Dear Mamma

Dear Mamma,
    I opened up the laptop today and your blog was up. Looking at it made me realize how much time, love, patience, and care you have taken all these years writing this blog and raising me. As we near the end of my education and I start new things I want to tell you how much I appreciate what you have done and sacrificed for me all this time. I know I wasn't the easiest child or teen but you instilled in me how to work hard and how to love unconditionally no matter what. You are a role model for me as a Christian and as an independent woman. The life lessons you have taught me over the years have given me an understanding of the world beyond my years and will help guide me as I enter into adulthood. I hope to always be able to look to you for guidance and love whenever I need it.
    You have taught what it really means to be loving to others and how to put their needs first, even though I think you need to put yourself first more sometimes. I realize now that you have spent not only my life, but also your life putting me first. I wish that there was some way I could repay you for the 18 years you have spent solely on helping me grow but know that while I'm not the best at showing it, I truly appreciate the time and care you put into helping me become who I am. I hope I have made you proud and can continue to make you proud in being the Christian woman you want me to be. You are an incredible woman and a loving mother and God couldn't have blessed me with a better person to raise me. I love you so very much!
    Your Puddin' Pop

April 5-11, 2020 Palm Sunday, Migraines, Hiking with Henry, Clothes on Line

April 5-11, 2020 

Palm Sunday, Migraines, Hiking with Henry, Clothes on Line

Henry smiling!

Hello Friends!

My migraine cluster continued this week, wrapping up after 13 days of it.  Some days were not as bad and I could muddle through for longer.  



Clothes on the Line!
The weather warmed up enough on Saturday that I was able to put my first load of laundry on the line to dry!  It was nice having a few warm days!  It was just one load, but it is a good start for the year.

You can see the massive evergreen bushes on the hill on the outside of our fence.  They were enormous, but now they have been totally pruned!  They are about 1/6 the size they were before our pruning job.

Evergreen Bushes:

You can see all the empty dirt in front of the bush---there used to be masses of limbs going all the way around the base.

We have these two massive evergreen bushes on a hill that I see when I'm washing dishes.  It has needed to be pruned since before we moved it, this week I worked on it twice and really pruned it back enormously.  Dd helped me for over an hour one time!  She did most of the chainsawing!  

The bush on the left, seen above, didn't get as much pruning as the other side did!

She had been a little hesitant to do much chainsawing but my electric chainsaw really feels good to her.  She suggested I buy her one! Ha!  

Can you see the black circle on the ground where I burned the evergreen limbs?

Then I started a little fire and burned some of the branches before running out of time.  The bushes now look a bit like Bonsai trees!  I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not!  It was nice working side by side with my daughter again.  She has been doing her lessons during the day and then having dinner with her boyfriend, Seth.

Garden:

I still pecked at my gardens this week; nothing major but picking off the straw from flowers and dead plants in the garden...just little bits here and there.

I raked and pulled out all the straw I had heaped onto my flower gardens in the fall.  It was nice to see things already coming up.

The woods are still pretty bare

Dh back to Work:
Dh had to go into his work this week.  He is worried about COVID19 and being an older man with health issues would cause anyone to be concerned...even healthy young people fall to it.



Hiking With Henry: 
Another week of hiking with Henry!  This week I was the one that got bit by a tick!  I had an itch on my back asked Dd to scratch it, she lifted my shirt and saw the tick!  Yikes!!!

Dd progress this Week:

Bible / Church:
 Dd has been going to Seth's to watch the streaming service with him.  Devotions independently.



Math: Algebra II
Dd FaceTimes her teacher now.



Foreign Language: German
DuoLingo - 2 short lessons



Writing/IEW Analytical and Research Papers:
Meeting online with her teacher



Science: 
Anatomy & Physiology (Apologia): online



Physical Education:
6 1/2 hours this week--lots of yardwork

The Daffodils are finally blooming!

Reader:
Dd is supposed to be reading Pride and Prejudice but decided to start a new book this week-- The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle



Read Aloud:
Nemesis by Agatha Christie
I am SO excited to be reading Agatha out loud to Dd!  She is one of my favorites!!!  It is a pleasure to read!!  Dd is liking this much more than Virginia Woolf.
.....

March 29-April 4th, 2020 Migraines, Garden, Hiking with Henry, Zoom, Online lessons

March 29-April 4th, 2020 

Migraines, Garden, Hiking with Henry, Zoom, Online lessons

Signs of Spring!

  

Hello Friends,

Another week of social isolation, which for me isn't a huge change!  I haven't gone grocery shopping since March 9th, but since I truly hate shopping this isn't hard for me!  



Staying home is easy for me, except for breaking my routines, I do like my routines and it feels weird not shopping (even if I don't like going!).  Dh worked from all again all this week, but they have informed him he *has* to go in next week.  He is really not looking forward to being around the germs and we've set up a protocol for how he comes in the house and puts all his clothes straight in the washing machine before he takes a shower.

Migraines:

Every single day this week I suffered from migraines.  I'm so tired of being in pain and sitting on the sofa.  To top it off, I'm not sleeping well; waking up most nights.  I know one would think I must be upset about the COVID 19, but I feel so much better now than I did 6 weeks ago when I was horribly upset that no one was taking this seriously.  I feel so much better now that people are paying attention and being careful, at least the majority of people are following the guidelines.  I think my increase in migraines is due to the weather and my hormones.

Check out this enormous GRAPE VINE!  It wide enough to be a tree.  There are three sections visible in this photo--the vine is brown and the trees are green.

Garden:

In the moments of respite from my headaches, I've been working in most of the gardens--flower, herb, and veg.  They all need so much work and it was warm enough to work outside a few times this week.  If nothing else I pulled out the old dead plants and vines from my garden beds; not exhaustive work, but little things that needed to be done.  It is nice to be outside.  

I had planned on only having a very small garden this year, so I could repaint our house, but with only shopping as infrequently as possible it would be a good idea to do more than I planned.  Dh turned over the compost in a few sections and put some of the compost in a few of the front gardens.  Next, I will be able to plant some lettuce, kale, spinach in those beds soon.  I'm sure we will get more snow during April so I can't plant most seeds.

FaceTime Heather:

Again this week I was lucky to have another chat with my friend Heather on FaceTime.  It has been a blessing to keep up our friendship over all these years.  What a treat to watch her children grow!

Bible Studies:

I'm continuing to do my two Bible Studies, but instead of meeting in person, we meet up on Zoom.  I'm learning so much.

Hiking with Henry:

Thankful for my long walks in the woods with Henry.  I've pulled two ticks off Henry already.  I wish ticks would stay away longer.  




Dh Work:
I think Dh was able to work from home all this week.  He thinks it's funny to say comments about his "commute" to work each morning as he walks downstairs to the basement!  He had a hard time staying focused but did his best.

Seth's Roller:
On Friday, after Dd went over to her boyfriend's house.  Around 4pm she texted asking us to come over in the truck to haul the yard roller and a trailer from his parent's house to his house.  Eric was in the middle of work and I was chainsawing on bushes, but after 5pm we headed over to help him.  When we got to his parent's house we had a long-distance chat with his folks for around 45 minutes. They go to our old church, so we know them.  It was nice to chat with them, but also pointed out the fact of how not one of our old church friends continued being our friend after we left...so very sad.  You think the people you hug and pray for will be your forever friends, but it somehow doesn't ever work out that way.  In the end, we got both things Seth needed to his house so he could work on his yard.

Seth:
This week was Seth and Dd's 6 month anniversary.  I never would have imagined Dd's first relationship would last this long!  They are all gangbusters...which scares me to death!  I didn't get any gradual transition from her 'childhood/teenhood to adulthood,' she just woke up one day deciding to be an adult and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around all of this change.

Dd's Progress for the Week:

Church and Daily Devotions




Work:
Still working at the pizza shop, though we are discussing her taking some time off. 



Papers: 
Completed two papers:
Romeo and Juliet and King Lear, both by William Shakespeare.



Foreign Language: German:
DuoLingo: 5 short lessons



Physical Education:
3 sessions= 8 1/2 hours



SAT Prep: 4 sessions

Grace Co-op Classes: Classes Online Now:

Science: Anatomy and Physiology (Apologia)

Art: Painting Studio

Writing/English: Analytical Writing for Essay's and Research Papers (IEW)

There was an interesting yellow growth on this tree.

Math: Algebra II:

With tutor

...........

March 22-28, 2020 Bunky, Zoom, FaceTime, Stairwell, MI Lock Down

March 22-28, 2020

 Bunky, Zoom, FaceTime, Stairwell

By the end of the week, we managed to get the three new stringers properly installed and the under-layer of runners down.  We can finally go up and down the stairs again!  Who knew was a big job it is to replace your infrastructure in stairwells!  As you can see we had to replace a lot of drywall that had been damaged when we were taking out the old stairs; we'd made a lot of holes! 

Hello, Friends!

The beginning of the week was snow, but by the end we had sunshine.  I thought I'd just save the snow-free pictures for next week.  Dh and I are still getting over our flu, but are spending more time off the sofa and having some hours of relief. 

 This flu is weird because you feel like you are better one day and then the day after that you feel totally exhausted again. 



 We had one day where we got to 99.5, but most days we were actually 95 degrees, much colder than we normally are which was a surprise to us.  



This week my lungs continue to mildly hurt each day, but this wasn't a problem for Dh. 

Reunions:

With the government shutting things down and making our state closed brought an awakening to all our family members that had been believing this outbreak was a "hoax."  



Now, even the farthest right family members are coming to terms with reality.  Dh had so many phone calls this week!  Most of his family only talk to him at the Christmas party, but this week BOTH his brothers called him!  Even my brother, Bunky, that hadn't called me in about a year, called me and chatted for around 2 hours!!!!  It was so great!   

 

Church:

Dh and I watched my church's live-stream at 11am on Sunday morning.  I'm thankful Dh is not only willing to watch with me, but is really enjoying it!  I'm hoping Dh will slowly get used to Pastor Jeff and then maybe he will be willing to try going with me when churches open again.  

Stairwell:

Whenever we felt like we had a little energy, Dh and I would spend an hour or two on the stairwell.  We progressed a little bit each day, but we also had a few days that we felt so awful we didn't get anything done other than holding down the sofa!  This picture is of the three new stringers.  You have to use balances and make sure each one is placed absolutely perfectly.

Bible Studies:

On Monday our Thrive group met online at the Zoom platform and it worked out great!  We are still working on:

 The Unexplainable Church: Reigniting the Mission of the Early Believers: A Study of Acts 13-28

On Wednesday our Bible Study Fellowship, BSF, group met online at the Zoom platform and it also went well.  We are working on: Acts and The Letters of The Apostles--which is awesome!

I'm really learning a LOT!  I've always been very active in my Bible studies, but this year has been extra intense.  Although I do worry that I 'share' too much in my classes and hope the other ladies don't think that I dominate too much air time.  Some women go the whole class without answering one question and I have a hard time not adding something to every question...I do make an effort to let others share but if there is dead air or something vital isn't brought up I often will contribute.  It is a fine line and I do make an effort to "read the room" in regards to my class participation.

Dd's Pizza Job:
Dd gave her notice to take the next few weeks off due to concerns over Covid-19.  Her boyfriend suffers from asthma and Dh and I have isolated ourselves, so she was our weak link working with contact with people at the pizza shop.  





Grocery Store:
Another week without grocery shopping, or anything outside of our home.  My last time at the store was on March 9th.  It looks like I will shop next week as we are out of all produce and Dh keeps asking for a salad.  It's almost funny how he craves things he hasn't wanted for months now that he can't have them!

Michigan Lock Down:
Michigan, among other states, declares state lockdown.  From what I am hearing there isn't full participation.  Dd's pizza shop had been switched to take-out only, but that still brought people into the shop and in contact with her.

It's hard to believe that in a few weeks I'll be turning over the soil and getting it ready for greens~!!

Dd's Progress For The Week:

Bible and Devotions:
Dd went to church with Seth again this week, but now they watch together online.  Dd got all dressed up this week, she's a hoot.  



Grace Co-Op Classes: 
Due to Covid-19, the classes are now being held online.



Science: Anatomy and Physiology (Apologia)



Art: Painting Studio





Writing/English: Analytical Writing for Essays and Research Papers (IEW) (They are doing this online)



Math: Algebra II (Spring Break)



Foreign Language: German with DuoLingo 



Drawing at home: 5 sessions at 20 min each



Physical Education: 4:00 hrs 



Audio Reader: 
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin





Read Aloud:
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolfe







Work: Dd is still enjoying working at the pizza shop, but gave her notice that this was her last week until the pandemic improves.

...........