Ablaze

Alanis Morissette's new song might make you cry.   (click the link to the left if you don't mind)

"this nest is never going away"

"my mission is to keep the light ablaze"

totally tugs my heartstrings!

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Joel has a song in his choir this year from Alanis, so I have been on a little bit of a kick.  She was a child star and suffered with all that garbage.  She had an eating disorder, was taken advantage by a producer and has had terrible post-partum depression.  She has been interviewed and has talked about supporting other women through this.  I admire that.  Anyway.....LOVE THIS SONG!

HERE ARE SOME lyrics:

To my boy, all that energy so wild
Of your hues and your blues in equal measure
Your comings and your goings-away
My mission is to keep the light in your eyes ablaze

To my girl, all your innocence and fire
When you reach out, I am here hell or high water
This nest is never going away
My mission is to keep the light in your eyes ablaze

To my boy, my precious gentle warrior
To your sweetness and your strength in exploring
May this bond stay with you through your days
My mission is to keep the light in your eyes ablaze

And this cord is unbreakable
This pilot light is there in your pocket
And this bond, beyond un-shakeable

To my girl
Next you might notice is that we will always be a family

Home chef....pre-review

My hospital has an email each week with coupons or specials. Most of them I ignore, because they are really just sales pitches.  But perhaps being inundated with Home Chef ads. on YouTube have had there intended effect.  Anyway they offered 60% off up to $39.  We ended up spending $41.91 for about 8 meals. Originally it was a bit less, but one of their meals was a salad and I can absolutely make salad without their help or price tag, so subbing out bumped us up.  Part of the reason I bought this was because cooking has gotten a little stale lately.  Plus the kids are home more with virtual education and they are good cooks.  (So a little home-schooling that they will like!)  Of course they are gone to cross country right when we would be cooking, but maybe we will do something at lunchtime tomorrow.  Who knows!

Anna always at the ready when a fun package arrives!

A mini-refrigerator....feels a little un-environmentally friendly, but Anna said the plastic packaging is made of re-cycled bottles of water.  Plus how un-environmentally friendly was all the take-out packaging we have thrown away since March..... (but...ya know...supporting the local restaurants)

 Unfortunately our box arrived at 5:35 and if I haven't started cooking by then, we all know sadness ensues.  So I already had made stir fry chicken and Greek green beans.  Anna (un-solicited) said the chicken was good.....so tonight was a win without the help of Home Chef!!  It is good to have something for tomorrow (because I am only working in the morning and have time) and for Friday, because usually that is a day that I don't want to cook, but I think this will turn that around for me.

9/29/20 Anna has more running buddies!

Look at that girl!  She almost is smiling she is so happy with her race!!  

Home stretch!  My friend (who was at the end/start of the race) said she really poured it on right before the chute!!

We had an extra treat after the meet.  My friend FROM HIGHSCHOOL was there.  She lives in Ankeny and her son runs on the boys team.  Her folk (also live in Ankeny now) brought their dogs and so we got to love on them.

We met in high school science then N. went to the University of Iowa and invited her to join Alpha Phi Omega (the service fraternity where Ken and I met).  N. is now a nurse practitioner.  Before she changed jobs I would occasionally test her patients hearing!!  (Now she works with digestion....so no littles with possible hearing loss for me to see)  Forever friend!

 

9/27/20 Joel has a PR! (personal record for you non-cross country types)

 

19:36.3 = 3 miles 

(and yes a teammate finished at 19:36.2).....glad they had each other since it was likely a PR for both!!!

Funny story, there were 2 boy's races, but we didn't know it.  So we stood out in the pouring rain (which is unusual for Cross Country....normally they want to protect the courses....they practice in the rain, but this was our first rainy meet in 4 years).....anyway stood in the pouring rain only to realize none of us saw Joel....who was running in the 2nd race that we didn't know existed.  Glad they ran 2 races, so the kids weren't so packed.  Plus by the 2nd race, the rain was mostly gone until the end.

The guy in front of Joel here is a scout-buddy of his, who is having a great year....Joel was trying to keep up.  Great to push yourself!  IT WORKED!!

I thought this was a funny statement about the times....we were soaked!  and cold  and we weren't wearing tank tops!!!  Finally it was nice to have a mask....warm!!!

9/26/20 Panora!

Joel had to be a Catholic Youth Camp (CYC) (approx. 1.5 hours away) for 24 hours.  (He is on the CORE team for Youth Ministry and this was their annual retreat.)  I hated the thought of driving back and forth twice!  If you remember....2 years ago (Carolyn at retreat that time), Anna and I camped out near CYC in the town of Panora.  (She was so tiny)  Ken and Joel were at the Hawkeye football game.

We went so far as to pack the tent in our car, but the forecast looked sketchy.  Ken was worried it might get too cool in the night (and it was going to be a very hot afternoon...high 80s)...so really crazy weather, way hot then way cold.  The truth ended up being that we would have been caught in a terrible rain shower in the morning, so it was good we didn't camp.

Here is Anna at the replacement activity!  We stayed at a hotel on Lake Panorama.  This is the lake where the kids canoe when at camp.  The water in the pool was cold (duh..late September) despite the fact that it was in the high 80s.  The wind from the lake helped make it feel cooler as well.  (plus cold nights)

Here she is trying to save herself from a gigantic spider.  (it was about 2 inches, so it was big, but harmless)

This is the pretty hotel where we stayed.

And really the reason we stayed her....this was our view!!

The next day we were going to go on a hike, but everything was wet :0(

But here is the campground where we had stayed 2 years ago.....such beautiful trees!

Maybe the last time we had a photo of just us in 27 years....(just kidding, but not by much)

 

9/24/20

 Why we know Joel is our most competitive child.

this is him at the end of the every race.....and his competition in this case is his own teammate.....but I guess they were both happy to have each other to urge each other on!!

 

9/23/20

 Covid updates:

Joel's Spanish class was missing 1/2 of the students yesterday.  They are quarantined because they were sitting too close to a classmate who tested positive.  Glad they are taking this seriously.  Joel's good buddy (the kid he ran with all summer) was among those "on that side of the room".  His mom said they were having him tested, but weren't concerned due to the fact that both boys (Evan and the kid everyone guesses is positive) had on masks and Evan feels fine.  I feel like Ankeny is doing the right thing.  I heard some schools made sure kids get up every 12 minutes so that they were never next to someone for 15 minutes straight, and thus requiring the quarantine.....backward logic to be sure!  Anyway Evan et al. are out for 14 days after the exposure.  Evan injured his leg a few weeks ago so at least he isn't sad (right now) that he is missing the end of cross country season (he already had that sadness).

Speaking of Cross Country.  The Ankeny High Schools (south and north) pulled their kids out of the Cross Country race in Indianola because they are allowing too many participants and aren't doing enough for mitigation.  I am glad they made that decision.  (Anna's first race was in Indianola and I felt it was unsafe.  All the other races have limited participants and they felt much safer.) Thursday Ankeny will have their 2 teams do a scrimmage at DMACC (the community college in Ankeny) instead of travelling to compete against the other teams.  Not as much fun, but the right thing to do.

Today I read an article about the first college football player dying of Covid.  just makes me sad for the loss of his life, he seems to have been a really nice kid: Jamain Stephens 

9/22/20

Happy Birthday to  my mom!  

pictures I love in no particular order.  (although I am pretty sure that the 1st and 2nd pictures are from our last Christmas together in 2018)

the crowd (but really only about 1/2)

the cards (euchre)

Matthew's confirmation, I know mom would be sad that she is missing Joel's confirmation in a few weeks, but EVERYONE is missing it...except parents due to Covid.

the traditional pose before we left Burlington each time

Christmas kisses

photo bomb in the back

taken 6/20/09, can't remember why we had gathered!

 

9/21/20

Anna had her 2nd race today.  I asked her after if she thought maybe she wanted to train with the team, but not run races.  (Thinking maybe she didn't like it.  Plus with Covid, about 1/2 of the high school boys team is running in only 2-3 races.)  She said, "just because I am bad at it, doesn't mean I don't like it"  Glad she likes it!  (She said she really likes being with the team especially, but it must be more than that, because running isn't easy!  Plus she talks about training in the off season and running track this spring!)  I wish I had her spirit when I tried new things!  Way to persevere!!!

Favorite photos for the month!

 

Carolyn sent me this photo from Iowa City.  Matthew and Carolyn haven't gotten together in 2 weeks because Matthew had a stomach "thing" 2 weeks ago (in addition to his Ragweed allergies) and stayed away from everyone, just to be safe!

Joel, Anna and I went to DMACC (Des Moines Area Community College) to do a practice run of Anna's cross country race on Monday.  Joel gave her a lot of advice and it is just nice to have someone to run with!!!  After she ran the race, we walked back to the hills and she ran those again!  Then we walked to the finish line and she ran the final 1/4 of the race (where you pour it on).  I can't believe how supportive Joel was and how receptive Anna was!

9/19/20

I have been cleaning and organizing....because now I have time!  I feel like I was just treading water with the house stuff for 6 months!

Here is some art work I found.  I am asking each artist if they want to keep each piece, and taking pictures of all!

This was Carolyn....5th grade I think.....she says it is a keeper!

I am trying to make each kid a binder (of awards etc.) and small box of stuff (that they want to keep).

One major area of work this week was my office.  This made me look in our fire-safe box and I found a bunch of negatives and American Eagle Silver Dollars, shoved in willie nillie!  Long story short.... Decades ago, I decided to give my God children silver dollars for Christmas instead of something they might soon throw away.  But later heard of someone liquidating a loved one's coin collection and then it didn't sound like such a great gift and I stopped.  Anyway, I also bought the kids silver dollars each year for awhile, but stopped in 2009.  So today Anna and I put filled a bunch of coin boxes with the "loose" silver dollars and gave each kid 1/4 of the dollars.  Of course, there was 33!  We put the extra coin in with the negatives, lest someone see one person received 9 coins ("I knew he/she was the favorite!")!  Initially I thought I would just buy 3 more coins, but they have increased dramatically in price since I bought them...so I decided to leave it alone.  Ironically the 2020 American Eagles cost a bunch of money (more than 4 to 6X what I paid and way more than even 2019).  I thought, "who wants to memorialize this year?"

before (of course initially it looked way worse than this)

after 

(I told the kids....don't buy a coke with these....not really a dollar!)

9/18/20 feel good story of the day

 

My friend J and I were talking about how we need more feel good stories in life right now!

So here is a good one.  For about 10 days now I have had my watch band attached to my belt loops with a safety pin.  I have felt my Fitbit might be on it's last legs, so I haven't decided if I want to buy a new band or not....blah blah...kept forgetting etc.

Today, I ran downstairs (to get arm weights!) and when I came upstairs, I thought I saw my friend J's car leaving my mailbox.  So I walked out to the mailbox and there wasn't anything in it, but I got to my door and lookie there a new Fitbit watchband!  J. had an extra!  Isn't that sweet?  I may have gotten my last replacement from her as well, but then finally bought a replacement to replace hers!  (and one more for good measure....so you can see why I think my Fitbit might die soon....it is now on it's 4th band!)

Thanks J!!!

9/17/20

Anna ran in her first Cross Country Race today.  On the way to Indianola she commented that she is going to work really hard to get faster during the next year.  I love that mindset!

Her first words at the end were, "I am going to work on hills"!  (such a hilly race!!)  Her attitude is incredible!

Joel indicated that he would help her on Sunday train for hills.  He has lots of advice as one would expect from an older brother!