December

This morning, frost was on the ground, the air was cold and dry. But by afternoon, it should be quite warm again (compared to the northern relatives).
For the past couple of months I have been struggling with a back injury that occurred on September 17th. Along with the pain, I had isolation because I was not working and do not yet have a network of friends here in Greensboro. So, as a result, I got depressed, did not want to do anything at all, spent much of my time lying around in bed (back pain), watching TV, reading and feeling sorry for myself.
A week and a half ago, I got an injection in my back which has help the back pain tremendously! Before, I could not sit for longer than 10-15 minutes without having shooting pains down my legs. Now I can sit as much as I want and no significant increase in the leg pain. YEAH!
Life has gotten so much better...God is good!
Last weekend, a dog came into my yard. It was an unfamiliar dog and Daisy was out. I did not want Daisy playing with a dog she did not know (I also did not want an accidental breeding). So I caught the dog and heard yelling over at the stables next to our house. Amilia and I walked the dog over to the Stables and finally met our neighbor Joan. What a wonderful thing! She needed some help around the stables and in return, Amilia and I get to ride!
I have ridden twice (oh the aching muscles after!) and Amilia has ridden several times. She has gone from a tentative rider to bold and outgoing. She so wants to let the pony run but does not yet have the seat or the balance for this. She has put together the rhythm of trotting and posting and she looks amazing riding. And so tiny! She is riding this great big Welsh mix pony! At first I was fearful of her falling but now, she just moves with Peaceful as she trots around the ring. The ring has a layer of sand that would cushion her if she happened to fall...and I as a kid, used to fall all the time and did not get hurt...
Nathan has ridden a couple of times for a short period of time, but he is not enjoying it as Amilia does. He, instead, plays with the many dogs that Joan has (she has 18!), or he plays in the dirt pile by the riding ring, or he goes back home and plays on the computer.
Jim is in Toronto today. He will hopefully start home tonight and be home tomorrow.
I have been working again and now that I do not have leg pain, love my job! I work with a great group of Nurses and Nursing Techs. When we are busy, everyone pitches in, when we are quiet, we all sit around talking and joking (two very bad words in the emergency department--busy and quiet...I cannot believe I put time down on the computer!).
I am off to Physical Therapy for my back (it still hurts some, but not at all like before the injection), then will spend the late morning, early afternoon cleaning the many stalls that Joan has (instead of going to the gym, I shovel poo).

Sad day

Last night was a very emotionally hard night. I had a patient that was in her thirties with two teenaged children that accidently poisoned herself with floor stripper. Someone had put it in a pepsi bottle and someone else put it on the kitchen table and she took a swallow of it. When she arrived at the Emergency Room, she was still able to talk and swallow but quickly went down hill. Within 15 minutes she was having severe difficulty breathing as the floor stripper was very caustic and burned all the way down. We were able to put a breathing tube in with moderate difficulty and stablized her until she got to the ICU. But her prognosis is very poor. It is third degree type burns on the inside. I took care of a similar patient a few years ago and unfortunately he died after a few weeks of being very ill. I had to tell her children that their mom was very ill...very hard when you cannot give the typical...she'll be ok sort of thing.
I cried on my way home. It was a hard shift.
Do not store anything in drinking containers except for drinking liquids...please.

School

Well, after a lot of stress, yelling, headaches, thought and agony, we have decided to send the kids to public school. We have tried for three weeks to work but I have not been able to pull together enough structure and the kids are unwilling to sit and work without a lot of pushing and yelling. So, yesterday, after the kids have been saying all along, we don't want to go to school, I get first from Nathan, I want to go to public school and then 30 minutes later from Amilia, I want to go to school, so, I am going to get everything filled out and they start on the 28th. Amilia started on a new medication for her ADHD that is different from what she was taking, so hopefully will work better for her.
They are excited that they now have the rest of the summer to play, no work on school work.

New Job

Jim starts a new driving job on Wednesday. He will be on a dedicated route, same amount of miles (same amount of Money), every week. The route will vary each week but will repeat every couple of months (I think...). It is for a better company, better benefits, paid holiday and paid vacation. And a lot less stress trying to balance being out at work and being home. He will be home every weekend from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon and most week home one or two times for a few hours during the week which will be nice. Having the kids homeschool means he will be able to spend more time with them when he is home. These next couple of months will be an adjustment but hopefully when all is said and done, I will be able to reduce my hours so that I can be home more with the kids...well, I am home more...I will be awake more!

Day two

What a challenge! Getting the kids to sit and stay focused is a lot of work. But, we made it through most of what was planned. Amilia is surprising me...she knows a lot more than she lets on. But, she is still struggling with reading fluently. That is my goal for this month, to help her read better. Nathan has complained of a headache both days, shortly after sitting down and starting work. I think I need to give him less challenging stuff to start with and increase the difficulty. But I still do not know all that they don't know so it is another challenge. This afternoon we are going to the science museum in Raleigh to learn some while having fun.

School

Well, today was the first day of school for the kids. We started homeschooling now to get a jump on figuring out how we are going to do it. Amilia needs to read better so we have been working on phonics with her and Nathan wants to do more math, so he did math. Then we read some about Jamestown and then the kids drew pictures and wrote sentences about the story. They are asking about "recess" and "going to lunch"...I have to break them of the public school mind set. Though they are excited about our field trip tomorrow. We have to get new tires on the van and they think that will be fun...
They "went to school" this morning in their pj's...they thought that was fun. We only spent two hours working, but that was enough. My biggest challenge right now is going to be getting Amilia to sit still and Nathan to be able to work when I am teaching Amilia. Nathan found the noise "distracting", so Amilia and I went to another room but he "can still hear you!". Nathan has been able to work by himself once I start him but he does not alway stay on task. We have to work on some insentives to get him to work. Until Amilia can read I have to really work with her.
Tomorrow we work on cursive writing (they both can do together), more of Jamestown and some worksheets I picked up today. Eventually I will be ordering a curriculum but right now we do not have the money to do it so we are working with what we have and what I find on line.
They both continuously ask questions...many that I do not have the answers for but we are learning places on line that we can look things up. All kinds of fun!

We've Moved

We have been crazy up until today. I have had to work a weird scedule with extra hours and our new babysitter bailed out on us last Friday. She wanted more money...we were already paying her more than what we were paying our last babysitter in Greenville. So, stresssssss. But, I put an ad on Craigslist, got a call the same night, interviewed Lauren on Friday and she started on Monday...and she is great!
We will be unpacking for weeks...you know how that is. The house we moved to is bigger and has more closet space than the other house. We have unpacked the esentials but still have about 25 boxes in the sunroom that I need to sort through and put stuff away. I packet all the dishes in a few different boxes and have not yet found them all so we are operating on 3 plates, a bunch of bowls and one glass...I got plastic plates and stuff from Walmart, but it does not hold up that great...
We will FINALLY start a new church on Sunday. I hope to make some good friends and find some friends for the kids. I have started making friends at work. I hope to start doing stuff with some ladies Thursday.
The kids have adjusted well...I stopped all of their medications the week after we got here and after a 10 days of wild behavior, they have finally settled down and are behaving great! Right now they only spend time with me, the sitter and each other but they are getting along great, playing together or separate and have become much more helpful around the house.
Nathan has not had any allergy symptoms at all since arriving and has been off the allergy medications...all of it started a year ago when we had moved into the house in Greenville. Since being here, nothing, no congestion, no sick looking kid! He has had mild headaches but they go away with Motrin...so I think the house was making him sick.
I am still struggling with being tired, but working nights and having the kids home during the day is a challenge. I have adjusted my schedule so that I am not working more than one night in a row. This starts tomorrow. So hopefully I won't be so tired because I will be getting more nights home sleeping. The problem I have is that I work a couple of nights, get adjusted, then cannot sleep at night when I am home. I plan on taking naps during the day before I work all night and then staying up all day the day after I work then hopefully sleeping allllll night. We will see.