Boo, Hiss!

It feels like there have been a lot of boo, hiss moments in the midst of all the good things--that's life, right? Our trip to the tax man (for the first time I can remember) didn't go the way we hoped. We discovered that we owe what we normally get as a return, and that is a double bummer. Those child tax credits of the Crew's younger years, were solid helps! Maybe we should have more kids? I joke, I joke . . . but we do need to make some paycheck deduction adjustments, pronto!

Another boo, hiss was the phone switch--I never like switching phones, but phone companies is a whole 'nother headache! Buck was on the phone for three hours, four? Calling back and forth between the two companies before he got a solution to the FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS our previous service company planned to charge us over the next two weeks. Turns out, the new company didn't lie, and we just needed to complete a few more secret steps (because they don't tell you upfront how it all works) in order to claim our rebates or whatever. Good gravy, Marie!

Third boo, hiss coming in hot . . . I did some research and convinced the new medical team that I do qualify for an MRI whenever (no 6 week PT or "conservative care" hoops to jump through first). MRIs aren't fun, really. It's noisy and squeezy in the tube, but it's not awful. I got headphones to listen to music and the MRI lady was super nice. A couple of days later, I read through the report and did a bunch of online understanding. It turns out, they were right about what they thought was wrong--only instead of rotator cuff tendinitis, it is biceps tendinitis with a frozen shoulder. What I didn't expect was the phone call a day later telling me I needed to get a steroid shot a.s.a.p. in said shoulder. We leave for that in 15 minutes, so I should probably go get ready. I'm blogging to distract myself from thinking about it. I'm fine with needles, doctors, all that . . . but putting the medicine all the way into the joint . . . blech. Pass! Buck is driving me; thankfully his super messed up schedule made a free morning to join me possible :)

So, as with many things, when being scheduled for three weeks of straight vacation--even while you're actively working at the building where the clerical error took place--means they kind of make up a schedule for you when you correct the (big) mistake, and it's late shifts til almost midnight, God can use these frustrating things for good. Buck drove me to and from the appointment. The injection was gross, but didn't hurt too much. He said the PA put a shocking amount of syringe fluid through the needle in a very short amount of time, but she checked and there were some immediate benefits to the movement ability (which she said will wear off in a few hours, but will gradually return over the next couple weeks). I guess it doesn't matter that Olive ate my exercises, because I don't have to do them for awhile. Gotta get that inflammation calmed down, first. I'm thankful for prayer support and for friends that can talk me through it when I'm feeling a little iffy. I'm glad Buck was there, too.

Another interesting way God worked things out . . . Brennen bumped a guy with the truck, while he was waiting for the paperwork for the $1k car he bought with the $1.5k he got for his engine-broken last car. That repair cost is hovering around $2.5k, unless the guy's brother-in-law can do it sooner and cheaper than the two quotes he got from two body shops. Buck told Brennen he could keep driving the truck and sell the $1k car to get some of the funds to pay for the bump. G$ heard about this and decided to sell his Honda for $1.3k to buy Brennen's for sale car for $1.5k. All of this came to us, so we can pay the bump guy when he decides how to get his grill restored. Really, all of that to say . . . Brennen registered the car to himself, then sold it to his brother the next day; G$ didn't even get the plates on his last car before he sold it to someone else! So when Brennen gives Graysen the paperwork, Brennen will be back to no cars, G$ will be back to three cars, but now he doesn't have to turbo his daily driver, he can turbo the blue car . . . also a Honda, I think? Win, win! :)

I paid the dentist their $1.2k (thankfully our HSA dropped that in the bank account before it was due), and we're feeling better, overall, about the astonishing amount of money required from us in a very short amount of time. That tax situation is still a bummer, but we'll figure it out. God always provides, He's proven that over and over again. I do still get stressed about these moneycrunch times, but not at the level I used to. And it's almost always in coordination with a vacation or a purchase that we've already got locked down, that we never would have pursued if all this had happened with different timing. It's like God says, "Don't cancel your plans. Let me show you Mine in the midst of the unexpected." I'm glad He's on our side :)

People We Love

Valentine's Day 2025--heart-shaped boxes of chocolates made their way into the hands of all our favorite Valentines. The schoolyweds received theirs by mail (plus elderberry chews to fight the germs of education) and the others at the table (although Graysen's was the only one that happened day-of). Brennen got his, plus a couple of new shirts, on the day Chase and Gabby also came for dinner (Buck got the baby beef sticks for a Valentine). He mostly stays at the 5Guys house, but comes home for clothes and showers. He's welcomed a sweetheart into his world, and we got to meet her the day after Valentine's Day. They came over to make dinner together (lasagna and garlic bread), while Buck and I tried to both get to know S and to give them space to enjoy their at-home date night :) Baby pictures were shared, questions were asked, and hugs were given. She's a sweetheart (and seriously, SO pretty), we are enjoying getting to know her better. In fact, they joined us for dinner at our favorite local restaurant on Sunday. Caelan called it a double date, which I guess I didn't process until she said it. Gosh, our kids are old enough to double date with us? Pretty crazy, pretty cool <3

Chase and Gabby had an exciting morning, recently! They got to see their little wiggly baby on ultrasound, and learned if they are expecting a son or a daughter :) We don't get to find out until the end of this week, and I can hardly wait! I think most of us think it's a girl; Caelan, Graysen, and Grandma J guess boy. Baby is the size of a pop can, Gabby said, "Probably Dr. Pepper." They attended a marriage conference over the weekend and Gabby helped in the nursery Sunday morning. Her body isn't handling busy schedules very well right now, and she was pretty ill yesterday. Hoping the second trimester feelings of health and energy kick in for her soon!

On Sunday, Buck and I tuned in to the livestream for the schoolyweds' church . . . because Caelan rejoined the worship team! Well, they both did, but there was already a drummer scheduled for this past weekend. They will both serve together at the end of next month. The song line-up was all familiar; including the responsive song "He willlll, He doessssss, We dooooooo." I texted Noah the last, and he was pretty confused (maybe impressed? :) that I knew what song they were singing at church--until Caelan told him we were watching from home :) It's midterms week for him, so he's busy with assignments and tests, while Caelan is busy with social things like spin class, coffee with friends, and nannying. We are looking forward to seeing them and catching up in person, soon!

My brother also made a recent appearance on TV :) He and K took turns reading Scripture and doing the opening prayer over the past couple of weeks. It is still so strange to see him here, interacting with people we've known for a decade. But, whoomp there he is!

(P.S. We love Graysen, too, I just don't have any relevant pictures for this post :)

Wild Kingdom

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. I'll do my best to update with the smell of wet dog making my senses want to initiate fight or flight mode . . . it's really bad. Let's just do the creature update for now. 

Olive has been somewhat of a quiet menace in recent weeks. She became obsessed with eating paper, and I'm pretty sure she ate--not once, but TWICE--my PT homework. I can't find the second copy anywhere. Special delivery!

Turns out, her strange behaviors mean it is time to think about puppies again (as we suspected). She's currently on diaper day five and is heading to the H's house tomorrow for a lengthy stay. They are investigating a new option for the dad dog, so we shall see what the end result will be in a couple of months. 

Meanwhile, Daisy is a mud-splattered bundle of puppy exuberance! She loves the snow we got--and we got a lot, at least six inches, I'd say. Now that it's melting, we can see all the holes she dug through the snow into the ground. And there is a regular cleaning of muddy paws.

Tight squeeze when cars don't park in their driveways! I appreciate the plow guy doing his job, to rescue us from the fluffy snow mountains, despite the lack of winter preparedness participation of the up-the-street neighbors :)

She's happier than she looks, lol! Polar bear mode engaged :)

I always wonder how G$'s auto mechanic hand smudges don't get on the dog's bright white fur, lol! I expect them to look like Dalmatians after snuggling with Graysen, but somehow they never do!

We've also had a variety of creatures visit our front tree during the bouts of snow (which were not fun to take care of the chickens in, let me tell you--ain't nobody got time for 35 below zero).

In keeping with the animal theme, the farmlyweds discovered a Geely surprise--she came back and had kittens! When they adopted her, she was supposed to have been unable to experience motherhood; but she sure proved that paperwork wrong :) I think it's intriguing that, although she wanders, sometimes for months in between sightings, when it came to a safe place for her babies, she zoomed straight back to be near Gabby. There are four fluff balls, they think, but so far they've only gotten to three of them. Geely looks so different now! But her babies look just like her :)

Buck wants to keep them all, but we will just settle for visits (much to Graysen's relief :) There is enough animal activity around here to keep us plenty busy! And so.much.fur. Oof! Kitten names in the works: Timothy, Coldstone, and TBD :)

A Smattering

There's a smattering of updates from the past two weeks, but mostly I've been working. Oh, and I went to PT and the therapy fellow decided I also have a frozen shoulder. I guess the muscle builds scar tissue and the scar tissue prevents the muscle from moving--freezing it in place. Not sure why it happened, but it sure does hurt! I jokingly asked Olive if she wanted to eat the papers on which my at-home workouts were printed. I didn't think she'd take me up on it! She's been on a weird paper-eating binge for the past week. Several things we've rescued, others she's consumed under the shield of darkness--like the overflowing trashcan in the office/exercise room. I even shut the door, but she pushed through and had a snack. I went to PT again yesterday and said to the young arm fixer, "Crazy story for you . . . the dog ate my homework." Good news is, I am getting some mobility back already! And my cut thumb healed up, so things are on the upswing.

On another day, Brennen spent an afternoon building my new desk while I worked. We had to block out the dogs, because they are too much in a small space. My desk is nice and large and it has programmed settings for sitting and standing. I like this a lot, because I get antsy sitting all day. I probably stand at my desk now as much as I sit; it's so much better!

Daisy was plenty confused by the treadmill and me walking, but going nowhere. She sat next to the machine and barked at me! Just once, but give me strength, dog! Buck improvised this blocking system from the other side. Then I was faced with the challenge of getting out myself once my walking was done, lol!

With all the moving parts, the house was feeling very disorganized and not very calming. I woke up one morning with more determination than I've had in a long time--and I attacked my to-do list like it was a possum with a chocolate cake (did you hear about that?) This included completely reorganizing the garage again! I put on some tunes and started making piles--one for the shed and one for the trash. Brennen loaded up the truck with the trash and took it to the dump for me. I've still got a bunch of donation things in the van that need to be dropped off, but improvements were made! And I got to move all the in-the-house clutter to the garage, win-win!

This cleaner house meant we could host for the Superbowl! In fact, this was the second Sunday in a row Chase and Gabby felt up to coming over for dinner. The first weekend Buck grilled brats at Gabby's request, and I made gwumpkes. 

For the football game, Buck smoked ribs on the deck . . . with a bonfire, two dogs, and a pipe :) The ribs were delicious! Brennen decided he couldn't miss out on all that, so he joined us for the food and fun. I was going to work on my chicken quilt, but forgot that it was "switch all the phones" day. Lots of work getting those things swapped over, but we're five for five (I still don't like my notification sounds, but other than that I'm mostly acclimated). The dogs were thrilled I was sitting on the floor where they could snuggle (too bad we still haven't given them that bath they needed back in October).

Snow finally arrived to dust our world with white, and, drumroll please . . . . Buck FINALLY got his tooth back!

We also got our taxes done professionally for the first time I can remember, and I accompanied Buck to his barber shop for his haircut for the first time (which was a necessity because the tax appointment took too long for him to drop me off at home). We'll find out next week how that whole taxes thing turns out; hoping for the best!

A few Crew updates: Caelan connected with a lady at her recent craft fair and will be working every-so-often, doing some social media moments and putting some of her crochet items on consignment in the business's gift shop. She's also connecting with lots of young women in her small group and neighborhood. In fact, there are so many babies arriving this summer that her neighbors are in need of a nanny--Caelan is looking at taking on that near-to-home work. So far, she's got two baby girls lined up for late summer. But there are more babies on the way! School is going well for Noah and the schoolyweds recently met with the worship leader at their church. It sounds like Caelan will join the band on piano later this month, and Noah will provide the drums when needed. Most of the time, they'll serve together, just like the old days. Aww! Caelan is also planning to join the newly forming church choir. She's getting a lot of social these days!

Brennen is whittling down his to-do list. He's expecting to return to his landscaping job next week, he's getting the paperwork together on a $1k car his friends helped him find, and we're waiting to hear back on a fender-bender that happened with the truck. We told him to hang on tight to his tax return to help buffer some of the expenses of the past months. He's doing more leadership training at church and started volunteering at a local outreach. He's slowly moving things to the 5Guys house, big Legos went this week. But home is where your laundry is, and that's still here :)

G$ is working hard at school and at his job. He comes home with smashed fingers and grease gloves, but he's learning a lot. He's also checking in to the college ministry and Bible study that the Bois (Boyz?) host. He's put in a ton of hours trying to fix two of his three vehicles. The third--they may be trying to blow up--but they are having fun on the level b roads :) With the snowfall, G$ got permission from two of our church leaders to do donuts in the church parking lot. They both told him, "Sure! But I had nothing to do with this." Ha! He videoed his donuts, coming quite close to his brand new phone on one spin by. He said he attracted a lot of attention from passersby, but feels he'll be a better driver because of this gained experience :)

Chase and Gabby are working hard and dreaming of additions to their home. Soon they'll know if their most important addition is a girl or boy! Oh, that reminds me of a funny thing Gabby said. At the first dinner, the boys were going through their phones, looking through photo memories of the past year. Brennen found two of his buddy R, and showed both Buck and me the images from clean-shaven to partially bearded. "He grew that in just nine months, that's crazy!" Gabby said, "It's not that impressive. There are OTHER things people can grow in nine months, just sayin'." Excellent point and timing! I'm still amused by her clever response :)

January Summary on February First

I'm not even sure what I'm summarizing, but we'll see where this goes! We successfully got G$ enrolled in college! He didn't want posed first day photos, so this is what I got :)

A friend posted a video of a really cute project to use up extra bits of fabric. I have plenty of those, including several shirts from my dad's collection. I decided to try to replicate the idea, because it looked fun. Well, it turned out to be one of the most difficult and time-consuming projects I've tried. AND my sewing machine REFUSED to cooperate!! It kept making nests of thread on the bottom, and I tried every single stinking thing I could think of and all of those the interwebs could suggest. Eventually, I just set everything back to normal, kept the new presser foot on with the heavy duty needle, prayed, and it worked as if there hadn't been a single problem. This was days later. After I cried. Because I was sooooooo frustrated. But it turned out cute! Some of Buck's shirts and some other highlights from baby quilts and covid masks mixed in :)

We invited the yearlyweds, maybe I should call them the babyweds, no that sounds weird, the farmyweds? Chase and Gabby over for dinner last Sunday. Buck found super thin pork chops that reminded him of the kind his mom always made when he was growing up. He cooked the whole package and made potatoes and various other foods . . . while I talked to Caelan for two hours on the phone :) It turned out that Gabby wasn't feeling up to leaving the house, after all, but the boys both came home and chowed down, then watched some play-off football. It's nice to have them both home!

I finally went to the doctor to get my sore arm checked out. He said I have rotator cuff tendonitis on the left, a swollen/aggravated nerve in my right thumb (I forgot to mention the pinched nerve in my right shoulder) and basically what this all boils down to is . . . I have to take a bunch of medicine for a week, start PT, and get a new desk. Buck was right :)

In order to get a new desk, we had to make some space. So, Brennen decided to pull his bed apart and move it to the new 5Guys house. He's not fully living there yet, still waiting for a job to make rent payments, but he does stay there most nights, so it's nice to have his bed :) This meant disassembling the downstairs behemoth and relocating it back to its original location--the girls' room, or most recently, Brennen's abode. This way, he still has a place to sleep when he's here.

It seems like a pretty quick process when I type it in a paragraph, but woooeeee was that a physically demanding afternoon! We were glad Brennen stuck around before church group to help us with the process! Buck and I moved the bed's staircase shelving back into the classroom from the garage, because, without the behemoth, there is no longer any storage :) We are in the process of also moving the treadmill back inside from the garage, and I'm super excited about that! Buck moved the schoolboards behind the door and hung up senior picture posters. Oh, and I ordered a new desk! The classroom/guestroom/office/storage room is transforming into something new again . . . we'll see how it turns out :) We may call it Hodgepodge Central. But after four months of not being able to lift my left arm, if a room reset and new workspace is what I need to make it better moving forward, it's worth the effort now!

Let's see--Brennen sold his broken car, and is in the process of buying a Civic from the coworker of a friend from the proceeds. The coworker is a smoker, so trying to gut that aroma from the interior before the sale is complete.

Oh, our TV broke. Idk how long we've had it, but it's been most of the time we've lived here. It's been repaired once because I wrote a blog about not having a TV for a whole week while the repairman came from out of state--that's been years ago. With no warning, we turned it on a few days ago and it did this . . .

None of the online troubleshooting options helped, so we grabbed Brennen's from his room (he said we could) for the interim. Then Buck got an "old people eyes" sized one for a very reasonable price, and brought it home as a replacement. Graysen was as excited as his dad to help unbox that big boy, lol! I'm pretty sure the box is the size of a twin mattress, and Buck said he could have gotten a 75 inch for like $75 more, but he didn't think it would fit on our TV stand. So, we'll stick with the 65, which is an upgrade from the 55, and now we can see life-sized people do home renovations, ha :)

Other highlights . . . Buck and I went see Mr. M shoot some hoops! That was really fun; I'm amazed at how well those kids play as second graders! One little guy had a breakaway for the basket and I resisted the urge to yell, "Dunk it!!" IDK, maybe he could have :) I would share a photo, but it didn't save to my phone.

The weather has been wonky--no snow, but very cold some days, very warm others. Brennen and I recreated a science experiment one day while he was hanging out. We kept forgetting about the water in the microwave while we were chatting, so we never did get it to boil. But we got a nice steam 'splosion from throwing it into the air :)

Let's see, Graysen got his first cavities filled--Brennen wondered at the milk dribbling down his brother's chin, but didn't say anything :) Buck had one inventory and is currently on a 12-hour shift doing another. I've had a couple of video chats with friends in Rwanda, which has been cool! I've also had lots of training meetings for work, and am going into the office more frequently than I probably want to be, lol :) Daisy has been extremely naughty, chasing my chickens when it was really nice out yesterday. Graysen helped me take down some more of the Christmas decorations and get the birds restocked on food and water--seemed like a good time to free range until Daisy's herding instincts (which she's not supposed to have) kicked in. That's not her only naughty trick--she's been barking a lot more and puking woodchips and tearing up toys and . . . the list goes on and on. I'm guessing she's a bored puppy, and I'm too busy to entertain her. Yes, that's probably the diagnosis. Sigh. Maybe I can take her for walks on the treadmill . . .