the busy, busy seems to have a hold of us, and that makes it hard to keep up with the whyspers. for me, a lot of it has to do with changing my schedule, which is proving harder to do than i thought it would be, especially considering i've always been a night owl kind of person in the past. but that's not the only thing keeping us busy. for example, i'm going to have to leave soon, with this entry just started like this, and come back after taz's doctor appointment and school drop off and shopping at the farmer's market. and it's just been like that a lot lately--too much going on in one day so we have to leave one activity and come back to it later. plus there's been the actual leaving and coming back stuff.
this past saturday, we took (as in me and the kids) went and dropped saxy off at the airport to catch his flight to cali. he went out to spend time with his parents. his mother has been missing him a lot, so his father paid for the trip.
***
and four hours later, we're back. taz is generally doing fine--we'll be checking into his sudden desire for water every 30 minutes, make sure nothing is wrong there, and we need to give him lots more calories, but he is otherwise doing well. taz has always been a thin kid. it used to be because we could count the food he would eat on one hand...literally. his taste buds have expanded since then, but it's only in the last few months that he's developed a real appetite. and apparently with need: he's in the 0 percentile for his age and height. :O
so he's going to get instant breakfast in the morning before he's off to school, we've asked the teacher to make sure he gets high calorie food when he eats, we'll be adding portions to his dinners and maybe giving him extra stuff. it's very weird in a generation (or two) of obese kids and with obesity being an epidemic among kids to have a kid who needs more calories. the timing is really bad--we're still on the edge financially, which means picking up the extras for him is extremely hard on the budget. but the kid needs food, so we'll have to work on getting him more food and food with a higher calorie count.
after that it was off to target to see if they had better prices than kroger on the nonfood items we needed. all i can say is, eh. then we hit the farmer's market. saxy will do clothes this afternoon and pick up cat litters. then we'll officially be broke. the good news in that is that the bills are paid and we have food for the next week. saxy worked yesterday afternoon, so we'll be able to buy food next week as well. after that, well, your guess is as good as mine. :P
back to saxy's trip. his father was going to have him fly in on friday. i'm not sure what happened, but it ended up being on saturday (and, apparently, his mother let his dad know how unhappy she was about it! lol). the rest of the weekend was pretty quiet for us here at the house--taz stressed out a bit, but saxy not being here is out of routine for him and he was anticipating school starting monday.
saxy called 3 or 4 times each day he was gone and let us know how things were going, and even sent a few cell phone pics of his mom's fairy garden. from the sounds of things, he and his parents were having a great time. there were tears when he left, of course; even he got upset, but they all had a great time while he was there. from what he's said, the area has changed drastically since we left. in fact, it's apparently changed enough that at least some of the high schoolers and young college students have no idea what used to be there. saxy apparently managed to date himself by talking about a particular spot and some kid nearby asking about it. *g*
monday for us started school. which meant i stayed up all night sunday in order to get my schedule flipped around (i'm honestly not sure at all why it's not working) and got the kids up at 5. taz was both weirded out and excited because he had to get up and wait for his bus while it was still dark. he's still talking about that! from what his teacher says, he's been having some good days. froggy's days have been a bit more difficult--she couldn't get her locker until yesterday...which is also when her schedule got changed, and she's had a hard time making it in in time to grab breakfast. i remember jewel complaining about the same thing, only this time they aren't even offering any easy to carry food yet, just cereal and milk. i'm hoping that will change, but we've bought some cereal bars to give her something with some milk before she leaves in the morning.
after getting the kids off, i've been crashing and sleeping through the morning. i usually wake up early enough so i can do a little something before they get home, but usually not much. so far, taz has come home all week completely wired. we're giving him his afternoon medicine an hour earlier than before, but it doesn't seem to be as effective at the moment. we've picked up a script for a slightly higher dose and will be getting that for him next week. we're too bloody broke this week.
monday evening i also discovered a mysterious deposit into our checking account and called the husband on it. his father very nicely put quite a large chunk of change into the account--a large chunk of change that paid for the cells, a nice amount on the water bill, our overdue trash bill, and the remainder of this month's rent. we've also put money on the kids' school meal accounts (not nearly enough--as far as i can tell, lunches must be running about $2.50 right now! yeouch!), put gas in the car, and bought food. and now the husband is off to do the desperately needed to be done laundry (i mean, just about everyone in the house is out of clothes). we would have loved to hold onto some just in case we need something in a week or two, but having overdue utilities is like having a watershed when it comes to money: it's gone as soon as it comes in. at least the bills are pretty much caught up. our regular phone bill just got emailed to me and the gas bill came in, but we have a few weeks to handle them. hopefully saxy will be working and that will be taken care of.
tuesday, almost as soon as the kids came in, we were off to go pick saxy up from the airport. long afternoon, that. when we finally met up with him (we missed because we went to where you're supposed to meet passengers, but he went back to the ticket counter, *g*), it was off to dinner first--the grandparents' birthday gift to taz. we went to cracker barrel, and were pleasantly surprised by prices and food. we all ate for about $50 and had plenty to bring home with us. and it was all pretty good--i know my steak was just mmmm...tasty! probably the one downside was that a lot of the food is fried, but that's what country cooking is! and it didn't come out greasy at all.
after dinner, we hit target and picked up another "present" for taz: a new bookbag. he has a cars backpack, but i'm concerned about him being treated poorly by the other high school students. he's different enough without having him stand out with a backpack that's "for a kid", you know? after target, it was home and bed for the kids. saxy was pretty wiped out too. i tried working late, but just couldn't make it myself.
yesterday was a bit quieter for me--kids at school and saxy went to work, but today exploded again. i've gotten nothing done work wise at all. good thing i managed to get completely caught up as of yesterday. slush comes in at a steady pace, and we have quite a few people applying to be editors, but i'm not overwhelmed...yet. still all that keeps me busy enough that i'm restricting what i actually edit to stuff that i really want to edit. my personal writing has been hit or miss for a good two weeks now: just too much to do for lilley, and too much going on personally to find/make the time. the schedule flip isn't helping either, since it's not going as well as i had hoped.
btw...
STOP BY LILLEY PRESS TOMORROW AND ORDER OUR TWO NEW EBOOKS: THE STILL LIFE OF HANNAH MORGAN AND HARMONICA & GIG. you can find more information on both by clicking HERE. ;) we are very excited about them!
and now i need to scoot--the kids should be here any minute, and with the homework and stuff, i'm making sure i'm available. i also have a bunch of produce drying out and waiting to be green bagged, and i need to make snacks. this also means an entire day has gone by since i started this entry. like i said, the busy, busy really seems to have a hold of us! i'd sit and write a bit, then had to be off taking care of something else, take a bit of a break to write a bit, and then be off again. i really hope things settle into a nice quiet routine soon.
am i getting old or what?
'course, as soon as it does, phoenix and baby cat will arrive and the routine will go out the window as we try to readjust. ;)
anyway, must get going. here, enjoy a picture of our actual car, instead of the stock photo on the previous page:
isn't she purdy? ;)
okay, going now...really.
and just in time! there's froggy's bus! yikes!
~*~
word of the moment: effervescent
giving off bubbles; used of wines and waters; charged naturally or artificially with carbon dioxide; marked by high spirits or excitement
