52.11-3

52.11-2

 

we lost our furnace this week, so seeing it running was amazing!

Checking in

hello blog,

It's been a while since we chatted.  I apologize, it seems life has gotten hectic and other things have taken priority.  I have been trying to slow down and really live in the moment and not over analyze things or worry about the future too much.  It feel like for the most part this has left me happier than average, but the last couple days have been rough.  I haven't gotten much rest and when that happens my outlook on life diminishes very quickly.  Add on top of that the fact that our furnace has broken and our landlord, while he is taking care of it, is really dropping the ball on a few key decisions and it looks like we may be without heat for the whole weekend (on top of the 3 days prior to that too).  Just seems like if it were HIS family he would really be pushing the HVAC guys and not just resigned to a monday service call.  Also, wifey's OB is being a real thorn in my side about the bill they submitted incorrectly.  They are refusing to admit they made a mistake even though the insurance company has contacted them and the hospital 3 times to get them to rectify it.  I'm just feeling very tired and very cold and very defeated.  It would be nice to feel like I had a friend that was there for me.

New Feature: 52.11

As part of my 30/30 list, I wanted to do a weekly blog feature so here is the first installment of my weekly photo. I will try to make it arty or do something that encourages me to grow as a photographer.

weekly feature upcoming!

I am looking over my 30/30 list and saw that I wanted to try a wekly blog feature.  I've been mulling it over in my head and to what I can do and then while I was cruising my facebook feed a friend's picutre came by.  She is doing a 365 project where she takes (amazing) picutres everyday.  I don't know that I have the time to take a picture everyday, but surely I can manage one a week.  I plan to start it with the new year so be on the lookout!

Disappointment in medical, but faith in nature

Last night (the 21st i guess) wifey started having really bad contractions and other very real signs of labor at 6pm.  Our plan was to labor at home (lol like I have to do much other than be there and be supportive) then go to the hospital for the last bit.  I mean, who wants to hang out in a BORING hospital room and be in pain when you can be at home, snack some, watch your own movies, etc.  Well the laboring gets really intense and we send the girls to go hang out with our AWESOME neighbor Megan and we head to the hospital.  We get there and wifey gets hooked up to the machines and it verfies that she is having very intense, regular contractions.  We let the nurse and the in house OB/GYN know that her cervex is different than others and it feels like they completely ignore us and say that she has made negative progress.  This is at about 10am.  We hang out in the hospital doing everything we can think of to move labor along and by 4pm wifey's OB/GYN becomes available to check her and it turns out she has made progress...just not very much.  Turns out that it isn't the day for our new arrival yet so we head home and wifey feels completely crestfallen.  I try to remind her that nature doesn't work on a schedule like the medical profession would like it to.  When baby is ready to hop out I truly believe it will happen and it will happen just the way it is supposed to. 
We get so caught up in trying to control nature we forget sometimes that nature knows best.  We prune and shape hedges, we mow our lawns so that patterns appear, we fertalize, steralize, and immunize our crops so they can be bigger, tastier, and bug free, but then we have to replant or spend just as much to up keep them.  If we left well enough alone, bugs would pollenate and spread seeds, hedges could grow and flourish into amazing displays, and our lawns wouldn't more maintenance than our homes.  I think that nature has been doing a pretty good job of taking care of it's own for millions of years.  I trust that when baby and mom are both ready, she will come into this world happy and healthy.

The adventure begins!

November 1 marked the first day of a brand new experience for everyone in my household.  We started Gabby homeschooling.  We really felt that the public school system was failing to to give her the education we feel she deserved.  They were teaching yes, but only to what the standardized tests said were important.  Creativity was squashed, accusations were thrown (by the teacher at students) instead of playground balls, and my 6 year old had homework EVERY night.  And on top of that she had a weekly spelling test to study for.  I didn't have that much homework as a college student most semesters.  So rather than see her despise learning at the ripe old age of 7, we decided to take her out of an instution and teacher her in a way that she can enjoy and look forward to.

 

That being said, our first day of schooling got off to a rather rocky start.  First Aj is fighting off a nasty cough that she cl=aims debilitates her.  Next off, we finally got all the kids dressed and loaded up to leave and I look at the car and it seems a little lopsided.  Oh yes, a flat on passenger side.  So after much jacking, prying, swearing get teh flat off but can't get teh spare from under the car to release.  Our awesome neighbor let me borrow her car and I drove out, got the tire and got it back on. While I got all that done, my awesome wife got all of gabby's school instruction done for the day!  She worked on her reading, writing, science, and later in the day she painted some clay figures we made a couple days ago for her art.  We also taught her about money and how people pay for stuff with bank cards and she helped me cook dinner.  There is SO much to learn by living that people either don't notice or just expect you to know that school skips over it's amazing.

 

Our distant cousins have twins that were in gabby's grade and they were apalled that we would even think of homeschooling.  I told a good friend about it and she equated it to when she switched over to a mostly vegan diet.  It makes people uncomfortable when you reject the norm because you don't feel that it is good enough for you.  So instead of listening to our reasons why we are pulling Gabby out, our cousin just told us what a mistake we are making and how could we think to ruin our daughter's life.

 

So in closing, I hope I inspire or challenge you to take a look at your life.  Is there some aspect that the norm isn't good enough for you but you haven't changed because it is outside the social acceptable behavior?  I won't lie that it will be easy, but I can say with almost complete certainty that there is someone like you somewhere that you can talk to and find support and ideas with.