Weekly update - October 22, 2022

We'll jump right in.

• No blog post yesterday because J. arrived home from being gone most of the week. He was at a higher education conference in Florida. The photo is from the resort where he was staying. Tough life, huh?
• The weather has been all over the place this week. On Tuesday there was a little snow but today we reached 80. How does that even make sense? 
• I've had several children walking around the house complaining about the weather. No, not the snow, but the 80 degrees. They want fall weather. Me? I'm going to enjoy the warmer weather as much as I can because before I know it I'll be hauling buckets of water out to the barn in sub-zero weather.
• L. has announced she is currently in an abstract art phase. 
• I cannot keep enough painting canvas in stock. See the previous item.
• TM dropped by this afternoon and stayed for dinner. He does this every so often and I love it.
• Last week there were two different stores with chicken breast on sale for $0.99/pound. It has been a very long time since I have seen this price for this item. Stocking up happened and my freezer is happy.
• We started putting the garden to bed for the season today. And by we, I actually mean J. We have some late season tomatoes to eat as well as some leeks which will go into a soup. I also have quite a few okra seeds for next spring. 
• Not everyone is excited about the prospect of more okra. Oh well, more for me.
• Why can I not grow fennel that develops an actual bulb?
• Y. is taking violin lessons at our co-op and enjoying it. But when you are helping your mother cut vegetables for dinner and you accidentally cut your finger, it is difficult to practice the violin when it is also a finger that needs to press on a string.
• The dishwasher is still broken despite it having a nice long rest. No spontaneous healing it seems. I feel as though I am doing dishes all the time, and this is even with everyone being pretty good about washing their own dishes when they are done with them.
• We still check out children's picture books as the library because R. enjoys listening to them. I grabbed on last week that looked cute about a panda bear with donuts. It was so... bad. There is no other way to describe it. The panda goes about offering other animals donuts then saying he won't share. At the end he announces he doesn't like donuts and gives them all to yet another animal. That was it. I kept waiting for some point... or even some semblance of a story... but no. Just a panda acting badly with no discernible motivation. How do these things get published?
• Some mornings, school just goes badly even if it is your 26th year. My reaction to it has improved over the years, though. Everyone got a brief lecture about how not over burdened they are followed by a request for food to be eaten or some quiet time taken. I then left the table with the request that when we came back together that they would bring the more pleasant versions of themselves. I am pleased to say that more pleasant versions of themselves did arrive back at the table.
• K. helped make dinner (shepherd's pie) the week before last, so he learned to make mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes are one of his favorite foods. Before I went to the grocery store on Monday, he requested a bag of potatoes so he could make himself more mashed potatoes, which he did. They were pretty good except that I evidently forgot to include 'add salt' in my instructions the week previous.
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• This is not where I spent the week. Though, since J. was in meetings and sessions much of the time, he didn't get to see too much of this, either.
• My spiritual director shared the app with me called Pray As You Go. It is fantastic and I highly recommend it. 
• Finally, if you've been reading here for any length of time, you know that either me or J. being gone is often a huge trigger for R. and can cause her to become extremely disregulated. We collectively hold our breath whenever one of us is gone because we never know how things will play out. I'm happy to report that R. did very well this week. But get this. A couple of times on Thursday R. says to me, "Mama, I thinking in my head that Daddy come back." Let me explain why this is a great big huge deal. We've been giving R. scripts for dealing with her fear and anxiety for quite a while now. Years, actually. Reminding herself that whichever parent is gone will be coming home is one of those scripts. It has always been a parent telling her this, never he being able to dredge up the script on her own. This was the very first instance of self-generated self-talk that was not coached ever. This is enormously huge. And it worked because even when J.'s flight was delayed and she had to go to bed before he got home, she was able to stay calm and regulated. Truly, even just a year ago I'm not sure I would have thought this was even possible.