Lent, Day 25

Don's listening to Three Dog Night's Joy to the World & other songs. He just found out today they are the group that is coming to the Cache Valley Cruise In this year over the 4th of July weekend. I WANT to go this year. He doesn't think the tickets will be as expensive as they were last year for Styx. Tickets go on sale this weekend.

The blog entry on the little boy voted out of class really bothered me. The whole thing bothered me, but I read comments after the news articles. I was up til 2 a.m., trying to work through it. One thing that bothered me was the comment someone made about children being resilient & forgetting it.

I remember an incident that happened to me in 2nd grade. I was playing outside during recess & I got muddy. Mrs. Elnora Magleby made me stand in front of the class & told them what a bad girl I was. She wouldn't let me take my coat off. It was red wool coat & would have needed to be dry cleaned. I had to drink my milk in front of the class & then she sent me home. She also told the class that I shouldn't have been playing with the boys. I recently told Bob Merrill, a co-worker, that teacher is the one that gave me panic disorder. He said I was probably not the only one she had scarred for life.

If children are so resilient, why did it take almost half a century for me to finally work through that incident? Maybe I don't want an answer on that. As Kelly (Mickelsen, publisher) would say, "RaNae, you left yourself wide open."

Anyway, to bed at 2 a.m., Don woke me up at 10 to 7 this morning because I needed to go get Zach Kent for school. I left a little after 7, but had to stop & get gas before I could run clear over to Dayton. I pulled in the driveway, just a little before 7:30. Eddie came out to tell me that Zach just barely woke up, he'd be out in a couple of minutes. I picked him up from school at 1:30. I said I was sure his stomach was imploding because he hadn't had any breakfast. He said his dad hadn't given him any lunch money, so he hadn't had any lunch either. He didn't know what imploding was. I asked him what exploding was & then explained that implode was just the opposite. His stomach was sucking itself inside out. Nick uses that term when he's starved. I think it's pretty clever.

I came home & went right back to bed. The next thing I knew it was 10:30 & Don-Mike was waking me up. We had our visiting teacher coming at 10:30 & he asked if I was going to be there for her. I assured him I was. I got up, but couldn't make the bed because the cats were all around me. The bed never did get totally made today, just part of the covers pulled up.

It snowed most of the day today. It was so heavy & wet that as I sat & watched it come down this evening, I commented if the snow were rain, it would be pouring.

I don't know how many inches it snowed today, but it was several inches. A power pole was smoldering up at the top of our street at the highway. The boys called on their way over to Mother's to tell us to hurry & turn off the computers. So, we turned off all 3 of the computers, plus the 2 network computers & sat here for over a half hour waiting for the power to go out. Nick called at 9:10, finally at 9:47 p.m., the power went off. It was off for about 15 minutes & came back on. They came back about an hour later & said most of the town was without lights, but our side of State Street was back on.

Lent, Day 20

Thursday, March 19, spring officially begins tomorrow!!! It feels like it has been a long time coming. Don says it will snow again Sunday night.

After reading that there was a Porter family reunion last summer, I was really bummed. Don & I were going to bed at the same time, 11:30, can you believe it? I was still ranting about it. I said they had a reunion & who didn't get invited??? Don said, trying to lighten the mood, "Sammy." Sammy is our yellow cat. I thought Don had taken all the cats out & so I'm looking around trying to see Sammy. "Sammy?" I asked puzzled. "Ya, Sammy didn't get invited to the reunion," Don said. I did not think it was funny.

I had a hard time getting to sleep. I thought of a lot of reunions where things didn't go well. Like the time that Miranda kicked Nickolas when he was down & knocked him flat on his face in the parking lot, the year of the water balloons. Some ones windshield got broken from those water balloons & the kids were getting splashed, yet when Nick threw one of their balloons back & it broke & splashed, she kicked him.

I remembered Uncle Woodrow saying that year that we needed to stop having family reunions, every one's family is getting so big they didn't need one for the extended family. Well, ok, my mom has one living child, 2 grandchildren & a family reunion for us is every Sunday at the dinner table. I would like for my kids to have a sense of family, yet with Asperger's & my panic disorder, reunions are hard.

Of course, there was the Taylor reunion where Don-Mike was trying to help set things out for the buffet & Don's Aunt JoAnn chastised him. I haven't been back to a Taylor reunion since & that was over 10 years ago.

When I finally did get to sleep, I slept the clock around & didn't wake up until 11:44. Don must have had a rough night too, because all the covers, except mine were on the floor on his side of the bed.

When I went to the grocery store tonight I bought more Western Family TheraFlu. I'm taking it again tonight. It's funny, it's the "daytime" formula, but it sure knocks me out. I sleep so good.

Oh, & I even worked on decluttering today, wonder of wonders. In my last foray into decluttering the end of the bed, I wondered what was in the knee hole of the vanity & decided to look. Some of Don's mother's fragile china & dishes wrapped in towels. Nick had ordered something online & it came in a small box with peanuts, which, of course, just got dropped BY the garbage in the front room. I took the box in & started digging in the knee hole & brought out a bowl that just fit perfectly in the box with the peanuts around it.

Of course, then I thought of all the things I could do today, which wasn't scheduled & since I had slept half the day away & then spent 2-3 hours on the internet, it was already 3 p.m. I couldn't believe it was so late. I took Mother's mail over to her, sorted it, went to the grocery store, fed the dog, fixed supper & it was dark.

But, I am making progress on my bedtime, it's about time though, I've been at this almost 3 weeks.

I'm going to have to schedule my time, instead of spending hours on my boards.