Some catch up stuff

Okay, I am determined to backtrack and share some of this year, Paul’s deployment really kicked my butt as far as being online was concerned, and I let a lot of really great things that happened to us slip by without comment because we missed Paul so much, and spent every minute we were online chatting with him. I am trying to go back and record stuff now, well now that I can actually talk about him being gone without wanting to cry.

This Picture is from around 1:00 a.m. the day Paul left. (he left at 2:00 a.m.)

Paul left for his deployment the first week of January, I don’t know how people get ready for deployments, but what ever it is I didn’t do it.

I wasn’t ready.

We moved into our new house over Christmas break, and then the kids started at their new school the week Paul left, so I was left husbandless, in shambles, attempting to help my children navigate a whole new school structure. Their old school had one class per grade, and less then 250 students total, their new school has 3-4 classes per grade and around 800 kids. There are definitely some pros to a bigger school, lots of diversity, lots of friends, and more experiences. Unfortunately the cons are not so hot. This school has no special programs for Isaac’s advanced reading and science interest, and there seems to be less involvement from the teachers as far a social environs are concerned. Isaac has had a bumpy go of it because he is so intellectual, and unfortunately that leaves him a little out of things when all the other kids are already fast friends and he is new. Emmie is a little social butterfly, so she has settled in nicely, but that might also be a boy/girl difference.

The house has sucked up a lot of my life, I installed wood flooring in the library, wallpapered Isaac’s room, and have just done project after project. I will probably post pictures etc. as the rooms get finished over the next few months, but right now everything is in transition still. We are having a housewarming/ 10^th anniversary party in Oct, so we have a goal to get stuff done by then. Our recent big projects have been wood flooring on the entire second floor, and Paul has been installing light fixtures in the bedrooms. One certainly affects the other, as we can work better on the flooring install at night, now that there is light.

I haven’t been doing as much sewing as I would like to have been doing; I have been too busy with the house. I have been working on some clothes so that the kids and I can volunteer atJamestown, but the going has been slow on that. Partially because I have been so busy, but also because I have lost 30lbs while Paul was away, and the fitted dress I would need is kind of hard to make when one is loosing weight, I guess that is a good reason for not getting more done? Anyway, I have a new goal to do a write up at least once a week in order to maintain my original goal of staying closer to far away family.