1. The flu hit us hard last weekend. As of today, we are all feeling better, although perhaps a little weaker and needing to get our strength up and back into a regular routine. I do know of two folks that got their flu shots, and also got the flu, so I remain unconvinced that this year’s immunization would have saved us from illness.
One of the unfortunate side effects of being sick for me has been insomnia. I guess I slept so much between Sunday and Tuesday that I used up all of my sleeping hours! For the past couple of nights, I have been up until 2 or 3 a.m. Anyone who follows me on Facebook can see my posts from then.
2. Noah starts the second semester of his Freshman year next week. It will be a tougher semester than his first because he will have an English Class, Philosophy, and American Government as well as Latin 2 and Math. I expect that he will be doing a lot more writing and a few more projects. On top of all of this is his work study, choral commitments, and track! It’s going to be a busy 3 1/2 months.
3. This weekend Noah and Mr. Pete are going on a road trip to bring back a car that belonged to Mr. Pete’s late sister. I’m not sure where we’re going to put it, but it will be the backup car in case something goes wrong with one of our others. Mr. Pete’s car has over 200,000 miles on it and no heat, so at least for him, it will be a nice car until spring.
But it’s nice that Noah gets to spend some quality time with his Dad to do this, and it will be Noah’s first chance to drive alone for a few hours back from Michigan. It’s so nice to have another driver in the household besides me and Mr. Pete.
Hopefully, I can add Izzy to that list this spring! In the state of Ohio they can do their classroom portion of Driver’s Ed online, so I’m hoping to have her start that next week when we are officially done with Christmas break!
4. Long-time readers know that I grew up in a home that included my mother’s brother/my bachelor uncle, also known as Calvin Jr.
Cal Jr. suffered from some kind of obscure birth injury that everyone seemed somewhat uncertain about, but from listening to stories and then becoming a mother myself, I think what likely happened included a dose of pitocin and a labor that went awry before the doctor was able to properly handle it, and my uncle probably suffered a little hypoxia.
The result was a bit of vocal cord paralysis and partial facial droop, and some cognitive problems.
Nonetheless, my Uncle was a good guy with a great sense of humor. He never purposely ever set out to hurt anyone. Yet because of his disabilities as well as his learning problems, my grandparents were very concerned about what would happen to him after they were gone. After my grandmother died, my grandfather and Uncle lived together – two single guys who mainly got on each other’s nerves, but still managed to get by with the tasks of daily living. Still, my grandfather worried about what would happen to Uncle when he was no longer there.
Sis and I pondered that from time to time too. Would Uncle come to live with one of us? and how would that work.
As it turns out, God had a plan for all of that. My Uncle died suddenly and unexpectedly at age 54 from a dissecting aortic aneurysm. My grandfather died just a year later. It wasn’t the way any of us expected it to end. Even my grandfather’s will was outdated when he passed away leaving everything to my Uncle, who was already gone. Eventually, my mother was able to get all of that worked out.
5. The death of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher recently made me remember all of those worries and events from 30 years ago. God really does hear us. In this Youtube video, at around 32:40, Debbie Reynolds expresses how much she wants to make Carrie happy, and it makes her sad to think that there will be no one to do that when she is gone – and of course Carrie predeceased her.
As Todd Fisher said, their story was truly a love story.
6. I was able to drag myself into co-op this week to teach my first week of Latin Class. I am having such a good time listening to the Great Courses offering, Introduction to Formal Logic taught by Dr. Steven Gimbel. He has such a dry wit and some of the stuff he say is really funny!
I have had a long-time interest in Logical Fallacies and this course is solidifying what I learned on my own and expanding on that knowledge. It is also making it possible to give some great information to my homeschool students at the co-op outside of their required text. I think for fun we might listen to some of the debates from the election season and see if we can catch and classify a lot of the fallacies that were used by all the parties, on both sides of the issues! I think that might be fun for students.
7. January 20, 2017 is going to be a wonderful day.
First, we will witness the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another.
Second, Abby Lee Miller will finally be sentenced for here bankruptcy fraud. I have been watching old episodes of Dance Moms over the break and so many times parents she has deliberately hurt or insulted told her that her day was coming. Well, now it really is – and that day is January 20.
