Mid-Week check-in

After our eventful weekend, it's been nice to just be home a while.  It's amazing to me that the sleepless night and damp tent and the gnats and whatever bit me that left that hole in my elbow are all just glossed over now that I am home and all I see inside my head is the sun-dappled trail, the clear stream and that treehouse...wow.

I love selective memory when it works in this direction.  It's when it goes the other way and my brain want to wallow in little miseries that I wonder if there's something wrong with me.  Just last night, I was so mad at Matt for not inviting me to the prom that I started to get a stomach ache.  I mean, seriously.  What the hell? That was 20 years ago.

I will post a few highlights from the camping site so your brain, too, can bask in the eye candy.

hiking back to Virgin Falls

Laurel Falls Cave

Virgin Falls

Treehouse

So far this week, we've mowed.  Oh, and picked up more dog food.  Matt's carpool ride is off doing training, so he's driving the van this week as the Volvo needs some work.  Chandler lost a bracket on her tooth that is supposed to be under constant traction, so we have an emergency ortho appt noon Thursday, and hopefully the t-storms forecast will not interfere with a library run as well.  

Not much else going on, though I am sleeping MUCH better.  Not a full night yet, but getting there, hopefully the end of insomnia.  I hope it's not like the end of Insomnia because I don't want to get hit by a car.  Of all the King characters, I think Ralph is my favorite. 

I did realize today that my hair is growing back out, I need another haircut.  Which made me realize that I have not seen several folks since I had my hair cut.  My friends have all been scarce of late, several e-mails have gone unanswered.  Not sure what's going on.  The kids have stopped asking if their friends will be there when I come up with something for us to go do.

Last bit of update, we are tossing around alternate travel plans for this fall.  The big trip has to be scaled back to two weeks, if that.  Which means just the southwest, which...sucks.  We have been talking about doing Disney instead or even just taking Poppy to the beach and camping for a couple of weeks.  We have to funnel some money into house repairs is what it all comes down to: finite cash flow, infinite wants and needs.  But, it will all work out in the end.  As long as I don't get hit by a car.

Not Sleeping

Just making a note, more for my own reference than general news.

I have not slept a full night, even with sleep aids, in the past month.  I wake up around 2:30 or 3 a.m. and I am awake until 5 at the earliest, sometimes I never get back to sleep.  I don't seem stressed-there's not some worry that creeps in and keeps me awake-my thoughts are all over the place.  I am actually so tired my eyes burn, I have rubbed off about a quarter of my eyelashes (I hardly had any to spare to start with) because my eyes itch/burn most of the day.

I have not had caffeine of any kind in 6 weeks.  I don't eat chocolate often and never after about 3 in the afternoon.  I eat at least 2.5 hours before I go to bed.  I do 40 crunches just before bed, but I have been doing that for several months and I do fall asleep fairly quickly.  I usually run my last stint on the treadmill just after dinner, so 2 hours before bed.

I have tried melatonin and Valerian root, which do help with falling to sleep within 20 minutes of getting into bed.  But I still wake up.  I have tried Calms Forte with the same results.  I can not get back to sleep at the 3 a.m. point even if I take more, though I usually fall asleep a few hours later, around 5 or 6 and sleep until 9.

On nights that I do not fall back to sleep, I am averaging 4 hours of sleep. 

This happens often enough that I am aware it's a cycle of some kind.  But I usually have 10 days to 2 weeks of bad sleep followed by the same stretch of generally good rest.  I still wake, but am able to fall back to sleep within 20 minutes, often much less.  This has been going on twice as long as normal.

May Already

 Our internet is still very hit-or-miss.  The above is popping up WAY too much for my own personal happiness.  But, other than our broadband being in and out, it's pretty much back to normal after the storms.  I can't believe that was just 2 weeks ago!

This week, in an effort to get myself out of my rut, we actually left the house Tuesday and went to the year-end picnic at the park with our bigger homeschool group. 

In Alabama, you don't really homeschool, you are a satellite of a church school that is also your legal covering-these vary widely.  Then there are the regional and local support groups for field trips and making friends and for us there's 'our' homeschool group, which is to say the roamschool group of families that make up 95% of the people we do anything with, ever. 

The park day was mostly roamschoolers and we all ended up at Heather's afterward to swim.

It was nice to hang out with the moms, though I did not have much to say for a change.  ha! 

Afterward, we came home with Brit and Austin and I dropped the boys off and the girls and I went to get groceries.  Matt had practice. 

The kids stayed up until around 3 and were back up before 8.  I had planned to go to the library today, but 3 tired kids is not my idea of fun hang-out buddies when I am in the mood to cruise the stacks for an hour or so.  I want some skeery books for the camping trip!

So, we came home and finished loading the camper and I made menus and packed food and made shopping lists for everything else I need to pick up.  I always bring SO much food, I overpack in every area, really.  I thought I would be more sensible by now, but I don't seem to really have that...gene.

Jake rode with me while I ran local errands today-Mr. Holmes, post office and so forth.  Mr. Holmes let me write my check for a dollar over so we could buy drinks.  hahaha! He's such a great guy, I really hope he gets good news Monday about his broken hip.  Well, it's mended, but he needs therapy now.  We are hoping that he will get the news that he's healed enough to start walking on it again. 

Jake and I were talking-first about how I can belch and he's horrified because he can't and he made me promise to never do it in front of his friends so they would not know of his inability.  Poor kid. I only recently learned myself and can only do it if I chug a cold soda, otherwise, nothing.

Once past that little exchange, he talked a while about how kids in groups always have to have an adult with them.  Field trips, backstage, in dugouts and dozens of other places where you'd think they could just hang out and do their own thing and not need to be herded and managed. 

I told him I thought it was a mainly public school issue, safety being first, but that kids are just accustomed to being told what to do ALL the time and they can't really function without threat or bribe or reward.  I remember if the teacher ever left the classroom, we would go nuts-the longer she was gone, the more rowdy we all got.

I wonder about that now.  If we had not been kept under such rigid control with rules and schedules and time-dependent activities, would we have been nuts when left alone?  I don't really have any way to compare, when homeschoolers are together in groups, there are moms everywhere and the occasional dad as well.  It's easy to say it's public school mentality 'cat's away, mice will play' sort of thing, but it's just a theory.

The only other bit of news I have this week is that Matt has a new top boss and it seems like the new guy is planning some changes that will improve the company as well as our personal lives.  The change I am most excited about is the shift to a 4-day work week over a period of time.  That will save us...$420 a year in gas alone, plus around $240 in lunches and an oil change's worth of engine wear-so in the neighborhood of $700 a year and it gives him a day to schedule appointments without having to take off work and 3 day weekends every single week.  That would be SO good plus I think we would be healthier-think of all the hiking and camping we would be able to do!  I hope it works out that way!

Valerian Root-2 week update

At this point in time, I can say that Valerian root has made a huge difference, enough so that I plan to never be without it again.  I take 2-3 at night with the melatonin.  I sleep through the night now, I have not slept through  the night more than once or twice since I was in elementary school.  I wake up feeling awake, not groggy-which is another 'thing' about me, I don't wake up pretty or well.  Or, didn't.  

I take 1 at a time, usually with food, during the day if I will be stressed.  It works for good or bad stress, it just takes the tenseness away, nothing at all like antidepressants, which kills every thought in your head.  I think clearly, just don't get worked up or dismissive, which can be just as bad.

I have joined an online list site, remember the milk dot com and had everyone in the house join it.  It e-mails out daily reminders if we have anything we need to go do or take care of at home that day.  I can add things at any time, any of us can.  That fixes any and all 'what's going on' and 'what are we doing today' and is an easy way to remind us what we need to get done on any given day without me listing it off like a drill sergeant.  That has helped with my memory issues, I can jot it when I think of it and it will remind me, I don't walk around thinking there is something I am forgetting as much. 

My next personal goal is to nail this last 5 pounds.  That will give me 25 for the year, I am not sure if I can do it by the end of the year, but that's the plan anyway.  I have not been very well behaved lately, too many goodies and too many cold days that need cookies or brownies or hot cocoa to make them bearable.