Ask What Not...

There was a time when a president was quoted saying:

My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

Here we are about over 50 years later and given the climate, I feel as if American's have done a 180. I feel like people live with the motto:

My fellow Americans, ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you.

First Week: Homeschooling and Hospice

The first week of hospice and homeschooling is coming to a close. This week didn't go exactly as planned. The idea to start was I would help with my grandfather's hospice care on the weekends and other family members would help during the other times.

In short order, it became clear that other family members wouldn't be able to help out as planned, so I stepped in, with my husband's blessing, as full-time hospice care.

This has pretty much required WP and me to stay with my grandparents. Overall my grandfather needs are minimal but physically demanding. He doesn't have the strength or ability to move independently. So it requires me to be able to move him as needed mainly transferring from one place to another. It also requires helping out with meal times and things like laundry. Laundry is just mainly so my grandmother doesn't have to do the stairs. She could if needed, but with everything going on helping her out in those matters is good too.

Hospice: Homeschooling

Hospice is not a fun word. Many without saying more understand what that means. My grandfather was put on hospice last week. 9 days ago.

This has required me to help my grandparents out more and be there for them. ie. move in basically. I'm okay with this, my husband is okay with this, the kids are on board etc. It's not easy and some adjustments have to be made and continue to be made, but we are working our way through that.

Schooling is looking different, somewhat. More independent work, but also a change of scenery. Having to school hear at my grandparents with them on looking is a bit different.

Nothing like having your school on display 24/7?  I'm hoping they will see it's no big deal and even though its different for us school, even in the thick of hospice can still be done.

pray for us.

Home Management

My home management skills are better then what they were when my kids were smaller, but still not what I would like it to be.  I started out using many of flylady's ideas.  I like the idea of the control journal, but let's face it I'm a digital girl! I do much better with having everything on my phone, computer, tablet etc.

I even took on the job as treasurer for my son's scout troop and I use my phone and computer to manage the checking account and other documents associated with being the treasurer. It's nice, for example, I can pull up the information parents need from my phone while at the troop meeting.

Summer 2018

Summer is here and I'm getting ready to send Superstar of for the summer. Not just camp for the week, but for the whole summer and I'm unsure how I feel about it.

He is almost 17 now, man 17. I remember when I started blogging and he was only 7/8. He got a summer job at a BSA camp. He will  leave here this weekend and will be back right before school starts again.

As some of my followers may be aware I homeschooled him from 2nd grade to 8th grade and he went off to the local high school. Sending him to the high school was heart wrenching and still is at time. So him being gone all summer is hard, because I miss him so much as it is; I have grown to like summer because that means him being home, spending time with him, and now he's leaving.

Web-Princess will be here and it will much of the same with her around, although she's learning to drive so my summer will be filled with her doing some driving lessons with me, hubby, and driving instructor. Yay! I think - Superstar got his license last Nov, so this is my second summer in a row with teaching a teen to drive. You would think I had this all figured out, but like with everything over the years even though the kids are close in age they are 2 different people, with 2 different learning styles and I have to approach even  driving different with each of them.

I have also start thinking about what to do in the fall for Web-Princess and school.  Fall will be the start of her Junior Year. Fall will be Superstars Senior Year.

Sickness is Never Fun -- Childhood Memories

Illness is making its rounds here. It started with hubby, then WP got. Her symptoms seemed worst and her throat looked blotchy so I took her to the doctor yesterday. Diagnosis: Viral Layringitius with an ulcer on the throat.

Like many homeschoolers when illness strikes we just table school work. We prefer to do school work when everyone is well and can focus and think, which is a good thing because this morning I woke up feeling like crap. I have many of the same symptoms as everyone else: a headache, sore throat, stuffy nose, cough, etc. I, however, unlike everyone else, am limited on what I can take for medications. Many of the typical medications you would take for the cold/flu/respiratory issues I cannot take because of the cpap. I was advised not to take many of those things because they cause interference with the cpap.  I'm pretty much limited to saline nose sprays or other sprays natural sprays like (afflink) xclear and your typical pain medication. I can have cough drops which bring me to my childhood memories.

Here I am sucking on a lemon cough drop with methanol in the middle. It wasn't until I got to the syrup methanol center did the childhood memory come flooding back. That methanol hit me and I remembered my great-grandparents. They are gone now, have been for years.That methanol hitting my senses reminded me how they use to give us, my siblings and I, Hall's cough drops as if it was candy! I'm sure we shouldn't have had them like we did, but I remember being in their car and they being there in the center console and asking for them or them asking us if we wanted one.  I never faked a cough or anything they just freely gave them to us as if they were candy. I could get one, suck on it for a little bit, and then chew it up. -- oh my gosh. How funny is that that sucking on a cough drop today would bring back that memory.

My great-grandparents were good people. I remember them taking us to the park and being at their home. We mostly just visited with them and talking to them. They didn't have toys or things like that at their home. The only things they could offer us was water, prune juice, halls cough drops, and sugar-free gum.  -- I never took them up on the prune juice. In my childhood mind that was gross!