Double Dinner

Family Picture, Summer 2006

Woke up today in pain. I have issues with my hips. When I did physical therapy for my knees last summer, my hips got better too. Apparently, I've been too lax on my pt exercises!

I have had issues with my hips ever since Rod & I first got married. Apparently weak hip muscles and physical time together don't make a good combo for Zindra. Oh, it may be other things too. I try to go to the Chiropracter, Dr. Barnett, in Stanwood about once a month. Or I did when we had good insurance. Now I only go when I "have" to, which means when i'm in a lot of pain. I had a few bouts while pregnant with each of the kids too.

After lunch, Rod called Dr. Barnett and the receptionist said when I get there, he'll get me in. So I got in the shower (even in pain, I hate to leave the house unwashed, go figure!) and got ready. We got down to the office about 2:45pm. The doctor fixed my back and neck. I guess I was really a mess. (Dad at dinner tonight made a good joke about that one :) ) Issue being that even though i'm better, it takes 24 hours or so to actually feel pain free again.

Jessie called this afternoon and said we needed to meet with them to go out to Alfy's for Alfy's cheap pizza night. Tonight was also the Skagit Men's Garden Club Banquet (when they congratulate the new SMGC president). Kids had kids club too. So Rod took us over for pizza. We all stayed for awhile and then he took Jos & Jed over to help set up tables for the Banquet and little ones over to Janet, to go to kids club. I sat at Alfy's on Ibuprofen while he ran the kids around. It's good for me to get girl time. Amanda & the girls showed up too! Good to see everyone. Good to catch up.

When Rod was done running kids around, he came and picked me up and we went to the Banquet. They served the only meat that they serve at Banquet's: Chicken. Rod and I have had some good laughs over the fact that the only meat that shows up at any banquet is Chicken.

Afterwards, Rod brought me home. I was still in pain. He swapped Josiah for Elaina and picked up Jaden & Julia. Brought them home and put them to bed.

While he was gone I rested and took a nap. Woke up in the evening and he was doing homework. He had started a fire in the insert. I love a good fire in the fireplace. Somehow it warms the heart as well as the body.

After he was done with schoolwork, we sat on the couch and watched "Lie to Me"'s premiere episode on the internet. Rod has a special way to hook the computer up to the tv so that we can watch the full episodes on the internet on our big tv. So cool that he figured that one out! Anyway, I've always been curious about lying tells, so that was a fun one to watch.

While watching it, I worked on the next FCHM ezine, that because of this whole paycheck fiasco, I haven't gotten on top of it. I only have one or two more things to adjust, and then Heidi needs to add her stuff and we can mail it out.

What I really need for the ezine, is to find more authors to write. Occasionally I ask a couple of people, and one or two are faithful in writing for us... but I really hate to ask them all of the time. That's been on my heart.

An answer to prayer

Photo: Sweet Julia, Nov. 2007 at the Lights of Christmas.

I slept in today. I haven't been sleeping well at night - or it just seems like it's taking me forever to fall asleep when I get in bed. It's been like this for a week anyway (not falling asleep). I know it mostly has to do with finances and that we have things that need to be paid and we don't know if or when the checks are coming.

Rod talked to the unemployment guy last Friday, and that made me feel a ton better. He said that since he's done Rod's paperwork for changing over to the MIT (Adobe/Graphic Arts) program that it will release his checks. But I just didn't know if that meant that they would be showing up any time soon. We are talking about the government, and any sort of change takes weeks not days.

I remember when Jaden was born. Sept of 2002. When we went to file our tax return (with TurboTax) we found out that there was a problem with Jaden's social security number, so they couldn't process our return. I don't remember all of the details, I'll have to ask Rod (he remembers everything!) but, as best I can remember, we didn't file for Jaden's social security number right after he was born. That was supposed to be done at the hospital and it wasn't.

So when we realized after the first of 2003, that he needed one so we could claim him... we went and applied for one. It arrived in the mail. Ahhh, we thought. We can finally file our taxes (we were needing the tax return)! Shortly thereafter, we found out that the social security admin had not yet given Jaden's social to the IRS. So therefore, the IRS still couldn't process our return - we were claiming a child that wasn't on their books. It took us weeeeekkkks to get that straightened out.

Last night, a friend from Friday School, Erika, had her baby, Tyler. Rod and I had a long talk this afternoon about babies, and whether or not we are done having them. Factors like our age, spacing of our kids, the fact that we have all the kids potty trained, etc. Most would say that four is enough. But what does God want for our family?

Tonight, we all went up to the hospital to visit. Tyler's adorable, of course. Newborns are magical. Julia wants Mommy to have a baby (every day she lets me know. Yesterday she drew a picture!) - so Tyler was pretty exciting for her. Jedediah requested to hold him as well. The kids love babies.

After visiting the hospital, we ate dinner and then friends came over. They need to get their tax return in promptly. We got on TurboTax and helped them file their taxes. They got back $1700 more than anticipated. I don't know how many people I have told, that using TurboTax helps you get your money back quickly (about 10 days electronically) and that every year we've gotten more than anticipated.. because the software program puts two and two together, where we may not. We made believers out of this family tonight!

I need to start getting our own tax stuff together. It's going to be a bit more complicated than normal, because there's a W2, a 1099, an unemployment form and misc. income because of unemployment insurance. We'd like to file as soon as all of the forms arrive - I guess I should get on it. Those forms should come within a week or so!

While our friends were here, Faith stopped by to give Rod the keys to the Kelley place. (It was great to see her!) He needs to go up and winterize it. He'll probably go tomorrow. I'm not exactly sure how he ended up being the "go to" guy on this one... but we love the family and feel honored that they would trust him with something that they needed taken care of. Afterall, isn't that what friends and family are supposed to be here for?

Well, Rod and I stayed up after everyone left, after the kid's bedtime and watched the latest 24 episode online. (I hate waiting week to week for episodes. I prefer to watch them after the season is all out, so that I can watch them in a shorter period of time!) Afterwards, Rod headed to bed.

When I realized that it had passed midnight, I logged on to the bank to see if Rod's checks had come (normally they come on Tues night at 12 am - which I guess is really Wed. morning). I logged on, I was so filled with trepidation! I have not allowed myself to even think about what the next three weeks would be like if they did not show up!

Logged on and there it was: TWO checks had been deposited (one for last week that he wasn't paid and one for this week, a normal check). I ran to the bedroom to see if Rod had fallen asleep (he was reading), I would have woke him up I was so excited... so that's one mystery in our life that is solved. Now I feel like I can relax a little - the bills will get paid again this month! The Lord has made sure things are paid... week after week, month after month.

Sunday, Sunday

Today wasn't too exciting. Although, it's nice to have days of rest. Today I think was one of those days. Bummer though, I didn't take one picture of us doing nothing. I often take pictures when we are out and about, when the boys are playing sports, etc. But I don't seem to take many pictures of us just being home together. That's something that I'm going to try to make a difference at this year.

This photo, taken 12/2/08 was before it snowed at all. This is how many birds we would have at our bird feeders out our living room window. Rod & Josiah got a book from the library and I believe we identified it as the Black Headed Junko. Apparently, we been turned into birdwatchers (How did THAT happen?). When it first snowed, they still came by all of the time. Then it stayed cold, and they didn't really come back. We only have a few that visit. Rod's going to go redo their food (again) and see if that will help. Skiddish but tons of fun to watch. I miss them.

A couple of nights ago we went to Best Buy to buy ink for my color printer. I have more pictures that I want to scan in, but not enough ink to do it. (I got a black & white only laser printer for Christmas. Yes, I really wanted a dorky printer for Christmas!) My color printer won't even scan unless the cartridges have enough ink in them to print. Ingenious on the manufacturers/sales side of things, lousy on the owners side. So, now it's plenty full and I'll barely use it. UPside, the ink will last forever, unless I decide to print a large picture (I have a 4x6 separate photo printer that i use for small photos).

Tonight I scanned in Rod's Jr Prom picture from when he was going to school at South Brunswick High School, in Monmouth Junction, Princeton, New Jersey. What a mouth full. He had no idea the amount of verbage that I would have to learn because he is 1. Norwegian 2. from Minnesota 3. from New Jersey. I guess he had to learn how to pronounce all of the Native American/Indian spelled names that there are in our county. Not that that makes me feel much better :)

When I was working at the bookstore at Skagit, I had made a call to a salesman about something bookstore related and he said "Are you at Skaggit Valley College?" All the time when talking to people from back east (and most of our book sellers for college books were back east) I had to correct their pronunciation inevitiblity. "Well yes, but it's pronounced Skajit Valley College." Thinking back, I should have just left it alone, it's not like they'll ever remember, anyway!!

This afternoon we took the kids swimming at the Y. Rod went to take Garrett's phone over to Verizon Wireless, so that they could make sure everything that is supposed to be off was off. It was supposed to be "quick". We were there from 2:30 or so to 4:30 and Rod was only there for 1/2 hour. You should have seen Josiah's mope-y face over the fact that his dad wasn't there to roughhouse with! Geesh!

Last night Rod made another attempt to fix the dryer. We realized last weekend while doing quite a bit of laundry, that the dryer wasn't drying very quickly. He looks into it and the blower needs replacing. Ok. Another $40 out the window. Get that replaced & it's still not really working well. We talked about what it all could be for quite some time.. Realizing that if the dryer isn't getting hot enough to dry the lint, but just throw it around, that there might be lint down the tube etc. that was wet, creating a blockage. Sure enough, after midnight that's where Rod was, cleaning out dryer tubes with his shopvac. What would we do without one? Those things work for just about everything.

Christmas Eve, late after making pies and finishing wrapping gifts, the sink got plugged up. (I have a hunch that after peeling apples for pies, that I didn't properly put the peelings down the garbage disposal, and that's what plugged it up...) The sink got backed up and there we were throwing things out from under the sink as fast as we could - with shopvac in hand to soak up the water. That things a gem! We had the whole thing contained and the kitchen floor dry in less than 20 minutes!

We ended the night with our nighttime reading tradition. Every night we sit down before bedtime and read a chapter out of this huge book that contains the entire story of the Chronicles of Narnia (all 7 books). It will take us forever to read through them, but what I really like about it is that it is creating a fantastic tradition and great memories. I don't particularly like to read aloud, but Rods great at it. He's got a good reading - listening to voice. Note to self - Goal for tomorrow: Take picture of family on couch listening to Rod read Chronicles of Narnia.