Double Trouble

Don't let these little innocents fool you.  I am only talking about the dogs.  Hannah is a pretty good kid.  But those little stinkers discovered how to take off out the front door and take little unsupervised journeys.  It happened 2 in one week and I was not home.  I came home the first time though and wondered why I was not greeted by two happy jumping balls of barking fun.  There had been 5 people in the house and no one knew what happened to the dogs.  That has been my worst fear.  Busy street, lots of directions to run, busy street.  They must not have been gone long.  They were past the church.  Dobby got in the car.  Yoda was not so easy to catch.  We brought them home and then Dobby got sick within an hour of coming home.  It scared us.  Antifreeze is toxic for dogs and he got sick and very distressed really fast.  I took him to the vet.  He threw up full leaves and bark.  They did x-rays and saw sand in his stomach it might have been on something still in his stomach we couldn't see.  They gave him sub-q fluids.  Second time in his life he has had to have fluid under his skin.  We brought him home.  He had a terrible night and couldn't settle down.  So I had a terrible night.  I tried to sleep on the couch. Blech. The next day he still was feeling pretty rough.  We took him back to the vet and then we decided we would wait it out a little longer.  He did get better. 
Then I left a few days later.  Then through Autumn's Facebook she posted that they got out again.  I wasn't home for any of it that time.  No sick dog that time. 
I need to train them up some more.  We will get there.
I only let the dogs in bed with me in the mornings.  Yoda has taken to snuggling.  I mean really snuggling right up against my back so he sticks his nose in my hair.  It is cute until the dog starts sleeping hard and sounds like he is snoring.  That is our doggie update.  

Moon

I know my last blog was long and there were no pictures.  This is what I came home to today.  The moon was just barely peeking over the mountain when we were coming down our street.  I ran to get the camera.  Moonrise.

 I knelt in the bike lane in front of my house to take this picture.  A car coming down the street almost slowed down to a stop.  I guess I looked like I was about to leap sideways into the street at any moment.

                           This is as much of a closeup I can get with my really nice camera.

This is with my old camera.  Its best feature is its zoom.  It is just a Panasonic Lumix. 

Later when it was dark, the moon was still fantastic looking with a haze that glowed around it.  I was ohhing and ahhing all the time while I drove the girls to the church for Young Women's and I wished I had my camera and then I had a real dork experience.  I did not turn on my headlights as I drove past the 13 houses on the way to the church.  But I will justify that by saying that I was driving by moonlight and didn't need it.  Believe me?

Out of it.....

Needless to say I am letting time run its course and have not blogged mainly because it would have been a grumpy-fest.
January was awful, February I felt awful and March we are hoping for a turn around.
Never has one of Lee Joe's paycheck from an employer bounced.  That is what happened in January.  I was not a really big check but it was stressful and totally unexpected-usually bounced checks are unexpected aren't they?  Things could have been much worse, thankfully I had extra money even though Lee Joe had been on unemployment already for a couple weeks before that happened.  We immediately filed our taxes.  During this time my washer was broken and I was going to the laundrymat to wash clothes.  Lee Joe was still in Washington.  He still worked for those clowns a little longer before he finally came home.  It took another week before they had money for that check and we did not see the other two checks they owed him until later in Feb.  The tax return saved us, got us a new washer, repaired the old one and sold it on Craigslist-I do not like front loader washers.  Good news spot--I have a lovely new LG top loader.  So far I like it a lot. 
Lee Joe has been home for quite a stretch.  The Washington mess really was the final thing to put him in full fledged burn out.  When he was in North Dakota he worked many 80-90 weeks.  That is out in the heat or the cold, shoveling or bouncing around in a truck. The good part of having him home beside the fact he is home-he helped with all the driving.  I was completely burned out from that.  Early morning seminary carpool every other week and every Thursday.  Kylee and another friend carpool together on 2 days a week to jazz band. When we drive we take all the girls to seminary then hang around for about 15 minutes then get the boy and pick Kylee back up and drop her off at school.  Then Hannah to school-her schedule shifts 2 days a week on choir days.  That is just the am driving.  Kylee finished basketball, Autumn started basketball, Hannah started Y-basketball.  Hannah is in Honor choir this year.  I realized at the concert she had on Saturday that for about 11 years we have attended that concert.  There have only been maybe 2 years where we did not have one of the girls in at least one of the honor groups. Hannah is the last.  We may get to attend that concert for another 4 depending on if she does honor band in jr high.   Lee Joe was just as tired during the day as I have been after all the chasing.  It is not much longer.  Kylee has her permit.  She is getting close to being able to get her license. 
But my 2 jr high girls are starting to concern me.  Somehow things ran better when there were all 5 girls.  My example of what happened in the past 24 hours-- I tell the two jr high girls to take the trash OUT.  So trash day is Tuesday.  I hear one go out the back and come in the front.  Later the 2nd goes out and comes back in.  I get in the car at 8am and no cans are on the curb.  ??????  Totally missed the trash pick-up today. I find out Kylee took the recycling can out.  Autumn went out and brought it back in the backyard.  Somehow she did not get that taking it out meant out of the yard.  In her mind it meant out of the street.  Discussions were had about how we "Take it out the road."  When it is empty we "bring it back in."  I hate to say this but Yes, that child is blonde.  All logic went out the window.  There has been a lot of that going on.  But we have discovered that THAT child is doing exceptionally well in math.  She is getting the highest scores on many of her math tests and has a 99 percent in that class. 
Kylee is doing well.  The poor kid comes home almost any day after Monday and falls asleep somewhere.  She was told the high school band teacher has his eye on her for jazz band next year.  She is excited and so am I.  It is an audition group and they really are fantastic.  She is doing well in school and is taking one of her classes online.  Speech is online.  Funny huh?  She had to do a demonstration speech this weekend.  She decided to make bread.  We got everything recorded-she did a great job by the way-then we had to make it into a video.  We are not the techy type here.  Except 10 year old Hannah just got done making a video trailer in her class on a book she read.  So she had  experience with Movie Maker.  What I thought was going to take a long time to edit, only took them an hour and they made a really nice video.  We had to download it to youtube so her teacher could view it. Downloading to Youtube takes forever though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAVPVyuZiOU&feature=youtu.be

Hannah is starting to get busy the way her sisters have always been.  She has been on hold because they have taken so much time.  But what is unfortunate is she tends to have lots of homework most of the time. It is frustrating.  She gets so tired and many times she is up so late trying to get her work done.  Her teacher is really hard on the kids.  Hannah is very forgetful and when she has left something at school or at home she gets so stressed out.  She lost her pencil pouch on the way home the other day.  Her homework was on her jumpdrive in her pencil pouch.  My jr high girls have not needed a jumpdrive yet. Anyways, that meant she couldn't do anything about her homework.  So I told her to e-mail her teacher to see if she could come in early so she could get it done and that is what she did.  Her pencil pouch was found with everything in it, in the bottom of the lost and found at school.  But Hannah has taught her sisters how to use power point with animations, she taught Kylee Movie Maker, she can type better than her sisters and her teacher says she is the Smart board whiz in the class and she has been put in charge to teach the subs how to use them when her teacher is gone.  Hannah and her sister did figure out the password to access my laptop.  Little turkeys.
February was rough for me.  The inflammation I had been battling off and on came and hit me hard.  I did not sub all month and have been researching all sorts of methods to help myself.  I am trying several things and as of this week it is the first time I think something is getting better.  I have also had less migraines in the past two months.  I did have a 3 day migraine last week but I had not done that in over two months even with all the crazy stress.  The only prescription drugs I have taken in months is my migraine meds. I have had very few of those.   So I will report my findings when I am convinced what I am doing is working.  But there is improvement.
To wrap up, Kelsea is working at Tucanos and the school district and is taking most of her college courses online this semester.  She is home, things are mellow.  She is doing very well.
Amber is 21 now.  She is still very happily married.  We see them more often now.  We are still getting to know Ryan and he still fits in with us quite well.  We had Amber and Ryan and Kelsea and her boyfriend all here for dinner a few weeks ago.  We enjoyed it alot.  They enjoyed it because I have been making homemade bread and that was a huge hit that night.  You know that Kitchenaid mixer I got?  It is getting lots of love. 
All the animals are happy just in case you were wondering.
All month long Lee Joe has watched a BBC show called Top Gear.  Three british guys talking about cars, test driving cars and doing other very silly things with cars.  We have all watched it and have laughed pretty hard watching it.  The problem is Netflix has 15 SEASONS of the show on it.  Oh wait, there is 14 because the first season is missing.  That is a lot of shows.  Lee Joe pulled himself away from the tv and left for North Dakota yesterday.  And that explains why I am prattling on so late in the night with so much to say.  I don't have anyone to talk to when I go to bed.  sniff....I am fine really, just making excuses for this endless blog. Now I am done, and I can rest now knowing I have contributed to the reading pleasure of my 4 loyal readers of my blog.  ; )