me this morning that we were short 4 presents.  True confessions here; I have a tendency to dump the "present buying" job on Kevin. But I found 3 presents online and ordered them, and Kevin figured out the fourth present, so we are good.  Or we are good so long as Amazon comes through.

My new book, Longbourn's Son, is thus far very popular. It is likely a good time to release a book. Lots of people are off work and reading books for fun, and other people are buying gifts for others.  

We responsibly took our kittens in to get fixed this week.  Usually we have worked with a place that provides cheap spays and neuters for stray cats.  These two are indeed rescues so we called them enthusiastically, only to be informed that the earliest we could get them in was February!

Um, no.  By that time, they would be able to have babies together which totally would NOT be Ok.  So we went through a local veterinarian which was expensive but it was done quickly and the cats bounced back very well.  It is nice to know that is taken care of!

//

We also paid for a month of ESPN so we can watch college football bowl games. That is actually quite fun!  The University of Michigan made the final four and while they may well fall before the might of Georgia, at least they made it a long way this year.

//

Isaac and Joseph are on break from college which is nice for them. I think Isaac, in particular, was pretty worn out by the end of the semester. It was his first semester with a full load. He did well and I am proud of him. 

Joseph took one class and did well.  Next semester, he will take two classes.

//

It is easy this time of year to forget "the reason for the season".  Life is very busy for us, especially with three kid birthdays, and sometimes I forget that Jesus is the center of it all.  

More than 2000 years ago, God came to earth in the form of a baby.  He grew up, He preached, taught, and healed, and then He died on a cross as a sacrifice for my sins.

In the day to day, I forget sometimes how amazing that is, that God Himself was willing to pay the sacrifice for my sins.

Thank you, Lord Jesus.

Rose is a person, not a project

 Ok, I know that is totally OBVIOUS.  Rose is indeed a person, not a project!

But...

I really love finishing projects.  I get a dopamine hit from finishing up some big task.

Since Rose is the youngest Kendig child, I have seen the "end of an era" in a number of areas.  Last time we used diapers.  Last time we used pull-ups.  Last time we used sippy cups. There was one fine day many years ago when Kevin swept through the house like a tornado and took all the sippy cups and threw them away because he was SICK of them. Rose was not pleased but she adjusted to normal cups.

So anyway, Rose is learning to read.  I have 8 kids who are fluent readers now and one lone holdout.

My darling youngest is 7 and a half years old. She is making good progress with reading but she still isn't fluent. We are working on it and she is making progress but she isn't a good reader yet.

I have an internal struggle between realizing she is going to get it in time, and just wanting it done. This week, I realized part of my anxiety is that when she is fluent, I will be DONE teaching reading!

So I just want it done. But Rose is a person, not a project. She is smart, funny, stubborn, and not too eager to learn to read.  

I need to take my time and keep toiling away and trust that in time, she will become a fluent reader.  Indeed, I know she will; I have a lot of experience teaching reading and am 99.9% sure there aren't any issues with dyslexia or vision issues. She just has to learn and would rather be running around outside or making up cute little games.

The pic at the top has Rose in handcuffs because she wanted handcuffs, and I have been bribing her to read.  So that is why she is in handcuffs.

Thanksgiving

 We had the whole crowd here for Thanksgiving.  Lydia brought pies and mashed potatoes. We provided turkey, olives, pickles, and more pies.

So dinner was hilarious with turkey and mashed potatoes and two lame sides.  Then we had lots of dessert!

Kevin's mother usually brings five or six sides but she was still in Texas at the time.  I was busy working on a book and lost track of the fact that we had basically no sides.

No one was too upset.  What can go wrong with four pies??

Angela made this apple pie!

Rose made herself a crown!

Our beloved Horde.

Boys ate separately as we don't all fit around the table.

Our boys!

Our girls!

These Weeks in Pictures

This might be from a couple of weeks ago. Just wanted to get Kevin and the kids at home in a picture.

Rose and I wandering around Pearl's Fen, a nearby park.

Rose in her new hat, shirt, and gloves.  

We were going to go to church this morning BUT yesterday afternoon, my right eye started itching fiercely. This morning, it had a film on it when I got up.  So I think I have pink eye!  Fortunately I have eye drops for it. BUT given that it is super contagious I decided we should stay home from church. So far the kids seem mostly Ok (some are complaining of stuffed heads and aching limbs) but I don't want to spread pink eye through Sunday School.

So I knew we were supposed to get some snow but thought a few flakes, maybe?  No.  It has snowed and snowed. It won't last long but it is beautiful.

The sun room kittens are interested!

And then they got super tired!

My wonderful husband turned 51 this week.  Happy birthday, darling!

Rubik's Cube

 

I solved a Rubik's cube!

I used online help, of course, but still!  What an accomplishment :-).

Thankful for 52 years

 I had a birthday this month and I am now 52 years old!

Rose and I are wearing our matching turtle shirts from St. Croix. She was THRILLED to pose with me, obviously!

I really like being in my 50's. I have no doubt that if I live long enough, I will be far wiser at 80 than I am right now, but I know I am far, far wiser than I was at 25.  So that is good!

I am also incredibly grateful for my comparatively good health.  One does not carry 9 children to term, and have six of them by C-section, and have a full incision hysterectomy in one's late 40's, without some damage to the body. I know, because my OB has told me, that I have a lot of scar tissue in my abdomen. My neck and back fuss at me regularly because I spent decades with poor posture thanks to carrying babies both within the womb and on my right hip. However, a chiropractor helps and my aches and pains are minor.

My Type 2 diabetes is under control, and 17 years after being diagnosed, I don't have any obvious side effects. 

All this is to say that I am quite healthy, and I am grateful!

Kevin's mom left Ohio two months ago to help an extended family member who fell ill with COVID.  He almost died on the ventilator but by the grace of God, he survived and is back home. He is slowly regaining his strength.

I am reading a book by a pastor/radiologist (yes, he was both at the same time) who in his late 30's abruptly developed a serious, rare disease which means he has spent the last couple of decades feeling rotten much of the time.

I have another friend who was in a series of car accidents in his late teens, which caused irreparable damage to his back. He has had a series of surgeries to try to repair the damage.  While things have improved, he spent years on pain meds and eventually started taking too many, and is now an opioid addict.  Today he is in a detox facility trying to break free from his addiction.

Wow.  

So yes, my neck aches, and my back aches at times.  I have to eat increasingly carefully as I grow old.  But, at age 52, I can walk and climb stairs and hug my kids and do my various jobs.  I am grateful.

New Book Launching

 

Today is launch day for my new book, entitled Brighton Rescue.  It is, as all my books are, a Pride and Prejudice variation.

I always find the last phase of a book the hardest, as it involves editing, which is boring.  :-)

Kevin does all the work actually getting it set up for publication so yeah for Kevin!!

It is great being done with this book.  It is great to have it launched.  I am happy!

Bad Week for Anxiety

 This was truthfully a really rough week for me anxiety wise.  Part of it was self inflicted. Most of it was self inflicted?  I was finishing edits on the book, which is my least favorite part of the process.  I was still working away on some household projects (like cleaning the porch).  And then we were also doing school this week.  Oh, and I had 3 appointments outside of home Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday!

Tuesday's was a lot of fun; Lydia and I went out to lunch. That was great!

Wednesday I took Joseph in for his well check appointment.  He is 17, 6 ft, and weighs, I am serious about this, weighs 106 lbs.

So yeah.  The doc checked him out carefully and he is totally healthy, just very skinny.  Isaac was the same way but has put on some weight this year. So now Isaac is 6 ft. almost 3 inches tall, 137 lbs.  Which is still very thin!

Thursday I took two kids to the orthodontist.

Did I talk about the edits?  Ergh.  Entering edits into the computer requires a lot of concentration and I was getting interrupted so often.

Oh, and Kevin's job has been super busy lately.  He works from home and I have to keep the kids quiet sometimes which is not too hard since they aren't babies and toddlers anymore, but still.  He has been rather stressed too.

Anyway, my anxiety was through the roof this week.  For me, again, to reiterate from a few blog posts ago, it is not that I am worried about something bad happening. It is more that I look around and everything out of place catches my eye, and my brain is flitting through all that needs to be done.  It is no fun.

A few weeks ago I was really anxious and upped my Lexapro dosage and felt better.  Then this last week I dropped it down to normal levels and got worse again. So I think I need to move up to 15 mg from 10 mg of Lexapro.

It is very uncomfortable and it makes me an agitated wife and mother, which Kevin and the kids don't need.

 I still get lots done when I am not so anxious. I am able to see something that needs to be finished and think, Ok, yes, I need to do that, but I will get to that later.  It doesn't make me feel overwhelmed.

I am very thankful for the meds because they do help me. 

This Week in Pictures

 

We bought collection folders for quarters and have had fun looking through our stash of quarters and putting the different state park and state coins in the right places.

Back three acres is mostly wild and really nice.

Rose with magnets on door.

There is a story here!  I decided to spray off the porch with a sprayer on a hose.  Kevin says no, use the pressure washer.  So what was going to be just a little clean up turned into a long, exhausting, but productive process.  I did some, Kevin did more.  The Welcome in the dirt shows what the porch looked like before Kevin toiled away with the pressure washer.

The black and white kitten is Kevin's emotional support animal. He sometimes takes her into his office for meeting.

Rose can be dramatic about folding towels.

Lydia and Opal

The Building of the Great Wall

 

We needed to separate the kittens from the hot tub. They are growing so fast, not just in size but in ability.  

So Kevin went to work with help from Isaac.

Isn't that amazing!  Kevin is SO handy!!

This last pic of the kittens on the chairs is just to show how big and strong they are now.  We got them a little more than a month ago and they were wobbly when they walked, and I had to help them pee. Now they are just all over the place and jumping up things. So we needed a wall.

I Finished (My Part) of my Latest Book!

 Yesterday was a red letter day for me.  I finished final edits on my latest book!

This is the publishing process for my books:

1.  I write the chapters one by one on Microsoft Word.  Kevin edits each chapter and fixes problems. He is a great editor.

2.  We post them on a fanfiction site.  This is a free place for people to read Pride and Prejudice variations.  People comment and sometimes point out errors or questions about the story.

3.  I write fast, and I finish most books within 2 months or so.  When I am done with the book, I print it out on paper.

4.  I go through the entire book using paper and a good old fashioned red pen, except for when my red pens disappear, which has been known to happen; then I use another pen. But I prefer red because it stands out.

5.  I enter in all my changes into the document on Microsoft Word.

6.  We send the document to a friend whom we pay for another edit.

7. When she sends back her edits, Kevin incorporates all of her edits into the document.

8.  He adds important things like table of contents, and formats it, and a whole bunch of complex stuff for Amazon.

9. We publish.

So yesterday, I finished 5., which means I am DONE with my part except for maybe a few questions by our editor friend.

Kevin also does the book covers. He does everything except the original writing. Yeah for Kevin!!!!

So Brighton Rescue will be live on Amazon on October 28th.

Hot Tub

 Kevin loves hot tubs.

I like hot tubs.

Over the years, we've thought about acquiring a hot tub. But truthfully, the thought of dealing with it was stressful, PLUS we had little kids for so many years. I didn't really want a hot tub when we had kids who could not swim.

Also, they are expensive.

So now we have more money because we are old and crusty (kind of.)

Also, all our children swim.  Also, Sam's had a small hot tub that was "only" $2200.  So we ordered one in September.  We were informed that it would take 2 months to get it.

A week or two after the order, we rescued the kittens.  We were unsure what to do with the hot tub because they would need to share a space in the sun room, but we figured we had time to sort it out.

Wednesday we got an early phone call informing us that the hot tub was 15 minutes from our house. No prior warning.

Ha!  So much for plenty of time to think about where to put the hot tub!

We put it in the sun room as planned, and created a barrier with tables.  For now, that is keeping the kittens away from the hot tub.  They are still pretty small.

So far it is a huge hit. It is also, not surprisingly, work because the chemicals need to be balanced properly.

A Week of Organizing and Decluttering. Also, Fleas.

A couple of times a year, I have a sudden, deep, passionate desire to organize and declutter our home.  Commonly, these desires tie into the changing of seasons. So sure enough, a week ago I decided it was time to take a week off of school and do some work on the house.

I never get as much done as I hope, but this week has been very productive.  I worked with the kids to go through ALL their clothing. We donated 6 or 7 full trash bags full of clothes to Goodwill.  It feels good to have all the outgrown stuff out of the house, and everyone's clothes where they should be. Briefly.  It is inevitable that garments start sneaking into the wrong drawers over time.  

I also worked on the downstairs.  We have a storage room and an old bar where there is more storage.

Now, you may look at both of these and say, so what?  Well, I didn't get before pictures and I should have; I assure you both places are far, far better than they were. Also, they are not perfect.  One of my life mantras is "Better is better". I often often often don't have time to do a job completely, but even improvement is great.  The area behind the bar was particularly dreadful to the point that I couldn't walk back there, thanks to the kids throwing a whole bunch of costumes on the floor.  I got that cleaned up.

The kids helped a lot.  It wasn't all me.   I was the mastermind.

Also, our kittens have fleas. This is no great surprise since we rescued them from outdoors so yeah...

They are too little for traditional flea treatments, but apparently it helps a lot to just get a flea comb (which I ordered and received from Amazon), dip the comb in soapy water, and comb them. So today we did that and got a lot of fleas off of them.   The kids and I will keep doing that once or twice a day until they are old enough for a treatment. 

Apparently fleas don't live on people, which is good.  Our house doesn't have carpet and most of our couches are faux leather, also good. So hopefully we don't have an infestation. The kittens live in the sun room, also free of rugs. So we will see. We will keep working on it.

 

Anxiety

 I've battled anxiety for as long as I can remember. Like, literally, when I was 4 years old I was anxious.

Now why this is true is not clear.  Every kid has challenges in their early life and I was no exception, of course.  I am inclined to think that my anxiety is a mix of life experiences and brain dysfunction.

The latter sounds pretty intimidating!  Brain dysfunction!  :-)

Basically, my brain chemistry is off because my seratonin levels are a little low.  I spent many decades, starting in my mid 20's, working to manage my anxiety better.  I prayed, I worked through childhood struggles, I read the Bible, I asked God for healing.

Everything I did helped. God brought tremendous power into my life and there is no doubt I was far less anxious at age 40 than I was at age 25.

Having said all that, when some of our older kids starting dealing with depression and anxiety, we finally considered medicine.  It helped my kids so, when I was sure I was done having children (since I was nervous about taking meds while pregnant) I tried Lexapro, an anti anxiety medication.

It was incredible.  It was the missing piece.  Within a few weeks, my anxiety levels dropped to nearly zero. It was crazy in an awesome way.

Since then, I've been trucking along happily at 10 mg of Lexapro a day. There was one time when I tried dropping down to 5 mg and wow, I got whacked with anxiety.

Just in the last few weeks, my anxiety rose again.  It was really irritating.  Anxiety is hard to describe; in my case, it isn't necessarily fear of something bad happening. I did have that kind of anxiety when I was younger, but have managed to work through it pretty well.

Anxiety for me is like an itch under my skin. It says: you have so much to do, Laraba, and not enough time to do it. You are going to fail your husband, your kids, your God.  My eyes are constantly picking out things in the house that aren't in good shape. My brain is running through lists of things that should be done.

A week or so ago, I upped my Lexapro dose to 15 mg a day.  Now my anxiety is down again.

So why am I having trouble?  I think mostly it is life.  We are pretty busy right now; Kevin's job is intense, I have two kids taking college classes on line, kittens, dealing with medical appointments, etc.

The thing is, I am not as good a wife and mother when I am anxious. Part of being a good mother is being able to cope with kids wailing and crying and quarreling. When I am anxious, it is way harder to handle those things well.

So I am thankful for Lexapro.

More Kittens

 

The kittens continue to be a huge hit. It is interesting watching them develop.  A human baby moves through milestones slowly, but kittens are on warp speed. When Lydia and Naomi found them outside their apartment, they were still wobbly when they walked.  Now they are jumping and running and attacking and clawing at one another in mock playing. They are also eating wet and dry food, and using the litter box like pros.

They are very adorable.

Kitten Update: So far so good

 

I took them to the vet on Monday as they weren't pooping. The vet checked them out and said everything was fine. You will be glad to know that now they ARE pooping. Not only that, they are using the litter box!

Vet estimated that they are about 4 weeks old, which makes them a couple of weeks younger than the kittens we rescued last year.  Those weeks are important; last year's kittens lapped formula but I am having to hand feed these two, at least for now. They will lap a little but then get tired of it.  They have already matured quite a bit in the last week so they will get it in time.

For now, I am up once a night to feed the babies, which makes me tired, but they are worth it.

The black and white one adores Kevin and likes to tuck up under his chin.

Both of them adore my fuzzy robe. They knead it with their little paws and suck it and squeak with joy.

So far so good!

Kittens

 Naomi and Lydia found two kittens near their apartment a couple of nights ago.  They were very small and very alone and the girls watched for a couple of hours and no Mama cat showed up, so of course they rescued them.

But of course our big girls are hampered by the sad reality that they work full time so they brought them to us, because the kittens are very small indeed and need a lot of care.

I think it is obvious they are tiny; indeed, they are smaller than any other kittens we have rescued. They still can't lap milk well so we are having to feed them using droppers of formula.

They also don't seem to be able to go the bathroom by themselves, so we have to help them with that too!

We're guessing they are between 3 and 4 weeks old.  We have no idea what happened to their Mom; was she feral and got hit or something?  Were they dumped?  Horrible idea, but possible.

Anyway, we will see how they do. Of course we are all in love with them already, but Kevin and I are also aware that with such tiny babies, something might go wrong and they might die.  So far they seem good and even in the two days we have had them, they are walking around better. They also think I am their mother now and greet me with squeaks of enthusiasm.  I am the one that usually feeds them.

I am getting up once at night to feed them.  If they live, they should be able to eat by themselves within a week so this isn't a long term thing. Reminds me of my own newborns a little, except of course with my babies, the "waking up at night" thing wasn't a one week thing!