Halloween

 We live out in the country so never have trick or treaters, so don't need to think about that. Our church is having a Halloween party tonight and Rose and I will go.

We paid a handyman friend to replace our fence. It was forty plus years old and rotting and looks SO much better.

Kevin is bush hogging our back three acres today. He started yesterday. It is a big job. We have a tractor and bush hog, and two things broke yesterday, but he got them repaired. He has to do this every few years on the back three just becomes a jungle.

Isaac's car is still being repaired, but he is working with siblings to get to and from work. He is also planning to move back to Dayton when his lease ends next year. He will be commuting to his job in Cincinnati and it will be like 45 minutes, but the current plan is for him to move in with Joseph and Miriam. He spends a lot of time in Dayton going to church and associated activities, and his rent will be substantially diminished with roommates. 

I hate long commutes, but not everyone does. I have had coworkers and friends who think nothing of a 45 minute commute, and I guess Isaac is one of those people, and more power to him!

The trees are gorgeous. I do love autumn.  So lovely and crisp and cool.

I have been reading through a bunch of mysteries by an author named Donna Andrews. I told my mother about the books and she tried a few, and pointed out that they don't really work as mysteries (usually) in that there are no clues leading to the villain. And she is totally right! I have managed to work out who the murderer was more than once because some random person seems to have zero motive and is just drifting around and I think, hmmmm, probably the villain.

So yeah, really not well plotted from a mystery point of view, BUT the prose is fun, and there is a ton of humor, and there are always lots of birds and other animals involved. So I read them based on the joy of the writing and plot, not the mystery.

These books are super successful and it is actually interesting to me, as an author, that such poorly plotted mysteries are such a hit but then again, I adore them because they are funny and well written.

Maybe more to the point, there are lots of readers who aren't looking for tightly plotted anything? I think about my own books, which are generally well received, and I am a pantser. I start with an idea and just start writing, and the plot unspools. And in the end, there is a book with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I don't write mysteries so don't know if Donna Andrews plots the whole thing out or just lets it drift here and there before she decides hmmm, ok, I guess I need to pick out a villain. She might do just that.

Happy October, and tomorrow is November!

Mid October

 Today is the first really chilly day of autumn, with a high in the mid 50s. It was high 40s last night and it felt genuinely cold when I went outside!

Sarah and Daniel got braces last week. We have a genetic predisposition towards narrow mouths and overbites. Daniel will take a year to 18 months, and Sarah a little longer because she has some little complications. Like several of our kids, she is missing teeth and that makes it interesting. Daniel was in quite a bit of pain the day after they were installed, but is much better today. Sarah was less affected.

I rarely show a picture of me. Rose took this picture and I thought, hey, maybe people would like a pic of me!

Petey continues to amuse us. Here he is playing in some water.

The most serious aspect of the week is that Isaac, age 24, was in a car accident, though by God's grace he was not hurt. We are so thankful for that! It was not his fault; a truck merged into his lane and pushed him into an adjacent lane. The car isn't safely drivable so it is at a body shop and he is dealing with insurance and all that. Very much an adulty thing to manage!

October!

 I love sunny autumn days. We have had several nice sunny days after a few gray days. It is lovely.

Last week, we went on a little field trip to a nearby farm where they sell pumpkins. They have pigs, and chickens, and PEACOCKS, and dogs, and cats, and the barn is full of pumpkins.

Lydia with cat

Me with a peacock and a hen in the background.

One of the fascinating things about this farm is that Kevin's paternal grandfather grew up at this farm! It used to belong to the Kendigs, but was sold off to someone else in the last one hundred years.

We bought pumpkins and the kids carved them.

So pretty! (There are lit candles in the pumpkins).

Kevin cut down our crabapple tree. It has not been doing well, and dumping leaves in our gutters, so away it goes.

I bought a helium balloon tank, and some mylar balloons, and we have been having fun with helium!

We launched a new book a little more than a week ago. It is doing reasonably well, especially since stupid Amazon did not send out messages to my followers (again.)

Ah well, such is life.

Thinking about getting colder

 It is inkling towards the end of September, which means it is getting cooler at night. Our pool is still open and techniquely swimmable, but I am a wimp and don't like cold water. I might jump in tomorrow but if so, that will be that for the year.

I made bread today. I cannot eat bread; first becuase it is high carb, and second because wheat is high fructan and my digestive system does not like high fructans. But I like the way it looks, and smells, and live variously through my family eating the bread.

The thing above is not DOUGH, surprisingly enough; it is modeling (white) chocolate. It can be colored and molded and all that. VERY COOL!

One of the interesting things about having nine kids is every one is different and every one has different interests. Rose is my cooking and baking and candy enthusiast. She likes to watch shows about making cakes and candy, and every time we go to the library, she checks out a bunch of cook books.

An orange!

Rose also likes playing with our giant magnets.

Petey is still a big hit. Kevin found some videos about training your pigeon to like you, and we have been teaching him to eat out of our hands. He is doing so with alacrity.

Yesterday we had a bird escape, though, and he is a bit more nervous today. Kevin was feeding him, and had the door to the cage wider open than usual. Petey ate away happily, and then got bored (apparently) and flew off! That was a surprise :-). We moved his cage into the sun room while he perched on the mantle, and then encouraged him to fly out into the sun room. I had to follow him around and he did not like that, so he is a bit more anxious today about people in general, and hands in particular, than a couple of days ago.

Pigeons apparently get nervous about hands, which are grabby and also maybe look like claws?

Rose drew a waistcoat, hat, and monocle on a picture of Petey.

Sarah is definitely a "science girl" and I realized that since she may end up going to college for engineering and/or science, we need to push a little faster with math. 22 years into this homeschool thing, I have concluded that most people don't really need to learn trigonometry and calculus. But if she is gonna be an engineer, she needs to have both of those and right now she is doing Algebra 1 and Geometry.

So we will work on that.

She definitely has a scientific mind. She reads books about science and often asks me complicated questions about chemistry and physics.

In writing news. I am getting near the end of a Christmas Book. It is early for that, but being done is nice. I am like five chapters away from being done, probably? 

Stained glass window

 

Kevin and I are church hunting. The church we have attended the last couple of years is almost certainly dying in less than a month; the pastor of 34 years is retiring, and it is a teeny tiny church and we don't think we'll be able to find a pastor to fill his shoes.

So last Sunday, we visited a church within ten minutes of us. The sanctuary is old and beautiful, and the window above is the largest of the windows.

Kevin was moving around during the sermon and finally whispered that he realized one of the words at the bottom was Kendig.

So I moved around as well, and sure enough, the bottom says: In Memory of Julia H. Kendig. Harry R. Kendig and Family.

I found Julia and her husband Harry. They both were born in the late 1800s. Harry lived to a ripe old age and he and Julia (and a bunch of other relatives) are buried in the giant cemetary which rings the church we attended.

So that was interesting. Probably a relation? I haven't found a connection between Harry and Kevin's paternal grandfather, Albert. I might poke around some more because it is fascinating.

In other news, we have a new refrigerator arriving on Friday. Our current one is not as cold as it should be. We are vaguely indignant that this one is dying at only 3+ years old, but such is life.

We have had a mild stomach bug. Irritating.

The first week of September has been warm; today is supposed to hit 90. It WILL cool off soonish but for now, our pool is delightful.

I think that is about it!

Late August

 

Petey the Pigeon got to spend two full days in the sun room this last week. You can see him at the far left of the picture. The weather cooled down so our sun room was not too hot. He had a fabulous time. He got to fly all over. 

The younger girls spent a lot of time hanging out with him, doing school and just being friends. He never excretes on top of us, which is good. We have disposable table cloths protecting the hot tub, and newspapers on his favorite perches.

Now it is hotter again and our sun room is too warm for him, and he is back in his cage. He is noticeably better at flying than he was back when we first got him.

I am tired today. Last night there was a lunar eclipse and the skies were delightfully clear. The three younger kids all stayed up until around midnight to watch it. I loved that they could do that and then sleep in this morning!

I stayed up too. It was awesome. I love eclipses.

This week, Kevin spent hours and hours editing the last book I finished. I took over food shopping and prep for the week (he usually manages all that). On Wednesday, Lydia had to take her car in for some work, and I ended up driving her to work and then picked up her car later and picked her up at work. I don't mind at all, and am glad that my young adult kids have parents and sibs who can help out when things like this happen.

It does feel like a busy week though. It is easy to forget how much work it is to care for kids and house and home when Kevin has been doing so much of the work for the last few years. I am grateful to and for him!

We have a very hot few days coming, but September will be upon us soon, which means that the nights are closing in on 12 hours long, and the pool is going to get cold, and the leaves will turn, and all that.

I will not have to worry about chiggers soon! I have not had a chigger bite in two years, but it didn't just happen. I take twice daily showers.

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.

Birthday Season

 It is the beginning of Birthday Season here in Kendig Land.

By that, I am referring to the amusing fact that with 11 people in the house, we have zero birthdays January through April. Daniel's birthday was in May, and we have two birthdays in June, one of whom is Rose.

So our youngest three are now 15 and 14 and 12. They are growing up!

My parents bought Rose a giant flamingo floatie, and it is a HUGE hit.  

Daniel has always been huskier than most of our kids which frankly (given that some of them struggle with being underweight) has been a relief for me. He is growing very fast right now because he is having a major growth spurt. He hasn't passed me and Kevin up YET, but he is working on it.

The last couple of weeks have been hard on Kevin. He has been having back issues, PLUS an ear infection. He is on antibiotics now but the infection is clearing up slowly. All very annoying.

I have been trying to swim almost every day, and it is definitely such good exercise. When we bought this house more than 20 years ago, I adored the size of the house, and the large bedrooms, and three full baths on the second floor...

But I was nervous about the pool. We had a bunch of little kids at the time and I naturally worried about a child falling in and drowing.

But the house was perfect for us so we bought it, and now I can look back and be so thankful for the pool. It is a fair amount of work to keep it in good shape, but it enabled us to teach 9 children how to swim, and that is a valuable skill. When I was in the throes of caring for 9 kids, running to and from swimming classes would have been tough.

I am on a cave diving kick; not, of course, scuba diving in caves personally. I am not crazy. I am reading about it, and watching videos. A few days ago, I watched a documentary called Dave Not Coming Back.

Dave Shaw was a cave diver who died while trying to retrive the body of ANOTHER cave diver from a very deep freshwater sinkhold in South Africa. And when I say deep, I mean DEEP. The first dude was at about 900 feet deep. 900 feet. Think about the pressure involved! It is INSANE.

Dave Shaw went down there, found the body of 20 year Deon Dryer from a decade earlier, and when he came back up to the surface, decided to try to bring his body up for his family's sake. He and his closest diver friend pulled together a bunch of support divers and also a documentary crew, and then when Shaw went down to the bottom to retrieve the body, he got tangled up in a line and also died.

It is horrifying and also just WEIRD. Because there was no real reason to risk life and limb to bring up this body in such a difficult place.

But in the documentary his friends and widow said a lot of it was just that Shaw wanted to push the limits. He mostly did it to test himself, and tragically died. He left a wife and two pretty young kids.

It is incredibly selfish, I think, to do something like that. But then again, some people are drawn to intense danger. They want to push themselves hard. It is a good thing there are people like that, because they are firefighers who run into burning buildings, and chopper pilots who hang off of cliffs to save stranded people.

So yeah, I guess I shouldn't judge, though realistically I am judging. I told Kevin that I am grateful he has no desire to engage in super risky hobbies like climbing very tall mountains and diving caves.

Mid June

 Our three youngest kids spent last week with my parents and their only cousin on my side of the family. They went to zoos and parks and Sauder Village in Ohio. They played games.  They ate delicious food. They made friends with a girl who lives next to my parents. It was all very good.

My Dad took this pic so he isn't in it obviously. The guy on the far left is my younger brother, who lives close to my parents.

This is the second year that my parents have taken our younger kids for a week in the summer. Last year, I was in pain from an anal fissure that took literally months to heal and was very unpleasant.

THIS year, Kevin was the one hit with stupid health stuff. He has something going on with one ear which is causing hearing problems and some  dizziness. He has also been having substantial back and right leg pain. So we didn't do anything very special this week together because he wasn't feeling good.

Well, we did one thing; we finally watched Project Hail Mary, based on the book by that name by Andy Weir. It was a brilliant movie. I love it so much. It is a little less sciency than the book, but there are some additions to the movie that are actually an improvement over the book. 

So yeah, that was FUN. We bought it on Amazon so we can watch it again whenever we want. Just as a "hey, that's hilarious" thing... to rent the movie and watch it once was $20. To buy it was $25.

Ok, we will buy it.

I met my parents in Sauder Village yesterday and brought our kids home. The house was SO quiet while they were gone, but today we have seven kids roaming around because no one is working and Isaac is visiting.

The kids opened their Universal Yums box today. We have a monthly subscription. Universal Yums provides snacks and foods from various countries, one country each month. This month was India.

I swam almost every day last week and now that the kids are back, there will be even more swimming. the pool is a delicious temperature.

The kids were hanging in the living room this morning, chattering with one another.  Warms the cockles of my heart.

That's about it!  We have two birthdays this month, which is exciting. I am working away on another book, of course, which is exciting.

Kevin is not feeling great, which stinks, but we think these will heal up in time. It is just very annoying.

Late May

 I am 99.9% done with the first draft of my latest book. I realized I didn't talk about a semi important character in the epilogues so need to go back and add her.

But mostly I am done. Hooray!

The last week has been WET. We have gotten so so so much rain!  Dayton got almost 9 inches of rain in May, and most of that was in the last 10 days or so!

Our house is on a hill and we have a good roof so no leaking, which makes me happy. There are flooded roads here and there.

One of my odd characteristics is that I like reading about people who do dangerous and crazy things, while also personally having zero desire to do said dangerous things. I have been following the tragedy of the five Italian divers in the Maldives closely.

Short story is that earlier this month, five divers in the Maldives (a group of islands in the Indian ocean) made their way into a deep cave system and all died.  Which is very very sad. Three of them were women, two were mother and daughter, and all were experienced divers. However, there is no indication that they were trained in cave diving, which is extremely dangerous because of course if you get in trouble, you can't just go up. You have to get out of the cave first. It appears that four of the five took a wrong turn and got lost in the low visibility murk and ran out of breathing air.  The fifth guy made it to the entrance of the cave and died there.

So you have to have a certain personality to do dangerous things like dive into cave systems or climb tall mountains. A surprising number of people are overly casual (in my view) about such things. Sometimes this results in nothing more than a few scrapes, but sometimes people die.

I am reading a book called Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver by Jill Heinerth. She has spent incredible amounts of time diving in narrow cave systems. Crazy stuff. Her personality is a weird and wondrous combination of excitement over being an explorer, along with being very detail oriented. She describes her preps for deep cave diving as being extremely meticulous. She checks things over and over. She has lists. 

She has had close calls. She had a serious bout of decompression sickness once for reasons that are not quite understood.

Anyway, the Italian divers were a research group. At least one, maybe more, was a Ph.D. level scientist. And yet, they dove into a cave system without backup tanks, and without a guideline, which is what every cave diver should do. That is, bring a rope, tie one end to the entrance, and take it with you so that you can use it to get back if you cannot see well or get disoriented. These five did not do that. They  made so many mistakes.

Truth is, intelligence doesn't mean wisdom. You can be super smart and still make idiotic decisions. In this case, those decisions led to tragedy.

Back from St. Croix

 Kevin and I got back from our annual vacation to St. Croix, USVA, on Saturday night.

Kevin took 18 million lovely pics, but he hasn't worked on them yet. This picture of me is not the most flattering, but oh well. You can see there is an ocean behind me!

Here is a picture of a very handsome feral chicken.

We had a fabulous week, as usual. I was happy to come back though. I missed the kids.

Our pool was green when we got back, but we threw in chemicals and whipped it into shape.

I am almost done with a book. I know I say that a lot. Because I write fast.

So yeah, we vacationed and we came back. We are mostly done with school for the year. I am in the mood to clean the house, and have been decluttering and stuff.

It is good.