I’m sitting in the waiting room of the doctor’s office while Lex has his well-child checkup. Once they hit the teen years the doctor kicks parents out for the exam portion. I’m bored and it dark out and it feels like it’s taking forever, but it occurred to me now that this might be the last time we do this. Next year he’ll be over 18 and not even here. He probably won’t need me to take him to doctor appointments any more, at least not scheduled appointments.
I can’t say I’ll miss it, but it’s interesting to think this might be the last.
They boys had their “Districts” music event this weekend. Schools from around the state send select students to perform together for two full days, then put on a concert Saturday night. Eve and I went down to see the show, then we all joined Eirene and her boys for dinner. It was lots of fun. Teenagers are so interesting and silly and fun. Also, I got to chat with my friend too. :)
Eve had her first day of work today and she sure did dress the part! She read the dress code at the last minute and realized it ruled out all of her athletic wear, so she grabbed a pair of jeans from my closet (from way back when I had lost a lot of weight!) and threw on some tall boots, just for fun. 😄
She’s so cool. She was putting on her mirrored heart shades as she walked towards the building.
Her bestie also started work at Hannaford today, so they got the tour together and did the training videos together. Eve said she did some bagging for a few customers too. Good thing I’ve trained her well on that front! 🤗
She came home in a very positive mood and even made herself a healthy dinner!
She has two more shifts this week, one with her bestie and one without. I hope the positive attitude sticks around.
I guess it’s about time to start documenting Eve’s next adventure — Rotary Exchange Student! She applied to be a Rotary Exchange student for the 2023/24 school year, her Junior year. We completed round one of interviews and paperwork, and yesterday we did round two of interviews. We spent a few hours at a Youth Exchange event yesterday, meeting the Rotarians, several inbound students, and several other outbound applicants. It was interesting.
Eve is pretty excited to go to Norway, the UK, or Iceland. Last week they sent a list of currently available countries and it was way shorter than expected and did not include any country she was interested in. We got nervous and I think she started having second thoughts. At yesterday’s meeting they handed out updated country lists, which now includes all of the Scandinavian countries and many others. Eve was much happier! Me too, truthfully. She enjoyed meeting the other outbound applicants and left the meeting in a pretty positive mood.
At some point between now and January she will have a chance to select her top three countries and indicate up to three that she would not go to. There is another Youth Exchange event on January 7th and we are told that if all goes well they’ll tell the kids which countries they’ll be going to. That should be right around the time we hear back from the colleges Lex applied to as well.
Dear Santa, bring me tissues this year. 😢
All good changes. All good things. All part of growing up and spreading their wings. Sometimes parenting is both amazing and terrifying at the same exact time.
Another AMAZING high school musical is on the books! Lex ran the lights, while Eve and her bestie, Simon, ran the spot lights. Our old neighbors, Macy and Asher, stole the show! Well lit, of course, by my children. :)
Lex in the tech booth
Eve above the tech booth!
They both had a great time and the show was fantastic.
I went to the gym this afternoon and decided to cook a healthy dinner. As I was filling the pot with water I noticed a balloon out the window. I put the pot on the stove and went outside with the kids and the dog. The balloon was low, very low, but started rising. It was fun to see. Then it started coming down again. We waved at it, just for fun, and it came down lower… and lower….
Then the guy yelled down to us “want to help us land the balloon?” Umm… what? Where? How? He threw down a rope and yelled to us to help guide them down. What?! He yelled to wrap it around the tree. What tree?? Our trees are babies! So Lex, Eve, and I were pulling the rope, trying to direct this balloon, not having the best of luck.
Then suddenly neighbors and friends/balloon chasers showed up and pitched in. It was exciting and fun, once it was on the ground and not on my roof!
There’s me in the middle. Neighbors joined along the way to help us bring this thing down. It was hard work!
Neighbors helping out.
Our surprise visitors came all the way from Quechee. :)
Our balloon chasing friend/colleague took a picture for us. She takes pictures of her kids with all the balloons they help land.
The chase van arrived.
Deflating
It took up a lot of our side yard!
Wrapping things up.
The “thank you” gift they gave us.
After we helped land the balloon we all hung out and chatted while the chase van came (with the help of directions over the radio from one of our neighbors). That was when I remembered I had water boiling on the stove!! So much for cooking a healthy dinner tonight. Lots of people were out to watch and it was a fun gathering. Everyone had fun except Huxley who was definitely scared of the balloon, especially when the fire blasted. Lex and I were the last to go in. When I said goodbye and thanks for the entertainment, the guy asked if I wanted some champagne or syrup. Traditionally they give a bottle of champagne to the homeowner as a thank you for the use of the land. Apparently they now offer options. :)
We live in the land of hot air balloons and they are always fun and beautiful in the sky, but there’s nothing like having one come down in your side yard, a yard that seems barely big enough to land a balloon!
Eve and I took a little drive to meet up with Rosy in Maine this weekend. Just for the day. We meet in Freeport, ME at the LL Bean flagship store.
It was huge! We had a lunch, did some shopping, then did some more shopping at a candy store that my friend recommended. It had a 1700lb chocolate moose named Lenny.
We then moseyed on down to Portland. People say it’s an adorable town full of funky shops and cool restaurants. We found it to be crowded and I was bummed that there wasn’t much of any water view due to the shipping warehouses. Oh well. We had fun checking out the stores for a few hours, then headed further down the coast to find some good waterfront.
And boy did we find some waterfront! We went to Two Lights State Park in Cape Elizabeth. The state park closes at 6pm and I was worried about getting locked in (is that a thing?!) so we went to a nearby beach that I think it part of the same place. Or not. Who knows. It was BEAUTIFUL though. We got there at sunset and saw the full moon rise. We took a thousand photos — give or take a few. :)
We were going to have dinner at a pirate ship restaurant on the coast, but when we got there they were very, very closed! We continued down the coast and ended up at a diner place in Old Orchard Beach. The diner was a fortuitous find! The food was awesome, the waitress was adorable and as decorated for Halloween as the whole place was. She got Eve a big mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. I had a house-made black bean burger that was way better than any diner food should be. It was a great way to end a really fun day.
The first day of school has come again. Every year I find it so stressful to plan and prep and get ready for back to school. There is always so much to do and pressure (from myself) to make everything perfect. Yesterday, our one and only paid day to set up our classrooms, I got to the point where I was just like, “the kids are coming, whether we’re ready or not.” And this morning they did come. They were happy and smiling (most of them) and generally glad to be there. Taller and in higher grades, but pretty much the same kids we said “see ya later” to back in June. By the end of day one it felt like the same old thing. I’m not sure if that’s good or not, but it is what it is.
On the home front I’ve got a senior, a junior, and a sophomore! The senior was pretty indifferent about going and said his day was “fine.” He’s happy to be back in band and happy that they’ll be doing pep band again. The junior is happy to be with his friends, but was super annoyed that the busses still aren’t running on schedule! It was a big problem last year due to driver shortages and we were hoping it would be fixed by this year, but apparently not. The sophomore was a little excited about her new classes, but last night she got anxious and had trouble sleeping. This morning I had to drag her out of bed and the afternoon report was that school is stupid and her classes are lame and she can’t believe she has two more years of this. Day one. Whee!
I meant to take a selfie of all of us together, but (as you can see) some of them weren’t too pleased about the photos, so I didn’t want to push my luck. I decided to take a selfie of just myself when I got to school, but when I got there I was already later than I wanted to be and the parking lot was full of people, so my selfie didn’t turn out great. I tried again in the afternoon. It came out a little better. :)
My little Meyer Lemon tree (aka Oscar!) made a lemon. It’s a cute little thing. I put the plant outside earlier this summer and it was doing very well, but the fruit wasn’t yellowing. Last week the plant got dry and the fruit started yellowing, but also seemed to be shriveling and drying. I watered it really well and today noticed that it looked better and yellow. I squeezed it gently to see if it felt softish or dry, and it came off in my hand! Eve and I were pretty surprised and happy. :)
It wasn’t big enough to do much with, but I squeezed it, sampled it, and put it on fresh avocado. Yum!
Oscar has more buds and one other tiny, green lemon currently growing. As summer comes to an end I’ll bring it back inside for the winter. Hopefully it survives another transition.
This is a boring post mostly for my own reference. I went back to the doctor on Monday (8/22) for a throat checkup. I’m starting to feel symptoms again (harder to breath, light snoring, noisier breathing) and wanted to do the injections again. The doctor did the scope thing and compared it to six months ago. He said he didn’t see a noticeable difference in scar tissue buildup, but if I was feeling symptomatic again it was good to do the steroid treatment to prevent further growth. I agreed. I obviously don’t enjoy the steroid treatment process, but I do like the reassurance that we are doing everything possible to prevent the need for future surgeries!
I started working this week (in-service, no students yet) and my voice quality has been very bad. I think it’s because I’ve been talking a lot and kind of loudly due to the crowds of our district meetings. I hope the poor voice quality is a side-effect of the injections, not something else. I’m going to rest it this weekend and hopefully it will be fresh and good by Tuesday when students return and I start teaching all day every day!
