Must be Apron Day Friday

[CathyS]

Just got home from helping my friend. She took me to Subway and paid for my lunch. Never in all my life have I ever lived in a place as unclean and disorganized as this woman's where I went today. We packed a lot into her storage unit. Why does one woman need 6 wing chairs and 2 couches/chesterfields/sofas? Thick white dust everywhere. 2 bathrooms and you couldn't see the counters... WOW! We even took a load over to the thrift store. She has another full load for the thrift store, but I told her I was done for the day.

[Lilac]

I have had at least 3 bouts of acid reflux/heart burn that have woken me up out of a sound sleep. This has all happened during the time I was helping dd2 and now. I can't believe I didn't figure this out until now. Twice while helping her, she bought us the S outh of the B order burgers for lunch. Twice I have bought them for supper. It is a large size bun with a grilled hamburger patty, spicy ranch dressing, bacon, jalapenos and pepper jack cheese. They are are delicious. Once when she bought them for our lunch, her and I just split one because she had already brought us each a donut and her and I weren't super hungry. Last night I woke up at 3:00 with a burning pain and in the words of Gilda Radner's SNL character Roseanne Roseanna Danna, "I thought I was gonna die". The acid reflux/heart burn was gone when I woke up this morning, but I don't feel anywhere near 100%. I took Tums at 3:00 and that took care of the worst of it, so that I could sleep. I needed to buy groceries at WM and the grocery store but dh needed something from WM, so I went with him and bought enough to get me through the weekend. I showered and styled my hair, but didn't mess with make-up.

As predicted it is raining today and cool.

I need to do laundry and put whatever where it belongs. Then tomorrow I can clean.

I bought bread at the store. I haven't had a loaf of bread in the house for probably 6 weeks. I have been craving, plain old toast. Dh uses these flat, round sandwich thins for sandwiches.

I have been calling the college for a week and a half, leaving my name and number, so that I could make an appt for dgd20 to cut my hair. Finally today someone called me back. I go Monday at 9 am and then have a mammogram that afternoon.

I think I am going to try for a nap. Hopefully that will help.

[helia]

Thank you for the well wishes for my job, Sunny.
((Lilac)) Glad you figured out the cause of the heart burn.

Job Ramblings: I'm trying not to be overly concerned, though from speaking to professionals from other universities and ESL programs at the symposium I attended a couple weeks ago, I now know that out school is certainly not the only adult ESL program experiencing a decline in student enrollment this year so far. Our decline is actually less than at some other institutions. I also remembered that my director asked me on Friday about my availability for a T-Th class that would interfere with the moms group, and I said I was not available for that class. So, it is also possible that my own schedule limitations played into this too.

I took advantage of my day without work by having a spontaneous lunch date with dd21. The big local Uni here is in the middle of final exams. For some reason, I thought they started next week. Dd21 might move back home this weekend, which means I'll have to start shopping and cooking differently for her celiac disease.

Big goals accomplished:
- WW meeting; I'm down 2.4 lbs! So, I lost the weight I gained over Easter. I'm not even tracking carefully, and I ate all my weekly points plus some. I think the regular running makes a huge difference for me.
- meeting with ex-mentee. She is doing SO well! It was really inspiring/encouraging to meet with her. Moving to S. Korea was extremely hard for her at the beginning, even though she is Korean and speaks Korean -- but not as fluently as she thought, she discovered. The hard times have definitely borne fruit in her life - personally, professionally, spiritually. She's grown so much and is in a good place now. I was really honored she wanted to meet with me. She's not getting together with that many people here. We hope to see her if the trip to S. Korea in June materializes.
- lunch with dd21!!

Big goals still to accomplish:
- reading for moms group teaching in 2 weeks
- WF run: dessert for dinner tonight
- edit a church document for dh
- unpack 1 box of books? I now need to find our commentaries as I prepare to teach in 2 weeks.
- dinner at the home of new young friends at church, 7 - ? He is French and she is American, so we have cross-cultural marriages, European-American, in common. We'll have to ask him about the upcoming French elections. They have the most darling baby with the cutest fattest face!

I'm not exercising today. I'm resting my body before I attempt to run 8 miles tomorrow.

[blessedw2]

yay on ww d helia - I have been talking to my cousins re: the elections. It has been interesting. I would love to hear their perspective. have fun with the young couple with the cutest baby!

[blessedw2]

I have lost complete focus

[AustinGranny]

I did get my usual morning routines done timely.
And the sun finally put in an appearance.

Took a lol to our on site laundry; my washer died and since the dryer still works I bring the lol home to dry. Those condo stack units cost a bundle and I'll make do this way for a while since my dryer is fine; happy I bought here and have the option.
Took my morning 10 min 'strollator' (walk with rollator).
Mopped the K floor.
Made a dr appt for Monday.

Lunch and a nice long nap ...
And some more work putting the K back together.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Dh helped me with the taxes. Nowadays we download what the government has on file and then confirm with what we've received. One was not included so I entered that.

For stock sale there was a complicated situation where a private company was taken over by another private company and we were given money and stock in the new company. We had filed something and it had instructions for this year but no instructions on what my cost basis is for when I sell the stock in the new company. It is either 0 or $4K. Anyway, we spent an hour trying to understand that but got nowhere and it has nothing to do with this year's taxes. I'm going to ask our accountant.

I still have medical and charity to do so will start in on that now.

Dh was called away to help out NFD. So we'll have reheated pizza when he returns. If I get my act together, maybe I'll have the first draft of the taxes done by then.

[LadyMaverick]

Helia - Congratulations on WW success! I thought of you the other day when a local lady announced she was ready to schedule tutor sessions for the summer. Her summer schedule was full within a day and she now has a waiting list in case anyone drops out.

Cathy -POTB for helping your friend.

The kids have been a challenge today. They are not listening. Finally, I declared that each time they didn't mind they would lose an hour of screen time. Within 2 hours DS8 had lost 8 hours and DGD5 had lost 2 hours of screen time. THAT got their attention! They started making a real effort to act right so they wouldn't lose any more screen time.

Birthday lunch was good. Sam's & WM buying trip was normal. I took a history activity book (300 pages) to Staples and had them cut the spine off. I wanted individual pages.

<<<<Skippable....thinking out loud>>>>>>
I am still thinking through the decision to homeschool 4th grade. DS8 is begging me to do it. I am hesitating to make the commitment. What if his vocal tics go away this summer? What if his ADHD disappeared? What if his anxiety vanished? It would be so much easier to just send both DS8 and DGD5 to public school. I could have 8 hours to myself several times a week. HEAVEN.

The chance of all that happening is slim & none. If I am going to do 4th-grade homeschool, I want to start planning the curriculum. I don't want to find myself scrambling like happened last year. But I don't want to go through the effort of planning the curriculum if I'm not going to commit to doing it.

I think if I put better boundaries around homeschool time and limit it then my reluctance would go away. Committing to 4 hours homeschool a day feels doable. And DS8 will be a year older and able to work more independent. Thinking.... scheduling DS8 with me in the mornings to do homeschool and then he goes with DH in afternoon to get hands-on experience. That would give me 3 hours to do my things before DGD5 gets out of school.

I need to talk with the school principal about next year. Will they allow DS8 to continue with current arraignment? Since he is now doing 2 separate speech therapies, there is a good chance he won't need the school speech therapy next year. That would end his IEP. Without IEP status, I'm not sure they will allow him to be a part-time student. I wonder if a note from a doctor would help. DS8 pediatrician is pushing for DS8 to return to public school. The ticologist likes our current arraignment since DS8 is still doing the social aspect of the school.

We can homeschool without any public school involvement but that would distance DS8 from his friends and he wouldn't feel like a part of the school. He still considers it to be his school and enjoys the time he spends in recess and lunch with his friends. It would be a blow to him socially to lose the ability to go to public school part time.

Writing this out has helped me understand my reluctance to commit to another homeschool year.

[DeeClutter]

Well, that's done. DD and I just finished filling out forms for passports. She, dsonil and I are going tomorrow to the northside post office to get our applications in. I've decided to just apply for the passport CARD instead of the book this time. Chances of my needing a passport to go to any foreign countries (other than Canada or Mexico) are slim and none. For me this is all I should need to go into Canada or on a cruise.

Man is coming in the morning to measure the house for carpet. We'll leave for passports after that. Then dd and I go to Orlando for the 4th hockey game of the playoff series (against the Florida Everblades).

I'm tired and ready to head to bed. Night/night, all.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Dee: as long as you are OK to cruise. There are lot of interesting itineraries from Florida.

I'm done the first (and hopefully final) pass of the taxes but will put off filing until tomorrow. Dh asked what I'm waiting for. I said, I'd tidy up the paper and file things neatly. If at that point I find something I've forgotten to put in, I'll fix that. Last year, I forgot my preaching income but had not filed the second I was 'done' so was able to add it in.

I've now been at this about 8 hours and dh was part of about 5 hours of it. So a full day's work. Although an hour was talking about the stock cost basis for another time.

There's a stupid foreign assets form that took almost 2 hours. That shouldn't really count against the tax prep time since it is separate but filed at the same time. The stupid form had me pulling all sorts of paper investment statements that had nothing to do with taxes (the assets are in tax-free accounts) but did have me owning stuff overseas. Plus I had to do the form 1.5 times because I was well into doing it the 'simple' way before realizing we had more than $250,000 of foreign assets when you consider Canadian dollars vs. US dollars. So my account is in US$ and while I do have more than 3 years ago I don't have 30% more, it is just that the foreign currency exchange has changed dramatically. So what used to be C$100 is now C$130 even though it is still only US$100.

Anyway, I think I'm done.

The good news is we don't have to pay anything, we get a slight refund. The bad news is you don't have to pay when you don't have much income. Ds will be thrilled to learn he earned only 10% less than dh and I did combined, this year. It will make him feel successful. This is the first year either of the kids have had family income more than us (dsil will have made more than us.)