I’m Blessed

We did the county fair last week.  When your kids are in 4H, it’s not just a matter of visiting some booths and going on some ride.  There are weeks, if not months of preparation for projects, and then days of judging, volunteering, and of course rides.  Our judging days were cut down to one since the red fox took our fair chickens.  They must be a certain age to show, and our current layers are too old.  Frankly the others were too young, but we were planning on bringing them anyway.

Anyway, I have so much more to say on the fair, as it’s such a highlight of our year, but I’ll leave that for later this week.  Today I’m counting my blessings.

-My kids did just great at the fair.  They were helpful and polite.  I was so proud of them.  There has been several days this last week where I’m just soaking in and loving the ages my kids are at right now. We’ve had massive meltdowns this week due to fatigue and fair food, and general busyness, but those were just small moments.

-My car insurance requested that I be seen by a different chiropractor of their choice for evaluation.  They brought in a guy who lives 3 hours away, and told me to meet him at my local hospital, where it took them 50 minutes to find us a room for the examination.  Knut happened to be able to be home that day, so I left him with the kids and sat in that waiting room for them to locate a room for us.

(I have no idea how my appointment went.  They guy was really nice, and basically took some specific measurements of my range of motion and such.  He said he was going to send all those measurements to the people who requested them and that’s all he knew.)

Anyway, I got 50 minutes of uninterrupted knitting time in the waiting room.  What a big surprise blessing!  It’s so hard for me to find moments like that.

-I’m likely getting an iPhone today.  About 30-50% of my calls and texts have not been getting through to me over the last year or so.  We’ve complained the our server, and they gave us a discount, but did not fix it.  We’re switching companies today, and Knut wants to upgrade me to a smartphone.  Since my laptop is Mac, it would make sense to stay with that so they can sync up.  He’s mostly decided to stick with a regular cell.  His job is very hard on phones.  I’ve been pretty resistant to jump on the smartphone bandwagon the last few years.  It just feels so excessive for my needs, and I see many people who have them just stare at them all the time.  Not that I’m judging, because I know I am the same way.  That’s why I didn’t want one.  I didn’t want the temptation in front of me.  I know how addicted to stuff I get.

But our internet often will go out for a day or week without notice, especially in the winter.  There are very few internet options out here in the country.  I run a pattern business, and it’s been tricky when I lose my internet and I have emails that need to get out to editors or customers.  Hauling all the kids to the library so I can write an email doesn’t exactly work.  So we decided it would be a good idea for me to have this backup.

Anyway, Knut talked me into it, thinking there’s some features that will really help me with my job of mothering, keeping the house and homeschooling etc.  I guess there are some great apps.  Right now our kids are only allowed to go on the iPad and computer for game time on Saturday and Sunday, and I don’t think my iPhone will be an exception to that rule.  In fact, at least to start off, I don’t plan on them using it at all.  So other than kids’ games, I would really love if you readers would recommend some apps for me.  I’d love to know what’s good out there.

-The raspberries started to kick it into high gear at the end of last week.  I’m planning on canning some more raspberry syrup for pancakes.  I also found a recipe for raspberry chocolate syrup for ice cream that can be canned.  I don’t plan on making any jam out of it, as I’m already overfilled with jam from the strawberries.

-The big kids offered to help out around the house so much this week (they were constantly trying to convince me to go back to the fair) that on Saturday I had the opportunity to really do some deep cleaning on our school shelves and cabinets.  I spent hours reorganizing and purging things.  The room feels so clean and clutter-free now.  Again, I have some fun pictures to show you with what I did for school prep next year, but that’s for another, longer post.

To finish out this completely random post today, I’m sharing a picture of our Cheetah-girl, to make you smile.  Remember, you’re blessed too.