Last week was a mixed bag of fun and productivity, and I was grateful for lots of downtime for myself because I was able to tackle a lot of tasks that have been getting pushed further and further down my list as other urgent tasks pop up. Tis the season, friends! We are only five weeks away from the end of the school year, so we’re on the home stretch!
Monday, April 13
Monday morning, I dropped the kids at school and then I hung around for a Home and School Advisory Board meeting. We had to discuss Teacher Appreciation Week as well as a couple of other events to wrap up the school year.
When I got home, I got three loads of laundry done and I finished my blog post for the next day. Then I started the blog post you’re reading and I worked on another Disney blog post.
I got dinner in the slow cooker before I left to pick up the kids from school, and while I was in the car line, I reached out to a couple of friends who own local restaurants here in town to see if they could accommodate our requests for the end of the year faculty and staff party.
I also caught up on the news and immediately cringed because POTUS was at the top of the headlines yet again as he had gone on yet another social media rant, this time attacking the Pope. He then posted a picture of himself as Jesus but proceeded to try to gaslight everyone into thinking it was just a picture of himself dressed as a Red Cross doctor after everyone criticized him for it. Y’all. Honestly. I cannot even believe this is real life anymore. It’s like we’re living in a never-ending Saturday Night Live skit except it’s not funny because it’s not a joke. I’ve asked myself dozens (probably hundreds) of times this past year, how is this man still the president?? There have been so many times that should have been the last straw for him (January 6, pardoning insurrectionists, the Epstein files, mistreatment of immigrants, lying that the 2020 election was stolen, threatening genocide for an entire civilization – I could go on and on and on) but here we are. I’m just so sad for our country and for the whole world right now.
Anyway, when we got home, I helped Jacob pick his classes for next school year. He has some that he’ll be required to take, of course, and next year he gets to take two electives because he didn’t take one this year since he wanted to double up on math. With regard to the decision to double up on math, he is absolutely killing it this year. He’s taking sophomore and junior math classes this year as a freshman (Geometry Honors and Pre-AP Algebra II) and he’s had As all year-long. It just blows my mind because I do not have a math brain. His goal is to take as many math classes in high school as possible (which I believe will be either five or six depending on how many electives he ends up having) because his goal is to eventually take Calculus BC, which I’m assuming will be an AP class or possibly even dual enrollment? I guess we shall see!
He’s hoping to take PE next year (he’s required to take it at some point in high school) and either robotics or piano lab for his electives, and he also decided to take a third year of foreign language, so he’ll be taking American Sign Language III Honors.
After we were done with that, I headed to my office with a cup of tea to do my devotional and my Bible study. I put the laundry away when that was done and then it was time to finish up with dinner.
Since I’d started the slow cooker, all I had to do was steam some broccoli and boil some noodles, so it was easy peasy! I love a good slow cooker meal, especially on a Monday! It’s always a nice treat to not have to do any kind of in-depth cooking and just ease into the week.
After dinner, I went for a walk, but I had minimal energy, so I didn’t do my usual route. When I got back, the kids were in the process of getting showered, and then I got showered, too.
Once the kids were ready for bed, we finally finished watching the live action Lilo and Stitch and we all enjoyed it.
After the kids went to bed, Brian and I watched an episode of Rooster and then we went to bed a little early.
Tuesday, April 14
Tuesday morning, I took the kids to school and then I headed home to work on a few things before I had an appointment with my therapist. I caught up on both email inboxes, I jotted down a few things in my planner, I cleaned out part of my List Master app, and I edited a few photos for the blog.
After my appointment, I threw a load of laundry in, I edited a few more blog photos and did some blog reading, and then it was time to start tackling some housework that was long overdue. I deep cleaned the toilets, the countertops, and the mirrors, and before I was able to dust, it was time to get in the car line.
When we got home, I did the dishes, I watered the outdoor plants, and then I did my devotional and Bible study for the day. I snuck in a few minutes of reading after that because I had a book that I knew needed to be returned to the library soon, and then it was time to drop Olivia off at dance.
I had to put gas in my car on the way home (that task is a bit more tolerable now that it’s not freeeezing outside) and I got there just after Brian and Jacob headed to the driving range.
I got in another walk, but still felt like I didn’t have much energy, and then I showered, got in my pjs, and watered all the indoor plants while listening to my Taylor Swift podcast. I think I’ve already mentioned it here, but it’s called The Swiftie and the Scholar, and the podcast stars a die-hard Taylor Swift fan and her uncle, “Dr. Uncle Jerry”, who is VERY well-educated AKA the scholar, and they break down all the lyrics to Taylor’s music. Dr. Uncle Jerry doesn’t know anything about Taylor Swift’s music, so Angela gives him the lyrics to one song per episode and then he critiques it through a literary lens. He ends up discussing all the literary references that he finds and Angela discusses all the information that she knows from a Taylor Swift lore perspective, and it’s just SO interesting if you’re a TS fan. I have always loved literature and writing and song lyrics, and even though reading/writing is one of my strongest subjects, I’m still learning so much from Uncle Jerry. I don’t think I have heard the term “anaphora” since high school or college! Haha.
After dinner, we cleaned the kitchen, I did a quick arms workout, and then after the kids went to bed, Brian and I watched another episode of Rooster followed by the rest of Saturday Night Live that we’d started.
Wednesday, I dropped the kids at school, and I headed home to work on a few things. I spent a very long chunk of time searching high and low for a Catholic notetaking Bible as a gift for Jacob for his Confirmation that’s coming up, but I just can’t find one that meets all of my criteria. There are wayyyy more options for Protestant Bibles, but not as many for Catholic Bibles, and the Catholic Bibles I have found are always lacking one (or more) of the features that I want… hence the reason I purchased a Protestant Bible a few years ago when I was shopping for a new Bible for myself. Now when I do my studies I read and take notes in my Protestant Bible and then I use my Catholic Bible that I’ve had since I was little to read the seven books that aren’t included in my Protestant Bible. I just hate that there’s no space to take notes on those books in my old Catholic Bible.
Anyway, there is one Catholic Bible that’s almost perfect (the only thing lacking is that it doesn’t have bookmark ribbons and Jesus’s words are not in red, which is weird!), but it has been out of stock for months and I’m not sure if it’ll ever be available again. I may reach out to the company and see if they can provide any information about that, but I’m running out of time! At this point I feel like I’ve exhausted the whole internet!
After I gave up on that, I caught up on emails and then I worked on my Disney Hollywood Studios post for the rest of the day. I was feeling exhausted all day, but I powered through and didn’t stop for a nap, but thirty minutes before I had to leave to pick up the kids, I couldn’t fight it anymore. I was soooo sleepy Wednesday for some reason. So, I set a timer for 30 minutes and lay down on our bed under my weighted blanket, and I swear, I was out cold in seconds. I slept HARD and good for 30 minutes and I felt really refreshed when I woke up.
I had to swing by the library to pick up a book on the way to school, and then afterwards, the kids and I went home so they could do homework. I finished my book since my deadline to return it was looming, and then Olivia and I ate dinner at 4:30 PM because she had parent night at dance for her ballet, tap, and jazz classes, and we wouldn’t be home until after 8:30 PM. My Momma had given me some birthday meal leftovers – meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and black-eyed peas – so my dinner was very convenient but also DE-licious!
I sat through tap, ballet, and jazz and got sneak peeks of all Olivia’s recital performances, and then while she had pre-pointe (they don’t offer parent night for that class) I ran up the road to get my car washed while I waited for her to get out. My car was filthy because a) it hadn’t been washed in forever, b) it was covered in bugs from our trip to Florida, and c) it was covered in pollen.
When we got home, Olivia had a snack since she’s always starving after dancing for three hours, and then she got her shower. After the kids got in bed, Brian and I watched a few minutes of The Chosen and then we went to bed a little early. The exhaustion last week was REAL. And I’m honestly not even sure why I was so exhausted.
Thursday, April 16
Thursday morning, I woke up abruptly at 4:15 AM to a noise that sounded like a large vehicle, but then I was thinking that it must have been a dream because there would be no reason for a large vehicle to be on our street at that hour. So, I lay there and tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it sounded like a vehicle was idling outside our house. (We sleep with the ceiling fan on high, so it drowns out some of the noise… although, our neighborhood is very quiet anyway.)
At 4:30 AM, the noise was still there, so I got up to go to the bathroom and check it out since it faces the front of the house, and I was shocked when I opened the bathroom door because the whole room was filled with swirling red lights. I peeked out the window, and sure enough, there was an ambulance in front of our next-door neighbors’ house and a firetruck half in our driveway. I said a little prayer for them and then headed back to bed, but I didn’t sleep much after that.
After I dropped the kids at school later that morning, I had to swing by Walmart to grab a few things we needed and then I headed home to enjoy a cup of tea and one of the banana chocolate chip muffins that I had also picked up… my little treat to myself for having to go to Walmart. Haha.
When I got home, I got my planner prepped for the day and I did some blog housekeeping. I also had to text a few people about some upcoming events, and I had to cancel Jacob’s music lesson for Thursday afternoon because he ended up having a golf match unexpectedly.
The rest of the morning was spent finishing my Disney Hollywood Studios post, and then I spent the rest of my time at home dusting, vacuuming, and mopping the whole house. I got an email from Olivia mid-morning, and it was the cutest thing. I love my girl. (And I also cracked up at her lunch comment because the school lunches haven't been the best these last few weeks, so she and Jacob have been making jokes about the food.)
When Olivia and I got home, she spent the entire rest of the afternoon crocheting the new toucan that she’d ordered from The Woobles and she ended up getting the whole thing done. It is absolutely PRECIOUS. She has picked up crocheting effortlessly and she is just so dang good at it!
While she worked on that, I did all the things:
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Completed a Bible study
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Read my devotional for the day
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Finished vacuuming since I hadn’t finished before I
had to pick up the kids
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Scrubbed some stains out of the carpet on the stairs
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Washed a load of cleaning rags
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Cleaned all the windows inside and out of my SUV
with my favorite window cleaner since the cleaner at the car wash didn’t quite
cut it
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Watered the ferns
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Filed some of the kids’ paperwork/keepsakes
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Worked on organizing some more Disney pictures for a
post I’m doing
I was so glad to have all the house chores and any other tasks that require any kind of manual labor done. I knew I had an adjustment the next day and I knew that my atlas was likely out since I’d been having some issues, so I wanted to get all that stuff done since I can’t do any heavy lifting or twisting for a couple of days after my appointment.
The boys got home from Jacob’s match around 7 PM and Brian and I made breakfast for dinner. Jacob’s match was likely his last one for the season. This season has been a bit disorganized, and he ended up not having as many matches as expected, so it wasn’t his favorite.
We all ate together and cleaned the kitchen, and then I did a stair workout + a few minutes of an arms workout while the kids showered and got ready for bed. I hung out with Olivia for a few minutes while Jacob finished up with his shower, and then they got in bed because it was already so late.
Friday, April 17
Friday morning, I dropped the kids at school and then headed home. Brian and I had to leave for my upper cervical chiropractor appointment at 8:15 AM so I only had a few minutes to spare, and I spent that time catching up on a few blogs.
At my appointment, my doctor told me that my atlas (C1) was out, and my axis (C2) was not. I mentioned to him how I can always tell when my axis is out because I always have a weird heavy feeling in the bottom left corner where the base of my skull meets my neck and I told him how I’d had that feeling Sunday after I did some cleaning, but that it was gone the next day and I felt fine. Then it happened again – I had that same weird feeling after I finished the housecleaning on Thursday, but Friday morning I woke up feeling good again. He asked me to show him where I get that weird sensation, and he confirmed that my axis was probably out.
So, I asked him if it was possible for the axis and/or atlas to correct themselves and he said it is absolutely possible. As a matter of fact, he told me that was actually great news because that means that my body is learning how to heal itself based on the fact that it is now starting to “remember” where it needs to be, so it is putting itself back in alignment.
Since my atlas was out, he did five taps to the back of my right ear. And he also said that my right SI joint needed adjusting (which I already knew because it had been feeling wonky since we did all that walking at Disney World) and he told me that my sacrum was out of alignment on my left side (which I also already knew because I’ve been having the same “tailbone” pain feeling that I used to get after my childbirth injuries years ago). Every time I see him, it’s like he can feel my pain because he always knows exactly what needs to be adjusted without me even saying a word. That lets me know that he truly knows what he’s doing!
He also told me that I’m one of the “weird ones” because my axis comes out of alignment all on its own. He said typically the axis only comes out of alignment when the atlas comes out of alignment, but for some reason, there have been several times where my axis was misaligned, but my atlas was in place.
He asked me how it feels to be a medical mystery and I told him that, unfortunately, I’m used to it. If there’s something uncommon/rare/weird/unknown that can happen in a medical situation, it is going to happen to me. I’ve been through so many “rare” situations where doctors marvel at me because they haven’t ever seen this before or because they don’t know how to help me. Why am I like this? Haha.
On the way home, Olivia saw that I’d been listening to The Swiftie and the Scholar and she was like, “Oooohhhh, I wanna listen!” so I turned it on and she loves it so much that she wants to start listening on her own. My girl LOVES to write and she’s very into song lyrics and symbolism and poetry and literary references and such, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that she enjoyed it as much as she did.
When we got home, I sat with Olivia while she ate a very hefty snack to hold her over through 3.5 hours of dance, and then I drove her to her dance studio. For these last few weeks leading up to the recital she is going to be having very long Friday evening classes to prepare.
Driving was a bit of a challenge Friday afternoon because my side effects were a bit worse than they usually are after an adjustment. It basically felt like somebody had stuck their finger in my brain and swirled it around (although, I have had ZERO vertigo, thank you, God… just dizziness) and my eyes also felt a little weird. Although, I also started tapering from my vertigo medicine again Wednesday, so who knows if that was playing a role in the way I was feeling.
I felt safe enough to drive, though, but by the time I got home from dropping Olivia at dance, I needed to lay down again. I didn’t feel tired at all, but I still passed right out, and before I knew it, Brian was coming in to tell me he was leaving to pick up pizza for dinner.
I pulled myself out of bed, cleaned up the kitchen, and got the dinner table ready while he was gone, and then he and Jacob and I ate together.
Jacob had his makeup piano lesson at 6:30 PM, but I was DONE driving for the day, so Brian took him to his lesson, so I didn’t have to get back in the car.
While they were gone, I wanted nothing more than to go lay down again, but I knew I wouldn’t sleep Friday night if a lay down and napped yet again, so I dragged myself into my office and worked on this blog post for a few minutes, but I couldn’t work on it long because the light from the computer was bothering me since my vestibular system gets all fired up after an adjustment.
Instead, I sat down and did my devotional and my Bible study that I hadn’t done earlier in the evening since I had napped instead.
When the boys got home, Brian had to pick up Olivia from dance and Jacob got showered. I spent a few minutes at my computer trying to get a couple of things done since I had taken it easy most of the day. I ended up ordering a Bible, but it can be returned in case I find something better. We’re getting down to the wire, so I wanted to have something, and I’m not sure a better option is going to come along.
I also paid a bill and corrected a blog typo, and that was about all I could do because the light from the computer was bothering me.
When Olivia got home, she showered, and then we all settled in to start a movie. We’ve been showing the kids some of our favorite PG-13 90s movies now that they’re older, and we ended up settling on Armageddon. Gah, I love that movie so much. I was 16 when that came out, so I was at the perfect age to enjoy the romance, the heartbreak, and the triumph of that whole storyline, and I watched it dozens of times when I was younger. I also wore out that soundtrack… SO good.
It’s a long movie and we started it late, so we only got about an hour into it before the kids went to bed, but they were both loving it. I was, too, since I hadn’t seen it in years. Also, I spy the toucan that Olivia crocheted!
He and I ended up going to bed way later than usual since the kids stayed up late, but we had a nearly empty day Saturday so we knew we could sleep in!
Saturday, April 18
Saturday morning, I got up around 8:30 AM, and when I went downstairs, the kids were both playing their instruments. Jacob is currently polishing the song he’s been working on for months because he’s considering playing it in the recital in a few weeks. It’s a piece that is by a current composer named Chad Lawson and it is one of the most beautiful songs.
Meanwhile, Olivia was writing music to put to some song lyrics that she wrote a couple of years ago, and she had already worked out the first part.
I made waffles for breakfast and then after breakfast we got the kitchen cleaned up. Brian had yardwork to do, so he headed out first thing to mow. The kids did laundry and had some screen time. And I did some work in my office – working on this blog post, catching up on emails that had popped up overnight, catching up on a few things in my planner, and placing Walmart, Target, and Amazon orders for necessities. I also added a few things to my birthday wish list blog post that I posted back in March. Yes, my birthday is over, but I like to use those lists to keep all items I want from different websites/stores all in one place for my own reference.
We all had lunch together in the afternoon and then I got the towels in the wash. The next hour was spent going over Olivia’s dance paperwork for her recital, ordering all the tights she needed for her production, and ordering her show trophy and show USBs. Prepping for her recital is always a lot of work, so I always start as early as possible!
While I was at it, I also looked into all the dance summer classes, and I got her registered for those since her recommendations had finally come in.
I’d hoped to feel good enough Saturday to get in a workout but I was super winded as I sometimes am after an adjustment, so I decided to let my body which meant – lots of admin work got done!
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Made a service appointment for my SUV
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Got Jacob’s Confirmation card ready
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Added a few items for upcoming events to my shopping
list
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Cleaned off computer desktop
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Organized a couple of lists in my List Master app
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Added some upcoming dates to my calendar
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Deleted 1,500 pictures from my phone
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Transferred pictures from phone to computer for the
week
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Organized pictures
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Cleaned off a few files from my computer
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Updated my medical and health spreadsheet
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Read my devotional for the day
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Synced some new music to my phone
Meanwhile, Brian installed my new light fixtures upstairs and just look
at the difference!!!! Ooh I love those
new ones so much!
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| Before |
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| After |
When I got home, I got showered and ready for the day, and then we headed to Khristina and Ian’s for poker night! They’d made a big spread of hamburgers and hot dogs, baked beans, and the most delicious cold salad with homemade ginger dressing. It was so good!
The rest of the night was spent sitting around the table playing cards and catching up, heavy on the catching up, and the kids spent the night playing Pokemon, playing flashlight tag, and hanging out together. It’s always one of their favorite nights each month!
Sunday, April 19
Sunday morning, I got up around 8:30 AM, we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and after the kitchen was cleaned, I went to my office for a few minutes to prep my planner for the week ahead, catch up on this blog post a bit, and read my devotional for the day. Meanwhile, the kids got showered and had some screen time, and Brian did some more work in the yard, and he went to put gas in my car. I always appreciate when he does that because I hate getting gas.
Mid-morning, I did a mixed cardio workout because I was feeling a little better after my adjustment, and then I folded the towels I’d washed Saturday. It was time to get ready after that, and then we headed out to run some errands before lunch with my in-laws.
Olivia ended up spending her money on a few beauty items… a new beauty blender, some gel blush, a lip liner, some mascara, and a couple of nail kits. She’s been wanting to get gel nails forever, but we’ve never taken her, so she decided to try some press-on nails, instead, and she is ecstatic. I’m honestly shocked at how natural and good they look, too. Haha.
When we got home, we only had about an hour and a half before we needed to leave for church, so I tackled all the things – this blog post, photo editing, organizing some more photos, and prepping for Monday.
We went to 5 PM Mass, picked up Mama Cass, and then headed to Sunday dinner with my parents. Momma made four new recipes, one of which was a new cabbage recipe that was divine, and I was so full by the time we left.
When we got home, we all got ready for bed, and then we watched some more of Armageddon before the kids went to bed. Brian and I finished the evening with some more of The Chosen and an early bedtime.
Happy Tuesday, y’all!
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