Hello Out There

Clearly I am not very good about updating these days.  But we are still here doing our thing.  We are still doing school and will likely take off a couple of weeks here and there this summer but will keep doing school in between.  I think we do better with shorter breaks rather than longer ones, but we'll see.  I always reserve the right to change my mind.

The past year has been a tough year for me and I think it has also been a tough year for our family.  This is probably why I have not been updating as much as I used to.  First my mom passed away and then the husband started working out of town for 14 or so days a month and also working on building his practice when he is here in town.  With all of that and also our homeschooling, I have not had as much time to do other things.  I stay pretty busy with homeschooling, taking the boys to their activities, trying to keep the house somewhat in order and trying to teach the boys the every day things, such as chores (which is not going so well- I am just not consistent enough with this).

In addition, I am dealing with 'spots' of skin cancer.  Last year I had one removed from just above my left eyebrow and the scar runs up and down through my brow to just below the brow.  I recently had the husband remove a quickly growing spot from my upper chest, just below my neckline.  This turned out to be an aggressive form of cancer and it did not have clear margins so I am scheduled to go to the place that removed the eyebrow spot to have it removed on Tuesday.  I also had two more spots biopsied above the same eyebrow recently and one of them turned out to be cancerous also.  The other is pre-cancer.  I am scheduled to have the cancerous one removed towards the end of May.  I am really most concerned about the spot below my neckline because it is more aggressive and it has been really bothering me since the husband removed it.  I will be glad to get that over with.  And I am also a little concerned about how my eyebrow is going to look when they are done with the second spot there.  I already have a bit of a bulge or pucker under my eyebrow from the first scar and I don't have much eyebrow left.  I dread to see how it will look when they are done. 

Needless to say, I am a heavy user of sunscreen and wide brim straw hats these days and I try not to spend too much time in the sun.  I mowed the yard the other day and I was very careful to keep my skin covered and sunscreen on exposed areas.

The other thing we have going on is that B is struggling with OCD these days.  We had seen small glimpses of this issue once or twice over the past couple of years but it did not seem to last very long and he was able to resolve it on his own.  It popped up again a couple of months ago and has stayed around this time so we have seen a counselor and have been doing some reading about it to understand how best to help him. Unfortunately it sounds as if it is something that he will likely deal with, on and off, throughout his lifetime, although I am hopeful that if he learns some good tools to deal with it while he is young, maybe that will help alleviate future issues.

Last, but not least, we continue to deal with anger issues with N and are seeking counseling for how best to help him.  It is not all the time but it has a big impact on our family at times so we are hopeful that we might be able to resolve this with counseling before he gets too much older, or at least make some strides towards resolving it.

So, we have had our hands quite full lately.  The husband's contract with the out-of-town urgent care is up at in August and I am very hopeful and prayerful that we will find a better solution by then.

On a positive note, the nicest couple has moved in next door to us.  They have the cutest 3 year old son and 1.5 year old daughter and my two sons really love playing with them.  In particular, N has really hit it off with their son and they both love playing together.  It is interesting because of the large age gap but it doesn't seem to bother either of them and they just play together so well.  N is very sweet with the 3 year old (almost 4).  He really acts like an older brother with him, probably with less fighting.  It is really sweet to watch.  B really enjoys playing with the neighbor children's toys more than he enjoys playing with the neighbor children:).

So every day when we finish school, the first thing the boys want to do is see if M (the neighbor boy) can play.  Their mom is so sweet and she loves having the boys over.  She says they keep her son busy and they all play well together.  She said it gives her a break.  It definitely gives me long breaks.  Sometimes they go over there around 12:30 and stay until 5:30 or 6:00.  They usually play outside until around 4:00ish and then they all go in and she gets dinner started while the kids play inside.  I normally go over and visit with her for a while, sometimes while they are outside and sometimes after they have gone in.  Sometimes they will all come over into our back yard and play in our sandbox.  The mom is so nice and we get along very well. Her son, M, has been over here to play inside only once.  I told her today that she should start sending M over here to play during the daughter's nap so that she (the mom) could have a break or, if she needs to go shopping or something that her son could stay here and play with my sons.  I would feel a little better if we switched off a little.  I end up feeling that I am getting all of the breaks and she always has all of the kids, even though she insists that it is a break for her when my sons are there because they keep her son entertained.  Anyway, for now, the kids are enjoying playing together and it is really sweet to watch N playing with this little almost-4 year old and treating him so kindly. 

It is kind of funny and I even start missing N and B at times.  I got outside and did the weed-whacking of the front and side yards today, since the boys were next door playing and I have mowed the yard the past two weeks, although the husband was home and working in the yard when I did that.  He has been staying busy building a tree house for the boys.  It is coming along slowly, since he does not have a lot of time to devote to it, but he is really doing a stellar job on it and it will be very sturdy and safe when he is finished.

Well, that is it for tonight.  I will try to post more soon and to post some pictures (I know I keep promising that and I have not delivered but I have very good intentions:).

Boy funnies

Wow, it has been a while.  I have thought of posting often and started a couple that I then deleted.  I simply have not had much to write about lately.  Today we had something funny happen though that I want to write down.  It is a lot of fun to come back in a couple of years and read the funny things the boys did and said when they were younger.

We had a pretty good snow storm yesterday (pretty good for this area) and the boys had a ball playing in it.  It was a very wet snow so it was great for building huge snow boulders, snow men and forts and such.  The boys also really enjoyed sliding down the back side of the pond bank across the street from where we live.

While they had a wonderful time, at some point during the day, Mr. N. somehow misplaced his glasses.  We have looked high and low but have not found them.  We are soon leaving for a 2 week trip (driving) to AZ to visit family and friends so we wanted to get his glasses replaced before we leave.  Today I took him to a local fast place, where they make your glasses within an hour or so.  Since it had been 7 months since he had his last eye exam, we decided to go ahead and have another one.  The lady was checking his eyes and had him standing in front of this machine with his chin in a little cup and his forehead against this bar.  He was staring into the machine and the lady said "open wide".  I happened to look at him at that moment and saw him open his mouth really big.  It was so funny, it took everything I had not to burst out laughing.  I quickly and quietly told him to open his eyes real big, not his mouth.  It was really cute, although it may have been one of those moments when you just had to be there, in the moment, for it to be funny.

B has had a very hard time with N having glasses and him not having them.  He has wanted them since N got them and we never hear the end of it.  He has tried very hard to make due with sun glasses, even wearing them around, inside of the house.  Today when we were at the cheapie eye glasses store I asked them if they sold any really cheap frames with plastic lenses for children who just want to pretend.  They did!  I was so surprised and B was so happy.  So now he is sporting these black plastic round-ish, somewhat Harry Pottery-ish looking glasses and he absolutely loves them.  He actually looks pretty cute in them too, but then I am kind of biased.

N's new glasses look really nice and they were quite a bit cheaper than his first pair.  Hopefully these will last for a year this time.  His eyes had gotten a bit worse so he kind of needed an updated script anyway.  He was impressed with how much better he could see now, although some of that is probably because he was without any glasses for about 24 hours or so.

So, we are getting ready to leave for a vacation and we are in desperate need of one.  Thankfully my brother has agreed to house/cat sit for us while we are gone.  We are driving through New Mexico and planning to stay over in Albuquerque and then on to Flagstaff where we are going to stay for a couple of days.  We are hoping to give the boys a chance to try their hand at skiing or snow boarding and we are also planning to take a day trip from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon.  Then it will be on to Phoenix and Tucson for visiting with family and friends.

The husband's practice has picked up quite a bit and he is also still working full time at the urgent care job an hour and a half from here.  There are times, when he is scheduled to work the weekend at the urgent care, that he will work almost two full weeks without a day off.  It is very tiring and stressful at times for all of us because, when he is working that many hours, I am too and I don't have a break either. So it will be good for all of us to take a nice long break and then we will be one step closer to spring time when we return.

We have had a really mild winter here though and it has been really nice.  The boys have been able to play outside most days, which they love.  They are both doing very well in school, although N frequently gives me major issues because he would rather play.  It had gotten so bad and was taking so much of our day that I finally had to get really consistent about sending him to his room every time he started acting up or whining about school work.  I had to do that for most of one week, every day, sometime along with taking away fun stuff like watching a movie, playing a video game or playing outside.  He finally came around and yesterday we had the most pleasant day of school we have had in a long time.  It was such a relief and we all had such a nice day together.  Additionally, N seemed so much happier too, which was great.  Hopefully we will see more of that, although I may be starting from square one after having two weeks away.  We'll see.  I hope I am wrong.

We have had some cold nights and have really enjoyed our fireplace this winter.  We didn't use it much last winter but we are using it a lot this winter and it is so lovely.  I love having a wood burning fireplace.  I love the smell and the warmth it adds to the house and the lovely ambiance.  Yesterday evening I built a fire around 5:00pm and added some wood to it around 8:00.  It was still going strong when I went to bed and Dancer-the-cat was sleeping in front of it on the basket of pillows and blankets.  He likes it a lot too.

I can tell that Dancer-the-cat is starting to go down hill a bit.  He is getting a bit slower and I can tell he is not making his jumps as well as he normally has in the past.  He is definitely getting weaker.  He is about 15 years old now though, so I guess that might be fairly normal.  He sure is loving being able to go outside and goes out every chance he gets.  Yesterday was the first time he has been out in the snow and he didn't care for it a bit.  He loves sunny days though and, even if it is cold, he will find a protected spot in the sun and sleep out there.

Tinkerbell-the-cat, a.k.a. Tinky or Tinky-Winky, is still her naughty self about attacking Dancer.  She is doing a bit better about it though and she actually minds pretty well a lot of the time, for a cat.  She is getting a bit tubby but she only eats dry cat food so I am thinking she is just going through a phase and will grow out of it:).  I hope I am just going through a phase and will grow out of mine too.  She has become very sweet to me, most of the time, although there are times when I pick her up and she does not want to be picked up when she will try to bite me.  She is a little less tolerant of others than she is of me though.  She is not very tolerant of the husband at all and I am not quite sure why.  She tries to bite him almost every time he tries to pet her.  I told him maybe he needs to give her a few treats or something.  Maybe it is because he is not around as much as the rest of us and, when he is around, he stays pretty busy so he does not pet her or interact with her much at all.

We have new neighbors next door and they seem really sweet.  They have a one year old daughter and a three year old son and my sons love playing with their son.  They all had fun in the snow together yesterday.  The boys are so sweet with their son and they really enjoy him.  He was throwing snowballs at N yesterday and N would pretend it knocked him over into the snow.  Their son thought that was so funny.

School is going pretty well overall and we started 2nd grade in January in most subjects.  We are still in 1st grade math because it has taken me a while to figure out which math curriculum I liked best and which one worked best for the boys.  I'm still not quite sure we have it right but we are trucking along and they are both learning a lot.  In everything else the boys are now doing 2nd grade work, although N really does not care for writing much and that is not changing as quickly as the writing requirements for 2nd grade is changing.  I try to adjust it a bit for him when I think I need to but he can really do much more than he cares to do so I try to find the right amount.  His handwriting is actually quite nice when he wants it to be.

I can hardly believe the boys are now 7 years old.  The husband and I just had our 8th wedding anniversary also, which seems impossible.  Time goes by so quickly, it seems.  My birthday is coming up in a couple of days and I will be the big 50 this year.  Yikes!  I don't feel 50 inside of my head/mind but I think I do look it when I look in the mirror, especially on days like today when I am not wearing make-up.  After suffering for an entire year, I recently found that I have Rosacea.  It was about a year ago that I went to the dermatologist to have some spots frozen on my face.  That is what kicked it off.  I had been back to her a couple of times for different things but they were always more important than the Rosacea so we had not gotten around to solving that problem, even though I had told her it started when she froze the spots on my face.  I went back to her a couple of weeks ago and the first thing she said when she saw my face was "You have Rosacea!".  Then she was trying to figure out what had caused it but I knew exactly when it started and what had caused it.  I am using some medication now and it is looking much better so, for the first time in a year, my face is not bright red and broken out.  It is such a relief to have finally gotten this under control.  It is very hard on the self esteem.

I know I really need to post some updated pics of the boys.  I have a new little laptop though and I have not yet loaded any pics on it so I need to do that first.  Hopefully I can get some uploaded sometime soon.  I need to go now and get some things done but I will try to start updating more often, if I have anything to report:).

Our History Timeline

I thought I would post some pictures of our history timeline for others to see.  I put this on the wall in our hallway with painter's tape and a level. I modeled it after another I had seen somewhere that is available for purchase and I used their dimensions and time increments.

In retrospect, I should have made it longer and wider and I wish I had broken the time increments down further for our ancients study.  I used timeline figures from Home School in the Woods so maybe their figures are larger than the ones for the kit after which I modeled my timeline.  Anyway, here it is:

 

A day in the life...

Today is a normal old Monday for us and this is what we have done so far:

History:  We have been studying ancient history during our 1st grade year (yes, me too!:).  At the end of last week, we had just read about the death of Julius Caesar.  Today we were reading about his adopted son (his nephew) Octavian Caesar, renamed to Augustus Caesar.  The curriculum we are using (Story of the World - SOTW) comes with a coloring page and the boys always enjoy coloring their page while I read the chapter.  After we read, they each take turns narrating what we read and I write it down for them.  (In 2nd grade they will start writing part of it themselves.)  After I write their narration, they usually read it back.  Then they do some map work.  SOTW comes with the maps and has instructions of what they are to do.  I read the instructions, such as: Use yellow to shade in the area that was Rome when Augustus Caesar ruled.  What sea was within the Roman empire during this time?  Use blue to shade in the sea.  Circle the country where Cleopatra ruled., etc.  After they did their map work, we were finished with history for the day.  If the chapter is a longer one or of greater importance, or if we just want to dive deeper into that subject because it was very interesting, we will read library books on the topic(s) on Wednesday and will do additional narrations.  Otherwise, we move on to the next chapter.  There are 42 chapters in our book that we will complete in 36 weeks of school.

Writing:  Next we did writing (Writing With Ease).  This changes from day to day.  The boys really enjoy history and science so they normally choose to do those first (history on Mon/Wed and science on Tues/Thurs).  What comes next changes from day to day, depending on our mood.  Today for writing the boys did some copy work.  They copied the first stanza from the poem, "The Sandpiper".  They were learning that the first letter in each line of a poem is capitalized and they were also learning about the punctuation in the piece.  Tomorrow I will read the entire poem to them.  They will then answer comprehension questions, narrate and copy their narration.  They are doing all of their writing and copy work in cursive these days.

Read-to-self:  The boys each pick a library book to read.  Sometimes this is Assigned Reading and they will read something related to our history study.  Today they pick something for fun reading from the library books that I have picked out for them.  We read for 40 minutes.

Bible Study:  Next we did our Bible study, using Bible Study Guide for All Ages, which the boys really like.  We review what we have been studying, then we cover new material.  Today was about important people in the genealogy of Jesus.  We have also been studying about King Nebuchadnezzar and his dream and about Daniel.  Then we do some timeline and map work about what we are studying.

Spelling:  After Bible study, we did some spelling work today, using All About Spelling.  We are working on when to use 'k' and when to use 'ck' at the end of a word.  I reminded them of the rule we are working on and then I dictated 6 or 7 spelling words and 6 phrases with two words in each phrase.  They write them on small white boards.  The first time a word is missed, I mark it in my book with N, B or both.  I dictate those words again in the next lesson.  If the same person  misses the same word a second time, I have them write the word correctly 5 times, or something like that and I give them the same word again in the next lesson.  They have never missed a word again after this.  In our lesson tomorrow, we will cover any missed words they are working on and then I will dictate 6 more phrases.  Once they spell all of the phrases correctly, we are ready to move on to the next chapter.

Now it is after spelling and we are taking our break and getting ready to eat lunch.  After lunch, we still have to do math (we are doing two lessons a day for now from Christian Light Education math), read aloud (we are reading The Secret Garden) and English (First Language Lessons).  And we also have to go to N's piano lesson, return books to the library and get more, return a dvd to the rental store and I really need to take Dancer to the vet because something is wrong with the skin on his chin.

Then we will come back home, Ben will practice his violin and the boys will probably want to play their on-line games (15 minutes each).  We will eat dinner and they will also probably want to watch a movie (30 minutes).

It is beautiful here today.  The boys have been playing outside a lot these days and are doing so today during our break.  I must go fix lunch and get back to work:).

Picture of Mom

I ran across this picture of mom recently and thought it was good of her.  I thought others might enjoy seeing it also so thought I would post it.  This is definitely how I picture her in my mind, although she was thinner and a bit older when she passed away.

And here are some recent pics of the boys:

Actually, these are fairly old.  I really must upload pics from the camera.  It has been a long time.

I have started to update this blog several times and ended up not knowing what to say.  It is hard for me to believe that my mom has been gone for over a month already.  It still does not seem real to me most of the time.  At times I still have to remind myself that she is gone.  The hardest times for me is in the afternoon/evenings and on weekends because that is when I normally talked to her the most.  It is especially hard on weekends when the husband is working and my sister is also working.  I am so very blessed to have such a wonderful sister for a best friend though.  She and I have always been close and we talk more often now than we ever have and that helps us both a lot.

It definitely helps to stay busy and the boys and I are definitely busy with school these days.  Our homeschool co-op has also started and we are all enjoying it a lot.  We go there on most Fridays and the boys take P.E., Spanish, and Art and then we all eat lunch together, which is very nice.  It is one of the things I like best about this co-op, as it gives us more time to spend with others.  After lunch the boys have one free period and then they have a drama class.  We are finished at 2:30 and we head home to relax for a while.  We have already met some very nice people at the co-op and the boys have made a new friend and had him over to play once already.  They love co-op and they count down the days of the week until we go again.

At home, we normally start our day around 9:00ish with either history or science, as those are definitely the favorites at our house.  Sometimes we can be finished by noon but most of the time we still have one or two things to finish up after lunch, so it more like 1:30 when we finish.  So far everything seems to be going very well, although I am still not quite satisfied with how we do science.  I have found another science curriculum that I would like to try and am hopeful that this one might be 'the one' that we will love and can stick with for a few years.

N is still taking his piano lessons and doing very well with it.  He decided he wanted to continue with swim lessons so he can learn all of the different strokes and join a swim team.  B decided he would like to take gymnastics again so he is doing that now, although he recently said he wanted to switch back to swim so he can eventually be on a swim team.  B is also still taking violin lessons.  He has been taking lessons now for about a year and a half and he is really doing very well.  He is also going to continue to play with the local youth orchestra, which he really enjoys.  N is taking piano lessons and doing very well with it.  His teacher is perfect for him.

Last week the boys started Cub Scouts.  They went on an overnight camping trip with the Cub Scouts and the dad went with them.  They were able to catch a bunch of fish and try their hand at archery, BB gun shooting and roping a wooden cow-like structure.  This was the first time they had ever been camping and they really enjoyed it a lot.  The weather was cool but very humid but we are still under a burn ban so they were not able to have a campfire.  They had to take food with them that did not have to be cooked.  They left on Saturday morning and came back late this morning.  I think this is going to be one of the most favorite things they do and it will allow them to make some really good friendships.  Tuesday evening they get to go to the local National Guard and check out the F16s.  I think they will get to do a lot of fun things with this group.....and, when they go camping, I enjoy a bit of time to myself.  Yesterday I went shopping with my sister.  It was the first time we have been out shopping together, just the two of us, for many long years.  After that I went for a hair cut and highlights and then I went to a movie:).  I wanted to see two movies but the other one was not playing at the right time for it to work out. 

This past week the boys also started AWANAS at a local church.  Our church didn't offer it but we heard another church was offering it so we decided to take them.  It is a program that emphasizes scripture memory.  We had been doing a lot of that at home but I think they will have fun and make new friends by doing it with this group.  Their new friend from co-op goes to it also so they already knew one or two people there. 

So they are staying very busy these days and so are we.  Actually, the dad took them over to the small lake to fish again this afternoon.  They enjoyed it so much they wanted to go again.

I am working on our plan for 2nd grade, since the boys should be finishing up 1st towards the end of this year.  We get very bush from the end of September on out, since we have birthdays at the end of September, October and November and then the holidays.  So I am trying to get a jump on school planning for January.  I think I am close to finalizing it.  We will be starting Latin in 2nd grade so that will be our biggest curriculum change coming up.  We will also start some formal literature studies.  Up to now we have just been doing lots of reading of wonderful literature but we had not been doing any analysis of it so we will start that in 2nd grade.

I am almost finished creating a history timeline on the wall in our long hallway.  It came out pretty good, although I wish I had made the time increments for ancients further apart.  Live and learn.  I will take a picture of it when I have caught it up to date with where we are in our history studies.  At this point, it is probably  more for me than it is for the boys, as they are still a little young to get it.  Studying the ancients has really helped me to understand the context of the Old Testament a lot better.  I really enjoy learning along with the boys.

I really need to download some pictures of the boys.  It has been a while since I have done that and they sure have changed a lot.  It's hard to believe they will soon be seven years old.  They are really getting tall and N looks very different with his new glasses.  His behavior has really improved over the past year.  His bad fits have been narrowed down, pretty much, to be about not wanting to do math or writing, at times, these days.....as opposed to anytime anyone said 'no' to him:).  It is a huge improvement.  Now if we can just get over the not wanting to do writing and math hump, we will be doing great.  I found out this week that if we have a really fun incentive he can make himself do it nicely and quickly.  They wanted to go to McDonald's for breakfast one day this week (this one has video games and they like to play them).  I made a deal with them that we could go and they could play games for 20 minutes IF we ate first and finished our math and writing.  So we went and they did awesome.  I pointed out to N how quickly he was able to get his math and writing done when he really applied himself and suggested he try hard to start doing that every day.  When we were heading home, they noted that we had the hard work already done and every thing we had left to do was more fun work.  I told them I would really like to start doing that every day.  They made the right noises but I don't think they really bought into my idea.  Maybe by the time we start second grade....I can hope:).

They just came back from fishing so I had better sign off and get bush around here.

Yesterday evening we had the visitation and today was the funeral for my mom.  I was really delighted at how many people came to both.  I always knew that lots of people loved her and that she loved so many but it was really neat to see that in action.  She worked in the only grocery store in her town for over 30 years so she knew pretty much everyone back then.  She had been retired for about 10 years.

The funeral director asked for a picture of mom to use so we scanned in a picture that we had in a frame.  I wish now I had taken more time to look for better pictures because that one did not come out very well.  She would have hated it and she would not have been happy with us about how it looked.

Yesterday we arrived at the funeral home for the visitation a little early, as suggested by the funeral director, so we could have time to see how mom looked and be ready to greet those who came.  I was really glad he had suggested it because I was upset by how she looked.  Everyone said she looked nice and I know she did but she did not look like herself at all to me and I found that kind of upsetting.  She really just looked like someone else to me.  I just could not see the resemblance at all and I still find it upsetting.  I hope I can forget this and just remember her how she use to look. 

Part of the issue was that we had to use one of her wigs from when she had cancer/chemo because they had shaved half of her hair off to do the surgery.   She always wore her hair curly/permed and her wig was not curly so it just made her look very different.  But a lot of it was also her face.  It just did not look right to me.  Her lips didn't look right and neither did her cheeks or anything else.  I'm still upset about it because I just wanted her to look like herself.

It still doesn't seem real to me.  The husband took the boys to run some errands a little bit ago.  My first reflex was to call my mom because I did that a lot when they left and it was quiet and I could talk for a while without being interrupted.  I miss her so much already.  How does a person get past something like this?  I feel that my life has been impacted so profoundly by this and I can't 'see' what my new life looks like.  I can't envision it with my mom in it.  I mean, she has always been in it, you know.  She always had a listening ear and we interested in everything in my life and I did the same with her.  She and my sister are my two very best friends.  And I really worry a lot about my sister and my brother (the twins).  My brother lived with my mom and her house is his house so it is going to be a huge impact on him, living there alone now.  And my sister always took mom to all of her dr. appointments and shopping and where ever she needed to go.  My sister and my nephew had just spent the day with mom, shopping in Joplin, MO, the day before she fell and my sister had told me some funny things that mom had done that day and the next day she fell and went into a coma.  It just happened so fast. 

The pastor who led mom's funeral had asked the family to write down our thoughts and various things we might want him to share at her funeral.  It was kind of last minute and we were all scrambling to get everything done in time so I wrote something up and read it to my sister and she added a couple of things to it.  We told the pastor he could use it however he wanted to and he ended up reading it verbatim.  I thought some of you might want to read it also, as it tells a bit about my mom.  Here it is:

     *************************************************************************

Our dear mother was raised in Vinita and she had one sister.  There was a large age gap between her and her sister and, from the sounds of it, she may have been a little bit spoiled.  I guess that is why she loved to spoil others.  When she was young, she enjoyed riding the train from Vinita to Terrell Texas to visit her aunts.  They loved to spoil her too.  They wanted her parents to name her Jerri.  Her parents named her Mozella after her grandmother so her aunts just called her Jerri anyway.  So, all her life, she was known as Jerri when she went to Terrell.  The other day, I called an old friend in Terrell to let her know mom had passed away and I heard her tell her husband in the background that Jerri had passed away.

Mom never cared for the name Mozella very much, although she did like her middle name, Marie and sometimes she would go by that name.  Towards the end of her life, she would say she wished her name was Rosella.  She was so funny.  She would even write Rosella on various notes or when journaling sometimes.

She loved Jesus and she made sure we were brought up going to church.  We have found countless notebooks and pieces of paper where she wrote and rewrote scriptures that were most meaningful to her and also prayers.  She did a great job of ensuring her children were raised with good morals and values.  She had quite a busy job when we five kids were all little.  When the youngest was born, she also had 14 month old twins, a four year old and a six year old.  I’m sure we kept her pretty busy.

She enjoyed telling us about the time when the twins were little and she had just returned from grocery shopping.  She was putting away the groceries when the phone rang.  While she was on the phone, the twins were trying to help and they dropped a carton of eggs on the floor.  When she came back to the kitchen, one of them was on the floor with a sponge, wiping around and around, smearing the eggs all over the place. The other one was scooping up egg shells and taking them to the sink, dripping egg over the floor on the way. She had quite the mess to clean up that day.

She was a very hard worker and, for many years, she worked nine hour days, six days a week as a cashier at Don’s Grocery.  I know she was often tired but I don’t remember hearing her complain about the number of hours she had to work to support her family.  She taught us to be hard workers also and, when we were old enough, she expected us to keep the house cleaned up and the laundry done and, eventually, to also have a job after school and during the summers when we could.

Mom wanted us to go to college.  When she was younger, she finished high school but did not go to college and she always regretted it.  I could not count how many times she told us that her mother tried to tell her to go to college and she sure wished that she had listened.  She so badly wanted us to go.  When Kathy was in nursing school and met her future husband, she wanted to quit school.  One evening Mom got on her knees next to Kathy’s bed and begged her to stay in school because she had always wished she had gone to college and she thought it was so important.  For those of you who don’t know, Kathy is one of the best nurses anyone could ever have.

Mom loved people and was the most thoughtful and generous person I have ever known.  She loved giving cards and gifts to others and greatly appreciated receiving them.  Her love language was most certainly gifts and thoughtful acts, as that was definitely how she showed her love to others.   I believe she kept every card she ever received and, in her later years, she really enjoyed going through them, re-reading them, framing some of them and telling us all about them, and with such excitement, as if she was seeing them for the first time.

She greatly appreciated the beauty around her.  She could not throw anything away if it had any beauty about it at all.  And to her, beautiful things did not have to be expensive.  She would even keep an empty box or an old calendar if it had a pretty picture on it.  She always had a special attachment for roses and angels and anything with roses or angels on it.  She was fascinated with angels and read about them and collected them for many years.

The Lord took her home so suddenly that it is very hard for us who remain and miss her so.  However, in doing so He also answered many prayers.  She said many times that she wished she could go in her sleep.  She did not want to end up in a nursing home and she would have hated to go through extensive rehabilitation.  The good Lord knew all of that and He answered her prayers.  She was already very sleepy when the ambulance came and she was no longer feeling pain.  By the time the ambulance arrived in Grove, she was asleep and did not wake again.

The entire time she was in a coma, she had a peaceful expression on her face.  But there was an instant, just before she passed away, when a smile flickered across her face.  I’m sure she was either seeing Jesus, angels or someone she knew or maybe she was just hearing the angels sing.

We are thankful that she went very peacefully with her children around her, holding her and loving her.  She was well loved by many and she loved many very well.  What a special person she was.  We will miss her beyond words but we will rejoice for her because we know where she went and that she is now happy, healthy and singing with the angels and we know we will one day see her again.

My mom passed away today around 5:30pm.  Thankfully, she went very peacefully with her children around her, holding her and loving her.  She was well loved by many and she loved very well.  What a special person she was.  We will miss her beyond words.

My heart hurts so much.  Please keep us in prayer.  The funeral will likely be on Wednesday.

Prayer Request

Please keep my mom in your prayers.  She had a bad fall today and hit her head, causing two bleeds in her brain.  She takes a blood thinner so that makes it even worse. They lifeflighted her to a hospital in Tulsa and she was already on her way to surgery by the time we got there.  She is stable but we probably won't know the outcome for at least 48 hours.  The surgeon thinks the chances of a good outcome are very poor.  The doctor at the first hospital thought that if she does survive, she will have brain damage and won't ever be the same.

Just before I came home from the hospital tonight, we saw her move her toes and she was also over-breathing the ventilator, so those are both good things.

If you could please keep her in your prayers, we would greatly appreciate it.

Fire zone

Last week there was a fire just south of our neighborhood.  We didn't even know about it until a couple of days had passed, as we had not exited in that direction (really need to start listening to local news reports sometimes).  It apparently spread very quickly, as everything is dead and the temps are reaching into the 105 to 110 range these days (it's brutal), and we have some open fields on some sides of our neighborhood.  Also, our neighborhood is relatively small because it is new and upcoming so the fire was able to get pretty close to new homes and to the community pool area.  At one point, it jumped a road into another field and then even ran up into a backyard of a house that has gone back to the bank (this one is not in our neighborhood but is in one across and down the road a bit).  I was shocked at how close this fire came to this house and also to the new ones being built in the southern part of our neighborhood.  What really shocked me was that we never heard the firetruck sirens or anything else about it.

Today the husband was headed to his local office to see a patient and called to tell me there was another fire at the end of our street, just across the road in this field.  The boys and I walked down there to see it and, again, I was just shocked to see how much land had been burned so quickly and how close it had come to the houses just north of us.  I talked to the fire chief for a few minutes and asked if they knew what had started this fire today and he said it was still under investigation.  Actually, he seemed to act as if he thought he knew but was not ready to say anything about it just yet.  I expressed my concern that we had had two fires in two weeks, one just south of us and one just north of us and it seemed kind of strange that that could just be a coincidence.  He indicated that he also thought it was more than coincidence but did not think they were being set deliberately.  He just thought someone was being careless.  I asked if this one today was from someone throwing out a cigarette and he that it was not.  I hope they figure it out and make sure it doesn't happen again.  It is getting a bit too close for comfort.

In other news, there is not much other news:).  We have been doing school, watching the Olympics, staying in out of the heat and the boys have been swimming a lot.  Dancer cat has still been going outside and he stays pretty close by.  I have been worried about him being out in this heat but it doesn't seem to bother him too much.  Every once in a while he will scratch on the door, I let him in, he steps just inside the front door and flops down and sleeps for a bit.  I think he gets hot and then he likes laying on the cool wood floor by the door.  Sooner or later, he cools off enough and he is ready  to go back out and find a place to nap again.  He spends the majority of his time sleeping so he is not exerting himself too much.  He knows when to come in though.  Between 10:00 and 11:00 every night, he is waiting on the porch, ready to come in for the night.  Also, when the fires are going on, he stays in the house for days at a time.  The first time, when we didn't even know about the fire, I had no idea why he no longer wanted to go out but I figured it out later when  I saw what had happened.  So it is no surprise today that he came in and is sleeping in  my closet.  Smart cat.

The boys are doing fine with school.  It is kind of funny that we just happened to be studying Ancient Greece in history and just today we were reading about how they started the Olympics.  Good timing.  In math we are studying how to tell time.  They are both doing very well with their music practice and I really like N's new piano teacher; exactly what he needed.  We are still finishing up Farmer Boy and we have also started Black Ships Before Troy but we haven't gotten very far with either over the past week because I had a bad cold last week and really couldn't even read aloud.  Feeling much better now though.

The dad took the boys to have their eyes check the other day and N will be getting a pair of glasses on Tuesday.  They had been at the dad's office a week or two ago and they were playing around and trying to read the eye chart he has up on the wall, when he noticed that N could not read as much of it as he should be able to.  B has cried a couple of times because he does not feel it is fair that N is getting glasses but he is not.  We have tried to explain but he is very into this fairness idea so it does not matter how much we explain, it still isn't fair.

They are almost done with basketball.  They have one more practice tomorrow night and one more game on Saturday.  It has been a good experience for them both and they have learned a lot about team work.  I think we are going to sign them up for swimming again, possibly with the idea that they will eventually swim competitively on swim teams.  After watching the Olympics, B is saying he wants to do gymnastics but I don't think we really want to put in the time and money required to do that sport competitively.  It seems to ramp up so quickly at such a young age.  Swimming seems very healthy and relatively safe and is a good long term sport to learn, as in they can still swim to stay fit when they are older.

Both N and B recently each made decisions to have Jesus Christ be Lord of their lives.  They were both very excited to be baptized at our church a couple of weeks ago, which is an public symbol to others that they have made the decision to be followers of Jesus Christ.  We were very excited with them and for them.  It brought back a lot of good memories for me too. 

Our church is a Baptist church so they do full immersion baptisms.  It was the cutest thing when N was baptized, as he was laid back into the water, his feet came up out of the water where everyone in the audience could see them and everyone gave a good chuckle.  It was really funny and the dad got it on the DVD camera.

My niece, Jana (my sister's daughter) is now engaged to be married.  We are all very excited for her and her fiance, who happens to have the same name as my dear husband (he must be a great guy, right?;).  They are currently planning their wedding for next summer, in June.  N and B are going to be in the wedding so they are very excited about that.

We are suppose to break heat temps again tomorrow, both the low of the morning and the high later in the day.  Something to look forward to, eh?  Today I had to stop school long enough for the boys to run 20 laps around the kitchen island.  They love doing this.  They laugh for the first 5 laps.  It's pretty funny and it really helps them to settle down and focus.  I think these hot temps are much worse than winter temps.  These are the dust bowl temps from the 30's.  Actually I guess they are worse, since we are breaking tons of heat records.  Anyway, it doesn't take long to get overheated outside so you have to be very careful, especially when you are not use to being in those high temps.

Well, that's it.  I had better publish this before I am interrupted again.  I have been writing this post off and on all day long.  Goodnight!

Back to school

Today was our first day back to school after being off for 5 or 6 weeks.  It was a mixed bag day...some things went pretty well and others were a bit difficult.  My lesson learned is that 5 or 6 weeks off was a bit too much for them, as they really slid backwards in their writing ability and that was the thing we had really worked on a lot (ability and endurance) and had made a huge amount of progress.  I almost feel as if I need to buy another handwriting curriculum and start over with them and I may end up doing that.  AND the backwards slid was for both cursive and manuscript.  In retrospect, I probably should have had them writing something at least every other day or so, just to maintain what they had learned.

The other lesson learned is that I need to pay more attention to where we are stopping in math when we take a break.  We just stopped at whatever point we happened to be at and it was at a bad place.  I think I probably need to back up a bit and cover some of what we had already done again.  I think they need the refresher to remember what we had learned and they also need it for their confidence level in math because it is currently not there, especially with N.  I had thought they would start math again and think it was easier because they had been doing Math Reflex games during our break but we were just at a really bad stopping place and Math Reflex didn't help with that.

In retrospect, I probably should have planned for a week or two of review in our skill subjects, instead of trying to jump in right where we left off.  I will correct that little oversight tomorrow and we will hopefully have a better day.

On the other hand, history went very well, their narrations were good in both history and grammar and our new Bible and spelling curriculum both went pretty well also.  Their reading seems to be coming along very well also.  We read so much that they didn't lose anything there but I do need to have them read aloud more.  N does a lot of mumbling through words as he reads because he reads faster than he talks and he finds it frustrating to have to slow down long enough to enunciate well.  But, overall, they are both reading well and it seems they are also comprehending pretty well.

They still have to do their music practice for today and, while one is practicing, the other will be reading aloud to me.  Then we will be finished for our first day.  We took off for a long, special lunch out today so we are running a bit late.

Well, I was interrupted by the timer, as it was time for music practice and reading.  So we are all finished for the day now and we have eaten a quick dinner.  The boys are cleaning up their toys and then we are going to head over to the pool for some good, energetic playtime. 

We are reading Farmer Boy now, as our fun read-aloud and we are all enjoying it a lot, especially me and N.  I don't think I read this when I was young.  I am enjoying learning about how they did everything back then and I am astounded at how much time they had to work and how little leisure they had in comparison to now.  It really is amazing. 

Off to the pool...

Summer Days

Things around here are still nice and slow and relaxing.  Quite lovely:).

I took 14 year old Dancer cat to the vet a couple of days ago and had the micro-chip put in.  They also caught him up on his shots (I don't normally keep indoor-only cats caught up) and I bought some flea medicine for him. So now Dancer is an indoor-outdoor cat and he is a very happy fellow.  The first couple of days it seemed that he stayed very close to our house.  Today we saw him coming back to our house outside of our fence so he had wandered a bit further away.

The boys really surprised me.  The first day that I let Dancer go out, they both cried.  I was really shocked because this is the first time that they seemed to care.  They were not that upset when he disappeared for a week but I guess that has been a while and they are older now.  They are starting to get used to the idea now.  N has accepted it and is now ok with it but B still worries about Dancer a lot when he is outside and he wants to go to him if he sees him outside.

Hopefully Dancer will get to enjoy his outside time for a long time.  I say a little prayer for him when he is out.  I don't want anything to happen to him but he was really miserable and he was making me miserable.  The entire time he was awake, he would roam the house, from door to door, crying and scratching at doors wanting to go outside.  He has also been waking me up at night doing this and, wow, I had not realized how long this had been going on and how much it was impacting me.  I started letting him sleep in the garage (which he loves) and I am sleeping incredibly now and I feel so great!  It is amazing!  I suddenly have so much more energy!  I really had no idea how much this was impacting my day to day productivity.  I'm sure it was also impacting my immune response and who knows what else.  Anyway, I sure do feel better and, boy!, I am also in a much better mood.

Tinker seems to be doing better with Dancer, now that he is going outside too.  I'm not sure why but they have both been lying out on the back porch since he came in and she is leaving him alone.  Well, she did try to engage him for a bit but he just ignored her and she gave up.  But she didn't run over and jump on his back, which she so frequently does, so that was really good.  Maybe we are going to finally get to a place where they are tolerating each other.  I hope so.  I am really tired of playing musical cats around here (he went into the garage so I can let her in off of the back porch; she is in the house so he must be shut up in my bedroom, etc.).

In other news, did I mention we are joining a new co-op?  I think I already mentioned it once before.  Well, I have joined and I am really excited about all that they offer.  I think we are all really going to enjoy it.  The boys will be taking a P.E. class that is run by the local YMCA.  They will also be taking a spanish class and an art class.  They have a music class that is offered in the afternoons where the kids are going to put on a musical at the end of the semester, which sounds like a blast.  I may ask the boys if they would like to do that also.  I think N especially would love it.  We'll see.  It can all get a bit expensive if we sign up for too much.

Also, I am looking in to having the boys join the cub scouts, which I think they will love.  B is really afraid of bugs, any kind of bug, even those that are dead.  So he was not excited about the idea of camping outside.  But then we were talking to this guy across the street who is a Boy Scout leader and, when B was saying he didn't want to do Scouts because of his fear of bugs, the guy said, "Well, do you like BB guns and other kinds of guns and would like to learn to shoot?" and B's head jerk around and his eyes grew big and, suddenly, he was all on board and excited.  Of course, I don't know if they learn that in Cub Scouts.  They may not teach it until they are in Boy Scouts.  But the guy on the phone this morning was telling me all of the stuff they teach and I was really impressed.  I think they will really enjoy it.  And there is a den that meets in the local school, which is only about a mile from our house, if that.  I think it would also give them a chance to really make some close friends in our area, since they try to put you into a den with kids from around where you live.

I also decided to put off starting school one more week so the boys can go to vacation Bible school at our church.  So we will be starting on July 16th instead of the 9th.  When I was a child, we always went to VBS at our church and then we often went at my grandmother's church as well.  I think the boys will enjoy it and it will be good for them.  I think it is only for half a day.  They will have a fun time and it will give me a bit of quiet time to do some things that I need to get done before we start school.

Oh and one other new thing.  I have turned on the comment thing that prevents spam.  I don't get that many comments but I was getting a ton of spam and I finally got sick of it enough to make me go figure out how to turn that on.  Should have done that a long time ago.  Sorry about the extra step but, wow, was I getting a bunch of junk.

So lots of new stuff going on around here and, with all the great sleep I am getting now, I feel like a million bucks!  I am still amazed at what a difference this has made for me.  Yay!

We are enjoying our break from school.  It has been very nice and relaxing around here lately.  N has started taking piano lessons.  He was so excited and could not wait to start.  The first week, he happily practiced every day without me saying anything.  The second week, he decided he didn't want to practice.  Well, that didn't take very long.  Yesterday I had to make a new rule that there would be no movie or computer games until after his piano practice.  It only takes him about 10 minutes to practice what he has been assigned and it is very simple.  I think he just naturally desires to challenge everything to see if we are really going to enforce it or if he has a choice.  Someday, hopefully, that desire will be channeled into something very positive for him.

Funny enough, B has the month off of violin lessons/practice until July 9th but has been practicing more than ever on his own.  I had suggested to N that he wait until the week of July 9th to start piano lessons but he insisted on starting in June.  Anyway, B is not required to do any violin this month at all and so, funny enough, he has practiced almost every day and is making large strides in improving his playing and ability to read music.  He is really having fun with it and it is showing me that we need to give him more freedom in his day to day practice, when he starts taking lessons again.  He really relishes in being able to pick the songs he is learning so we need to give him more freedom with that going forward.

I have been very busy this month, preparing for our lessons for the year.  I am putting together a filing system where all of the paperwork we will need during the year is already ready for us.  So, hopefully, I will not have to be working every evening during the school year, making copies and printing off maps and math pages and such.  It is a lot of work now but I think it will save a lot of time during the school year and give me more free time, which would be nice.  And hopefully I won't feel so harried and like I have no free time.

The boys are playing basketball for the first time through our local YMCA.  They have had two practices so far and they had their first game on Saturday morning at 8:00am (yawn - we have been staying up later and sleeping in later lately).  They actually did pretty well in their game, considering they have only had two practices and have never played before.  Their whole team really did fairly well, although they still have much to learn, of course.

The husband has a high school reunion to attend in August so I think we will be making a road trip up to the Chicago area.  We are looking forward to it and will use it as an opportunity for a little vacationing fun.

The husband's new practice is still going pretty well.  We are both pleased with the number of patients he has been having and are hoping and praying it will continue to pick up quickly.  He has been driving and hour and half to the place where he is working part-time and he stays over night there and works multiple days when he goes.  It will be nice when he doesn't have to do that anymore.  We miss him when he is not around.

My mom seems to be doing much better.  She has not fallen now for a number of weeks, which is the longest she has gone without a fall since last year sometime I think.  So that is very positive.  She has not had anymore vertigo episodes either, other than the two she had at our house.  She came close to having one a day or two ago but it was not nearly as bad as the first two, thankfully.  She has been staying at her house lately and seems to be doing pretty well.  We are very thankful to see her doing better these days.  It is quite a relief not to have to worry about her having bad falls.

The boys have been swimming a ton this summer, either at our local community pool or at the indoor pool at the YMCA.  They enjoy both and it is nice to have both an indoor and an outdoor option.  I took them yesterday evening and the water was really wonderful.  It was just cool enough to be refreshing but warm enough that it was pretty easy to get used to it quickly without it taking your breath away.  At first, we were the only ones there but it didn't take long before there were about a dozen kids in the pool.  The boys had a lot of fun playing with the other boys.  Our neighborhood is still small enough that you end up seeing the same people again and again so they are starting to get to know the names of some of the other kids.

They are having a parade of homes in our neighborhood this weekend so it is quite busy around here.  One of the houses in the parade of homes is next door to us and one is across the street and a little bit to the right. So our street is very busy with lots of cars parked everywhere.  The dad is working today so the boys and I decided to drive into Tulsa to eat at our favorite Chinese place (Pei Wei) as we had not eaten there in ages.  On our way home, we decided to stop and go through a couple of the houses that we had not seen yet.  One of them was particularly beautiful.  They really went all out on all of the little (and big) extras in this house.  It has a big WOW factor.  We all enjoy going through the new homes.

Last but certainly not least, the big milestone this week was that N lost his two bottom, front (center) teeth.   The first one fell out on Friday and the second one fell out today while we were eating lunch.  He was so happy that it was finally out because it was really bugging him and making it hard to eat.  He said "now I can really eat!". 

Well, I had better sign off for now so I can get a few things done.  Bye for now!

As usual, thing have been very busy around here lately.  My mom came to stay with us around a week ago and will be with us until Monday.  My sister and her family have gone to Hawaii for vacation (they are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary, their son's high school graduation and their daughter's college graduation all in one) so mom is staying with us until they get home.  And it is probably a very good thing because she had another episode of vertigo on Wednesday night.  It comes on in a split second with no warning and she has to sit down and grab hold of the nearest stable object or she will be on the floor.  It also makes her very nauseous so it is quite a scary and miserable experience.  This time it started at just before 10:00pm.  We were finally able to give her something for nausea that also made her go to sleep, so after enduring it for over an hour, she finally had some relief.  When she woke up the next morning, it was still there.  I was able to make an appointment with an ENT for 11:00am that morning, thankfully.  She took more medicine for nausea and went back to sleep and slept until it was time to get ready to leave for her appointment.  By then, it was starting to get a bit better, which was great because it would have been very hard for her to make it to the appointment otherwise.  The doctor basically said that it was likely due to some inflammation in her inner ear (she has already had an MRI that checked out fine) and the other thing we can really do is treat the symptoms just as we did.  That was good to know and we will treat it more quickly the next time but the bad thing is that she has no idea or warning of when it is going to happen, which is pretty scary.  She has been doing very well since then though and has had no other occurrences this week, thankfully.

So we ended up missing a bit of school this week, due to illnesses but we were back on track for Thursday and Friday.  Next week, we will take off for the holiday on Monday, have school Tues through Friday and then we will be off the rest of the month of June.  When we start back in July, we will be starting the second half of 1st grade, although 'officially' the boys will be starting 1st grade when public school starts here in August.  It is nice to have that extra cushion of being just a bit ahead of where they officially need to be so I am hopeful that we will be able to maintain that going forward.

We are all really looking forward to having the month of June off (except for June 1).  I personally can't wait.  I am so ready for a long break.  It will be refreshing for us all.  I am looking forward to getting back into the groove of practicing my violin, as I have not been practicing for a while now.  B got to the point where he didn't want me to practice with him because it made his practice session last longer, which I totally understand. But by the time I helped him practice, taught school, made meals, cleaned up, did laundry, etc., I was too tired to practice myself.  But I really want to get back with it because I was really enjoying it.  I also want to start working out.  We have a membership at the local YMCA now and they have a very nice indoor pool with a wonderful, big slide and an area like a river current, plus a play area for younger kids.  The boys love it and it is a wonderful place for them to play and get some exercise while I work out so I am hoping to try that out a bit during June.  Those are my two big to-do's, plus I want to do some fun things with the boys that I have not thought of yet...but I will.

Last night was B's recital and he also played a short concert with the youth orchestra.  He did an awesome job and I was really proud of him.  He looked so handsome in his little black pants and belt, white shirt and black bow tie.  I thought he might be nervous but he said he wasn't (I asked him about it today) and, when it was his turn, he walked right up there and played as big as you please, as if he was not nervous at all.  I think he really enjoyed it and he is glad that he stuck with his violin.  He is really doing very well with it.  We are officially off for the month of June for violin too but I know he is wanting to learn to play Amazing Grace so I'm sure he will be practicing some.

Last night made N more excited about taking piano lessons.  I was thinking he is suppose to start in early June but maybe it was July.  I can't remember.  I need to call the guy soon and find out.  If it is June, I was going to ask to start in July instead so we can truly be away from all obligations for the month of June but N is really wanting to start right away.  So, if it is June then we will go ahead and start it for him, since he is so excited about it.  I'm still not really sure he will stick with it and practice like he will need to.  He still really struggles with self discipline and self control.  Who knows, maybe this will help him in some ways.  Time will tell.

The boys are going to play basketball on a YMCA team starting in June also.  I think they will really enjoy it.  They finished their swimming lessons, for now anyway.  They are both very good little swimmers.  In their last class, they were learning different strokes and also how to breathe right when swimming laps.  I would really love for them to be able to get into competitive swimming because I think they would both enjoy it a lot and it would be such great exercise but we will see.  To do that through the swimming school they have been attending would be really expensive (for time and money) so I'm not so sure we want to do that, nor can we at this time.  With the husband starting his new practice, he is working several part-time jobs, plus seeing new patients with his practice so he is really busy these days.  It will likely be a while before he is making money with his practice and it is a struggle sometimes to get 40 hours a week with the part-time jobs.  I think there are other options though and I am going to look into it further.

My Dancer cat sure is acting older these days.  Of course, he is at least 14 years old now so he is quite old for a cat.  For the past couple of weeks, I have noticed he is getting weaker in his hind quarters/legs and then today, for the first time ever, I saw him miss a jump.  When Zoe started missing jumps, she didn't last a very long time after that so I am watching him closely and keeping Tinkerbell away from him.  She knows she is stronger and she attacks him any chance she gets. He likes to spend as much time as possible in the garage because it is the warmest place in the house.  She spends a huge amount of time on the screened-in back porch, crouching in attack position, ready to attack any bird or flying insect, squirrel or anything other thing that moves in the yard....even though she can't get out of the porch.  She seems to really enjoy it and she especially enjoys the porch when I throw a hand full of ice out there and she can play hockey around the cement floor.

I have rattled on enough and am getting sleepy.  Time to go to bed.  Good night.