Home Again

Monday morning Mike, Lillian and Emmy all took me to the airport. Security went smoothly- somehow I actually got in the shortest line. At the gate they offered $400 to anyone who would get on a later flight. I was still feeling unwell and my ears were still a mess so I just couldn't do it. I wanted to go home. This time instead of being near the front, I was in literally the last row of the plane. That meant I didn't have to gate check my luggage since I loaded first but it also meant I was on the plane much longer. First one in, last one out. The man next to me kept giving me worried looks as I pulled down my mask to wipe my runny nose. When there was only an hour left I got a mad tickle in my throat and had a hacking fit that earned me lots more worried looks. I finally managed to stave it off with water and lots and lots of Ice Breaker mints. I was so relieved when I finally got out of the plane and could be sick without judgement. It was also nice to be back with my family. This last month has consisted of lots of traveling. But with this last trip I think I finally figured out what souvenirs my kids like and they all seemed properly excited with what I brought home (stuffies for the girls, a racoon skin hat for Ben and a block of pyrite for Steven).

Tuesday we didn't have Seminary but the kids had school. It was nice to drop the kids off and then have some time to catch up on life. I even did a little extra and cleared out some things from the basement. It boggles my mind that I have taken so many trips with my trunk full of garbage bags of junk to Salvation Army and somehow we still have SO much stuff in the basement. Maybe it's all these trips and souvenirs I'm buying...

Wednesday morning it was back to seminary and the wake up was hard. I am also struggling with articulating my thoughts. Ususally I script out a lesson format pretty good and it keeps me focused. But with lots of lessons to plan and morning brain...I feel like sometimes I ramble. I don't know. Hopefully the teens are getting something out of it. 

After Seminary I decided to go to the doctor since my ear was still clogged. After a one hour wait the lady looked at my ear, declared it swimmer's ear (I have not been under water lately) and prescribed me ear drops. Not impressed. After 2 days of ear drops and no improvement I decided to discontinue them because it felt like they were just filling up my ear more (also Ben accidentally knocked over the ear drop bottle anyways and I lost about half it). I think I am just doomed to be hard of hearing for the rest of my life.

Also Wednesday was homeschooling with this new hybrid program. The kids are still struggling to re-adjust to doing school work at home. They seem to think that they should only have a minutes worth of work and then they're good. It is frustrating. They really don't have that much work compared to what we did last year and none of it seems too difficult. They are just lazy bums.

Wednesday night we ran a quick errand to Hobby Lobby and while looking at some things, Lucy knocked a unicorn bank off the shelf and it shattered. I tried real hard to stay calm and the fact that the price was only $7 helped. I flagged down a nice lady and she helped us clean it up and told us not to worry about paying for it. We got really lucky. 

Thursday they were back at school and I was back to being productive. Then that evening Tyler and I went over to one of our Seminary student's homes to meet his birds. He has 21 birds (half of them are cockatials and the other half budgies). I kind of loved being around all the birds, very reminiscent of my days being a bird owner. Most of them are finger trained so that was fun and a couple cockatails hung out on my shoulder for a bit, also fun. There was some awkward conversations...the mom worked for the public health department and shared some interesting stories...but it was good to show the teen that we cared and get to know his life a little better.

Friday was our homeschooling day and the kids were done by early afternoon. They now have no more work until they go back to school Tuesday. I guess instead of light Fridays, we now have light Mondays and I am going to have to figure out what we do with our Mondays...Hopefully we start figuring this all out.

Also on Friday we went for a bike ride and as I was blindly putting away everyone's shoes,  I thought my finger had got stuck by a thorn.  I looked down and there was a wasp on my shoe! I was horrified, I had just been stung! I swatted at it with another shoe and it disappeared. Then I swear I felt it on me so I was shouting at Penny and asking if there was a wasp on me. Instead of looking she started screaming and ran upstairs. Helpful. Thankfully there wasn't and Tyler came up, found it inside my shoe and disposed of it. Stupid wasp.

Saturday Lucy and Ben had their first Soccer Game of the season. Ben was really proud that his team didn't lose- they tied. He also scored one of their two goals. Another member of his team also scored one of the goals for the other team so there's that. Lucy did a really good job running back and forth across the field but she never made any attempts to kick the ball. She's a lot like me. But maybe she'll get more confident the more she plays.