Friday bullets - May 28, 2021

A better day today, which is very good.

• The horses are slowly figuring out how to all get along. There has been a little less chasing, and life inside the barn is going back to normal. My goodness, there has been a lot of drama in the pasture over the past week. 
• Vienna continues to settle in despite the nuttiness of the big horses. She is really such a sweet and loving little thing. 
• My vegetables are still not planted in my garden. Instead, I seem to be working on growing the world's largest dandelion farm. I'm pretty sure a few of them are a couple of feet tall. For my birthday, I have requested that someone... anyone... not me... plant my plants in the garden. What a difference a year makes, huh?
• The weather this spring has been nutty. On this past Tuesday, it got up to nearly 90 degrees. Today? Low 40's. After going out a couple of times and being exceedingly cold, I finally broke down and got my winter coat out. The winter coat which I proceeded to put on over the wool sweater I was already wearing. 
• Today, J., TM, and I went to visit the therapist we have been using for the past eight or nine years for the last time. I was so glad to have a chance to tell her thank you. To borrow the word a friend of mine uses, I've been pretty much verklempt about it all day. How do you really thank someone for helping you gain your relationship with your child? He has come so far; we have come so far. It was quite a journey, but looking back I can say it was worth absolutely everything. He is worth absolutely everything. I am so incredibly proud of him. Verklempt.
• After that, we all headed to a nearby Asian market and did some shopping, followed by lunch at the Asian food court next door. It felt like a very full circle doing this together. I couldn't help but think of the first times we had shopped and ate together, hoping and praying our relationship would flourish. And I'm back to being verklempt again.
• I am also so proud of what has been keeping D. busy for the past week. Private universities do not always make it easy to transfer credits, but D. has been jumping through every single hoop in order to make his two years of credits transfer. There have been some that weren't accepted, but if he is successful in getting these last few to transfer, he will only need three years of classes in order to graduate. I can say without hesitation that he has mastered the art of persuasive letter writing. Plowing through bureaucracy also seems to be on his list of skills as well. 
• Did I mention (I really cannot remember!) that A. graduated last winter from college with honors... summa cum laude!
• R. drew a recognizable duck today, so her expanded ability to draw representational figures is still growing.
• G. has now started to save her money in order to afford a trip to Greece in the future.
• I've had a week off and now have a new round of horse classes starting next week. I do hope the horses have sorted themselves out by then.
• B. came to dinner tonight so he could see TM before he ships out. As we were sitting and chatting, he got these great photos of Kenzie and Nefertiti.

• I had to buy a couple of frames this week because I wanted to hang my EFL certification as well as this, which is membership in the accrediting body of my program. It looks so official, doesn't it?

• I'm beginning to think about what our unit studies will be for the next school year. I know we will be covering Ancient Rome, but I need another topic as well. Not that I do anything about planning until August, but I find the planning is easier if I have the topics in the back of my head where they can simmer all summer.
• Based on the number of text conversations I have with D. while he is at work, asking about books, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do come fall when he is not at the library to be my personal librarian.
• G. has started writing a novel. After two days of working pretty consistently on it, she is now busy writing chapter six. Writing has not always been something that she has been interested in. Given time and space, you never know what a child will decide that they like after all.

And with that, I'll say good-night. 

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