My Gifted Education Failed Me...

Early in school, I was suspected to be qualified for the Gifted Program.

But, as the story goes, I apparently suffered from Pogonophobia - in other words, I was afraid of beards and the people in them (mostly men, but you can never be too sure...).

I'm not sure how I survived, people, because it WAS the mid - 1980's, and men were covered in hairy mustaches and beards at every turn.

And, as you might guess as to where I'm going with this part of the story - the child psychologist for my school had a great, big beard and I guess that didn't fly with me.  So I wasn't tested until a few years later, and subsequently accepted into the Gifted Program.  In short, gifted was fun in elementary school, fun in middle school, and then they pull the plug out of the fun and call it things like "English Seminar" and just expect you to conform and join all the advanced placement classes.  This also did not go over well with me, but that story is for another time.  The only thing you need to have in mind when you read the remainder of this post, is that I was educated as a Gifted Child.  Don't forget that, okay?  It's entirely relevant.

At this point, Mom, my main reader and probably the one who accesses my page so often that it shoots my stats up in the triple digits per month, stop and relax a little!  As my main advocate during my school-age years, you might think that I think that you made the wrong decisions, since I named this blog "My Gifted Education Failed Me...."   Just keep reading, you'll see where I'm going.  You did perfectly fine, and I wouldn't change it for anything!!


My Gifted Education failed me because...

It has taken me 5 days to realize NOT to drink my tea at night.  Not just at night.  As in, I make it right before I go upstairs to bed, and I drink it while sitting in bed.

Sounds relaxing, right?

A good idea, perhaps?

Not when you're 28 weeks pregnant and have a baby playing trampoline on your bladder.

No, sir.

This is NOT an intelligent choice at all.

At first I thought, No Big Deal.  I'll drink one cup of tea, in a little bit I'll pee one time, then go to sleep for the night.

Let's remember, I'm one of the smart kids, right?

Remember now, this is NOT the first trimester where I'm getting up to pee all night.  We've left that arena, and I have been sleeping through peacefully for many weeks now.

Before the tea decision, of course.

After the 5th night of insanity, I took to pencil and paper to figure this out.  I needed to know the formula behind the variable "P," defined as the quantity of urine my body needed to put out in multiple trips to the toilet between the hours of 12 and 4 AM after consuming ONE cup of tea at bedtime.  It seemed entirely impossible (not to mention amazing) to produce that much of "P" from just ONE cup!

Here's what I came up with:

So now, obviously, I've learned to drink my tea at dinnertime.  Most nights, anyway.  

Keep On Truckin'

Well hi there!

I knew it'd been a while, but I didn't think it was THAT long of a while.

But it was.

And here we are.

Thanksgiving came and went.  We ate.  We were happy.  I made bone broth outta the big ole' bird, and we're still using it.  Most likely because I freeze most of the jars down in the basement fridge and promptly forget about them.  And also probably because I am not utilizing my crockpot for wintery-soupish-goodness like I should be (and if you didn't get the connection, the wintery-soupish-goodness would most likely use a liquid base, i.e. - bone broth in this house!).

But I DID just pull out some bone broth to have by itself to try to conquer the nasty-ass cold I suffered from the week after Roger got done with his heart shenanigans.  I'll get to that in a minute...

First, here's a peek at Thanksgiving (and bone broth!):

RJ's preschool Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving

Small kids' table

The Rogers sharing a piece of pie

Mmmm Bone Broth

So that was November, mostly.  We did a LOT of cool homeschool stuff in November, but I am considering making a side blog (linked to here, of course) to post just our homeschool stuff.  'Cuz I know my Mom likes to see that stuff... also because it's nice to have as a reference to look back on, and actually, according to the stats, there are quite a few people who check in here regularly (Hi!).  So, if you care about what we're doing over here for school, it'll be there, instead of mixed in with all our family stuff and whenever I decide to rant about things.

Here's some other randomness we did in November:

I made gluten-free sourdough bread!  With a starter and all.  GF bread just isn't the same as real bread, so I won't be doing this too often.  We actually don't eat much bread as a family anymore at all, which I think is a plus. 

These sisters got in trouble for still being up when they're supposed to be sleeping.

Chase's 7th & 8th Grade Band had a really cool Star Wars themed concert. 

And... we went to Home Depot!  Okay, fine, that happens ALL THE TIME. 

December was taken up mostly by Roger's cardiac ablation surgery, which, let me sum this up in the shortest way possible, was going great until they found other issues while in there with the catheters, and then so they took an extra long time and eventually decided that they should pass him on to a more experienced doctor down the big ole' city.  So the poor guy had 2 separate ablations performed, 5 days apart, with him having to LIE STILL (totally the worst part for this ever-moving guy), BUT... his heart is, dare I say, practically beating normally??  Why, yes it is!  It's so weird, actually, because he has always had this wonky, crazy all-over-the-place heartbeat as long as I've known him.  We'll see what comes of his follow up testing to get the real picture.  

Then Christmas!  

Grammy & Grandpop sent Riley and RJ the most fun gift... a book to open every day of December!  We had so much fun with this! 

Tricker, our Elf, even came to the hospital to watch over Roger.

Look at that regular old boring heart rhythm! Woohoo!

I took a picture of this sign, after traveling up and down by elevator 5 times to the cafeteria in half an hour... once for sushi, and 4 times for the frozen yogurt that my hungry husband kept asking for more of.  Not eating for 19 hours does not go over very well with him. 

We made chocolates. 

Overnight crockpot breakfast casseroles are our go-to when hosting family Christmas morning. 

Santa came! 

Christmas mess!  

Homeschool Blog link coming up soon.  I hope! 

Flashback.... Wednesday?

Yeah, I know... there are other titled days and things that occur on the internet, like Throwback Thursday and all that jazz... but since I don't spend much time in the online social world, I can just do my own thing and not give a darn about whether or not my Flashback Wednesday makes sense to anyone but me.

I don't even know how I got started on this path, but I think it had something to do with coming across a picture from last spring when I had decided that maybe eating gluten free actually wasn't necessary for me (or perhaps it just involved me really wanting real, live, actual Pizza, or an Auntie Anne's Pretzel, or anything made with flour that actually tastes good...) and so I went back to eating regular (including gluten/wheat) for a day (and it tasted gooood....) and it totally gave me that whomping headache back just the way it was before, and it also did this to my stomach:

We affectionately call it my "Gluten Baby" every time it occurs, and believe me, it's hard, solid and completely poke-able.  Roger, the kids, even the neighbors have poked the Gluten Baby to make sure it's real.  Pretty funky and weird, right?  And may I add, uncomfortable??

I took a picture in the same pants the next day to show what my stomach normally looks like, on the gluten-free, flavor-free diet.  

But, I'm getting ahead of myself here.  So, back to how we got to Flashback Wednesday.  I wondered about how my 20-week, 5 month pregnant belly NOW compared to the Gluten Baby belly picture, and so I went digging for the picture.  And in doing that, well, then I wanted to see all my newborns on the same page.  And then, I wondered about Christmas pics from every year (that I could find, you know that digital picture thing happened at some point AFTER I had my first two kids, at least for me). 

So, without further adieu, here are my sweet little newborns:

Chase, 2003

(Maybe 1 day old?....nice, grainy camera.... hahaha)

Indigo, 2005

(Day she was born, as you can see on the 35mm printout)

Riley, 2010

(About an hour after birth)

RJ, 2012

(He's about a minute old in this photo, after they pinched him to wake him up since he wanted to remain sleeping after being born)

I think out of the 4 kids, Chase definitely wins for most hair!!

And here are the Flashback Christmas pics, starting with 2007.....

Ages 2 and 4

I have no idea where we were, but it was December as this was in my December 2008 folder... aren't we so cute?

Kids 2008, 3 and 5 years old.  And wow, our old blue living room!  And no giant fish tank in our dining area!  

The 4 of us in 2008

So, it was really bright and about 4 days until Christmas when I drug my kids out in the snowy cold (did I mention bright??) to quick get this shot before I had to get to work so we could get a card printed and get them out in the mail to friends and family... I ended up yelling at them to keep their darn eyes open and of course got all these fake funny faces instead.

But we managed to pull off a pretty decent card anyways.  Ages 4 and 6 now.

New addition in 2010, ages 5 months, 5 and 7. 

Nothing says Happy Holidays like the baby eating the lights... and look at our half-finished hardwood flooring in the master bedroom.  

Even the "best" one of all of us looked like it actually belongs on a Motivational Poster somewhere on the 'net... so we just went with.... 

...this one on our holiday card.  

In 2011 we got fancy and had pajamas with names on them....oooooh.  Ages 17 months, 6 and 8.

Santa brought another baby in 2012.  Or the Stork.  Or somebody.  He's frickin' cute. 

I didn't know it then, but this innocent 4.5 month old face is trying to tell me to prepare myself for a wild, wild ride over the next 3 years.

The girls are cute, too.  

My photog friend had some neat ideas. 

2012 - ages 4.5 months, 2.5 years. 7 and 9 years old. 

In 2013, we still have our orange living room, which replaced the blue in 2010!  My girls are growing older.  

I used a groupon for JCPenney's photo studio and got pics done, because we like, never spend our money on that.  2013 - ages 16 months, 3, 8, and 10. 

I used my happy, dressed up homeschoolers in my Christmas photo last year.  2014 - ages 2, 4, 9, and 11.  I seem to have a recollection that I gave up about halfway thru enveloping, addressing and stamping cards last year..., and if memory serves me, people with last names starting with "M" onward may or may not have actually received our Christmas card... whoops.

And for this year's shot, well, it's pretty darn adorable.  But you'll have to wait until you get it in the mail.  If you're on the good list, you know.  In the meantime, here's one from this year that we didn't use:

2015 - ages 3, 5, 10, and 12.