Hotel Meltdown

I have crazy children. Really.  Here we are, a new place, new things to see and new things to do but are they happy? No.  They keep saying they want to go home.  Aside from swimming, nothing is making them happy. GRRRR  I am about to show them what sad really look like.

Today, more of them decided to cooperate and we finished the book work in 4 hours.  Well, one child did not finish.  But it just proves, we can accomplish so much when there is cooperation and concentration.  It's not an ability problem, it's a behavioral problem.  I'm really hoping my experiment will show them that concentration and focused work is their friend.  (Being here with nothing but school work makes focus easier than when they are home with all their "stuff". 

When Terry came home (to the hotel room)we went to Cheddar's and located the Aviation Museum.  My goal is to finish school tomorrow by 11, eat lunch then go to the museum for a few hours.  Hopefully we will come back and write some nice paragraphs on the Aviation Museum.

On the way there, I saw so many wonderful stores. Stores I haven't seen in YEARS.  Books-a-Million.  Hancocks Fabrics, Micheal's, Hobby Lobby, various used book stores....Oh how I miss these! And the local library is holding a used (old books they call them) sale at the fairgrounds.  Wonder where it is?  The sale starts tomorrow!!!!  I am so excited!  The children, not so much. lol.

Christ is Risen!

Blessed Easter!
Easter afternoon we headed down to GA because Terry has a meeting at Warner Robins.  We took the 5 youngest and stopped in VA.  Monday we continued on with a stop at Alfred and Dave's BBQ in N Carolina.  I wish we could stop for some educational enrichment, but we have a deadline.  Perhaps on the way back home...
Tuesday Terry had his first meeting and I attempted to have some "school" before swimming.  Some rebelled but eventually all learned something. lol.  They love the water, esp. Malachy.  I hope we get to the pool faster today (Wednesday).

Woke up to this Thought:

Give love whether or not you are loved.

Get on with Life

Somethings can't be fixed.

Christ is Born!

Glorify Him!
Merry Christmas to all.

FYI

If you ever blow a tire on the highway in Pa, you have 3 days from the time it is tagged before it is towed or ticketed. We are at 48 hours. lol. I wonder if they will buy the following story if we go a little longer than 3 days. We can show up with a video camera, reality tv style and say:
"We are doing a documentary on the efficiency of the PA Highway Patrol and you all have gone above and beyond duty. Thank you for doing an excellent job."
Surely they would tear up any finds or tickets or give us our car back free of charge if we did that ....right?
We have the tires we just need to get it to the shop to be changed out.
I want to go to bed, it is after midnight but my stomach acid keeps rising. I still have some of the protonix but I want to hold off. What is funny is I begin to feel panic from the rise in acid. But I am reminding myself that rising acid does not mean I am having a panic attack. It means I need to stop eating after 5pm for awhile.
Poor Malachy has the cold now. So he keeps waking up to nurse and whine. Hopefully he will get over this as quickly as the others have. Some still have the mucus but I think the muccinex is keeping it thinned down. The whine is gone from the others, lol.
Well, I should try to get to sleep....God Bless!
Edited to add, Terry and I went up this morning and I dropped him off. He put the new tire on and then headed to SAM's club to get the other 3 put on. When you think of it, it is a good thing since we now have 4 new snow tires on the car...now for 4 snow tires on the mini van I drive....but that is after the electric gets fixed and the brake pads are replaced.... :)

Nice Verse

Ever notice I don't write for weeks and weeks then one day I write and write and write. :)
Terry is reading Mark in the evening to us before bedtime. I liked this verse:
"Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease." Mark 5:34
So simple. Sometimes we have to practice our faith for a short time before we see "results" and sometimes we have to have faith for a longer period of time. But we have to have continuous faith.

Many thoughts and feelings

First feeling: worried about money. I hate worrying about money. I hate that Terry doesn't talk or think about money the same way I do. I wish I had complete control, then the entire family would really be mad at me. :)
Second feeling: worry about the children and confession. Brigid has anxiety, social anxiety. She has walked out of the confessional twice rather than confess. It is a fear she has to talk to people. She is 12 now and really needs to do this. Because she is behind I now find myself behind with Aine and Tippy. They need it too. Then there is the fact that St Mary's has their own form for confession, St Michael's had their own form and the Western Rite has their own form...a little more consistant than the Byzantine churches seem to have and if we still lived and attended St Peter and Paul Byz in youngstown, no problem as they had a "latinized" confession form.
Oh for the days when we were close friends with our parish priest and I could prep the chldren then send them in on the day we felt them ready. No forms or formalities. Just the child is ready, let's do it.
My next feeling goes along wth this. The fact that the priest who gave malachy his first communion, didn't put it on the baptismal certificate! So I guess Malachy is gettng pretend Jesus until he is 6 or so and attends the classes where he finally learns it is real Jesus. I wonder if it is the outfit he wears or the pictures that make it real all of a sudden. SOOOOOO frustrating. And this makes me miss Fr John. Why did he have to leave the priesthood? Of course if he left the priesthood I suppose I need to wonder if he did me any favors (as in did he "break "some law) by giving my children 1st communion as babies and putting it on their baptismal certificates.
Sigh. I guess we will find out when they get married or become a religious.
Next feeling is anger at my dad. How can he come to Ohio and not want to see his grandchildren? Esp the older ones who know him or the ones who are a little younger but konow him? Like the 21, 19, 17, 15, and 12 yr old? Does he have any idea how hurt they are by the way he acts? The littlest ones want a grandpa becuase others have one but they don't really know him, only of him. And we really can' t afford to keep giving them gifts with his name on them. But they would be hurt even more to know he doesn't even think of them at Christmas. It just hurts so much when your children are hurt.
Now some good feelings.
Relief: Fr. Frank has fixed all Don's paperwork and it appears that our lost paperwork has been found and processed. We ARE Byzantine Catholic. Yeah! All of us. Yeah! That was really nice of him to do and I need to send him a thank you email.
Don and Michelle seem to be doing well preping for the wedding so I need to thank him for that too.
Next feeling: organized. We have consistantly had Terry read the book of Mark to the family for about a week now. So nice to have him read to the children and talk to them about it before bedtime. I like his commentaries.
Thankfulness. I have been off the zoloft and protonix for 4 months now. I am back to being able to handle my anxiety with prayer. It has been 7 yrs that I was on the zoloft and protonix for panic attacks and anxiety. Before that prayer and talk were the way I handled it all. Nice to be back to them.
Well,I am trying to nurse malachy and type and it is just too diffcult so I will go now. I feel better too, posting my feelings, now i can think about other things like dinner and grading all these homeschool papers. :)

Being the Mean One

I get tired of being the mean one. I try to NOT be the mean one but then, somehow that is being mean too. Rock and hard place. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Or is it my perception of things? Am I perceiving things as one way when in fact they are another? Are those comments meant to be "humorous" ? Should I lighten up and not be so sensitive?