annyswolf's third journal

Spent the evening creating Mezuzahs out of Sculpey with ianraven, oscherub and the kids.  For more details, including pics, see ianraven's lj post.

B woke up crying around 11 tonight with 100.5 fever.  So no school for her tomorrow, and probably a trip to the doctor's office as she was also complaining of her ear hurting. 

ianraven went to Spring War Camp yesterday and brought me back two gifts.  Neither were from him.

violet_amy sent me a fantastic spice/herb rack complete with glass bottles.  I'm so excited to figure out what new things to put in the bottles!!

fencerm2 has been reading my "today's tea" entries and sent me an Exotic Tea Sampler from Tea Forte.  New and yummy teas for me to try!!
You can find out more about Tea Forte teas here  www.teaforte.com  (I tried to use the imbed link feature, but it wouldn't work)

Thank you both for your lovely gifts!!! 

Today's tea, brought to you by fencerm2 is Green Tango, a blend of green tea and mango.  It was delicious, by the way!!!

Yesterday I took A and B to the spring carnival at A's school, K didn't want to go.  It was fun, but at $15 per girl, it was way too expensive, even for a school fundraiser.
Afterwards, we went to help katyaehal unpack her moving truck.  The kids were pretty good for that, they spent most of their time playing with the cats. 

Today, A has a bowling party to attend and K has a respite/socialization program to go to at the same time.  So it is divide and conquer for us.  In the evening I have to do the last of my Passover shopping. 

The meeting with the school is scheduled for Tuesday morning.  I'm happy it was scheduled so quickly, but as I'm hosting the 2nd Passover seder Tuesday night, that day will be a little frantic, especially with the meeting thrown in there.  Oh well, no one ever said my life would be boring. 

Today's tea is mint.

Blessings,
Annys

Today was better than yesterday.  Yay!

I spent most of the morning on the phone paving the way to get K back into school.  Tomorrow morning I have a meeting with the registrar for the district to get K re-registered.  Then the school has to set up a meeting to create an interim IEP (Individualized Education Plan) because his old IEP expired in February while we were homeschooling.  Once his re-evaluation is finished in very late May, we will meet again to decide his placement for next year. 

K had a reading assessment at the school for his re-evaluation this afternoon, so after I dropped him off I took B to a friend's house and got some adult speak with the mom while the girls played.  That was nice. 

Today's tea is green tea with mint.

blessings,
Annys

Difficult day.  'nuff said.

ianraven and I have made the decision to put K back into public school until his re-evaluation is done so we can fight the school for a new placement in a private day school that specializes in the issues K is dealing with.  If you need more info than that, call me and I'll give you the *much* longer version of what we've been dealing with here. 

Thanks for the comments on my last entry.  I'm going to do a science board/poster with pictures/photos of some sort. 

Tonight's tea is betony. 

Blessings,
Annys

It was an *interesting* day. 

We got out the door late (big surprise there) but made good time to the site.  Saw lots of people and said "hello", but really only got to talk to Rummy in depth.  Not getting to talk to people was rather disappointing.

A and B were pretty good during the day.  They enjoyed the children's activities and running around with each other.  K was difficult .  He has been distracted and non-listening lately.  I was worried about this coming into the event, but I was not prepared for the amount of "disappearing" he did.  I would turn around to talk to one of the girls or look at something, and he would be gone.  Completely vanished.  I spent a large portion of the day searching for him.  Every time I found him I would impress the importance of staying with me and how worried I was and then he would say he understood and within 5 minutes would have disappeared again.  Many thanks to Johnny of the Endless Quest for helping me to search at one point when he was missing for 20 minutes.  OTOH, he did sit very nicely for most of court.  A fell asleep, to the amusement of many sitting around us, and B just played quietly on my lap.  I was able to see more of court than I have in years, which was nice. 

I am sorry I missed certain people altogether, some of whom I really needed to talk to.  I did get a line on someone who may be able to help with babysitting during Pennsic (YAY!).  Although we did not get home late (about 9:15).  I was completely exhausted so we went to bed early and slept in today (as much as the kids let us). 

Today will be spent cleaning up from the event, and starting Passover cleaning. 

Today's tea is black.  I need the caffeine.

Blessings,
Annys

So here we are, getting ready to go to Mudthaw.  I fondly remember the old days when J and I would just "go" to an event.  Now, it requires days of planning in advance and a concerted effort on our part to get everyone out.  Still, for the most part we have a good time once we get there. 

We had to go through children's garb tonight.  The children haven't been to an event in several months, and as they have all grown quite a bit in that time, I needed to see if they had any garb that still fit.  Fortunately, garb that I made for A for last Pennsic that was just a little too big, now fits her to a T.  Of course, she won't wear it, preferring her sideless surcoat that she has worn for two years and is now definitely too small.  B fits into a "princess" dress that I made for Halloween for A a couple of years ago.  It isn't strictly period, but it is so cute.  K fits into pants he was given last year that were too big, and a large shirt with blackwork that one of our friends gave him. 

It is interesting to watch our children's fashion sense evolve when it comes to garb.  A hates gathered chemises, so she won't wear them.  She prefers shifts and sideless surcoats.  Which is fine by me since I kinda know how to sew them ;)   A also is turning into a trim fiend.  Whenever we pass by trim she starts to drool, literally.  Truly bred in the SCA.  K still wears pretty much what you throw at him, but he is expressing a preference for "more appropriate" clothing to wear to events.  In particular, he wants a new belt that is more fitting for the SCA than the belt he has.  Something to go shopping for tomorrow.  B likes fancy, which is why she wants to wear the princess dress.  It has lace and a rainbow ribbon hem and sewn on beads around the neck.  She is so happy. 

Tonight's tea is green tea with chamomile blossoms. 

Blessings,
Annys

Lists.  Love them or hate them? 
For me there is a certain satisfaction with being able to cross off an item after I've done it.  I make lists for everything. 

Today was a very long day.  But I managed to get a lot done even if I didn't get to cross off everything on my list.  I have to remind myself of how much I accomplished or I focus on what I didn't get done.  I would love to be able to relax tomorrow, but it promises to be even longer than today.  Too much to do in way too little time. 

Everyone is asleep now, and the apartment it quiet.  It is nice to have a few moments to myself to think. 

Today's tea is a white tea with plum berries. 
Blessings,
Annys

B took a nap late this afternoon.  Normally, I hate when she takes naps during the day because then she won't go to sleep on time at night and it messes up her whole schedule.  So I was not happy that she fell asleep.  But then she woke up wailing that her ear hurt.  Oh no!!!
When B was a year old, she had a run of ear infections all with perforated eardrums.  Then they stopped and went away and we hadn't had any problems with her ears until 5 weeks ago.  Again she had an ear infection with two perforated eardrums.  As soon as she had finished the antibiotics for that, we were back at the doctor for another ear infection.  This one we caught early, before the eardrum burst.  So back on antibiotics she went.  Now she finished up that dose of antibiotics on Monday.  Here it is Wednesday and she's screaming her ear hurts again.  And as we *all* know, Wednesday is Bhakail fencing night, so ianraven isn't home.  So 7:15PM sees me scrambling to get the kids in the car and off to the doctors before they close.  We made it, barely.  Doctor confirms another ear infection.  My poor baby!  Doctor gives us a prescription and off we go to the 24 hour Walgreen's a couple blocks from the house. 

On the way to the Walgreen's A reminds me that today is the first day of spring and Rita's water ice hands out free water ice and we didn't get any.  I'm not terribly worried about it at this point, but the kids are all sad.  Then, miracle of miracles ( for the kids anyway), we see a Rita's about two blocks from the Walgreen's.  Not only are they still open, there is a long line.  So we drop off the Rx at the Walgreen's drive-through, drive back to the Rita's, where the line vanishes just as we get into it, and we get some water ice.  We still had to wait a while for the Rx to be prep'd so we ate in the car while we waited.  After we got the Rx, we hurried home to put the kids into bed, now an hour + past their bedtime.  

The doctor said she's going to send us to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist.  The doctor we saw tonight and the one we saw with the last two ear infections (big pediatric office) are very concerned about B's hearing.  We are equally concerned.  B asks people to repeat what they say quite often, and she does not correctly pronounce several consonants.  We were already concerned when B's preschool teacher brought her concerns to us about B's speech.  So we went to the doctor and had her hearing checked.  She did poorly on the test.  We were sent to an audiologist for retesting.  Again she did poorly.  We have an assessment coming up to see if she qualifies for speech therapy, and as soon as we are done with the ear infections and the antibiotics, we have a recheck at the audiologist's. 

Poor baby!!  She was still crying over her ear by the time we got home, so I gave her some children's Tylenol for the pain and put her to bed. 
Tomorrow all of the kids are going to be tired and cranky. 

Today's tea is a lovely rooibos tea with lavender blossoms.  Enjoy!
Blessings,
Annys

ianraven and I broke the rules of "married with kids" tonight and after we put the kids to bed had a nice dinner for two.  Now we're sitting here all geeky like, side by side on the sofa with our laptops in our laps, looking at LJ posts together.  giggle.

We got a letter from A's school today.  Her teacher selected A as Student of the Month for "demonstrating the February character trait of Caring".  She gets a certificate, and has her photo posted on a special bulletin board in the school.  She also gets to eat lunch with the principal and guidance counselor and other good citizens of the school.  She is ecstatic.  We are so proud. (wipe away tear)

Had an awful headache today-the product of staying up too late trying to get things done.  It finally succumbed to several doses of tylenol and caffeine at spaced intervals, but it took most of the day. 

Blessings,
Annys

It was a pretty good day today. 
I went through my herb books today and made a list of them.  They number about 70.  Unfortunately, my wish list is about as long. :)

This afternoon B sang me a song about her Shabbat angels peeking in the window. It is a song referring to a story that at the beginning of Shabbat (Friday night) every house is visited by two angels. If the house is ready for Shabbat then the bad angel has to say, "Every Shabbat should be like this" and the good angel gets to rejoice. And if the house isn't ready for Shabbat then the good angel has to say, "Every Shabbat should be like this", and the bad angel gets to rejoice.
B couldn't remember all of the words to the song, but she was singing what she could remember and putting her fingers up like glasses over her eyes. It was sooooooo cute.

We received A's spring school photographs today.  She has a great smile in it, but the lighting makes her look rounder than she is.  She likes them though.

blessings,
Annys

Went to a large family birthday party today.  It is actually my college roommate's family, but I lived with them while I was in grad school, so they are my family by extension.  The kids had a really great time with the other kids, and everyone was pretty good.  All in all it was  a good afternoon.

My mother called today to tell me she was out shopping for Passover and wanted to know if she should buy enough stuff to bring chicken soup and matzoh balls for the second seder.  My mother traditionally "does" the first seder.  I'm doing the second seder.  Her call brought on a slight amount of panic because I'm totally unprepared for Passover.  

Thanks to everyone for my warm welcome here on LJ. 

Blessings,
Annys

So, I'm starting a new journal.  My first, that I have kept for years, is a paper journal.  The second is a blog I've kept for about a year on another site.  But so many of my friends are on LJ that I finally decided I needed one here to, just to keep up with everyone. 

Yesterday I went to Nova Schola.  I taught my class, Anglo-Saxon Herbal Medicine.  I wasn't happy with how it went.  Public speaking is really tough for me.  It is something I really need to work on.  I raced through an hour and a half class in just under a half an hour.  Ouch!  there were a lot of things I wanted to say that I didn't, I either forgot or was just so nervous.  It is a shame because I know the material, but put me in front of a group and everything goes out of my head. 
On the other hand, I had a really good day.  It was mom's day off-J stayed home with the kids.  I got to talk with my friends and hang out and not worry about what my kids were getting into.  Well, okay, I worried a little.  It's hard to turn the mom genes off.

Looking forward to reading all your journals soon!!
Blessings,
Annys