Ethan’s Journey

I started washing my windows today. I broke one. Not the glass itself, the mechanism that allows me to fold the window inward to clean the outside of the glass. That abruptly stopped that activity. I puttered, cleaned out a closet, rearranged and organized the space. Ethan seems in good spirits. He even helped me carry some things to rearrange and make room to organize things in our basement. It has become a fire hazard with all the kids things in “storage”. Paul was busy with the trench digger he rented. He was having a grand time digging, putting pipe in the ground and getting out the tractor to fill in the dirt.  He was absolutely filthy when he came in the house. Like Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoon. He stripped and showered immediately. Ethan had us watching a show with ghost hunters exploring a haunted asylum in Pennsylvania. The people were very animated. By the end I was overwhelmed by the amount of words they said, volume of their voices and I needed to retreat to silence....

Ethan put in his 2 week notice of resignation at his current position. He is starting with a company that works with Tritium and helps create ways to store it.  Ethan will be doing specialized welding. This is the second kid in this house to be working with Tritium. This is what Avery was doing her research on this past summer.  I have never even heard of it before this summer, with Avery’s research project.  Ethan is pretty excited for the opportunity. It sort of presented itself to him. Someone he used to work with, his father works for this company. The previous coworker shared Ethan’s information with his dad. Networking at its finest. Ethan was supposed to tell his manager about his resignation. He was nervous. I shared with him how nervous I had been about doing so throughout my career. It’s never fun. Even the one job I was so relieved to leave was difficult. Paul is preparing for many projects this weekend. His goals are to do some trenching/ drainage control. He ...

I was up and out early for my mammogram. The past two years I have run into someone I used to go to high school with. This year she didn’t show up. Boo! I might have to reach out to her. She was going on an awesome trip last year and ai was looking forward to hearing about it. Oh well!  Avery texted me last night to share she burned the roof of her mouth and had stalactites on the roof of her mouth.  I guess she ate hot pizza….but it was fresh out of the oven scalloped potato’s. She said it was pretty sore, raw and red.   This morning I asked her how her mouth was, she shared that now she was coming down with a cold after last weeks flu debacle. Poor Avery. I did give her a “Mom’s Medicine Bag” filled with medications for this ailment or that ailment. She has already been able to utilize it. Paul has every second of the weekend planned out to get as many chores done as possible. He had to rent some equipment to finish an outside project. I am feeling tired today. I decide...

I was excited to hear that potentially this weekend the coating for the barndominium is going in. Yay!!!!! Once that has cured (it takes about a week or so) we can officially start moving things into the garage over there.  This is exciting because I will get to park in the garage again this winter. It has been several years. Not that I drive that much in the winter but it will be nice not to have to trudge through the snow and brush it off every time I need to go somewhere. Plus….Ethan will be able to start organizing things in there and get things in order. All baby steps to his independence. Moe has been driving me nuts with wanting to be outside. I think he misses his extravagant lake life of sunbathing and watching outdoor life. We went for two walks around the field to help me get some relief from his neediness.  He will undoubtedly settle down once we get the fireplace going. He does LOVE napping in front of the fire. I received a little gift from nature today outside. ...

I decided I needed to go to the cardiologist. With my family history and me not getting any younger, I figured I should establish a cardiologist.  I made an appointment at 2:00 and was told to arrive at 1:40. I arrived at 1:40 thinking I would have new patient paperwork. I did not.  Luckily I brought my computer and was able to continue working to keep me entertained and busy for 40 minutes. At 2:20 I was finally called. I guess 40 minutes is not terrible in the grand scheme of things. I met the new doctor, got an EKG, blood pressure and all the good stuff. Nothing is at all concerning. Yay! Also, good because I wasn’t expecting issues. I really liked the doctor. I felt like he listened, gave me options and let me decide how I wanted to proceed.  I left with a list of things, first up to get lab work done, than a baseline echo, and a ct scan of my heart looking for calcification.  All things to gather information to make sure I set myself up for success and protect m...

This morning I witnessed the bus stopped for the children across the street from our house. A white car sped past the bus as the stop sign on the bus was extended and the red lights were flashing.  The person in the white car could NOT have been even looking at the bus for several seconds to not notice.  Thankfully no one was injured. But what the heck? Is saving 30 seconds of your drive worth a kids life? Unbelievable! I stewed about it for longer than I should have. Is this what getting old is like? Having anger towards this idiot driver for the rest of the day?  After work I was able to get outside with my mini chainsaw and cut up some bigger sticks, place them in paper bags and put them in the garage for when we need kindling this winter for the wood burning stove. I have several bags of sticks, but never feel like I have enough. I am excited to have a fire again. It has been chilly in the mornings. We aren’t ready yet to start it. The chimney needs a good sweep and w...