In Which I Have a Pain in the Neck

Well, actually make that two pains. I will tell you about each one.

1. An ACTUAL pain in my neck. 

Remember I had that horrible headache on Christmas day? well, it was Jan. 2 before I could get myself to my atlas chiropractor. She's so wonderful. I knew my atlas was out of place and I was right. It took 2 trips to get it back in place but my head hasn't hurt since. Headaches are so awful and they can truly be debilitating. I don't know how people live with them. I'm a little worried each time my neck hurts or I start to have a headache but I know there are other reasons for headaches and neck aches. It's not always going to be my atlas. I wouldn't even mind going to the chiropractor that much, but it's pretty far from our house. After having that much pain, I am very thankful to be pain free!

2. Cooking. And planning what to cook. And buying the food to cook. And cleaning up from the food we cooked. And doing it all again in a few hours.

So, some changes at husband's work resulted in some insurance changes, which resulted in us having to pay out of pocket for medicine this year. My husband has Type 2 Diabetes, which means his meds would cost us about $1,300 a month. Clearly, that's not do-able. So ever since New Year's Eve, we have been working on getting him off of some of his meds. 

The way I decided to do this was with Trim Healthy Mama. I know the plan. I know it works (I lost a lot of weight about 3-4 years ago BEFORE my dad died and BEFORE we found out our second-born daughter had food allergies. After that, I concentrated on learning to cook for her allergies and gained a lot back. Sigh) So we started THM and he is already off of his short-acting insulin! We are so happy about that! However, if the cost is not monetary, the cost is time. 

I am fixing THM breakfast and supper each day for him as well as planning and packing snacks and lunch. That's everything he eats, seven days a week. It's a LOT. Big deal you say? Perhaps you do that already. But there is never a time he can just grab some to-go food to give a break or just buy something at the convenience store when he's hungry. There is not a time for me to sleep in, either. This morning he did fix his own scrambled eggs and I got to sleep until just after 7. It was heavenly. 

It affects our lives greatly is what I'm saying. We have to go to bed earlier so we can get up earlier so we can do all the food things. 

The good news is that in comparison to all this meal stuff, homeschool is a breeze! We had our second day back today and its going fine. More on that later. 

I'm going to read a little now before I start cooking the next meal. 

P.S. I'm so busy I don't even post pictures on here! If you want to see what's going on with Project: Family, follow me on Instagram! 

Signing off, 

The Seat of My Pants

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I used to be pretty good at flying by it--the seat of my pants, that is.

I first discovered this when I became a teacher. If something happened and a part of my lesson plans weren't going to pan out, I was pretty good at coming up with a last minute activity. Sometimes they were really good! Like, really, really good. Kind of scared me, actually.

And something happening out of the ordinary--such as an assembly--did not throw my day off. Boy some teachers would be upset. They liked their schedule and their routine. Me? I liked the occasional "different" day. It kept things interesting.

The older I've gotten, the more I like planning. I still like to think of myself as flexible, but I do like to have stuff planned out.

I make a menu plan every week before I grocery shop. Otherwise we spend $150 at the store and have nothing that makes an actual meal.

I plan out expenses each month and we make a budget. Otherwise we spend all the money and have nothing to actually live on.

I plan field trips. I plan errands. I plan parties.

I try to plan lessons every week. I'm really trying to relax that this year. I have spent too many Sunday afternoons to count planning lessons or at least writing out which lessons I wanted my daughters to do over the years. This year, I really tried to be a "just-do-the-next-thing-open-and-go" kind of homeschool mom. But I realized after the first week that I couldn't do it. The girls both had laminated checklists of what they were supposed to do, but *I* didn't know what we were doing!

So I made a little form and filled in some information. I don't like it just yet. It needs some tweaking. And this last weekend I didn't get any planning in anyway. I hate opening a book and finding out there are materials we need and I haven't gathered them or we don't have them. It's been a frustrating week on that end and it's only Tuesday. Hopefully next week I'll be more together.

My husband is kind of a planner too. He likes to use technology. He uses nearly every feature on his phone. He uses apps. If there is technology out there to help plan something, he uses it.

I think I nearly killed him earlier this month when I went to buy a 5 subject spiral notebook. I'm too low-tech for him.

Of course, he also uses these. So...just whatever. My notebook is bigger, that's all.

I guess what I've learned is....I CAN fly by the seat of my pants. But life works a lot better when I plan.

Adulthood. It sneaks up on you.

Signing off,