After a reminder from my sweet friend, Donna, that I need to post in my blog more often, I dropped in to do just that.

I have been extremely busy but loving it!... well, most of it anyways! We have continued moving right along with homeschooling after too long of a Christmas break. Well, I think it was too long but the kids think it was too short. LOL

At the beginning of the year, my business partner, Lori, and I opened the doors to our very own tax business, A-OK Taxes. We are hopefully that we will have a great first year.

Seems like I'm always behind on something but I just do what I can each day. Life's too short to stress too much over what I can't get done. I just focus on all that we have accomplished each and every day. I'm definitely a "the glass is half FULL" kind of person. The Lord has blessed with a gift of naturally focusing on the positive. I just don't know how anyone could be happy or healthy with always focusing on the negative in life. I've got family members like that and they are honestly NOT happy or healthy. As much as I love them, it's such a drain to even talk to them sometimes. I just do the best I can to love them and give them some positive prospectives on their negativity.

Well, I'm off to work on something else that needs my attention.

Brightest Blessings!!

TeaJay

After JenIg's comment on my previous post, I felt I should clarify a little bit. Thankfully, I didn't actually hit my face on the concrete although I did come extremely close to doing so. Not sure how I DIDN'T hit my face as my left hand was caught up in my purse strap. I think maybe this was partly due to the fact that I bent my head back slightly and my right hand which sustain the injury slowed my fall down quite a bit. I actually was looking at my right hand but not sure why. Maybe to watch where I placed my hand? This is how I seen how far back my hand/wrist was bent. Besides a couple of small bruises to my body and big bruise to my pride, the only real injury was to my right wrist.

Blessings!

Tina

..well, wanting to kick something anyway - my own behind!  Last Friday, the whole family had plans to go to the circus as I had won a couple of free tickets that were only good that night. Well, we headed out on our way and I realized that I forgot those free tickets at the house. So we turned around and headed back home so I could get them. The house we live in has the living quarters on the second floor - the whole first floor is mostly garage space...aka junk catchall. There is a bedroom that was add in the back corner but is currently not being used except for an additional 'storage space' aka junk catchall. Ok, I‘ve got to watch my ADHD and rabbit trails. So anywho, I was in a hurry as we were running late and I RAN up the steps too quickly which in hindsight is very clear to me now. The toe of my right sneaker barely caught the edge of the top step and I went face down onto the concrete landing. I was holding tightly to my purse hanging on my left shoulder with my left hand so that it wouldn’t swing wildly as I ran up the steps. Instinctively, I thrust out my right hand to catch myself as I fell. As I hit I could see and feel the injury to my wrist. I could see that as my hand connected with the concrete landing, the rest of me including my arm kept going forward and the top of my lower arm almost made contact with the top of my hand. It was hurting but not as bad I expected as it numbed to some extent whether quickly. But it still hurt bad enough that I was banging my head against the door and clenching my teeth in a slight scream.

Well, everyone is still down in the van waiting for me to reappear with tickets, totally clueless to my fall and subsequent pain. I spent the next few minutes, which seemed like a lot longer, attempting to unlock the door using my left hand. Being right-handed, this was a difficult task which was made worse by the fact that the stupid lock was sticking again. It occasionally will stick at the most inconvenient times. This was one of those times. So here I am in pain and in a hurry. Even though I knew I needed to quickly get the tickets, honestly, at the front of my mind was the fact that we keep a baggie of ice cubes in the freeze for the kids ready to go for when they get hurt. I just want to get that ice on my wrist hoping that it would provide some additional relief.

Finally, I got inside. I made a beeline to the freezer, got the baggie of ice and placed it on my slightly swollen wrist. I then made my way to the living room to get the tickets which were in one of the drawers of my computer desk. The thought of how I had put them there for 'safekeeping' runs quickly through my mind. This makes me even more angry at myself. If I had just put them in my purse and kept them there, we'd be at the circus right now. I don't know about you, but I definitely have a love-hate relationship with hindsight. I’m sure it’s mostly hate.

So I grab the tickets and head back downstairs. Again I had difficulty locking the door because I had to use my left hand but at least it didn't stick. I VERY carefully made my way back down the steps and to the van. My husband looks at the baggie of ice that I'm holding on my wrist and asks me what happened. I explain to him what happened and he lovingly ask if I was okay. My wrist wasn't hurting or swollen as bad as I thought it would be so I told him I would be fine. I kept ice on it for most of the ride to the location of the circus.

We arrived to our destination and there's a big sign stating that you have to pay for parking. Well, we had NO CASH on us. We have found that cash goes too quickly through our hands with no recollections of where it went if kept in our wallets instead of the bank. We both usually try to keep about $5 to $10 in our wallets but that's it. Of course, this was one of those rare times when we'd both spent the last of our cash earlier in the day. Well, here we all are, harried and now late, no cash for parking and not even sure if we can buy tickets with our debit card. I had called a couple of days before to check on the price for tickets for the other 3 members of our immediate family plus my niece and her 1 year old son. The nice girl I spoke with NEVER mentioned anything about having to pay for parking. This circus comes to this same location every year so I'm sure the sponsoring organization knew about it. Why didn't they make sure that those answering the phones and questions knew about it as well. Also, I forgot to ask if they would accept credit cards. And I forgot to get cash earlier in the day. In my feeble defense, I usually don't need cash for anything so getting cash is something that would VERY easily slip my mind with everything else going on in my day (remember my mention of ADHD earlier).

So, what do we decide to do? Go find an atm and get cash which will mean we will be even later to the circus and possible not be able to get in at all? I mentally tallied the cost of going to the movies as an alternative and realized that it would cost the same. My great nephew was asleep and my niece said that he would probably not enjoy the circus now. So everyone agrees that the movies sounds like a great alternative. We call my sister to see if she can watch my great nephew which is, of course, her grandson. So strange for me to type "great nephew" and "grandson" connected to my sister and myself. Will I ever get used to that? Anyway, I’ve got to watch those rabbit trails. So, my sister says yes, of course - it's her first and only grandchild.

Well, to shorten an already very long story, we all went to movies and had fun. And I kept thinking how if we had just planned on going to the movies in the first place, I would have never hurt my wrist - more of that lovely hindsight.

It has been a week since I sprained my wrist and what’s strange to me is the fact that it has hurt worse the last few days than it did the first couple of days. I’m thinking that maybe it is partly because I’ve been using my right hand more. It was actually swollen more over the weekend than it is now. Being the teacher of our little homeschool means that I’m doing a lot of writing and typing for school related tasks. I found that the writing hurts worse than the typing. Seems like any kind of real pressure from either pushing or pulling cause it to really start hurting. I need to take it easy and give my wrist some down time. I’m hoping that the weekend will give it some of that much needed rest. My husband’s sage words of wisdom to me last night: Don’t use your right hand. Yeah right, he may as well have told me to stop breathing. If it were really that simple, I would have be doing just that. Still, his is in the right place and I love him dearly for that.

On a positive note, I just so glad that it’s not any worse than it is. I’m truly amazed at what the human body can do and endure. Don’t think I would have been so amazed if I hadn’t actually seen how close my arm came to the top of my hand. When I replay that memory in my mind and then look at my wrist, I am truly in awe of God and His designs.

Well, there’s a lot more things I want to share but they will have to wait for later posts as this one is long enough. I’ll do my best to post more often. I just got so busy with researching and choosing curriculums then shopping for books and scheduling that I haven’t taken the time to get over here and post.

 Many Blessings!

It's been so long since I posted that I figured I'd better get over here and clear out the cobwebs and post a few words.

We've all been busy here getting ready for school and then actually starting. We still haven't complete got into the full 'routine' of school but we always have to ease into it after a long break. I always tell myself at the end of a long summer break that we school year round even if it's just a very lite schedule as it is so hard getting back into the school work after everyone's gotten used to have so much 'free' time. Also, I hate that I have to reteach material that we cover last year because the kids have 'forgotten' some things after all their summer fun. Just seems like it would be so much easier just to keep at the very least Math and Language Arts going over summer 'break'. Of course with cousins and friends who are all on a full break, it be very hard to do very much as we are kept busy with activities with them.

Right now we are reviewing some of last years material and going over practice standardized test. Our state requires standardized testing beginning after 3rd grade and every 3 years there after. I've always interpreted this to mean at the end of 3rd, 6th, 9th and 12th(SAT or ACT then). We've moved out of the state for a few years (before any of my kids completed 3rd) and just moved back a couple of years ago. Last year, I had 2 children complete 6th and 9th so both need to test. With all the hecticness of my sister moving up here and the constant activity mentioned earlier, I didn't get around to testing as of yet so decided that we'd do this the first month of school this year. I had originally planned to start school later this month but went ahead and started early so the kids could do some reviewing and complete some practice test. None of my children have ever taking a standardized test so I felt it be good for them to see what to expect so they'd be comfortable when taking the actually test.

After testing we'll be getting into our regular schoolwork for the year. I'm really looking forward to getting started. I have so many fun things planned and I hope the kids enjoy them.

Well, more later...

Tina